WagooMusic

I sat down with my student Richard Corrall today to teach him the Joe Satriani song “Tears In The Rain”.

When I decide upon a song to teach, I always make sure that the student:

1)Can play the whole song by the end of the lesson

2)Has the whole song memorized.

There are a couple of reasons why I believe that is important:

1)Pushing a student to learn and memorize 1 or 2 entire songs in 60 minutes, is great practice to develop strong musical memory (this is the ability to retain large chunks of song/music information in short amount of time).

2)A student’s joyful feeling and sense of accomplishment and achievement is much stronger if they can play a whole song, and not just a song snippet.

3)You don’t want to turn your student into a musician who knows many pieces of songs, but who can’t play a whole song from beginning to end adequately.

4)You don’t learn everything you can from the masters if you only learn parts of their songs.

At the end of the lesson, Richard mentioned that it was “quite hard”

He said that “the piece is physically and technically challenging” and that he was focusing a lot on really trying to get it all clean.

This remark led me to want to write this blog post to help other guitar students (or pros for that matter, who need to learn a lot of music in a short amount of time).

The gist of the lesson Richard learned is following:

“Memorization comes before accuracy.”

Yes, you want to retain the information first before you start worrying about speed, accuracy or technical issues. You want to be able to play a song before you focus on “being able to play the song well”

After all: it’s not very motivating to see yourself progress very slowly through a new song you’re learning.

This btw, is exactly why most people who start learning a song with the chart or tabs, give up on the song, when they just spent 3 hours trying to figure out the first 8 bars in a song that has intricate guitar parts.

You want to memorize the phrases, melody lines, rhythms and fingerings before you start spending time on making the performance clean and accurate. Accuracy will come naturally as a byproduct of the repetitions of the material after memorization.

Things that help to learn tough and/or specific guitar parts, or solos, and classical or arpeggio oriented pieces at a quick pace are:

1)Don’t look at the page when you’re learning a new song. Try to find a recording of it, and figure the phrases out by ear. Even better: the quickest way to learn a song, is by having someone show it to you, and guide you through the song with a driven demeanor.

2)It does help to get the chart, but only look at it if you really can’t figure something out by ear, to speed up the learning process. Once you figured it out, don’t look at the page anymore but go by memory.

3)Only conquer a couple of notes or a phrase at a time, followed by constant, focused repetitions of the phrase. Then add the next couple of notes, or the next phrase, followed by tons of repetitions, then put the 2 phrases together, followed by tons of repetitions. Keep working yourself forward through the piece of music. If you try to conquer too many notes or phrases at once, you will get lost or frustrated. Short fragments: lots of repetitions! Your focus again, is on having as many repetitions in as possible of short bursts of information, in a short amount of time. Your focus shouldn’t be on getting the phrases up to speed or clean in performance.

4)It is probably essential, in all of this, that you slow down the song you are learning to your abilities. This also helps with the memorization, as you allow your brain the time to retain the info. However”

5)Be really driven, fast and on the ball with your repetitions” but slow with digesting or adding new information. Meaning: slow down the song when learning the next/new phrase, but don’t be laid back in your focus on repetitions once you know the phrase. Have, in other words, a non-stop “Again” again” again” again.. again” again” attitude” then take your time to figure out and learn the next couple of notes.   

I experimented a lot through the years with different approaches to learning or teaching songs and guitar parts, but the above really is the most effective, and most fun way.

After all: it is much more fun to learn a song when it doesn’t take forever.

If you want to become a professional music artists and have your beats for sale, a lot more will be required of you other than talent and skills. In the beginning of your career, you should assess what you have and work with the things that are available to you.If you are living a difficult life, you should use this as an motivation to work harder to get a better life. If you are clueless with what to do with your talents, here are some of the things that you need to work on to improve your chances of becoming famous.

Hone your skills

Skills are just as important as talent when it comes to art because talent can only be enhanced if people learn more skills.A common approach to enhance your music skills is to learn how to play a musical instrument.Song writing is another skill that you should not take for granted.The biggest factor that will make your songs become hits when it reaches the buy beats market is the harmony of your voice to the melody and the theme of the song.If you are going to do Hip Hop beats for example, your personality should be strong and confident for it to sound good.If you are an R&B singer, you may be required to do a lot of love songs.

Make your performance count by recording it
When you are good enough in terms of talent, skills and confidence, you should record your performances to be presented to record companies.If you go out and find recording companies, you should be ready for rejections regardless of how good you are.The early part of the careers of established singers are usually defined by how they faced rejections.

Let the world hear your voice

Another way of being discovered is by showing off your skills.This will help you gain self confidence and become a better singer.You can check if you have stage fright for example by joining a choir.Youtube is also a good venue to see how people will react to your talent.Be ready for haters though because they increase in numbers as you become more popular.

Beat your competitions in contests

There are also some artists who started out in song competitions.There are many televised singing competitions that you can join that can give you a good start in show business.Learn as much as you can from these contests but don’t give up even if you lose.Always keep on moving forward to improve your career

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Every Mother’s Day, I am thankful for my children. I’m also thankful for my own mom. Like any mom, I look forward to (hopefully) sleeping in and skipping “dish duty.” However, I also enjoy spending time with my children. One of the ways I can make some memories is to create some crafts with my little ones. Here are some Mother’s Day crafts for kids (and their moms).

Family Handprints

A lot of times, I see children creating handprint crafts for their mother. However, I think it’s sweet to make a craft with handprints from mom and her children. First, find a pretty piece of paper. Then, pick some complementary paint tones. For instance, if you choose green floral paper, you might pick green, white and purple paint for the handprints. Once, your handprints have dried, you can laminate it, frame it, or both.

Mother’s Day Scrapbook

On Mother’s Day, create a scrapbook with your children. First, take plenty of pictures of the special event. Did you have breakfast in bed? Did you go out to brunch? Pick out your favorite pictures and create a scrapbook page (or entire scrapbook). Some scrapbook scissors, stickers and mementos such as cards will add some flair to the page.

Recipe Box

If you are anything like my family, you probably all have some favorite recipes. We all like fish tacos and oatmeal cookies. First, you can buy a small wooden recipe box (one for each child). You can help your children paint their boxes. Next, take some index cards and write out the recipe for a few of your favorite family recipes. Some websites, like foodnetwork.com, have the option to print recipes out in card format. When kids get older, they will already have mom’s secret recipes.

Beaded Jewelry

I think it’s wonderful to be able to wear something your kids made for you! Go to the craft store and pick out some beads. Each child can make a bracelet. For young children, help them choose bigger beads with larger holes. Another idea is to make a family bracelet. Each family member gets a wooden bead to paint. Then, put all of the beads on one strand. If you’re not keen on wearing homemade jewelry, you can make beaded key chains.

Of course, these Mother’s Day crafts don’t just have to be for you and the kids. Dads, grandparents and other family members can take part in the fun too!

More from Melissa:

Fun Kids’ Crafts to Reinforce the Alphabet

Five Non-Messy Arts and Crafts Activities for Kids

Spring Crafts for Kids Using Recycled Materials