Hi, this is Christopher Sutton, the Founder and Director of Musical U, and I’d love to share with you what’s new in Musical U this month.
We have three big things to mention at Musical U this month. The first was the official launch of our Improv Roadmap which rounded out last month’s “Improv Month” celebrations. Then we had new Resource Packs for guitar, bass and piano on the topic of Intervals. And two new Singing packs on swing rhythm and syncopation. And finally, we’ve made a big change to how you can join Musical U, which is important to know about if you’ve been thinking about joining. Stay tuned for the details on that.
You can watch the video below or read on to learn more:
New Improvisation Roadmap
Let’s start out with the major new addition to Musical U: our new Roadmap for learning to improvise music. As you may know, at Musical U we provide a fully flexible training system so that you’re not forced onto a particular “course” that may or may not suit you and might cause you to get stuck and frustrated. Instead, you’re able to use the training that best suits your background and will most quickly help you reach your goals.
But with over 50 training modules now inside Musical U we appreciate that some guidance might be useful, to help you choose the right ones to use! So apart from providing very personal support and guidance any time our members need it, we also have what we call “Roadmaps”. These show you which modules and exercises can be most useful for learning a big skill like improvising, while still giving you the flexibility to proceed in the way that makes sense for you personally.
We had five Roadmaps already: For playing chords by ear, two for playing melodies by ear, one for getting a great sense of rhythm, and one for learning to sing well. This month we added our sixth, which was highly demanded: Learn to Improvise.
As you can see, it’s divided into Four Phases, and each one includes modules and exercises to help you develop your improvising skills step by step.
If you followed along with Improv Month, then you’ll know that at Musical U we take an unusual approach to improvisation which lets you learn quickly and easily while avoiding the major limitations of the traditional methods for learning improv. So we’ve built out our training modules for this subject as well as drawing on our existing material for rhythm and recognising notes by ear, to produce this detailed Roadmap that can take you from zero improv ability through to a free, creative and versatile ability to improvise your own music any time you like.
So the team here is really excited about this because we’ve been helping members learn to improvise for quite some time already but now finally we have this great big Roadmap that we can point them to which lays it all out clearly and in detail.
Instrument Resource Packs for Intervals, Swing and Syncopation
The second major addition to Musical U this month was the new Resource Packs for guitar, bass, and piano on the topic of intervals. We already have a whole set of training modules to help you recognise intervals by ear and put them to use – as well as a couple just to cover the “what, why and how” of intervals, and why you’d want to learn them in the first place! And so I was really looking forward to seeing what our amazing Resident Pros came up with this month to help members bring intervals to life on their instruments.
We don’t have time for a detailed look, but you can check out our Resource Pack Preview post for a quick video excerpt from each of these, to see what the Pros shared.
Over in our Singing Pack, we got slightly out of sync with the other packs recently – which was perhaps fitting given that the topic was syncopation! So while guitar, bass, and piano already had Resource Packs on Swing Rhythm and Syncopation, this month guest Pro Nina Rosenberger stepped in and did a fantastic job building on our core rhythm training modules to help all the singers at Musical U put their swing and syncopation rhythm skills to good use.
Musical U Wait List
The final thing to share with you this month isn’t quite as delightful – but it’s a positive thing as well, we think.
This month we instituted a waiting list to join Musical U. Since the beginning we’ve provided our members with an unparalleled level of support and guidance – and if you check out our Member Spotlight posts, or any of the member quotes featured on our website you’ll see how crucial this is – and how even members who join thinking they just want training modules and don’t need the personal support in fact end up benefitting hugely from it.
Over the last couple of years though, Musical U has almost tripled in size – and it was becoming hard to make sure we continued to provide such a high level of support. So rather than let the quality of our training be threatened we’ve made a small change to how joining Musical U works.
When you visit the website now and choose to join, you’ll now be placed on a waiting list. This lets us manage how quickly we have new people coming in and ensure that every new member gets the support they need to really succeed in their training.
I know this can be frustrating. I had an email just this week in fact from someone annoyed that we had got them all excited about joining and then they had to wait a week or two to get in! I can understand that, and we hope this will just be a temporary thing. But for now, we know that this short delay will be totally worth it – because once you’re in the doors you’ll have access to the world’s best musicality training along with all the personal support and guidance you need to succeed and reach your musical goals faster than ever before.
At the moment our wait time is just a couple of weeks – but that may well change, so if you’re interested in joining please do go ahead and sign up, so that you’ll get access as quickly as possible.
So those were the three major changes at Musical U this month: A brand new Roadmap for Learning to Improvise, packed with training modules and exercises to take you from zero improv ability to free, creative and confident improvising. New Resource Packs for Intervals as well as singing ones for Swing Rhythm and Syncopation. And finally, a small change to how joining Musical U works, to ensure we can continue to help every member get the success they deserve.
Thanks for joining me for this look inside what’s new at Musical U this month – and I hope to see you inside soon!
