Introducing Playing Music For Fun with Greg Dixon

The inspiration for Playing Music For Fun is the sense that many people of all ages have always wanted to play and sing, but have been discouraged by criticism or are unsure where to start.

I believe that musical ability is an innate human ability that can be nurtured throughout one’s life.

While there are tremendous resources available now to learn and make music, there is room for some simple encouragement and some strategies to get going with playing music for your own enjoyment and some insights into how musicians can play with each other even when they don’t know each other or know what songs they will play next.

This applies to friends jamming and top musicians stepping into a recording session.

I aim to show the building blocks and spirit of fun experimentation that can lead to a lifetime of joy with music.

My musical adventure includes playing drums and bass professionally. I also play guitar and sing my own songs, as well as a few favourites.

I am also learning keyboards and aspire to be one of those magicians on stages and in studios that play piano, organ, strings, percussion, and other sounds to create comprehensive musical expressions.

How Music Works

I will use the piano keyboard to explain how notes combine to create melodies and chords.

The piano keyboard provides a visual representation of how Western music works.

Anyone, at any age, can start playing the white keys to make music. The emphasis is on joyful play.

The same musical ideas apply to other instruments, such as guitar, mandolin, violin, cello, bass, woodwind, percussion, and brass.

The piano is both a string instrument and a percussion instrument.

A MIDI keyboard can be ANY instrument or sound.

The playing mechanics of various instruments differ, but the musical ideas remain the same.

Also, musicality is mostly about rhythm, touch, and style—things that apply to all instruments, including singing.

Blog Posts and Emails

I have a growing list of topics to write and present that will appear as blog posts, live streams, and podcasts.

I will also send the articles to the mailing list or some inbox fun.

Complete this fun survey about your musical activities and aspirations to join the mailing list:

Here are some topics:

• You Were Born Musical
• Your Body is a Musical Wonderland
• You Can Drum On Anything
• Exploring Notes and Chords
• Exploring Music With An Inexpensive Portable Keyboard.
• A Chart Showing Almost Everything You Need To Know About Music
• Chord Progressions For Most Music.
• Karaoke Magic When You Want Musical Accompaniment.
• Endless Resources On YouTube.
• Reviews of Books and Programs for Learning Music.
• How I Prepare For A Gig With A Setlist.
• Leadsheets.
• Interviews and Profiles.

Printable Book

I am working on a book in a format suitable for printing with charts and illustrations that you can put in a binder.

Online and In-Person Music Experience Funshops

I am working on ways to create a fun music experience for people in-person and in virtual sessions.

