Musicality Now

The major scale may get all the attention, but have you been introduced to its close relative, the Lydian scale? In this episode, Musical U's own Andrew Bishko discusses the Lydian and the associated Lydian Chromatic Concept - a theory that may change the way you think about the major scale forever...

Today we have the distinct pleasure of interviewing one of our own team members at Musical U. Andrew Bishko is our Content Editor and Product Manager at Musical U, which means he’s in charge of overseeing everything we publish. But as you’re about to discover, despite his huge contributions at Musical U, this represents just one small part of a long and fascinating career as a musician, composer, author and music educator.

You may be surprised to learn that a large part of learning to play by ear is in fact trial and error! However, you can accelerate your learning by adding some method to the madness - with the proper tools and training!

Today we're speaking with Chris Owenby, the man behind the website “Practice Habits” where he shares blogposts and videos to help musicians and especially piano teachers with their students to form more effective and enjoyable practice routines.

There's a slew of obvious and not-so-obvious benefits of playing music. From boosting your self-esteem to improving your brain's ability to multitask, music is the gift that keeps on giving - whether you're a child starting piano lessons, a college student joining the school choir, or someone picking up an instrument in retirement.

Today we're talking with Jimmy Rotheram, the man behind an incredible success story in the UK school system. Last year Feversham Primary Academy made headlines after transforming from one of the worst-performing schools in the country to well above average. After being singled out for its unacceptably poor student attendance and academic results in 2010, Feversham now has 98% student attendance and is in the top 1% of schools nationwide for student progress in reading, writing and mathematics.

What does "tone" mean in music? This multipurpose word can actually take on some very different uses depending on the context it's mentioned in. Learn about how "tone" can refer to a note, a frequency, or an interval.

Today on the show we’re joined by Donna Schwartz, one of the best-known saxophone teachers online. As you’ll be hearing though, Donna’s expertise goes deep on sax but also wide on other instruments and musicality in general. Along with past podcast guest Nick Mainella, Donna hosts the “Everything Saxophone” podcast, and is the creator of several interesting online courses, including “Get a Killer Saxophone Tone”, “Practice Smarter” and “Jazz Improvisation Explained”.

Musical U’s very own content editor and product manager Andrew Bishko discusses and demonstrates a variety of scale types, discussing the “flavor” of each one and how they’re put to good use in music.

Today we’re getting to speak with someone we’ve been hearing about for years, Forrest Kinney. He’s the author of the Pattern Play series of piano books which you might remember past guests Natalie Weber and Sara Campbell both mentioned as being fantastic for helping students get “off the page” and start to be more creative in their music-making.

Are you intimidated by the idea of sight-reading music, finding the skill to be intimidating and unattainable? This podcast episode explores how you can get started with learning this skill through musicality training, and the endless benefits that this ability yields.

Today we’re speaking with Ben Parry, the Artistic Director of the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain - but as you’ll hear that’s just one of many musical roles he has, including formerly being a singer and arranger with the world-famous a cappella group The Swingle Singers, and directing the London Voices choir which has performed on many of the Hollywood film soundtracks that we all know and love.

You may be putting in the practice hours, but are you getting the results that your hard work deserves? In this episode, we take a look at the concepts of deliberate practice and purposeful practice, and how to integrate the two in order to make the most out of your practice time.

This episode was a really exciting one for us because we got to speak with Professor Anders Ericsson, the leading academic researcher on the topic of “talent”. If you’ve been listening to the Musicality Podcast for a while, then you know we have a particular perspective on “talent”, and we're often asking our guests their opinion on how important talent is to become a great musician and learn the skills we associate with being a “natural” in music, like playing by ear, improvisation, song wri

With the seemingly endless fountain of resources available for the self-taught musician, it can be hard to weed out exactly how to approach your learning journey. In this episode, we discuss the idea of the musical roadmap, how it can lend structure to your learning, and how we use them here at Musical U to give members a way to keep themselves moving forwards in a way that is tailored to their musical goals.