Buildings and Chords: Draw Inspiration from your Environment
If you’ve ever struggled for musical inspiration or wanted to break out beyond the normal sounds, try these imaginative exercises to create something different.
Music Or Words: What Makes A Song?
What makes a song: is music the most important part or is it the lyrics? And who deserves legal credit and royalties for the songs a band writes? Let’s find out
How do you hear the difference between bass line and melody?
This is the kind of question which might seem trivial but can actually be quite challenging. So if you’re not sure if you can do it: don’t be embarrassed! Both the bass line and the main melody are essentially “tunes”, normally played one note...
Why You Should Learn To Play By Ear FIRST
Playing by ear is not an advanced technique, or a gift you must be born with. It’s actually a simple learnable skill you can start doing today. Learn how.
Melodic Dictation for the rest of us
Working out tunes by ear (“melodic dictation”) doesn’t need to be difficult or scary. These tips will help you conquer your fears and master melodic dictation.
Fix The Mix: Don’t let a muddy sound ruin your tracks
A muddy sound can absolutely ruin a mix. But with the right kind of audio ear training and some tips and tricks, you can take your mix from average to awesome.
Life After Ear Training: A Drummer’s Tale
I would be lying if I said that ear training came easily to me. Like most percussionists I knew in college, rhythm exercises and sight singing were a breeze, but trying to transpose Mozart after three listens seemed like a torture specifically designed to punish those...
5 Top Tips to Learn to Play By Ear (Steve Myers)
This week we have another terrific guest expert joining us to share their perspective on learning to play by ear. We’re very pleased to welcome the founder of Theta Music: Steve Myers! I started playing guitar at age 11, and learned songs by sitting down with...
What can you already play by ear? Let’s talk Melody.
Now that we’ve looked at what playing by ear is and how to learn to play by ear it’s time for us to stop and really work out where we each stand now in the journey to playing by ear. We’ll go on to look at some great ways to speed up the journey, but...
Want to play by ear? Well, do then!
In last week’s post I asked “Can you play by ear?” and explored what we actually mean by “playing by ear” and why you might care about this skill, sometimes assumed to be an all-or-nothing (almost magical) ability. Despite the common...
What is "playing by ear"?
Can you play by ear? That’s a common question in musician’s circles, a phrase that’s often used. “He’s a great musician, he can play by ear” “I’ve been learning my pieces… but I wish I could play by ear instead!...