Join Singing For Fun at https://playingmusicforfun.com/

Greg Dixon, Chief Fun Enabler
Shared Visions Unlimited

Come learn more about Shared Visions Unlimited at https://sharedvisions.com/

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:02

Morning, everyone. This is Greg Dixon from Shared Visions of the Limited, also playing Musicforfun.com. And uh today I'm gonna talk about my new project, which is called Playing Music for Fun. It's a website at playingmusicforfun.com. And uh they're gonna let you know why I created this thing. I've been a musician. I've been uh playing, I'm gonna make a case that I think everybody's been musical since from birth or even before birth, but I've been playing the drums and I've been playing bass uh with people at various levels, like totally for myself at uh amateur levels and also at professional levels. I play guitar, play some of my own songs, working on keyboard and uh piano for a while too. And um, you know, I sort of I think every musician, no matter what level they're at, they think of themselves as a student. There, it's a lifelong learning adventure, and uh and it and it can be a lot of fun, it can be a lot of work. So one of the things I realized is there are a couple of things. One is um there are quite a few people in the various seniors groups that I've been working with have expressed an idea, something like I always wanted to play music, learn how to play an instrument, but I I either I don't have any talent or have I don't know where to start or how to get going, or maybe they've taken lessons, piano lessons, or some other lessons and got discouraged by it. So they're they're sort of stuck. So my one of my main missions here is to get people unstuck and just get them uh encouraged. I'll be the chief cheerleader to just let people know that it's in them to be musical and to just to go with it and have some joy, have some fun playing music. The other thing is I get up, I get up and play the drums, and I get up and play bass with various people, and often I don't even know what songs they're gonna play. Somebody picks a song and we get off and play, and uh at sometimes the only thing we know is somebody will say it's uh it's in it's in a key like C or G or A. Um and my joke is I always play my drums are tuned to G Demented, but that's another story, and uh and we get going. And and so if people don't really know how music works, they wonder at that. And anyway, so I I've often got up and said, uh, it says, I know nothing, so I can play anything. And I realize that's not totally true. I know uh some of the fundamentals of how music works, how rhythm works, how style works, all that kind of thing. And so part of my mission is is one, I'm going to encourage you to to explore and have some fun with whatever instrument you want to do, um singing, whatever it is just to get going. And then also I'm gonna provide some of the basics is how to get going with things. There's some, unlike 40 years ago, there are tons of resources, tons of courses, tons of opportunities, lots of things online in order to help. And I'm gonna do reviews of some of those because some of those are could really help you take your plane to the next level. But I'm gonna try to fill in the gap from people for people who've really just want to learn something and they don't know where to start, or they just want to get over the anxiety about playing. So, so just have just to have some fun. Like so the the people who really go to the moon are often you hear about them as child prodigies. Well, you know, they get up and they get you know, they've got a piano in the house or some kind of instrument, and they just pick it up and they experiment with it and play with it, and then they just learn more and then then they're amazing. So that can be you, you know, and it doesn't matter, you don't have to, you know. If you all you want to do is be able to play music for your own enjoyment, great. If you want to learn how to play with other people, I can help you with that. And um let's just have some fun with it. I'm just gonna show you the website a bit here. Um, it's it's at playing musicforfun.com. And let's see here. Yeah, so there's there's uh there's a young girl that's and I I I'm gonna suggest that we were trying to encourage the inner child and all of us to come out and just play. Because um uh Julie Blue is in a choir for with her for years, and she said when she would go in, go into uh elementary school and talk about music and talk about singing, she would ask how many people uh sang, and virtually everybody in the everybody in the class would put up their hand and say they sang. And then she'd go into a high school and she'd ask the same question, and nobody would put their hand up. So it's you know, somewhere in between, uh, people got discouraged. And so I don't think there's any reason for it. Um and just just just just to go. So so some of my this is really early days. I've got an intro page, and then I went through um uh there's here this called uh my plans. If you want to go see what my plans are for all this, uh mostly uh I I want to have fun. I'm gonna probably two or three times, maybe four times a week, as I'm inspired, I'll write an article like this, um, and I'll do a broadcast like this. And um, you know, maybe even this will show up as a podcast, and I could send it out to an email to people who are interested. And uh and every topic will be first of all, most of them will be encouraging you to to give it a go. And also um, I think I can provide some insights about how music works to help you get going. Again, that's um playing music uh for fun.com. And there's a place here down here, there's a button here. And uh if you click on that, it'll ask you a few things about you know what your music experience is. Like do you sing in the car? Do you you know tap along? Um, do you play an instrument? Have you taken lessons? Any of those things? Uh um my my my uh biased opinion here is that everybody has is musical in some way and have been born that way. And uh even though you don't miss necessarily think about it, I think you're probably doing music activities already. So um if you join in there as a little survey, and then you'll end up in the list, a mailing list. And so when I post a new thing, like uh um I've got I've got an article in mind called uh Hear Body is a Musical Wonderland, because you can you can you you can vocalize, you can tap on your body, you can do all sorts of things without having any other instrument. I think sometimes the mechanics of the instruments get in the way. I'm also going to I'm gonna use the keyboard, the piano keyboard, in order to explain how the notes are related to each other and things like chords and chord progressions, because the piano is the easiest tool for that, because it uh it it really, there we go. The whole almost the way of the way Western music works is visually represented in the way the way the keys are organized on the keyboard. Anyway, so that's um all I'm gonna do for now. I'm just gonna say um go visit the website, go playing playing for musicforfun.com, and uh playing musicforfun.com, um, check it out and and join the mailing list. You can always unsubscribe at any time. Uh eventually I'm going to create a uh a printable book that you can download and print with things like I have a chart that's coming up that allows you to play as say the guitarist or bass player to play almost with anybody if you understand how that chart works. And uh and it's something you can download and print. And I've got a few other things that you can put in a binder, and that's that's coming up in a while. So um, anyway, that's all for now, and um just have fun.

SPEAKER_01 8:27

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