Using kid’s songs to practive improvisation By Mattie O’Boyle If you are just starting out in improvisation, I recommend playing easy, kid’s songs. Since they won’t challenge you technically on your instrument, you’ll really be able to focus on your phrasing and breathing life into the tune. And, hopefully, you’ll find that any tune that … Read more
Mixing styles to create your own personal sound By Mattie O’Boyle Today we are going to add another improvisation technique that can help you express yourself; again by drawing on your own musical biography. We are going to focus on taking the rhythm form one musical style and apply it to another style. In this … Read more
Mixing styles to create your own personal sound By Mattie O’Boyle Today we are going to dive deeper into an improvisation technique that can help you express yourself; drawing on your own musical biography. I’ll be using a blues palette of sound as well as a country palette, but you can apply whatever sounds interest … Read more
Add movement to your music using leading tones By Mattie O’Boyle In this week’s blog, we are going to check out a cool way to add movement to your music. We are going to use the note right below the root note of each chord in order to help the music flow from one chord … Read more
Breaking Into Chromatic Ear Training With The Arpeggio App By Mattie O’Boyle An important step in ear training is to distinguish between notes that right next to each other. The musical term for these notes are chromatic notes. Once you can work with notes that are separated by two or more steps, than you can … Read more
Get Groovin’: Playing Bass Notes And Chords In The Melody App By Mattie O’Boyle In this week’s blog, we are going to check out a cool, easy way to practice adding bass notes into your chord playing. Playing bass lines and melodies in the bass really beefs up your chords and adds a layer of … Read more
Hearing The Chords By Mattie O’Boyle The Fast Track To Hearning And Playing Chords Most folks learning guitar, piano, harp, accordion, or, any other instrument that plays a lot of chords, need help perceiving the subtle differences between different chord forms; furthermore, they need to practice playing those chord forms back on their instruments. An … Read more
Call and Response Dictations Accelerate Your Ear Training By Mattie O’Boyle Why do Call and Response dictations help you learn music faster? Well, what is music? That’s a tricky question, with many different answers, but I believe that any answer must include the word sound. Music has something to do with sound. So what is … Read more
The Key To Awesome Rhythm By Mattie O’Boyle South Indian Classical Music – Your Key To Awesome Rhythm Ear training has several different component skills that need to be internalized. One of the critical skills involves the rhythmic complexities underlying even what seems simple songs and tunes. So how do you internalize rhythm and learn … Read more
Drones – Ostinatos By Mattie O’Boyle What’s the difference between hearing a melody played on a flute and hearing it on a bagpipe? The drones, of course! And you can hear drones in so many different styles of music from around the globe. I would venture to say, from their geographic ubiquity, that drones form … Read more
