We've talked about how to train your ears in hearing difference between the tonic and the dominant chord in Beginners Ear Training (Part 1), and also between the tonic and submediant chord in Beginners Ear Training (Part 2). For those of you who have passed these two exercises, congradulations!!! Those of you who haven't done so, and feel the need to do so, the link for these two previous posts is at the bottom of this post.... good luck!!!  Now to strengthen our ears even more, here's another exercise where I ...

This is part 3 of a series of post discussing job opportunities in the music line. We discussed about the possibility of being a performing musician in Money and Music (part 1), and being a music producer in Money and Music (part 2). In this post, we are going to discuss about teaching music. TEACHING MUSIC If you are not too egoistic, just looking for some steady income while enjoying music as you work. If you love to interact with people, or maybe kids especially. This is the right job for you. Earning ...

We talked about hearing the tonic and dominant chord in Part 1 of this series. Our next task here is to learn to hear the submediant chord, or the sixth chord, in a piece of music. Any student would have learnt that the submediant chord is minor in nature, as opposed to the previous two chords that we've learnt, which is major in nature. So the first thing to do here is to try to hear the difference between the major and minor chord quality, and let your ear get the ...

I know the title is misleading, but it is true. This piece of painting is named Composing Music Secretly, painted by Iman Maleki. Iman was born on 1976 in Tehran. He has been fascinated by the art of Painting since he was a child. At the age of 15, he started to learn painting under the mastery of his first and only teacher - Morteza Katouzian - who is the greatest realist painter of Iran. Meanwhile, he began to paint professionally. In 1999 he graduated in Graphic Design from the ...

Time for some ear training. Perhaps one of the questions I get asked most by my students is how to hear chords and know whether it's a tonic, dominant, or subdominant function, etc. This ability is crucial for one to play songs by ear. From years of teaching, I find that most of the students who had this problem, is caused by the ear not knowing which part of the music to focus on, and which part to grab. Some students might be listening to the melody to try to identify ...

The is a great discussion started by NoahZark at Keyboard Magazine Forums about the best songs to play during a wedding ceremony. I still remember during my wedding dinner, I have several local artists and musicians singing a song each. I am grateful to all of them because they have to sing all the songs I requested. Each of the different songs actually represents a certain period of my love story with my wife. Daniel Lee is not yet a winner of Malaysian Idol Singing Competition at that time. He ...

We talked about making money by performing music in part 1 of Money and Music. This time we are going to discuss another line of music business, which is what many would consider as the behind the scene type of job, music production. From wikipedia, "a music producer has many roles, among them controlling the recording sessions, coaching and guiding the musicians, organizing and scheduling production budget and resources, and supervising the recording, mixing and mastering processes" Obviously, music producers nowadays have a very large work scope. But in laymen terms, we ...

There are times when it just happens! You suddenly hear something in your mind. Some great sounding melody line. You try to memorize it hard. Whistle it loud. Hum it repetitively, fearing that it will be gone before you can record it down. I bring my PDA along and hope that I can record something when I feel inspired. No wonder there are so many portable recorders designed for musician to record their creation instantly. How does it happen? Where is the inspiration come from? Try these: 1. Dumb your girl/boy friend. ...

Beatboxing is the vocal percussion of hip hop culture and music. Considered by many to be the fifth element of hip-hop, it is primarily concerned with the art of creating beats, rhythms, and melodies using the human mouth. It can also involve singing, vocal scratching (the imitation of turntable skills), the simulation of horns, strings, and other musical instruments, and the replication of a vast array of sound effects. Watch this video, you will see the "beast" beatboxing at the kitchen while showing you the recipe. There are more than 20 ...

Welcome to the August 5, 2007 edition of music & piano lessons carnival. Music in general: News & Artists edithyeung presents The Piano (Understanding Your Parents) posted at Edith Yeung.Com: Dream. Think. Act.. Some of us are forced to learn the piano during our childhood. But I never regretted that my parents actually force me to continue when I was thinking of dropping the lesson halfway. Alvaro Fernandez presents Yaakov Stern: Build Your Cognitive Reserve posted at SharpBrains, saying, "Unexpected benefit from music and piano lessons: longer brain health..." ...