Musicality Now - TopPodcast.com

View Top 200 Chart

Back to Rankings Page

Musicality Now — Music
Musicality Now

Ever wondered why some people seem to have a gift for music? Have you wished that you could play by ear, sing in tune, improvise and jam? You are in the right place.

Musicality Now is a mix of interviews and teaching, featuring some of the most inspiring and insightful musicians and music educators, talking about how to learn the core inner skills you need to feel like a “natural” in music and enjoy freedom, creativity and confidence.

Topics include: Playing by ear, Singing in tune, Jamming with other musicians, Having a good sense of rhythm, Writing your own music, Writing notation, Improvising a solo, Talking intelligently about music, Understanding Music Theory, Clapping in time, Knowing your instrument inside and out, Tuning your instrument by ear, Reading notation, Sight-reading music, Playing from a lead sheet, Performing live, and Playing multiple instruments.

Musicality Now is brought to you by Musical U (musical-u.com), the leading provider of musicality training online. Learn more and get shownotes at musicalitynow.com.

Copyright: © Copyright 2017 Musical U (Easy Ear Training Ltd.)

Latest Episodes:

187: Is Aiming For Perfect Actually Holding You Back Jun 06, 2019

Show notes

Aiming for perfection is admirable - perfection is wonderful! But is music ever really perfect?

Is it possible that aiming for perfect is actually holding you back from your true potential as a musician?

In this episode we're going to explain the two meanings of the word "perfect" - and why focusing on playing the "right notes" might actually be a mistake. Stay tuned!

Subscribe For Future Episodes!

Apple Podcasts | Android | Stitcher | RSS | YouTube

Full Show Notes and Transcript: Episode 187

Links and Resources

• Musicality Now - How to Earn Your Inspiration, with Mark Cawley

• Musicality Now - Song Writing: Start and Succeed, with Alex Forbes

• Musicality Now - Writing Songs the Beatles Way, with Matt Blick

Enjoying the show? Please consider rating and reviewing it!

Click here to rate and review

186: Letting the Music Play You, with Paul Wertico Jun 04, 2019

Show notes

Today on the show we have the honour and the pleasure of sitting down with Paul Wertico. If you're at all familiar with the all-time great drummers of the world or you're a jazz fan then you'll know his name and his work.

Paul is a 7-time Grammy Award winner, perhaps best known for his almost 20 years playing with jazz guitarist Pat Metheny where his distinctive "flat ride" cymbal style became a defining part of some of the group's best known recordings.

Paul is an innovative musician and a devoted educator, including his role as Associate Professor of Jazz Studies at Roosevelt University's Chicago College of Performing Arts, and as author of a new book entitled "Turn the Beat Around".

As you'll hear us say in this interview, Paul is a man frequently associated with the very word "musicality" and so it was such a delight to get to speak with him and unpack what exactly it means for a drummer to be "musical" and exhibit "musicality".

We talk about:

• How Paul learned the drums and the influential music educator who helped encourage him in developing his own unique identity as a musician.

• What it means to "turn the beat around" and how playing what he calls "front beats" can bring a unique flair to a piece of music.

• And how it's possible for his group Wertico Cain and Gray to perform 100% improvised compositions together with no prior discussion, ranging from 30 seconds to several minutes long which have a coherence and structure that mean the listener would never guess they were improvised.

We also talk about practicing with a metronome versus a backing track, what role the drummer plays in different genres and situations, and how he ended up ditching the drums to just play cymbals on a tango record in Italy.

This was a blast and there's a ton of insights and wisdom here for drummers and musicians of all stripes.

Subscribe For Future Episodes!

Apple Podcasts | Android | Stitcher | RSS | YouTube

Full Show Notes and Transcript: Episode 186

Links and Resources

• Paul Wertico Online

• Paul Wertico - "Turn the Beat Around: A Drummer's Guide to Playing "Backbeats" on 1 & 3"

• Cream - "Sunshine Of Your Love"

• Derek And The Dominos - "Bell Bottom Blues"

• Chicago - "Woman Don't Want To Love Me"

• If - "Forgotten Roads"

• The Emotions- "A Long Way To Go"

Enjoying the show? Please consider rating and reviewing it!

Click here to rate and review

185: Getting Into Action For Transformation May 31, 2019

Show notes

Imagine a new musical future, where you can approach your music with ease and joy.

What you're about to hear is the third of three live sessions we did this week talking all about ease and joy. And how having more ease and joy in your music learning can be the fastest route to results.

Hopefully you've already heard parts one and two, or you were with us live. If not go back and listen. And if you're all up to date enjoy part 3.

Oh, and you'll hear us mention a special link we were putting in the Facebook comments for people attending live. As a podcast listener, you can find that link in the shownotes for this episode in your podcast player. Or visit musicalitynow.com and check out the shownotes there.

