Music Lessons in Burbank CA | Los Angeles Music Teachers

Can’t play a convincing shuffle? You might as well cross a whole range of potential gigs off your bucket list. Shuffles play a crucial role in every professional drummer’s vocabulary, and those still struggling to get the hang of this particular feel might be surprised to learn there’s a lot more to it than meets the eye. 


Shuffles can lightly bounce behind a track or drive like a freight train, and everything in between. You may be content knowing a handful of basic patterns, but there are dozens of types of shuffle grooves that can help you develop greater control and coordination while expanding your fluency. So let’s take your shuffle to the next level.

WHAT IS A SHUFFLE?
As you dig deep into shuffle pedagogy, you’ll find that they’re sometimes written as triplets in 4/4 and other times as 12/8. So, to help you adjust to this idea, we’ve presented the following examples both ways—in either case, they’re more or less equivalent. I’ll refer to both patterns as being counted as 1 & ah 2 & ah 3 & ah 4 & ah because it’s easier to count them that way, even though my music theory teacher would slap my wrists for that.

Shuffles generally sound like a child skipping, with a cymbal pattern playing the pattern 1 – ah 2 – ah 3 – ah 4 – ah. However, as you’ll soon see, there are countless variations on this idea. Sometimes the feet play the shuffle, or it’s divided among several limbs, or occasionally it’s just implied.

GETTING STARTED

For those new to shuffles, we’ll start with a few blues beats that aren’t technically shuffles, but will help you get used to the feel of triplet-based beats. These grooves are written in 6/8, and since they’re shorter, they’re easier to master. Practice each slowly until it becomes comfortable, and then try speeding up the tempo. 

Keep your snare and bass drum medium strong, and play your hi-hat softer using the tip to create a musically balanced sound. Once you’re comfortable with these, you can link pairs together to create longer and more interesting patterns. The second line has some simple shuffles. 

When playing these on the ride cymbal, you may close your hi-hat with the snare note. The third line is trickier. To master these, play the unaccented snare notes very softly. More advanced drummers can expand these by buzzing or playing soft drags instead of ghost notes for different textures. Feel free to add variations on the cymbal, foot, or snare patterns to spice up any shuffle once you’re comfortable playing it.

At the end of the day, singing is a physical process. It requires precision movements from your entire body. Because of this, singers need to take just as much care of their voices before they sing as when they’re singing.

Have you ever been to the gym and had a great workout but felt really sore the following day? Or perhaps you’ve been on a run with a friend and gone to bed that night with a clicking knee? Stretching can prevent the athlete from unnecessary damage and pain. Stretching your voice is just as critical. 
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Here are some of the best reasons why you should take the time to condition your voice with regular warmups. 

Warmups bring you right up to your best voice.
You may have noticed that some days you can sing all night without a problem. Other days, you might wear out by the second or third song. You may even have noticed that some days you can hit that high note, but other days it’s a stretch to come near it. You may find that you’re able to sing lower notes in your range at the end of the day than you can in the morning.

All of this can be worked through ahead of time by warming up your voice prior to a recording session or performance. And if you record at home, it’s much easier to notice how your vocal strength improves day by day by listening back to the recordings you make.

By gradually putting your voice through its paces, you’re able to loosen it up and get your blood circulating through all the different parts that make up your voice box. This gives you access to all the different abilities you have as a vocalist. By warming up, you don’t have to wait around for a “good voice day” to happen.

Warmups grow your skills as a singer.
Think of warming up as exercising for your voice. What happens to your voice when you warm up is actually similar to what happens to athletes’ muscles when they stretch and exercise.

Here’s a simplified explanation. Warmups prepare you for the intense vibrations that come along with singing. Controlled, steady vocal exercises will increase acid in the muscles surrounding your vocal folds, which helps those muscles do their jobs more effectively.

One of these jobs includes interacting with a tendon in your throat. When that tendon is properly engaged, it’ll stretch, giving you more flexibility and control over your voice.

