music guitar picking patterns
Friday, July 23rd, 2010
Archive for the 'Theory' Category
Careers in music A practical guide for parents
Wednesday, July 14th, 2010
Music is such a broad field - there is the music industry and music itself. So there are lots and lots of choices for a career within music. It’s not just about being a pop star - we have music lawyers, admin support staff, sound engineering. It is a valid choice to make as a career.
Jacqui McDonnell, Life Coach
If your child is mad about music they may be thinking about further study or even a career in music. At this point many parents ask: is there really a future in music?
Today music is a major industry with a wide range of opportunities, employing an estimated 130,000 full-time in the UK alone. Your child may want to study music for the love of it, or to pursue a career as a singer, instrumentalist, or composer, but the possibilities don’t stop there. Whatever the level of skills your child has achieved, there are career paths open, whether they decide to leave school at sixteen or go on to university. Whatever their interest there are jobs in teaching or music therapy, production, promotion, management, as well as performance.
Random Chord Generator
Monday, June 28th, 2010
The Random Chord Generator is ideal for displaying random chord sequences. These may be used for practice purposes to help with music instruction, or for stimulating creative ideas in songwriting and composition. Chords may be practiced on many instruments, including piano, guitar, bass, saxophone, trumpet. Choose Triads, 7th Chords or both. Although there are many more varieties of 7th chords, the four most common types are represented in the Random Chord Generator. Enharmonic alternates for each black note chord are included in the options (C# or Db). View online or print out. (If chords appear blank on printout, select “Print Preview” and then print from that window.) Special thanks to Christopher Felten for developing this nifty Random Chord Generator script.
How will music affect your unborn child?
Friday, June 11th, 2010
Womb Music
He would never normally sit like that through a whole performance. He’d get bored. I’m convinced it’s something to do with having heard it when he was in the womb.
Kathryn Singleton, Opera Singer
Unborn babies can hear clearly at about 20 weeks of pregnancy and research suggests that they will remember the music you have played up to the age of twelve months.
Dr Alexandra Lamont is a Lecturer in the Psychology of Music at Keele University, says: “It used to be assumed that it was really noisy in the womb but actually it’s quite quiet. “So the baby should be able to hear your stereo at a reasonable volume. You don’t need to apply headphones to your bump!
So what to play to them?
Dr Lamont says: “Any kind of music that you like, although bass frequencies will travel through fluid better and be more audible to your unborn baby.”
And how does it make them feel?
Opera singer Kathryn Singleton participated in the BBC1 project, A Child Of Our Time. The BBC played both opera and the soundtrack for Pulp Fiction to Kathryn’s unborn baby, Matthew. She says: “With the opera, his heartbeat changed with the moods of the piece, then with the really fast Pulp Fiction song he just went absolutely nuts.”
Hip-hop artist Blade believes music played to his son J in his mother’s womb had an effect months later. He said: “Before J was even born, I used to play him Eric B. & Rakim in the womb. He was about four months old crying his eyes out and I put on Eric B. & Rakim, and he started smiling.”
It used to be assumed that it was really noisy in the womb but actually it’s quite quiet.
Dr Alexandra Lamont, Music Psychology Lecturer
Dr. Lamont has found that if you play the same piece of music every day for the last three months of pregnancy, and play it back to your one year old, he or she will recognise it.
Kathryn Singleton thinks the effects might last even longer than 12 months:
“I was five months pregnant with my first child while I was performing Aida, so he would have heard it all the time whilst in the womb. Then, I did Aida again when he was five years old. He came to a performance and sat totally still for three hours, without moving a muscle. He would never normally sit like that through the whole performance. He’d get bored. I’m convinced it’s something to do with having heard it when he was in the womb.”
TOP TIPS
* Try different kinds of music to see how your baby responds. Chart pop, jazz, R’n'B, reggae, anything you enjoy.
* Music that soothes you may not soothe your baby. You may find your new-born baby calms down to music with a distinct rhythm.
* If you’re enjoying music, your unborn child will pick up on this emotion. So, relax.