Hi, this is Christopher, Founder of Musical U, and thanks for joining me for this look inside what’s new in Musical U this month.
This month we had four big things to share:
- The first was new Resource Packs in our instrument packs for guitar, bass, piano, on the topic of “major vs. minor”.
- We have a new live masterclass happening this coming weekend, so if you’re watching this at the right moment, you can still register and come along to that live, and after that, the recording will be available inside Musical U for members.
- We have a new lesson on where chords come from to help with a sticking point that some of our members were hitting in one of our most popular modules.
- And finally some new tour dates – our Resident Pro for guitar, Dylan Welsh, is hitting the road and he shared with us the places he’ll be playing this summer.
Let’s take a look! You can watch this video or read on for more details:
Resource Packs: Major vs. Minor
Let’s start by looking at our new Resource Packs. So the topic was major versus minor and this is one of those things in music that is often confusing because or in spite of being really fundamental, I’m sure if you’ve been playing music for any length of time, that you’ve come across the concept of major and minor.
And in our Resource Packs this month, we asked our Pros to explain where these come up and how you can get to know them and really get them into your ear, the difference between major and minor. Let’s take a quick peek here at the piano pack, where Resident Pro Sara Campbell explained major versus minor and how to get to know them on the keyboard.
Sara: Hi, my name is Sara Campbell and I’m the resident pro for piano here at Musical U. In this resource pack we are talking about major and minor triads and I’m going to show you a bunch of different ways to practice those major and minor chords so that you can become really familiar with them in all 12 keys and familiar with them within a diatonic scale, and this is really going to help you up your game. Let’s get to it.
We’ll begin with a very brief discussion about exactly what is major versus minor. So you’ve probably gone through this in some of the modules here on Musical U already, so I won’t belabor this point, but we’re looking at the triad…
For any of our members who were struggling a bit with telling major from minor – whether that’s with intervals or chords or key or scales – these new resource packs are a fun way to get on your instrument and really get these things drilled into your ear and your brain.
Masterclass: Sounding Good as a Singer
The next thing to mention that’s new this month is our live masterclass. Each month we run a live masterclass with a guest expert and it’s provided for anyone to come along to and join. And then the recording afterwards is available to members of Musical U.
This month I’m super excited to have Davin Youngs. Davin was a guest on the podcast talking about how to improve your singing voice and how to express yourself through singing – even if you don’t consider yourself a natural singer. It was a fantastic podcast episode and I really loved talking to Davin and I was keen to get him back to go into this in more detail, so Davin is joining us this coming Saturday, that’s the 30th of June, and if you go to this page you can register for this masterclass to come along live. If you’re reading this after it’s happened, I’m afraid you’ve missed it, but if you’re a member of Musical U, you’ll find the recording inside Musical U.
I am super excited to hear Davin talk about sounding good as a singer and what you can do if you don’t feel like you currently sound good, what you can do step by step in a practical way to get to the point where you’re confident that yes, your voice does sound good.
New Lesson: Where Chords Come From
The next thing that was new in Musical U this month was a new lesson for one of our popular modules. We have this module called Three-Chord Songs and the Four-Chord Trick, which is all about kind of a shortcut method to really get your ear around chord progressions so that you can hear chords in a song and know what chords to play on your instrument.
And one thing that was tripping some members up was they weren’t quite sure how you go from the name of a chord to what notes are in that chord. And so Andrew on our team put together this great new lesson that kind of talks you through where chords come from in terms of starting from a scale, picking out the right notes and then what those chords would be called.
So this is really going to help our members who are working through this module and maybe haven’t studied all that much music theory or have got in a muddle about what chord names are or what the Roman numeral system is all about. This is going to kind of plug that gap and make sure this module is as effective as it can be so that they can get playing those three-chord songs and four-chord songs very quickly.
Dylan Welsh on Tour
And last but not least, one of our Resident Pros is hitting the road. Dylan Welsh is our Pro for guitar here at Musical U. So he, for example, put together this month’s resource pack for guitarists on major versus minor and he posted in the discussion boards to say he’s going on tour this summer with a country artist named Dylan Jakobsen.
You’ll see here a list of the tour dates, but you can also visit DWelshMusic.com. I’ll put that link beside the video where you’ll find Dylan’s artist page and information on his educating and also his performance schedule, where you can get full details of all of these events across the US where you can go see him play and that’s definitely not to be missed if he’s coming to your state.
So that’s what was new in Musical U this month.
- We had new resource packs for telling major from minor.
- We have a new live masterclass coming this weekend, this Saturday, 30th of June, and that’s with Davin Youngs of Chicago Circle Singing, VOXUS Project and Davin Youngs Voice. He’s going to be talking about sounding good as a singer.
- And we had a new lesson for one of our popular modules all about chord progressions. This lesson was teaching how to construct chords, note by note based on a scale.
- And finally, if you’re in the US and you want to catch some fantastic country music with our Resident Pro Dylan Welsh playing guitar, do check out his tour schedule for the summer. You can do that at DWelshMusic.com.
Please use the links above to learn more about each of these. Thanks for joining me for this look inside what’s new at Musical U this month and I hope to see you inside soon.
