Welcome to the March Musicademy Newsletter!
In this edition:
Worship Guitar Song Learner Downloads
Our new Worship Guitar Song Learner Series DVDs are getting some great feedback and we’ve just made each of the lessons available as a download from our website.
The idea of the Song Learner Series is to enable you to master the guitar parts played on the original record, note for note, and as such significantly enhance your playing. In each lesson you will learn how to:
- Master the right strumming pattern for the song
- Find easy ways to play complex chords
- Get the right rhythm and pacing
- Learn the one finger “cheat” chords that the professionals use to make your playing sound smooth
- Develop great finger picking
- Plus hints, tops and techniques you can use in other songs
Songs featured include Everlasting God, Beautiful One, The Father's Song and Facedown as well as a number of challenging hymns - In Christ Alone and David Crowder's beautiful arrangement of All Creatures of Our God and King. Download the free sampler for a preview.
Two tracks are only available as a download and not on DVD - Yesterday Today & Forever and Holy is the Lord.Enter our competition to win five free Song Learner downloads.
Our worship keyboard DVDs are well on their way – we’re currently finishing editing and they are due to be released at Easter.
The Beginners Course
The Intermediate Course
- A fresh approach to learning keyboards in worship using an ‘ear based’ chord playing method
- No need to wade through traditional piano lessons
- Lose your dependency on the music score by approaching the keyboard as a chords based instrument
- Left and right hand technique, integrating added, suspended and extended chords, improvisation skills, string and pad sounds
More info is available on our website
We’ve recently added a new section to the website – the Musicademy Blog. The Blog will give you an insight into the daily happenings at the Musicademy office including the agonies of Canadian customs, behind the scenes in DVD production as well as links to some really useful worship related websites.
Free singing lesson at CRE Esher
Musicademy is exhibiting at the Christian Resources Exhibition in Esher (UK) from 15-18 May. Do come over to the stand for a chat if you are visiting. Vocals tutor Gayle Bamberger (pictured) will be giving a free singing lesson on the Thursday and Friday where we will also be showcasing our teaching DVDs.
We've tickets available for the CRE for £2 - just go to our website. Normal entry is £7.
The failsafe method of working out which chords fit a key
You know the scenario, you’re either trying to remember the chords for a song that you don’t have music for, or you’re trying to find some chords to accompany a new melody, so you stab at all sorts – G F, C Em, A, Bb – some seem to work but some don’t. There is, however, a method of narrowing down the options to just seven chords – you just need to know what key the song is in.
Each major scale is made up of seven notes so the scale of C major is made up of C D E F G A B. Other scales will have sharps or flats instead of some of those notes. In addition to the notes in the major scale or key, there are also seven chords that fit over the individual notes.
The chords are either major or minor in sound and all follow the same major/minororder sequence:
Major Minor Minor Major Major Minor Minor (actually ½ diminished but a minor will work fine)
So the chords in the key of C are:
C Dm Em F G Am Bm (or Bdim)
So if your song is in C, these are the chords that you will need. Some chords are more common than others – generally the root (C), the 4th (F), 5th (G) and 6th (Am).
You can apply this formula to every major key so songs in D would have the following chords:
D Em F#m, G A Bm, C#m
If you’d like to read more, including how to work out which sharps and flats are in which keys, download the free article Playing By Ear on our downloads page – you’ll need to register first.
Musicademy has just launched a page on YouTube. Our DVD clips have been watched over 8000 times and we’ve also included 10 minutes of one of our Song Learner lessons for free. You can go to the page and send the link to a friend who might enjoy seeing the clips. We’d also love you to write some comments and reviews about the video clips too.
We’ve just found a great online resource for proper sheet music and guitar tab. Click the link to go to Musicnotes. As well as almost every rock and pop song you might want to play, the site has plenty of music for worship songs by Matt Redman, Chris Tomlin and more.
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 and we’ll let you know what they think of them in the next issue.
- What did you think of this newsletter
- Any suggestions for content that you would like to read in the future?
- Any suggestions for websites we could recommend people?
- Have you bought a Musicademy product?
- What did you think of it?
Please email your repsonses to enter the draw!
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