When you properly and regularly exercise your voice, you build upon your abilities and become a much more effective singer.

Warmups help you sing healthily without damaging your voice.
Remember all that stuff above about the muscle and tendon? If there’s a high or loud note you can’t sing right away, forcing yourself to do it can strain your voice. You could literally pull a muscle or give yourself tendonitis. Ouch! Not worth it.

Have you ever tried to push through a long set on a “bad voice day” and felt tired and sore at the end of the night? Perhaps your speaking voice was mostly gone?

Vocal warmups before a show prepare your voice for the strenuous activity that is singing. It may seem counterintuitive. “How does singing before I sing make me less tired from singing?!” This is because warmups are a controlled, steady way of singing that doesn’t stress your voice out.

Warmups prepare your voice for the vocal event that is singing. When you sing something challenging in a performance without adequately warming up, you run the risk of damaging your voice and really hurting yourself.

When should you warm up?
Ideally, you should warm up every day. And if you’re not already, you should start slow. Do some simple exercises for 20 minutes every morning. Don’t try to belt out that high C just yet — you’ll need to work yourself up to that.

Remember, warmups help grow and unlock the skills that you already have. If you don’t have a regular warmup routine, it’s wise to consult a voice teacher and build one together so that you approach the exercises correctly.

These exercises should also be done the day of any strenuous vocal activity. If you have a show in the evening, warm up in the morning, then again an hour or so before the show. If you’re a public speaker, you’ll want to warm up ahead of your presentation as well.

Choose your favorite warmups and then make sure you’re practicing correctly.
If you’re familiar with vocal warmups, this will serve as a great reminder of what you already know. If you’ve never warmed up a day in your life, I highly recommend getting in touch with a teacher to properly lead you through your exercises.

Relax.
Relaaaax. Inhale, exhale. Good, healthful singing starts from a relaxed body. Do what you need to do to loosen yourself up — within reason, of course!

Some singers like to start their day with a hot shower and a lukewarm mug of licorice root tea. Feel all your tension melting away and your muscles becoming looser.

Practice proper breathing.
Proper breathing for singing is the way we breathe when we lay down. You want to imagine your chest is filling with air from the bottom of your lungs, up. Imagine a glass filling with water; the water fills the bottom first, then rises to the top.

To exhale, reverse it — empty your lungs from the top down. It will feel a bit unnatural at first, but you’ll become accustomed to breathing this way. This is how you breathe deeply.

Release tension in your neck.
The quickest way to damage your voice is to sing with tension. When you’re singing any note, you want to make sure your neck looks soft and relaxed. Sing in front of a mirror and watch your neck. Does it tense up? Can you see veins and ligaments protruding out at certain notes? Be mindful of where you’re feeling tension.

Your neck should look the same when you’re singing as it does when you’re not singing. This is true for softly sung songs as well as big belters. Although, if you’re screaming to heavy metal every night, I’m not sure there’s much you can do about those veins.

Stand up straight.
There’s a correct way to stand when singing. Straight! Don’t allow your shoulders to hunch. Plant your feet firmly on the ground, shoulder-width apart.

Now, imagine there’s a string that winds all along your spine and comes out the top of your head. Imagine yourself pulling that string and straightening out your spine, your neck, and lastly, your head. Your chin should not dip or rise, but be level with the floor. You’re ready to sing!

Pace yourself, and enjoy your newly warmed-up voice.​
Vocal warmups should be challenging the same way that going to the gym is challenging. You should leave feeling better than when you came. One crucial difference, though, is that vocal warmups should not leave you feeling sore. A good exercise will have you feeling ready to sing anything!

Why Singers Should Take Piano Or Guitar Lessons In Person And Online

Singers, you are musicians. Often times we are lost in the solo world of performance and emotive expression through sound, which is awesome. But we are complete musicians and expected to be, and definitely respected much more so, when we act as such.

