The past week was an exciting one for flamenco! International Flamenco Day was Saturday, November 16th. Spanish-born pop star Rosalía, whose musical roots and inspirations lie in flamenco, won Album of the Year and two other awards at the Latin Grammys. And, best of all, Lessonface opened enrollment for our introductory Flamenco Guitar Workshop, starting January 2020.
In case you haven’t heard, Lessonface has several upcoming performance opportunities open to all members of our community. Recitals will be December 3rd and 7th, and you can sign up here. We expect these will feature primarily younger students (children and teens), but any age is welcome.
We asked Lessonface teachers to inspire us with their all-time favorite tips from their own mentors and masters. Here we present the first set of their responses.
Liz Rentas, popular piano teacher, shared the very encouraging tip above from all-time great Thelonius Monk.
Click on each image below to go to the teacher's page and get more great tips from them.
The majority of universities in modern times educate their music students to be classically trained. While this is greatly beneficial to understanding music and creating a solid foundation, it does not focus enough on modern music. By teaching strictly classical, it would sell students short of their full potential and capabilities. Educating students with electronic instruments, modern music theory, and the different aspects of music business is the logical way to ensure musicians are provided with the best education and all the resources necessary to be successful.
You may have noticed sometimes that people can play the same guitar and sound very different from one another, or a player can play a variety of guitars, and still sound like him or herself. This video tutorial explores some techniques that can be used by guitarists to create a signature sound.
Improvisation can sometimes feel daunting, even to the best musicians. Questions like "where should I start?" or "is what I am playing any good?" are indeed uttered far too often, when in fact there is no right or wrong. Everyone is capable of improvising (we all do it in speech for example), but even so, blockages often remain when put on the spot in a musical situation that requires “in the moment” creativity. So how does one go about asserting her/himself musically?
01:17 - Introducing the chord shapes we'll use for the exercise, Maj7 and min7
03:01 - The secret of the exercises
03:22 - Explaining exercise 1
04:00 - Exercise 1 demo
06:42 - The concept for exercise 2 based on the blues scale
8:27 - Introducing the new shapes for exercise 2
We are now in the middle of our October Self Sufficient Flutist online workshop and I’m offering you a very special discount to join us and check it out!
Do you want to learn more about harmony, improvisation, articulation and how to become more self sufficient?
Join our great community with flutists tuning in from all over the world to learn together and from each other in a warm and welcoming environment.
¡Hola! My name is Jacob and I’ll be your instructor for Kickstart Spanish on Lessonface.
I have a BA and MA in Hispanic literatures and cultures and recently earned my PhD in Spanish Literatures and Cultures from Rutgers University this year. I have worked with students from ages 10-60 and enjoy teaching them all.
I’m extremely excited to have this course and I’m really looking forward to meeting you all as participants in the course. The purpose of this is to get comfortable speaking Spanish.
