All posts in musics

How To Improve Your Sight-reading (organ, Piano And Keyboard)

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As an organist, I have been working in club land in the North of England for the past 30 years or so and one of the crucial qualifications in this environment is the ability to sight read music on demand.
When I say music this can be anything from a beer matt to a ripped piece of paper repaired with selotape and stained with beer.

To be fair most of the music is written by professionals and is nice to read but not always easy.
As a club organist, you do not get a band call. In fact, you are lucky to get five minutes to scan through between 10 and 15 pieces of music. Some written in different keys, and every organist will tell you they hate it when they get the dreaded 6 sharps or 6 flats or even 7 sharp keys in a piece of music that just happens to contain a solo especially written for you.

So how do you improve your sight-reading? Well I asked my music teacher this very question as I embarked on my club land career. His answer was to practice sight-reading. He went on to tell me that session musicians practice by picking up any music book start playing on page one and continue until they have finished the book.

Does it work? Yes it does. Try it for yourself, pick up any piece of music you can find, preferably one that you are not that familiar with, then start to play, but do not stop. If you make a mistake it does not matter, you are not practising how to play this piece of music you are practising sight-reading this piece of music.

If you really want to test yourself. Get yourself an audience. I practice my sight-reading every week in front of a 200 plus audience. Its surprising how your concentration improves.

Salsa Music – Cuba’s Musical Legacy

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Salsa music is sometimes referred to as Latin jazz, Afro-Cuban or Afro-Carribean music. Played in dance clubs or performed in concerts, this is the sound of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Colombia, Venezuela and New York. This is Cuba’s musical legacy that rose from its street culture, which shaped the country’s popular music throughout the past several decades.

Literally meaning “sauce” in the Spanish language, salsa is the type of music requiring the perfect amount of essential ingredients. To its enthusiasts, the spicier, the better.

The music starts with a clave rhythm, which commonly is eight beats long and has a 2-3 or 3-2 pattern. This serves as the heartbeat of this genre. The clave should be learned, applied and felt in order to play or dance this colorful and spicy music. Other ingredients in the salsa music recipe are montuno, tumbao and guaganco, among others. These are ostinattos, or patterns, played by the piano, bass, strings and horns all throughout or in certain parts of the song.

This Cuban original music has landed in different parts of the world years ago. Later on, its powerful tunes influenced its various destinations and vice-versa. This Latin music has evolved as it toured several countries. While it is one of the most famous genres today, it is, at the same time, one of the most specialized, since a certain level of musicality and skills is needed for it to be played, sung or danced. Once it is learned and owned, endless jamming and dancing fill the place with the distinctive energy that characterizes Latin culture.

Dance clubs around the world use salsa music frequently. The ballroom dancing boom worldwide only added to the demand for this Latin beat. Salsa clubs and Latin dance federations have grown in number internationally. Schools and universities in all continents of the world started to have dance and music organizations dedicated to teaching the fundamentals of the genre to the extent of flying in bands and instrumentalists from Cuba and Puerto Rico.

The heat of salsa became unstoppable like wildfire and influenced other genres, even classic jazz. Jazz performers and composers started to utilize Latin music in their pieces, either in a certain part of a song or for a featured solo section. The great Dizzy Gillespie, for example, did this in “A Night in Tunisia,” an ingenious mix of Latin and jazz standard.

Other genres influenced by its contagious rhythm are disco, funk, pop and even one of its roots, African music.

Salsa bands use a smorgasbord of percussion instruments including the clave, guiro, maracas, bongos, timbales, conga drums and many others. Their rhythm section is usually a party of bass, piano, guitar, strings or horns, a chorus and a lead vocalist. In some groups, they use a special type of guitar, either a tres or a quarto, a guitar that has three or four strings only.

The next time you listen to these bands, listen very well and you will hear them infuse other music styles into their salsa tunes. Other genres you may hear within a salsa piece are cha-cha-cha, bolero, guaganco, Cuban son montuno, Puerto Rican bomba and plena, and Dominican merengue.

If you are a fan of salsa or Latin music, you would love favorites like “Che Che Cole” (Willie Colon and Hector Lavoe), “Hechicera” (Oscar D’ Leon), “Congo bongo” (Larry Harlow) and “El rey del mambo” (Tito Puente), among others. If you would like to try listening to this genre for the first time, some recommended tunes for you would be “No Sabes Como Duele” (Marc Anthony), “Campina” (Afro Cuban All Stars), “Juliana” (Coco Valoy) and “Melao de Cana” (Oscar D’Leon).

Kids Music – Audiation And Learning

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An important building block for learning music skills and concepts is audiation. You may be familiar with the term inner hearing. The term audiation (inner hearing of music or silently hearing music) was coined by music education researcher Edwin E. Gordon.

Audiation is Gordons term for hearing music in the mind with understanding. It is the process of thinking music and comprehending music in the mind. Gordon describes audiation as the foundation of musicianship.

Audiation is the process of mentally hearing and comprehending music, even when no physical sound is present. It is a cognitive process by which the brain gives meaning to musical sounds. In essence, audiation of music is analogous to thinking in a language, as said by Edwin E. Gordon

Mary Ellen Pinzino states that audiation is a way of knowing in melody and rhythm. It is a unique human capacity outside the realm of words. To audiate is to “think” music, but in melody and rhythm rather than in words. Audiation is another way of knowing. Audiation is the musical imagination. It is the man-made music of the mind. It is the sound fantasy that provides the framework for understanding the music we listen to, the music we perform, and the music we read and write.

