Learn Music as an Adventure of Discovery

Imagine you’re in this amazing laboratory for music.

There are all kinds of musical instruments set up around the lab, and you can pick up any of them and play the instrument, wherever your curiosity takes you.

And as you play any of those instruments, a screen shows you the musical notes you are playing, complete with flats, sharps, naturals, double-sharps, and double-flats.

And better yet, you don’t have to develop stamina in your lip muscles to play any of the instruments. Whatever you play, will have a good tone, and a good vibrato sound. There’s no “blatt blatt” or “squeek squeek” phase. And it never gets out-of-tune.

You don’t have to learn a complicated fingering on a complex system of keys – you’re using a computer keyboard, which you’re already used to using, to play the notes. And the note-keys already have labels on them.

You don’t have to do a lot of exercises to learn how to play in all the different key-signatures. With each instrument you play, you simply set the key-signature, so you can play your favorite pieces of music right away.

As you try playing different things, your guide briefly explains the underlying music theory. You learn musical concepts as you play music, a little at a time, with no need to read chapters on music theory.

There are drum-kits around the room, and you are welcome to pound on any of 47 different kinds of drums. Nobody will complain – if you like the sound you make, it’s good.

Just as people don’t teach language to a baby by first learning to read, you learn music by playing it. And making up your own music is surprisingly easy, because the chords you play guide you, and give structure to your melody notes. The first-choice chords you select, themselves are tailored to fitting the melody notes of the scale.

Only after you gain confidence in playing your own music, do you start to wander among the displays showing you how to read music. And you start out by matching the pitch of the notes in easy pieces you already know how they go (the rhythm).

Your guide shows you how to collect your own group of the instruments from those set up around the room, into a group where you can change from playing one of that group of instruments, to playing another instrument of the group in less than a second.

You are invited to make up your own music to go along with the music played by your guide. The music you play along with, is relaxed, and easy going, so you don’t get flustered trying to keep up.

Your guide shows you how to play all the complicated chords you will run into in popular music, and you don’t need to learn the notes of the chords. You just choose from the chords shown that fit the key-signature, selecting and sometimes modifying them, then playing them.

Toward the end of the room, you learn how the shape of a note (or rest) tells you how long the note (or rest) lasts, so you can figure out how to play a piece of music you aren’t familiar with.

At the end, you learn how to count-out rhythms in written music, with tricks to help you in doing that.

As you finally leave the room, at the end, you find that you get to keep the room – it’s yours! You can go there any time, though you now seldom need a guide, as you wander the paths of the wide world of music.

Welcome to the Music-Lab Discovery Lessons, that come with the KeyMusician Keyboard.

We created a series of video lessons for learning music as an adventure of discovery, and the configuration files that make them possible, come with every modern copy of the KeyMusician Keyboard application.

You don’t have to take our word for it – check out the first lesson of the series, without having to buy anything, by clicking the link below:

Music-Lab Discovery Lessons

Give it a try. You don’t have to be a kid to learn music, and you don’t have to do a bunch of school-work. It’s easy, and natural. Learn by doing!

Here is a synopsis of what’s in the course:

Lesson 1. Play Chords & Melody In 5 Minutes

Learn the basics of playing the instrument, and how to make up your own music with it, playing both chords and melody, together. Do this without having to read a single note of written music.

Lesson 2. Playing Modal Chords (Basic)

Learn the basics of playing chords using the modal chords system, which is best for making up your own music.

Lesson 3. Learn To Play Tunes From MIDI Files

An easy first step to learning written music, by playing MIDI music files, where it shows you the note to play, both in the music display, and also the keyboard note to press.

Lesson 4. Play Chords And Melody From Printed Music

Learn to play written music simply by matching the round part of the note (the note-head) with the note-heads shown in the music display. See how easy that can be with the KeyMusician Songbook, where the letter-keys are shown in the music. Play an easy piece, along with its chords.

Lesson 5. Banging On Drums!

Explore the Drums pane of the KeyMusician Keyboard, trying out the 48 different drum and percussion sounds. Learn how to easily play drum-rolls by holding down the drum’s key for as long as you want it to last. Explore the different drum-kits available, and see which you like best.

Lesson 6. Exploring The Sounds Of MusicLab-1

Explore the different sounds of the MusicLab-1 configuration file, improvising music with each of them. Learn how to use the Wah-Wah (pitch-bender) key.

Lesson 7. Playing Modal Chords (Advanced)

Learn the advanced details of playing modal chords, including rare chords, and slash-chords. Learn to do it in any key-signature.

Lesson 8. Exploring The Sounds Of MusicLab-2

Explore the different sounds of the MusicLab-2 configuration file, improvising music with each of them. Learn to play strummed chords, and arpeggios, in addition to the sustained chords you’ve been using up to now.

Lesson 9. Choose Your Own Sounds

Learn how to set up a configuration file of your own favorite instrument sounds. See how choosing the chords instrument is the first, and most important part of that process. Save your configuration so you can use it any time.

Lesson 10. Controlling The Volume

Learn the basic ways of controlling the volume as you play, allowing you to blend your music with that of other members of the band. Learn the different means you use during a sound-check before you perform, and the changes you make as you play. Learn the different ways of controlling loudness in MIDI music.

Lesson 11. Improvising With The Music Of Others

Learn how to improvise your own music, along with the music of others. This is an essential skill in having a jam-session with other musicians, and in helping your band make up its own, original, music.

Lesson 12. Playing Tunes From Written Music

Learn to play tunes from written music, entirely by the position of the note-head in the staff lines. Learn to do that, by how far you reach with your fingers, from the current note to the next note in the music. Play two pieces of written music, using that technique.

Lesson 13. Matching The Key-Signature

Learn how important it is to match the key-signature with the written music, before attempting to play the music, and how you do it. This is the action you take, that makes the fingering the same in every key-signature.

Lesson 14. Playing Standard Chords (Basic)

Learn the basics of playing the chords in written music, using the standard-chords system, which is best for playing from written music.

Lesson 15. Playing Standard Chords (Advanced)

Learn how to play the more complex, and rare chords, you will encounter in written music, including slash-chords. Learn about the alternate ways different music publishers use to specify the same chord. Learn the importance of matching the key-signature when playing chords.

Lesson 16. Musical Time, Notes, and Rhythm

Learn about the musical clock, running throughout all music, and about musical time-signatures, and tempos, in written music. Learn how the shape of the note (or rest) tells you the length of the note (or rest). Learn how to count-out the rhythms in written music, using different time-signatures. This lesson tells you the rest of what you need, to play written music you’ve never heard before.

Lesson 17. Dynamics (Volume) in Written Music

Learn the dynamics (loudness and expression) markings in written music. Learn how to play them by changing the chords window to the dynamics window, and controlling the loudness and expression using the numeric keypad.

Lesson 18. Repetition in Music

Learn how written music repeats sections of music, and even skips-around to different places in the music. Learn how to play pieces of music that don’t just go from beginning to end, but repeat, and skip around.

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