Musicality Now

Today we’re joined by Dave Isaacs, a man known as the “Guitar Guru of Nashville”. Dave has been teaching music for over thirty years and provides online courses at JamPlay.com. Dave is also a performing artist, releasing ten CDs of his own and continuing to perform with an Americana trio called Renfree Isaacs.

Over the last eight episodes, we've covered a lot of ground: we first looked at the right mindset for improv, then dove right into how to use rhythm, scales, chords, harmony, structure, and form to really get your spontaneous playing off the ground. In this episode, we give you an overview of how you can approach the task at hand - learning to improvise!

Today as part of Improv Month we're speaking with Brenden Lowe, the man behind JazzPianoSchool.com and the Jazz Piano School Podcast. Jazz and piano can both be intimidating things for aspiring musicians and they put front and center their belief that “Anyone can learn”, as well as encouraging self-expression from the outset - so clearly a good match for our philosophy here at Musical U!

When speaking, we use phrasing to emphasize ideas, capture our listener's attention, and tell a story. The same holds true in music, and more specifically, in improvisation! Learn how to use phrasing to add structure, interest, and musicality to your improv.

In this episode we're speaking with David Wallimann, who has one of the most popular guitar channels on YouTube with over 100,000 subscribers there. As always when we're interviewing an expert in a particular instrument, we recommend staying tuned even if you don’t play that instrument - because very little of what we cover is really instrument-specific.

Many musicians stick exclusively to improvising with scales, leaving them feeling frustrated and creatively stunted. This episode reveals how to integrate the idea of chord tones and harmony into your improv to really tell a story with your playing!

Today we're excited to welcome on to the show someone we were particularly hoping to feature as part of improv month: David Reed, the creator of Improvise For Real. You may have heard of this popular method for learning to improvise and it's one of the few we feel is totally aligned with the ear-led approach we recommend at Musical U and which we've been talking about on this podcast lately.

Rhythm is an under-appreciated component of music - and we're here to put it in the spotlight for improvisation month! Learn all about improvising a rhythm, how to do it, and the musicality benefits it yields.

Today, we have the first of our interview series for Improv Month here at Musical U. Nick Mainella is the host of the "10 Minute Jazz Lesson" podcast which really lives up to its name! As a jazz fan but not a jazz musicians ourselves, we have been really enjoying listening to this show and we would highly recommend it for anyone who's interested in learning to play jazz.

March is Improvisation Month here at Musical U, and what better way to kick off than with a crash course in the subject? In this episode of the Musicality Podcast, we share how to (and how not to!) improvise, the far-reaching benefits of this skill, and how it ties into the creative essence of being a musician.

Today we're joined on the show by Vincent James, who is the co-founder of an organisation called Keep Music Alive. They organise two big music holidays each year: Teach Music Week and Kids Music Day.

Arranging music is not nearly as complex as its name may lead you to believe - if you've ever plunked out the chords to your favourite song on the piano and sang along, you've already done it! In this episode of the Musicality Podcast, we discuss the elements involved in arranging music, and why you (yes, you!) should take a whack at it.

Today we’re talking with Brad Davis, a guitar icon in the world of country and bluegrass music. As you’ll hear on this episode, Brad has had an amazing career. As a go-to stage and session player in Nashville he’s played on Grammy-winning albums and worked with artists like Willie Nelson, Sheryl Crow, Earl Scruggs, Emmy Lou Harris and Johnny Cash.

Rhythm is rarely random - instead, it follows an underlying structure to give the song a certain flow, a structure called meter. In meter, depending on which beats are emphasized in a bar, completely different rhythms and "flows" can be created. Let's look at how this works!

Today we're speaking with Dr. Jeremy Dittus, the founder and director of the Dalcroze School of the Rockies in Denver, one of the most prominent Dalcroze schools in the US, about his own experiences learning this approach and how (and why) he teaches it now.