Solo performers are at somewhat a disadvantage when they show up at rehearsals with other kinds of musicians, a band, an orchestra, back up singers, or a pianist. We need to keep time so that people can play with us. We need to be able to follow a conductor during a staged performance. We need to be able to count.

And that is where piano or guitar lessons will do you some good. Learning to really read music, for real; rests, quarter notes, time signatures, key signatures, key changes, dynamics, tempo markings, minor, major, harmony, theory and songwriting etc...

And number one, being able to learn your part spot on, by yourself correctly, even when it is hard.

May we suggest you sign up for some piano or guitar lessons? We have been teaching and working in the profession for over 20 years. 

We love to teach the piano and guitar at Los Angeles Music Teachers with a passion because it works a different part of your brain than a voice lesson. It always feels like completing a complicated math test after a good lesson and that is great for us. I am sure our piano/guitar students feel that way as well.

Also, what is fantastic about piano and guitar is that you can really track your improvement by completing levels of music so you know you are getting better.

Singing is more complicated. You have to be born with a certain amount of talent beyond your control. Lessons are important and help so much in singing, but it is different than piano playing. (You do need a certain amount of natural talent to be a concert pianist/guitarist of course- I am not referring to that).

So consider putting learning the piano/guitar on your list of things to do to further your singing level. We can not tell you as a singer how many times it came in handy for me to be able to pluck out my parts, or play the harmonies with my part so we could practice singing against them. Piano/guitar especially helped me out of college because we are able to teach voice lessons.

As much as every budding violinist would love to pick up their instrument and begin playing beautiful music, the work required to get there is much more mudane. Every breathtaking performance requires strategic and focused warm up exercises beforehand. These routines help develop and maintain your basic violin skills as well as gear for more advanced techniques too. 

For beginners, it may be difficult to know even where to start; after all, everything seems to need work. However, using the beginning of each practice session for a warm up will optimize each days result and pave the way for strong playing for months and years to come. 

Although warm up excursuses will vary from person to person based on the advice of your violin teacher, there are certain exercises that can benefit everyone. Here are five beginner violin tips that will help you grasp the fundamentals.

1. Long Open Strings

Playing long open strings does several things: it lets your practice consistent intonation from each stroke, it allows you to become familiar with your bows weight and speed across the strings and lastly, it helps ensure that your bow remains in the proper location on the strings in relation to the bridge. Look into a mirror and place the bow on the string in the proper point and pull the bow across the string, listening for a clear, clean and consistent note. As you play, continually check in the mirror for your bows contact point. Repeat at least five up and down bows before moving on to the next string.

2. Finger Placement

Correct finger placement is essential for playing the right notes on the violin, and to learn this correctly, you must practice! One of the tried and true beginner violin tips is to play simple scales in first position. This trains your finger to understand where they belong on the fingerboard in relation to other fingers, and it trains your ear to hear each note as it should be played. To practice, pick any scale, and play each note slowly, separately and precisely. Always play with a tuner so that you can tweak your fingers placement for a proper intonation. 

3. Fourth Finger Practice

Placing your fourth finger on a string creates the same note as the subsequent higher open string. Some beginner violinists use the open string to play the note because it is much easier and you know that the note will be correct. However, as you advance, there will be times where you cannot access the open string to play the note, or it is much less efficient to do so. Therefore, you need to strengthen your pinky finger! Start by playing the open string, then mimic the note using your pinky on the lower string about five times for each string. Listen carefully - does the fourth finger note match that of the open string? Don’t get discouraged if its difficult to even stretch your pinky at first - it will take time for it to gain strength and flexibility

4. Slurs

A slur allows you to play two or more notes in a single bow stroke. To do this, start by placing the end of your bow close to the frog on the string. As you slowly but steadily bring your bow across the strings, place and then remove your first finger in the proper place while keeping your bow straight. Also, make sure that you place your finger on and off the strings at regular intervals - using a metronome will help. Start with two notes per stroke.

