Dear [[{First name}]],

Welcome to the May Musicademy Newsletter!

In this edition:

They're here - the Musicademy Keyboard DVDs

If the level of pre orders is anything to go by, our worship keyboard DVDs could be our most popular products yet. Launched this month, the beginners keyboard set is ideal for anyone approaching the instrument for the first time in order to play modern worship songs without having to wade through traditional piano lessons. The intermediate set is aimed at existing players keen to learn new skills and is particularly suitable for people who previously learned classical piano and now want to transfer their skills to contemporary keyboard styles.

The teaching focuses on contemporary playing styles and as such encourages students to play by following the kind of chord chart often used in modern worship rather than by reading the musical score. Presenter and tutor Tim Martin says “Chords based playing is much simpler and quicker for the beginner to pick up on. It also lends itself to easy improvised playing which is much more appropriate in a modern worship setting”.

The DVDs will teach you how to:

  • Use major, minor and slash chords as the basis for contemporary playing
  • Follow contemporary chord charts rather than traditional music scores
  • Play scales, arpeggios and chords and understand how to use them in modern worship songs
  • Understand and use voicings for smooth sounding chord changes
  • Develop right and left hand rhythm skills and introduce variety using broken chords, auxiliary and passing notes
  • Integrate added, suspended and extended chords into your playing
  • Improvise using melodic fills, auxiliary and passing notes
  • Use string, pads, electric piano and organ sounds

As usual the teaching is outworked using a variety of well known worship songs. There are also hints, tips and advice from worship leaders Brenton Brown, Tommy Walker, Vicky Beeching, Tim Hughes, Matt Redman, Stuart Townend and many others.

Try before you buy - click here to go to our website where you can download our keyboard sampler.

Which Guitar DVD is right for me?

We had some great responses to our last e-newsletter. A number of people wanted clearer guidelines on what level of DVD is right for their playing ability. As a result we’ve created the table below – but you can always email us for tailored advice.

One Day Musicademy Seminars at Your Church

Did you know that we can bring the Musicademy team to give some tailored training to your musicians?

In the UK we are able to provide locally based training for church musicians, normally within the context of a one day worship training event. The content of the day is tailored to the needs of the individual church and its musicians. Often a host church also chooses to welcome other local churches to the event.

Musicademy’s approach is centred on practical training with hands-on seminars in worship leading, guitar, keyboard, bass and drum skills as well as the hugely popular vocals workshops. One seminar which we believe is possibly unique to Musicademy is for single melody instruments such as flute, violin and sax. In just an hour we help those musicians unlock the key to ear based playing, experimenting with improvised fills rather than slavishly following the melody line.

Another option is for one of our team members to come and spend a day with your musicians to work on their band skills. Topics covered include playing together as a team, timing and dynamics training, band communication skills, effective sound checks and rehearsals, building arrangements, improvisation and using creativity to facilitate worship.

As well as some events in the UK, we’re planning some seminars in the US and Canada over the next year. Please contact us if you would like any further information.

Guitar Know How - money saving & some quick tips

We thought we would let you into some money saving ideas as well as some professional hints and tips in this issue of the newsletter.

Free strap locks – A perfect alternative to buying strap locks is to use the rubber bottle washersused on theold style wire flip top opening of some drinks bottles. Place the washer over the strap buttons of your guitar for instant strap locks!

Cheap Guitar Strings - Great low cost guitar strings with a money back guarantee from www.webstrings.com. Depending on quantities ordered, strings can cost as little as $2.49 a pack.

Buy Second Hand - Guitar shops have stocked second hand instruments for decades but with online auctions such as Ebay you can pick up a bargain without even leaving the house. Ebay is great for second hand instruments and accessories and many happy hours can be spent searching for that vintage gem. For UK based buyers, with the dollar rate pretty low right now, it’s a great time to buy a guitar from the US – savings of up to 50% are possible and many sellers are happy to ship internationally.

Cables - This is one area where we would recommend investing good money. Don’t skimp on poor quality cables, they’ll not only ruin your sound and not last long but in some cases pick up the local radio station in the middle of the sermon too!

Picks – a Buyers Guide - Most people don’t even think about what picks they use but the general rule is to use quite supple picks for acoustic and harder for electric. We use Dunlop .60mm and 2.0 or 3.0 for electric. The idea is that flex in the pick will improve your strumming sound but it’s no good for picking or lead work as it ruins the attack you need to play fast and accurately. So choose accordingly. One other tip, you can change your strumming volume dramatically by just gripping the pick harder or softer rather than altering how hard you strum.

Cut Capo - The “Cut” capo that is designed to only cover strings 5 4 and 3 of the guitar. If you place it at fret 2 you can play any song in the key of E with really easy one or two finger chord shapes. Another trick is to place it upside down to cover strings 2 3 and 4 and by placing the capo at frets 2, 5, 7 and 9. This lets you play really easy chords in the keys of A,C D and E. Download our Song Learner Lesson for You Are My King / Amazing Love for a lesson teaching you how to play using a cut capo.

Competition Result

Kirk Grover from Oregon City won the free five downloads in last month’s competition. Thanks to all those who entered – we’ll be incorporating many of the suggestions and recommendations in the newsletter and on our blog in the near future.

We'll let you know what Kirk thought of the downloads in the next newsletter.

If you would like to sample a Musicademy Guitar Song Learner lesson, just go to the website.

Win Five Free Song Learner Downloads

We’d really like to know what you think of our newsletter and the Musicademy products so please take a couple of minutes to answer these questions and e-mail them to us. One respondent will win five free song learner downloads.

  1. What did you think of this newsletter
  2. Any suggestions for content that you would like to read in the future?
  3. Any suggestions for websites we could recommend people?
  4. Have you bought a Musicademy product?
  5. What did you think of it?

Please email your responses to enter the draw!

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