It’s all about timing.If music is the art of alternating sound and silence, the precision with which you can understand and subdivide time is crucial to the groove. Practicing with the metronome at slow speeds will improve sense of timing and practicing at higher tempos will help you achieve accuracy and precision. Don’t forget to incorporate metronome exercises in your practicing schedule and you’re guaranteed to hear the results!
Art does not exist in a vacuum. Even if you are a solo singer songwriter that hates sharing the stage with anyone else but his guitar, you can benefit from playing with other people. Music is an interactive skill that requires deep sensibility and quick reflexes, but more importantly, it’s about learning to listen.Getting together with other musicians and learning to communicate with them through music will undoubtedly help you to gain a deeper understanding of yourself as a musician
3. Transcribe songs by ear.
Music is first and foremost, a listening art.Although there are thousands of resources to help you learn new songs, nothing beats sitting next to the cd player for hours on end, and picking apart your favourites songs note by note. Transcribe a song by ear every week and you will quickly develop an ability to recognise and find notes on your instrument. Your bandmates and ears with thank you.
4. Learn other styles of music.
They say nothing interesting happens inside of our comfort zone. That is definitely true for music.After a while playing your music style of choice you will start to develop a matching vocabulary as you become more comfortable with it. This is all good and well, but sometimes it’s easy to keep repeating the same ideas over and over again. That’s when a journey across different genres of music can refresh your musical outlook and give you new ideas and concepts to apply in your music. Sometimes, forcing yourself to play things you usually dismiss can open up new avenues and takeyour creative spirit to places you never imagined before.
5. Practice 30 minutes daily (better than cramming 6 hours one day a week)
They say thatpractice makes perfect. But mix it up, don’t always do the same drills. Scales are a good warmup, but can get boring if you are doing the same things over and over. Set goals and work through them. Break up your music pieces into smaller chunks and play them on repeat until they are 100 % perfect. Be mindful in your practice, don’t daydream. Practice in a room free from distractions! Practicing often for shorter periods of time works well! Recording your practice also helps.
It’s as if our metamorphosis is almost complete. Stretching our arms and breaking free of our tiny cocoons. The sun is shining and we are able to visit the parks and beaches for exercise. Getting out of our houses or apartments is liberating. It changes our moods and uplifts our spirits, just like music can change our mood, so can a change in our environment. We find ourselves hatching out into a new world. This means we need to look for new and interesting ways to interact.
So why not take your music practice with you?! Smaller instruments are ideal, a guitar or ukulele, a guitalele or bongo drum, so that you can carry them easily. If you sing you only need take along your voice for an acoustic jamming session outside! Find a quiet spot in a park and practice your guitar outside!
With the 10 person gathering allowance in Barcelona, it’s the perfect time to form a band, or put on a tiny rooftop or terrace performance. So check the weather forecast, and plan your musical party! Invite friends who don’t have instruments and get them to sing along in an outdoor karaoke session. We don’t advise you singing along indoors, so while we wait until we can enjoy the outdoor parks and beaches with friends and do some Social Distance Jamming, why not host your own Online Musical Party. Plenty of our teachers have been playing and performing with friends together online. Hosting a zoom party online is not too difficult!
You can have fun decorating your room to create that party ambience and then stream it online. Create your own online invitation. There are various platforms in which you can interact and make music together online. Or perhaps you just would like to do a live DJ stream and chat with your guests. Whichever way you choose, music and interacting with music can connect us in many ways! With just a little Googling you can find plenty of online parties to join. Many djs and performers have transitioned online. Why not join in with some friends via a watch party, or create your own! Here are some tips!
Which Platform Should I Use?
FaceTime: If your whole group owns iPhones or Macs, try using FaceTime. It’s a simple and easy tool to use. If you are on your phone, you make need a phone stand to make your party handsfree.
Zoom has become uber popular during the worldwide lockdowns. It’s great for big groups. And you can see everyone at the same time. If you have a paid account it works even better and you don’t have to worry about “uninvited guests”!
Skype: This app has been around for a while. Perhaps even the original online calling platform. It’s perfect for large groups, and can be used on multiple devices.
Facebook Messenger: If you have a small group, facebook messenger works well. If you have a Facebook account, you don’t have to go through the hassle of setting up a new account and figuring out new platforms
Whatsapp: Whatsapp also works well for small groups. Similar to Facetime and Facebook Messenger, you may find that all your friends already have an account, so it could be easy to hang out together, the only problem is it only works on your phone for calls.