Audiation is a process. It is the construction of meaning in music. It is the process of making musical sense of the music we hear, perform, read, and write. Just as thinking is essential to speaking, listening, reading, and writing language, audiation is essential to tuneful and rhythmic performance, music listening, reading, and writing. Audiation is the whole of music literacy, as said by Mary Ellen Pinzino

Audiation or inner hearing takes place when we silently hear and give meaning to music without the sound, i.e., thinking a melody, clapping a rhythm pattern from a song while thinking the melody. The development of audiation is basic and invaluable in building all musical skills. We should always strive to cultivate the audiation of rhythm and tonal patterns, melodic lines, and phrases. Audiation must be the first step in ones music experience prior to introducing notation, and other aspects of music theory.

Try this exercise to experience audiation or inner hearing. Silently think the melody of Mary Had a Little Lamb. Did you think one note at a time? Or did you think groups of notes. Did you internally hear the notes as a pattern?

We do the same thing when we silently hear language. We hear words, not letters one at a time. The more words we have in our vocabularies, the better we hear and comprehend the meaning of what we are hearing. Just as we give meaning to language, we must give meaning to music through relevant patterns of tones and rhythms. Likewise, the more tonal and rhythm patterns we have in our music vocabularies, the better we will hear and comprehend the meaning of the music. To help your child or student develop music listening and speaking vocabularies, have the child listen and move to a variety of tunes. Invite them to sing many different melodies.

It is very important to develop audiation or inner hearing and listening skills in the early years of a childs life. What a powerful gift and music foundation to give a child.

The Extra Terrestrials Show At Chennai Music Academy

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The Premiere of the show Extra Terrestrials was held today at the Music Academy.

The show began with a performance by the Golden Power- the two men Sandor Vlah and Gyula Takacs who were painted in gold displayed an amazing combination of strength, skill and art by effortlessly performing hand balancing acts and taking on each other’s weight.

The audience was still recovering from the wonderful feats performed by them, when Wolfgang Bientzle the German Wheel Acrobat, came up with an awesome performance on the wheel to exclamations of ‘wow’ in the audience.

Erik Ivarsson’s antics on the unicycle left the audience speechless with amazement, while Jerome Murat a mime, illusionist and ventriloquist captivated the audience with his act. Watching him was like watching a magic performance- should be watched to be believed.

The audience was enthralled by Anton Monastyrsky as they watched him get in an out of the hula hoop and spin circles around it until the hoops almost became a blur. No wonder he is also called The Lord of the Rings.

Not only was Roma Hervida’s performance spell binding but her very presence was magnetic. Her dazzling performance had most of us in the audience at the edge of our seats!

The final performance by Laser man, Theo Dari who was bending, cutting and restoring laser points to create a visual display that was truly enchanting. You can take it from us-we did not want the performance to end!

What else can we say about the performances other than ‘Wow’?
You have to watch the show to believe how good it is.

The shows are taking place on February 3,4,5,6 and 7, 2010 thrice a day, at Music Academy.

Calm Stress – Using Music To Effectively Reduce Stress And Anxiety

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Most of us are familiar with the fact that music has an effect on our mood and feelings. It can allow us to relax or help us to come alive. Some people even find it hard to function without continuous background music. The great news is that music has been shown to effectively reduce stress and anxiety and can be of great help in relieving certain symptoms. If you’re looking for a quick and easy way to reduce stress, then perhaps it’s time to try a regular dose of your favourite music. Read on to find out how music can help you reduce stress and anxiety.

Stress and anxiety are brought on by our perception of being in a situation where we are not able to cope effectively or where fear is involved. When our stress response is activated, it tends to raise the heart rate and release stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline into the body, which suppress the immune system and stimulate us to prepare for “fight or flight”. When stress happens on a regular basis, we will start to experience stress related problems such as heart disease, stomach and bowel disorders and reproductive problems.

Some people cope better with stress than others and this often depends upon your personality type and your perceptions and outlook in life – for example, whether you view certain situations as challenges or problems or how much support you receive from the people around you. Men tend to react more to stress factors more than women, although when women take on male roles, this difference is not so pronounced.

The good news is that music and music therapy have been shown to reduce the activation of these responses and calm our symptoms of stress. Tests in various clinical situations have consistently shown music to help patients face their fears and reduce their anxiety. In one test, when music was played before and during surgery, 93% of patients found it helpful in reducing stress. Studies have shown that music helps to lower blood pressure, reduce heart rate, and lower levels of stress hormones in addition to decreasing anxiety. In some studies, those with the highest levels of anxiety were found to benefit the most.

Of course the music that can help us to reduce stress is often subject to individual preference and specific situations. Our response may vary, depending upon volume, type of music, familiarity and current mood. Loud or fast music may have the effect of stimulating us rather than relaxing us. Generally the most relaxing music would be relatively slow with a repetitive rhythm and stable contours.

So, next time you start to feel stressed, why not sit back, relax and try listening to one of your favourite soothing tracks, to help relieve those symptoms? There is a weight of evidence to suggest that this should help you to feel better. And, if you find that it does help, be sure to incorporate music amongst your regular stress management strategies.