Subscribe For Future Episodes!

Apple Podcasts | Android | Stitcher | RSS | YouTube

Full Show Notes and Transcript: Episode 185

Links and Resources

• Foundations of a Musical Mind Special Offer

• Ease and Joy in Music Learning

• What's Going On In Your Head?

• About Choosing An Online Music Course

• About Succeeding With Online Courses

• Pillars of Autumn - "Grandeur and Virtue, Pt. II: Regret" (May Contain Explicit Lyrics)

Enjoying the show? Please consider rating and reviewing it!

Click here to rate and review

184: What's Going on In Your Head? May 30, 2019

Show notes

Is there a big mental barrier that might be holding you back from ease and joy in learning music?

What you're about to hear in this episode is the recording of a Facebook live session we did this week. We explained a bit more in yesterday's episode of the podcast. If you didn't hear that one yet, we do recommend listening to that one first, and we're talking all about ease and joy in music learning.

So without further ado, please enjoy the recording of the second live session from this week. It is informal. It is unscripted. We're just hanging out and talking about this topic with some Musical U members, with Foundation students, with our email audience, and with you, the podcast listener. Enjoy.

Subscribe For Future Episodes!

Apple Podcasts | Android | Stitcher | RSS | YouTube

Full Show Notes and Transcript: Episode 184

Links and Resources

• Foundations Of A Musical Mind

• Musicality Now - Ease and Joy in Music Learning

• Free cheat sheet on enjoying practice

• Musicality Now - The Roots of Greatness, with Scott Devine

Enjoying the show? Please consider rating and reviewing it!

Click here to rate and review

183: Ease and Joy in Music Learning May 28, 2019

Show notes

Today, we've got something a bit different for you. Now, hopefully you are on our email list so you already know all about this, but in case not, this week to mark reopening the Foundations of a Musical Mind course, we are hosting three live sessions on Facebook talking about ease and joy in music learning. So how to make your music learning easier, how to make it more joyful and particularly how that's actually the route to better results. It's not just a cop out. It's not just fun for the sake of it. This is actually the way to get the best results in music.

That's what we're talking about this week and what you're going to be hearing in a minute is the recording of the first of these three sessions. Now, if you're listening to this episode as it comes out, you can join us for parts two and three. I would love to see you there. You'll find all the details in the show notes for this episode at musicalitynow.com or head to facebook.com/musicalu and you'll find them there.

A couple of things to mention about the recording of part one that you're about to hear. The first is that this was taken from the live stream, so unfortunately the audio is not quite as high quality as you're hopefully used to on this show, but it's still utterly listenable, we hope. And the second thing to mention is this is a bit long. It's quite different in style to what you're probably used to on this show. This is not a punchy 10-minute summary of the topic. This is me hanging out live for an hour with a bunch of MusicalU members and foundations course students and people from our email list talking about this topic of ease and joy, finding ways to relate it to your musical life and setting you up for transforming your experience of learning music with more ease and joy. So I hope you'll enjoy it, this very different kind of an episode. And if you're listening to this as it comes out, please do join us for parts two and three this week. We'd love to see you there.

Subscribe For Future Episodes!

Apple Podcasts | Android | Stitcher | RSS | YouTube

Full Show Notes and Transcript: Episode 183

Links and Resources

• Foundations Of A Musical Mind

• Musicality Now - Unlocking Your Musicality: Part One w/Brent Vaarstra

• Free cheat sheet on enjoying practice

• Musicality Now - Hey! Where Are You Going?

• Musical U on Facebook

Enjoying the show? Please consider rating and reviewing it!

Click here to rate and review

182: Do You Have An "Inner Natural Musician" - Here's How To Know May 23, 2019

Show notes

Have you wondered if you have an instinct for music, or worried that you don't?

What if all the seemingly-natural skills of music like playing by ear, improvising, singing in tune, collaborating with others - could be yours.

Not by learning them but by simply connecting with a natural musician that's already inside you?

In this episode we explain how you can know whether you have an "inner natural" and how to tap into it to unlock these skills for yourself. Stay tuned!

Subscribe For Future Episodes!

Apple Podcasts | Android | Stitcher | RSS | YouTube

Full Show Notes and Transcript: Episode 182

Links and Resources

• Foundations Of A Musical Mind

Enjoying the show? Please consider rating and reviewing it!

Click here to rate and review

181: How to Earn Your Inspiration, with Mark Cawley (Song Journey) May 21, 2019

Show notes

Today we're joined on the show by Mark Cawley, a hit U.S. songwriter whose songs have been hits for artists like Tina Turner, Joe Cocker, Diana Ross and even The Spice Girls.

With over 16 million records to his name, Mark now provides online coaching to songwriters at all stages through his website iDoCoach.com, and has recently released a book, Song Journey, which is a treasure trove of advice and techniques for writing and selling songs, with a liberal sprinkling of personal anecdotes and Mark's own career lessons along the way.

