Alright. So you’ve gotten through all of your teacher’s prescribed music practicing for the day. You’re not done yet! In fact, you’re never really done (so sad, but so true).
There are always areas of your musicianship that can be polished and re-visited. These 5 tools are a great addition to your daily practice routine. These are some simple, and efficient ways to boost your musical knowledge and skills.
You’re reading this, so I know you have a computer and internet access… and that’s all you need!
These tools will seriously put your ears to work. Ear training is important for many reasons. A well trained ear will be very quick to analyze new music. This helps in so many areas. Lifting music becomes much easier. As does improvising. Knowing what an interval is going to sound like in your head even before you play the next note has a massive impact on your overall musicianship.
With steady practice with these tools, as well as coaching from your teachers, you will find recognizing intervals, melodies, scales and cord progressions much easier!
Interval Ear Training
This easy tool is simply a recognizing interval quiz. Listen to one interval and then choose among several answers. It has score and timer, so you can find out how much time it takes to you to recognize intervals and how good you are. really useful in preparation of melodic dictation. All clefs and keys are available by clicking on settings up on the right. Click Here to access the resource
Melodic Dictation
Here there’s a very useful tool in order to start playing by ear every theme you want, with a little practice. There is a keyboard on which you have to repeat the 5 note melody that will be played at start. It has different options such as several difficulty levels, according to the kind of scale used (from pentatonic or even only major chord notes to chromatic)and a change tonality button. Click Here to access the resource
Scale Ear Training
In composition and improvisation scales knowledge is essential in order to have an original and particular style. You won’t compose too many impressive works if you keep on playing only major/minor scales. Listen to the scale and select the correct answer. All clefs and keys are available by clicking on settings up on the right. Click here to access the resource
Chord Identification
Now let’s handle harmony ear training. Finding out chords is a basic knowledge that will help you in every aspect of music practice. Playing, composing and improvising is far more easy and dinamic if you understand which chords are used. You can select which kind of chords you want to practice on (triads, sevenths, triads and sevenths) and if they’ll be root position or inverted. Click here to access the resource
Chord Progression Ear Training
Once you get used to single chord ear training it’s time to take the advance training and start recognizing chord progressions. Simply go to the page, select “progressions” on the navigation menu and you can set your practice excercises. You can choose tempo, keys to play, kind of chords and progressions to randomize, accompaniment and repeat count. Click here to access the resource via howtomusic.info
Practice every day for a while on everything and at the end you will have a fine ear and definitely more control over every aspect of composition and improvisation.
Music Education Drastically Boosts Academic Success
It has been proven by countless studies that playing an instrument does wonders for developing brains. We know that it giveschildrens minds the ability to think in ways that significantly improve literacy leading to better academic success in many other areas. This is called neurophysiological distinction, and the fastest way to develop it, is by learning an instrument. Via merriammusic.com
Surgeons and Pigs Feet Prove Music Increases Productivity.
Researchers asked15 surgeons to sew up incisions made in dead pigs feet, because theyre most similar to human skin (nice), in their lab. The surgeons had to carry out two identical wound repairs using layered stitches, on two consecutive days.Some had their preferred music on during their first day in the lab some had it on for the second. Music has a great way of getting our mind and body working together in a rhythm. Via merriammusic.com