Hi, this is Christopher, Founder of Musical U, and thanks for joining me for this look inside what’s new in Musical U this month.
We had a ton going on this month, including:
- New Resource Packs on the topic of The Blues
- A Member Spotlight sharing VeeraL’s story
- A Fireside Chat with Musical U members on the topic of Collaboration
- A live Masterclass on Entrepreneurial Essentials for Musicians with David Andrew Wiebe
- And a fascinating in-depth interview with a member of the Musical U team, Andrew Bishko
Let’s take a look! You can watch this video or read on for more details:
New Resource Packs: The Blues
So first up we had our new Resource Packs in our Instrument Packs for guitar, piano, and bass on the topic of one of the most important genres in modern Western music, and that is The Blues.
As always, each of our Pros approached it from a different angle, sharing their unique insights and advice, and providing lots of good instrument-specific tips.
Let’s take a quick peek at one of the tutorial videos, this one’s from Dylan Welsh’s Resource Pack:
“This month’s all about the blues. Maybe this isn’t true for all of you but I know a lot of guitar players start off when they’re first learning how to jam, by learning the blues, because you can use your minor pentatonic scales with it, the form is relatively simple, and if you get in a room with other musicians, most people will know how to play the blues.
So next I wanna talk to you a bit about blues phrasing, because the way melodies are phrased when you’re singing or playing blues, it’s very specific to the style and it’s important to get right if you want to sound legitimate.”
So as always those Resource Packs provide the video tutorial, a set of MP3s to practice with, and a quick reference PDF to help you remember and reinforce what you’ve learned.
Member Spotlight: VeeraL
Once every few months we choose a member who seems to be going strong at Musical U and we ask them to share a bit about their journey in a “Member Spotlight” blogpost. This month member @VeeraL kindly shared her story.
After training as a classical pianist Veera discovered a new way to approach music, with playing by ear and improvising allowing her to really enjoy her music-making in a way she wasn’t before. I found this one really inspiring and uplifting!
Fireside Chat: Collaboration
A few months ago we started a new feature in Musical U. Community has always been at the heart of what we do, and there’s a lot of conversation that happens in the discussion boards, but some members were looking for something more live and immediate.
So Stewart, our Community Conductor, set up what we’re calling “Fireside Chats”, an opportunity each month to come along and chat live with the MU Team on various musical topics. This month the theme was “Collaboration” and the skills and mindset it takes to work well with other musicians.
Masterclass: Entrepreneurial Essentials for Musicians
Also on the “live” front we had our monthly live masterclass, and this month I was delighted to be joined by David Andrew Wiebe, author of The New Music Industry and The Essential Guide to Music Entrepreneurship, also the man behind MusicEntrepreneurHQ.com, and he came to present on “Entrepreneurial Essentials for Musicians”.
This was a fantastic session with some really punchy advice to help accelerate your journey to success, whether that’s business-related or a non-financial music passion project, David gave really great guidance. And we had some interesting questions come in from all the musicians who tuned in live. As always that recording is now available to members inside Musical U to watch on-demand.
The Musicality of Sitting on a Rock
Last but not least, I was really happy to have the chance to interview one of our own team for the Musicality Podcast. Andrew has had an incredible musical life and although I was aware of some of that through working together I loved having the chance to dive deeper and hear the stories behind how he’s become such an interesting and effective music educator.
Check out that podcast episode and I guarantee you’ll be amazed and inspired. You might just want to “go sit on a rock” yourself!
So that was what’s new in Musical U this month:
- New Resources Packs covering the Blues on guitar, piano, and bass
- A Member Spotlight sharing one Musical U member’s inspiring journey
- A Fireside Chat on musical collaboration
- A live masterclass all about the entrepreneurial mindset for musical success
- And an interview with our own Andrew Bishko
Please use the links you’ll find along with this video to learn more about each of these. Thanks for joining me for this look at what’s new in Musical U this month, and I hope to see you inside soon!