5. String Crossing

The final of the beginner violin tips is the ability to make a clean change from string to string while playing. Keep your elbow at a right angle to form a square - include the bow and trace an imaginary line from your shoulder to prove where the bow hair touches the string. Rock the bow to each string while practicing your long bow strokes. Make sure that your arm and bow remains in the same plane and use the natural weight of your arm on each string.

Because these warm up exercises set the tone for your practice session and for your learning overall, always perform them with focus and intent. They don’t need to take long, a dedicated five or 10 minutes should be fine. If you are unsure of what to practice or how to practice, ask your violin instructor for some violin tips - they have the knowledge and experience to guide you in the right direction

If you're interested in taking Violin lessons on Zoom or In Person in Burbank, Glendale or North Hollywood, we have some of the  best Violin lessons in Los Angeles. Our violin instructors are picked by interviewing hundreds of violin instructors and we have really high standards on both their teaching ability as well as their personality. If you'd like to talk to one of our instructors or set up a first lesson we have a guarantee that if you don't absolutely love your first lesson you don't have to pay for it. Please contact us at (818)902-1233 or on our website at https://www.losangelesmusicteachers.com/online-violin-lessons-in-burbank-ca.html​

Top 10 guitar styles to learn online with Los Angeles music teachers 
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Several cultures have managed to influence the way the guitar is played in times gone by. Today, there are various ways of playing the guitar. Learners need to understand the various playing styles available so as to be able to choose a suitable guitar style. It is highly recommended to avoid monotonous tendencies by learning various styles of play. Undoubtedly, you stand to gain more impressive recognitions among friends and colleagues when you learn to play in varying guitar styles. 

Interestingly, the guitar space is so diversified to the extent that players can colorfully create their own styles by simply learning more musical scales and techniques. Here are some of the top styles to learn on guitar to help you improve your own playing skill.

Rock
The electric guitar is mainly used to create the rock music style it features a typical 4/4 beat that is influenced by country, rhythm, and blues, and blues music. 

Rhythm 
Learners will need to understand how to support a vocalist with the right beat when playing the rhythm guitar. 

Percussive 
Of all top styles to learn on guitar, the percussive could be the most challenging as it requires lots of practice to master. Aside from playing on the strings, players will need to learn how to produce percussive sounds by hitting the body of the guitar with their nails, finger edge or palm. 

Lead 
Virtually any type of guitar can be used to play a solo and practice several other techniques for lead improvisations. 

Jazz
Typically characterized by improvisations and polyrhythms, swing and blue notes, this is an independent art form of music that can be purely instrumental. When playing on a jazz guitar, it important for learners to understand its complicated chord structures. 

Folk
Anyone can pick up a folk guitar to play in a piece of folk music as it doesn’t require any form of professionalism. All you need to do is to flow along with the story that is sung about common people. 

Flamenco
Flamenco features a vigorous Spanish style of play that involves fast and dynamic movements. Playing the flamenco guitar can provide the groove to the dancer by establishing percussive hits through a distinct picking pattern. 

Slide 
Learning to play the slide guitar will also require you to learn how to change pitch with the slide instrument. 

Bluegrass
Originating from the southern United States, this unique style of country music features a happy spirited, fast tempo that is supported with a resonating guitar on the bass line. 

Blues
Often performed over a repetitive harmonic pattern, blues is a melancholic style of music that features a simple chord progression presented in a slow sad manner. During musical performances, the guitarist often serves as the main point of focus.

If you're interested in taking Guitar lessons on Zoom or In Person in Burbank, Glendale or North Hollywood, we have some of the  best guitar lessons in Los Angeles. Our guitar instructors are picked by interviewing hundreds of guitar instructors and we have really high standards on both their teaching ability as well as their personality. If you'd like to talk to one of our instructors or set up a first lesson we have a guarantee that if you don't absolutely love your first lesson you don't have to pay for it. Please contact us at (818)902-1233 or on our website at https://www.losangelesmusicteachers.com/online-guitar-lessons-in-burbank-ca.html​