Google Hangouts: Just like Facebook Messenger, the biggest perk of Google Hangouts is that you don’t need to make another account to video chat. Google Hangouts is free to use straight from your Google account.
Twitch TV: You can stream your online DJ set or concert via twitch tv. Or even stream your 10 person gathering and invite more people to join in online. Making an account is not difficult. Log in and set up a stream.
How to Host a Virtual Party
1. Send virtual invite
Virtual invites can be as formal or as simple as you’d like. You can send out a quick group text or if you’re feeling fancy, whip up a virtual party invite and send it out over e-mail. Use free templates for a fun image on the Canva app.
2. Plan together beforehand
No one wants to show up to a party unprepared. Just because it’s online, doesn’t mean it’s boring. Make it a reason to dress up! You can even make a party theme!
3. Designate responsibilities
Get people involved. Often the excitement of preparing for an event can be half of the fun. If you’re having a theme party, designate any tasks and responsibilities out to your friends and family. For example, if you’re hosting a virtual musical night, be sure that everyone has an instrument, even if they have to make one!
4. Let’s party!
Dress up, set up your camera (you can make your own phone stand) and get your party snacks and drinks ready. It’s time to have some fun!
Pianos are renowned the world over, despite being just over 300 years old. A relatively short rise to fame compared to that of the guitar, whose beginnings can be traced back to around 3000 years ago. And yet they have been a prominent part of society almost since they were created. Today the piano is still often found in middle and upper class homes, and taught at schools across the world. In china alone, a survey counted over 40 million children learning to play the piano in 2015.
Considered a vital instrument for musical learning, the piano is here to stay. This is hardly surprising, as pianos have been found to enhance our performance in numerous ways, and brain imaging has shown that playing the piano actually physically changes our brain, forming more connections between both the left and right hemispheres. Pianists are a step ahead of the game in problem solving, language, spontaneity, decision making and social behavior. It’s no mental leap then, that parents and teachers alike would encourage learning the piano.
Pianos have opened the doors to music for many people, they are relatively straightforward to understand and play. They provide an important basis of musical knowledge and have become a stepping stone, often allowing musicians to move onto other instruments.
For many years pianos brought music into homes and the lives of people. Forming such an important role in our social history, the instrument has easily found its way into popular culture. Movies, books and musicians highlight it as a magical and versatile instrument.
Read more about the history of Pianos on our Instrument Rental Website. If you live in Barcelona, we rent pianos to students, or anyone who wishes to play at home. Living in a city with limited space means that having a piano at home is a bit of a luxury, but the rental program takes care of a number of issues. There is no longer a huge initial investment. A delivery service bring the piano to your door and removes it when you no longer need it or want to use it. Phew!
Having a piano in the house has benefitted many of our students during the lock down. Keeping fingers nimble and it’s also as an intelligent way to pass the time. Playing the piano is a workout for your brain!
Before the pandemic our pianos made appearances in various concerts across the city from small private functions to large orchestras in the Palau de la Música. They have been played as brides walk down the aisles up and down the coast of Barcelona. A piano certainly adds a special touch to any event. As we slowly start to move forward again, and places begin to open, we hope that our pianos bring joy to many more people, and music begins to appear in the public quarters of Spain.
Did you know that most of the pianos we use at the school are digital pianos? By all appearances they seem to be acoustic pianos. But what is the difference really?
Digital pianos are electronic keyboards which have been developed to mimic acoustic pianos. Technological advances mean digital pianos now sound and feel (almost) like classical acoustic pianos, but with the convenience of being portable and not requiring fine tuning.
Digital Pianos can also easily be amplified for concerts or connected to headphones for playing at home. Digital pianos are usually cheaper than regular acoustic pianos, but their advantages often outweigh the fact that they may not feel or look exactly like an acoustic piano, and they are rapidly becoming the instrument of choice for the modern day classical pianist.
These pianos accomplish all that through a variety of methods, from weighted keys to built in sound quality. And no, a digital piano is not a keyboard. There are unique differences! If you are intrigued you can read an in-depth explanation here.
The guitar may have taken over in popularity, but the piano is a key stake holder in the world of popular music, with the likes of Alicia Keys, Elton John, John Legend and Lady Gaga all performing pop music on the instrument.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IN01vHhFZdA
The piano is widely used as an important classical instrument, forming part of symphony orchestras across the world. And the classical pieces are still hugely popular with pianists such as Louis Lortie known as one of the best interpreters of Beethoven, Chopin and Ravel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH6za0Cp4RA
The piano has been used in all kinds of music, from jazz and classical to rock and pop. It’s a versatile instrument, and if you are interested in lessons in the piano, our teachers are talented professionals who can help you accomplish your musical dreams!
