“FAQ – Frequently Ask Questions”
about and of the Music Learning Workshop
So you might have a few questions about the Music Learning Workshop. Here are some of the most asked questions we receive and our answers.
What is the Music Learning Workshop?
Workshops and Instructional Materials
Does your material cover teaching specific instruments?
What are the Getting It Down Cold Workshops?
Why is your Music Theory Course different than others?
Do you provide the workshop books in hard copy form?
Learning Music Theory
Why should I learn Music Theory?
Guitar Players Learning Music Principles
Technical Issues
Can I use this on the iPad? and Zip File Download
What is the Music Learning Workshop?
Hi, my name is Brad Chidester, and I created this site as a place to help others learn music theory in a workshop type of methodology. The site has many prinicpals of music in short lesson that can be seen in our theory section.
I also talk a lot about the philosophy of learning music through teaching and learning processes and methods. I am the primarily provider of the content and commentary within the site and hope that you find it of value. As the community grows I hope to add special associates that will contribute to our pursuit of music learning.
Workshops and Instructional Materials
Does your material cover teaching specific instruments?
No, I try to provide some specific instruction from time to time on individual instruments and will be adding some piano related technique in the future. I believe there are many others that do provide good technique on specific instruments. Some of these can be found in our recomended resources section.
The information at this site and the workshops are general music theory, but biased to the piano as that is my main instrument of choice because of the visual aspect in teaching. Also because my main instrument is the piano. However the material is applicable to all instruments because the theory is the foundation of all music.
What are the Getting It Down Cold Workshops?
The Workshops are mini courses I’ve developed based on my fortunate relationship with some really great mentors and teachers. The methods employed in the workshops are based on accelerated learning and teaching methods. I talk about many of these aspects in my writing on the site and the blog.
Getting It Down Cold comes from experiencing the jazz scene and realizing that you have to now your theory down cold in order to be able to play with those folks. My goal was to make it possible to advance the beginning student with the basic theory to the point they could start to play in that arena.
Why is your Music Theory Course different than others?
As I stated above about the workshops it’s based on accelerated learning of music theory and then to be able to accomplish in less than one year what would take 3 to 5 years of regular study. The complete workshop series in one package is a 24 lesson based program to get you to a level of knowledge that your playing will be much faster than you thought possible. The course is now being offered as a monthly subscription for 12 months.
Do you provide the workshop books in hard copy form?
No, I’ve been struggling with publication because the way in which I layout the books with color and formatting the printed version could easily add US$100 or more to the cost. If I compromise on format, size and color, I can more than half that cost, but feel that the course would lose its quality and value.
I am still pursuing an avenue to print, but the demand has not been sufficient enough to go that way,yet.
Learning Music Theory
Why should I learn Music Theory?
I write about this at the blog and in the site. The short answer. Would you expect to play in a professional sport team without learning the rules of the game? Music is a sport and requires not only honing your natural abilities, building new skills, but also learning the basis of structure which will let you become a great musician and be able to play with other like minded artists.
Sure I’ve seen some naturals out there, but 90% of us aren’t that good. Learn what music is from the ground up and you’ll have a skill that you can use for life. On second thought it will be a study for life as well. But I digress.
Technical Issues
Can I use this on the iPad? Zip file download.
Yes, the files are pdf and can be read on the iPad.
The majority of the course materials download as a zip file. In order to use that on an Ipad you need the iZip application. This application also works with the dropbox app and is an easy way to download, unzip and have the files on your computer later.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/izip-zip-unzip-unrar-tool/id413971331?mt=8
Some parts are delivered in pdf format, so using the iPad you have to download and save to one of you reading programs, like iBooks.
Will update as we get more questions
That’s it for now We’ll update the FAQ list as more questions come in.
