Dates and rough curriculum will be as follows:   July 21: Staff & Pitches; Treble & Bass Clefs July 28: Grand Staff; Ledger Lines Aug 4: Note Values; Measure & Bar Lines Aug 11: 4/4 & 2/4 Time Signatures; Whole, Half, Quarter Rests Aug 18: 3/4 Time Signature; Dotted Half Note; Ties and Slurs Aug 25: Workshop Review   Fishtown studio, Fridays, 6-7pm   PML is excited to offer a Six Week Intro to Music Theory Workshop with Raina Welch.  It’s a great way to supplement and strengthen your current lessons! Students can expect to strengthen t ..read more

The Philly Music Lessons Team is thrilled to invite you to our Spring recital! Join us in celebrating the accomplishments of our talented students at the Philadelphia Ethical Society on Saturday, May 20th. There will be multiple sets throughout the day between 12-5pm. Exact set times for performers will be emailed to students and parents closer to the event. You are welcome to stay for all the sets, or just for the set in which you or the student you are supporting is performing. Please contact your teacher directly to sign up to perform and request an earlier or later slot! Purchase Ticke ..read more

In these videos, Philly Music Lessons violin teacher Jenny Hackbarth teaches us how to tune the violin using the tuning pegs and the fine tuners.  The post How to Tune Your Violin appeared first on Philly Music Lessons ..read more

Many people are intrigued by the art of song and the beauty of the singing voice. For some, singing can come naturally, but for others it may be their life’s work to create the best singing voice possible. Either way, there are many mechanics and techniques that go into a well balanced singing voice. When we learn that our natural speaking voice is in fact the same “voice” we use to match pitch for singing the mystery and challenge of singing can be simplified. The simple idea that we can transfer the speaking voice that we use to communicate every day to song will help a singer manage the ob ..read more

     The triplet is an exciting rhythm that many of us either know by name, by it’s distinct feel or by its notation on music scores. But, how well do you really know the triplet? And what can its mysteries reveal to us?       Understanding the Triplet in all its forms will improve our sense of rhythm. It can also be a useful spice for songwriting. Common rhythmic subdivisions in western music are even numbers like 2,4,8 and the occasional 6. The Triplet is odd, using 3 notes per beat. Therefore, incorporating this rhythm into your song, groove or next ..read more

     I get a lot of new students that are interested in learning jazz guitar. Across the board, my first piece of advice to them is almost always the same: listen to jazz. This seems almost so obvious that it need not be stated. One would assume that if you’ve gone as far as to sign up for jazz guitar lessons, you’re probably already checking out some jazz. Yet I still stress its importance to nearly every new student I get. There’s a common misconception that learning jazz guitar means sitting down and working out all of your modes of the major scale, learning the difference b ..read more

“Music, like all true art, is an experience to be shared, not judged, for blame can not make it worse, as praise can not make it better,” my guitar teacher explained, borrowing from Pat Martino. The next twenty minutes were a blur of one-sided conversation: a mix of eloquently prepared speech and heated ranting, shifting subtly through scenes of anger, disappointment, and hope. I certainly didn’t know what I was getting myself into when I set the whole thing off by remarking, “I hate ‘Blue Bossa’.” I had unwittingly touched on perhaps the most central tenet of the Chuck Underwood teaching phi ..read more

Whether you are a trained vocalist or someone who considers themselves a professional shower singer, singing gives you some sort of release. Perhaps it’s endorphins, adrenaline, a relief of stress, or an overwhelming wave of emotion that you feel when you open up your body to music and use your very own instrument. Being a performer, I have found an urge to sing when I am feeling stressed, sad, extremely happy, or angry. I often write music and sing when I am propelled to by my mental state, (which isn’t the best policy for becoming a song writer) but it helps me connect to whatever I am work ..read more

Let’s do a little experiment. Sit down and close your eyes. Now I want you to think of the hardest piece of music you know. When you are ready, play through that piece in your mind as fast as you can. When you make a mistake, raise your hand and stop. How far did you get? If you are like most people, including myself, you didn’t get very far at all. Possibly a few phrases, but most likely only a couple measures. This exercise, which was shown to me by the electric bass virtuoso Gerald Veasley, illustrates an intriguing point. Let’s think about this. The mistake that happened, which is a mirro ..read more

My introduction to jazz coordination was sort of a trial by fire thing. I was a young student at the Armed Forces School of Music, fresh out of Basic Training, and as green as my uniform concerning anything related to jazz drumming. At my first lesson, the teacher explained how to properly execute a jazz swing beat and the dynamics of each component of that. Not too difficult. Probably the toughest part of that was getting control of my heavy right foot, which up to that point was accustomed to slamming the bass drum on every stroke of whatever Rush song I had learned that week. In jazz, the ..read more