Happy Friday to you! Here's the Friday 5. You can also check it out on the website to see videos, listen to the music, and comment if you'd like. You can also reply directly to this email and say hi :) GUITAR You know that cool melody at the beginning of Under the Sea (Little Mermaid)? You can totally play it. SONG Distance - Emily King BOOK Improvisation: Methods and Techniques for Music Therapy Clinicians, Educators, and Students by Tony Wigram. This is a great book, I'm currently re-reading it.…
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Greetings! It's Friday and I'm bringing back the Friday 5 weekly installment. It's an email that shares 5 cool things I'm using, thinking about, listening to, etc. So here we go! Instrument: Skoog music interface. I've been using this with patients who have limited mobility to work toward improving motor skills. It also provides for increased accessibility to creative expression. I love that I can adjust the sensitivity of the instrument in the software. App: Evernote. I'm currently typing in Evernote and it helps me organize almost everything. Photos, business…
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In today's post, I'm entering an area that can, on the surface, seem a bit "woo woo". (How did new age-y things ever get that name, anyway?) I'm exploring the practice of visualization and how it can help us as musicians, students, educators, therapists, and human beings. First of all, what is visualization? I was first introduced to it as a practice in middle school athletics. We would be on the bus traveling to a football/basketball/wrestling/track event, and our coaches would silence the bus and have us visualize the contest…
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Improvements on guitar, like many things, occur in baby steps. We get better little by little. Big leaps are rare, although they do sometimes happen. But we can’t expect them to. We have to get better each day, even if progress is barely noticeable. Image is in the Public Domain. A key skill is being able to recognize: where you want to go, what the steps are leading up to it, and acknowledging when progress has been made. Having a strict timeline can help, but it can also hurt as it…
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What are you playing for you? As music therapists, we make a lot of music for other people. It’s what we signed up for and it’s immensely fulfilling. When is the last time you made music for fun? For yourself? For your own expression and well-being? I know that some of you do this regularly. For you it’s necessary. Maybe you play in a band, perform at open mics, or strum your favorite tunes in your office after hours. I just saw two fellow Bay Area musicians rock out at…
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It's a question I get often. And it's a question I sometimes answer without being asked :-) Check out the video below: The strings I use: The long-lasting Elixirs: The disclaimer: If you buy these strings using my link, a small portion of the sale will help support Music Therapy Source. It doesn't change the cost of the strings at all! :-)
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I know that many of us use finger picking patterns on a regular basis. It gives us some dynamic control and provides some nice movement in our music. Every now and again it's good to check in on technique. Are our movements as efficient as they could be? Here is a video about technique and a couple simple patterns you can employ to work on improving your finger picking skills: If you're interested in learning more, please check out the Guitar Club!
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Are you tired of feeling s0-so on the guitar? Are you ready for a confidence boost? You can improve your clinical guitar skills, you can do it with me, and you can start now. Over the past few weeks, I've been working behind the scenes to put together a new resource. Some of you may have already seen this, as I had somewhat of a "soft" launch that involved some emails going out. So: this is the official announcement for the Guitar Club! I do a lot of private teaching, conference…
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Excited to share the first Matt Logan Music podcast :) Listen here or subscribe on iTunes. If you like it, please leave a review! Find the show notes by clicking on the post below. http://mattloganmusic.com/podcast-episode-1-music-emotion-and-memory-with-amy-belfi/
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