In this blog I write about musical education and being a music teacher. It contains a large variety of topics that I serve in packages of practical tips. I think it's a great way to talk about all the different aspects of music that interest me and also make it useful to my students, friends, fellow teachers and curious readers.
I'm writing about genres, composition, improvisation, music theory and history, production and recording, film scoring and playing an instrument. All the posts come from my practice as a music teacher. Some of them are specific and technical while many others will be useful to people that are not necessarily practicing musicians. I'm always on the lookout for enjoyable games and exercises that employ simple abilities like humming, listening, memorizing melodies, reading, writing and talking. These activities can enhance your understanding of music and help you dive into deep and mindful listening experience.
The electro-acoustic realm is really magical and fascinating for me. These sounds have the ability to create worlds. It's sparse and leaves a lot of room for imagination. It's also very artful and one can notice the attention given to small details, various sonic colors and sound effects.
What I really like about modern RnB music is the way chord progression are used. It's a new approach.
Very few chords are played and they are repeated in a loop. The progression is very ambiguous and unstable. For the listener it means it means hanging in uncertainty. A feeling of something really close without the possibility to catch it or hold it. For musician it means using modes, clever modulations, hiding strong and obvious harmonic functions like the tonic or disguising it as a dominant.
An amazing…
Read moreFor me ukulele means freedom, humor, and laughs. The sound reminds you not to take life too seriously. While strolling with my little daughter and listening to my vintage MP3 I discovered the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. A live album full of jokes and uplifting music. Masterfully arranged cover versions of iconic songs and instrumental like: Born To Be Wild by Steppenwolf, famous movie themes, a mind blowing combination of Life On Mars and My Way.
My daughter is very sensitive to attention. When we…
Read moreI have a guitar student who is seventy years old. One day he brought to our lesson the melody of the middle part of “Winter”. He found a simple outline of the tune and wanted to play it on guitar. He also brought warm memories from the times he was a little child in Argentina, went to a park concert with his father and heard the Four Seasons for the first time. He was simply enchanted by listening and watching the performance.
His story brought me back to this wonderful work by Vivaldi and I started…
Read moreAlfred Schnittke had a Jewish father and German mother. He was born in the USSR, his family moved to Vienna in 1946 because of his father’s work. No wonder Schnittke’s compositions are polystylistic. He was a brilliant orchestrator and arranger and also a kind of an expert in modern compositional techniques. A good entry point to Schnittke’s world could be his music for film. He said it was a field of experimentation for him, maybe implying that the works written as pure music for performance and listening…
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