If you've been listening to or watching this show for a while then you'll know we are big believers that valuable learning often comes in indirect ways - and whenever we have a guest who plays a certain instrument or specialises in a particular kind of musicality, we like to encourage you to stay tuned even if it doesn't seem on face value to apply to you.

This conversation was equal parts entertaining and enlightening and so we know you're going to enjoy it, and learn some valuable new ideas for your own musical life.

We talk about:

• How playing alongside Fleetwood Mac brought Mark clarity on what kind of career in music he wanted.

• The four-stage framework which lets you quiet your inner editor and avoid writer's block.

• And how writing a song for Tina Turner did not result in her recording it - and what he did later on that did actually lead to a Tina Turner hit...

Subscribe For Future Episodes!

Apple Podcasts | Android | Stitcher | RSS | YouTube

Full Show Notes and Transcript: Episode 181

Links and Resources

• Mark Cawley - "Song Journey"

• Scott Barry Kaufman The 4 Stages of Creativity

Enjoying the show? Please consider rating and reviewing it!

Click here to rate and review

180: Rewind-Singing May 16, 2019

Show notes

Do you want to become a more confident and capable singer? The Musical U team rewinds to past guest experts as we explore singing.

Subscribe For Future Episodes!

Apple Podcasts | Android | Stitcher | RSS | YouTube

Full Show Notes and Transcript: Episode 180

Links and Resources

• What Your Voice Can Do, with Jeremy Fisher

• All Things Vocal, with Judy Rodman

• Christian D. Larson - "Promise Yourself"

• Rewind: Practicing

• The Story of the "Fifth Beatle", with Kenneth Womack

• Find and Make Peace with Your Voice, with Nikki Loney

• Singing that Sounds Good – and Beyond, with Davin Youngs

Enjoying the show? Please consider rating and reviewing it!

Click here to rate and review

179: Playing With Heart and By Heart, with Sarah Jeffery (Team Recorder) May 14, 2019

Show notes

Today on the show we're joined by Sarah Jeffery, host of "Team Recorder", the top YouTube channel for recorder players, with over 40,000 subscribers.

Sarah creates wonderful tutorial videos there and although her target viewer is the adult recorder player, so much of what she teaches is rich in musicality and relevant across instruments that we were really eager to invite her onto the show.

Sarah studied recorder at a university level for 9 years, in the United Kingdom and in Amsterdam, among the world's top players and teachers, and she started Team Recorder with the mission of making that wealth of knowledge she'd had the privilege to learn be accessible to anyone in the world who wants to know more about recorder.

If you have had this idea that the recorder is quite a simple instrument used mostly in children's music education, then Sarah's channel will blow your mind, and this conversation is going to show you just how fascinating and versatile an instrument it can be.

In this conversation we talk about:

• The big difference it makes to play music by heart rather than from sheet music - and how to make that memorisation process easier.

• How it's possible to sing and play recorder at the same time - and why you might want to do that…

• And as well as her YouTube work, Sarah is a professional performer and recording artist, and we discuss her recent recorder-centered album, Constellations, and how contemporary recorder music can be more accessible as a listener than you might expect.

We hope that after today's episode you're going to be going out and telling all your musician friends about these cool ideas you picked up from a professional recorder player… or that you might even be tempted to pick up a recorder yourself!

Subscribe For Future Episodes!

Apple Podcasts | Android | Stitcher | RSS | YouTube

Full Show Notes and Transcript: Episode 179

Links and Resources

• Sarah Jeffery Website

• Team Recorder YouTube

• Sarah Jeffery - "Constellations"

• Tone Deaf Test

Enjoying the show? Please consider rating and reviewing it!

Click here to rate and review

178: 3 Lessons on Music Practice From The World's Top Bassists May 09, 2019

Show notes

Have you found yourself losing enthusiasm for music practice? It might sound surprising, but whatever instrument you play, it's possible that the musical role played by *bassists* actually gives them a unique insight into how to keep practice interesting and effective...

In this episode I'm going to share three big lessons from three of the world's top bass educators. Stay tuned!

Subscribe For Future Episodes!

Apple Podcasts | Android | Stitcher | RSS | YouTube

Full Show Notes and Transcript: Episode 178

Links and Resources

• Scott's Bass Lessons

• The Roots of Greatness, with Scott Devine

• Adam Neely on YouTube

• The Power of Curiosity, with Adam Neely

• Steve Lawson's Website

• About Interleaved Practice

• Forget Being Realistic – Do This Instead

• Hey! Where are you going?

• How to Improve AND Enjoy Your Musical Life

• About Deliberate Practice in Music

• Creativity Is The Vehicle, Not the Destination

Enjoying the show? Please consider rating and reviewing it!

Click here to rate and review

Related Podcasts