Gabriela Grabowski was born in Argentina. She is a singing teacher at The Shine School of Music, specializing in the Functional Voice Method (Rabine Method). She has more than 10 years of teaching experience in both Individual and Group Classes, for children, adolescents and adults. We chatted with her and asked her some questions about her interests in music and singing. Here is what she has to say!
What was the first thing that made you interested in music? Music has always been with me, my parents were very young and the radio was always playing in my house.
Who inspired you to make music? My earliest influences were 80s singers like Bonnie Tyler. In my teens grunge appeared and singers like Alanis Morrissette and then metal with singers like Anneke Van Giersbergen whose influence has stayed with me to this day. I have always been inspired by singers who compose their own music and are very personal like Bjork, Tori Amos, Eddie Vedder …
How would you describe the music you normally make? As a performer create and enjoy various styles: Jazz, Tango, Rock. But when composing I am more into indie rock or gothic metal.
What is your creative process like? I usually compose melodies that occur to me when I walk down the street (it happens very often) or when I am playing on the piano, I let myself get carried away by a sensation, an image, or perhaps a color, and then I add harmony and finally the lyrics . When I work with other musicians and the harmony is already composed because they already have one or several instruments, it is the same, I allow myself to be “inspired” by them and compose the melody and then finally the lyrics.
If you could choose to collaborate with any musician, who would it be? Phew there are many but I think if I had to choose only one it would be Bjork.
If you could choose to open any musician’s show, whose would it be? With my Rock project: Radiohead. With my acoustic song project: Fiona Apple.
Do you sing in the shower? What songs? I don’t sing much in the shower, but when I do I usually repeat a phrase that “floated” into my head (many times it’s a song that my students are working on) If I liked it, it gets stuck in my brain and I repeat it like a loop.
Of your concerts, which one have you enjoyed the most and why?
I really enjoy the stage in general, whatever the genre it is, as long as it sounds good to me (you are blessed if you have good sound technicians) But the ones that I enjoy the most are the concerts in which a beautiful silence is generated, the audience is “really listening ”and makes me feel very connected not only with what I am performing but also with them and with the musicians who are with me on stage. There is a concert that I did a few years ago touring singing tangos in the house of a town near Toulouse that fulfilled all that.
Where would you like to do a concert? With my Jazz band at the Duc de Lombards in Paris (I owe it to myself)
What famous musicians do you admire? Bjork, Fiona Apple, Anneke Van Giersbergen, Lisa Hannigan, Eddie Vedder, Amy Lee, Tom Yorke, Tori Amos, Sarah Vaughan, Bach (he’s more than famous haha), Arvo Pärt …
What has been the best advice you have been given? “No one is going to knock on your door looking for a singer, it’s you who has to knock on doors …”
If you could change something in the industry, what would it be? The music industry’s insistence on responding only to certain commercial “fashion of the moment” criteria and its “without money, you don’t exist”… but we are already entering the debate that we live in a world of capitalist consumption and the change should be cultural and blah blah …
How do you think the internet has impacted the music industry? I grew up listening to cassettes and leaving cds in the bars where I wanted to play, putting together an international tour without a manager would not have been possible without the internet. In my case, the Internet generated bridges that crossed oceans, shortened distances. It allows many musicians to spread our music, thus reaching places that would otherwise be impossible.
What would you be doing right now if we weren’t in confinement? Singing Jazz at a Festival !!
We asked our teachers to recommend their favourite movies according to the original soundtracks. Music is all important when it comes to films. In fact a movie can become a masterpiece just because of its soundtrack. Many composers have made it their life work to create masterful original scores for movies. We are sure that you must find yourself sometimes overwhelmed with the emotion that a great musical piece can cause when you are watching an enjoyable film. Movie music is so important that each year the film industry hands out accolades to the best original scores. You can see a list of the Oscar winners for the last few years here. What is your favourite original score for a movie? Do you agree with our teachers?
The good, the bad and the ugly – Ennio Moricone
The Deer Hunter – Stanley Myers
The Book of Eli – Atticus Ross
Deux Moi – Loïc Dury, Christophe Minck
Ascenseur pour l’échafaud (Elevator to the Gallows) – Miles Davis
The Cook, the Thief, his Wife & her Lover – Michael Nyman
Goodbye Lenin – Yann Tiersen
https://youtu.be/awtWSj_qTkE
Into the wild – Michael Brook, Kaki King, Eddie Vedder
