May 11

7 things to do in Melodics on your lunchbreak

by in Melodics, Music

What’s our most precious resource and something you can only spend once?

If you didn’t guess already, the answer is time. It’s rather ironic, that given its fleeting nature, we still tend to spend our time quite casually…

lack-of-time, however, is the #1 reason people give for abandoning their dreams of learning or mastering an instrument. And yet time is the one thing guaranteed it will take to get there!

In reality though, life is filled with plenty of high-priority things — so in our quest for finding that perfect balance, we say that even 5 minutes of music every now and again is better than never at all.

So in the spirit of prime numbers, here’s 7 things the time impaired can do in Melodics that’ll fit in and around just about any other life commitments, ready any time you find yourself with a spare moment or three.

 


 

1. Do a quick session with one of our Daily Warmups or workout exercises.

 

“Melodics

The point of these isn’t about learning anything specific, or playing the notes right as you’re not playing a whole lesson or course. The main thing here is that you’re using your brain differently than you do at other points of your daily life.

You’re limbering up, building your muscle memory and dexterity. You’re just passively getting used to being confident on your instrument, and importantly: you can stop doing a warmup just as easily as it is to start one: whenever you feel like it.
 
Sure, I’ll do something light.
 


 

2. Sneak through a lesson you find difficult!

 

“Playing

It sounds counter-intuitive, but playing a lesson a few grades too hard for you means that your expectations really aren’t going to have you beating yourself up about the inevitable score! Even for seemingly impossibly fast songs, you can slow the track down using Practice Mode to a point where it’s playable.

So what’s the point of this then?

It’s amazing how much simply getting the lay of the land helps set a benchmark for future attempts and how you improve with time. You don’t even have to complete a lesson to benefit from this.

Use the filter settings to search by lesson grade, and pick something a couple of grades higher than where you’d comfortably sit. Give it a quick crack!
 
Umm give me the tough stuff.
 


 

3. Jam over a track on a lesson you’ve nearly or recently completed.

 

Finding Melodics Playground Mode

Look for the unlocked Playground Mode icon on any lesson’s completion screen.

Heaps of musicians record themselves jamming, or free-playing over their compositions to get creative, listen back and evaluate their playing, or to find some sweet-sounding gems they might save for a rainy day.

So mix it up! Don’t feel that using Melodics is all about practise, learning or getting feedback on your ability. It’s really important to just be playing music for the sheer joy of it — and prove to yourself and no-one else that you’ve got a couple of tricks in the bag.

Playground Mode is the perfect way to remove all script, structure and rules and just play whatever you feel like. And the cool thing is you can record and listen back to your last attempt.

You unlock this mode on any lesson you’ve already passed (i.e. getting 1-star or more on it),  so check it out!

 
Jam my last sessions butter.
 


 

4. Shooting 3’s.

 

“Revisit

It’s easy to get caught up in doing something new — but what about those lessons you probably did ages ago and passed? We’re not A+ passed — we mean the stuff you might’ve just scraped by on… But we bet you’d totally smash them out of the park if you tried them again now.

Go on, let’s put a bow on some of those 1- or 2-star lessons with a 3-star performance (or… more?), and show us all that progress you’ve made!

Use the search filter to browse by 1- or 2- stars to find a good lesson.

 
Shooting 3’s.
 


 

5. Make a mix tape.

 

“Make

Remember when you’d spend hours agonising over creating that perfect compilation? Choosing songs to fit on 23-minutes a side, whilst perfectly capturing every nuance of your personality, every agonizing detail of your teenage complexity?

Yeah, na, me neither. These days it’s done in a heartbeat on Spotify anyway. And you can do this in Melodics too: just think of the favourites button as a hot-key for your personal Top 25 (PRO TIP: it doesn’t have to be at your normal workstation, you could even download the Melodics iPad app and make a playlist from anywhere you feel like!)

So one of the best ways you can make your practices faster and more productive is removing the obstacles and being prepared!

Do yourself a favour, and pick some favourites now for practising another time!

 
Create the ultimate session playlist
 


 

6. Baby steps, not marathons.

 

“Just

Lessons and courses are all divided up into component steps.

Not only is it not required for you to complete the lot in one sitting, rather, it’s often better to just stop after the first step, and come back to continue or redo the rest at a later date. Think of it less like a marathon, and more of an enjoyable hike — you’ll still end up going the same distance either way. And hey, Rome wasn’t built in a day…

That’s right, we’re telling you not to finish a lesson — just do the first step.

Spreading lessons out over time helps build habits better — it reinforces repeated behaviour with multi-session structure, rather than 1-offs, doesn’t overload your brain or drain you of energy, and above all bite-sized pieces makes the prospect of success easier to achieve and less labourious.

 
One… small… step for man…
 


 

7. Unplug the friction!

Hands up if when you think about practising, you tend to focus on the effort of setting up instead: clearing off your desk, opening up the app, plugging your instrument in and turning it on, thinking about what genre you want to play, scrolling through and previewing endless lessons? It’s a motivation killer! Remember what we said about 5 minutes every now and then is better than never at all? Let’s make sure then that it’s time well spent: fun, simple and effective.

So here’s something different: you can still play in Melodics without even plugging an instrument in! Regardless of whether you play keys, pads or drums, or what your favourite genre is: rhythm, timing, and dexterity are universal traits foundational to musical confidence (so it’s not just ‘ok’ to try play a different instrument or genre when you’re practising — it’s great for you!)

1) Open up the Melodics app;

2) Choose any simple and easy lesson (tip: browse by low grade), and;

3) Use your laptop’s keyboard or the onscreen UI if you’re on iPad.

 

Here’s some handpicked lessons you can do on a computer keyboard or iPad UI:

 

 

Oct 07

Melodics: Introducing Courses – A New Way To Learn

by in Uncategorized

After months of requests we are proud to announce that our brand new feature Courses is here.

Courses are curated paths through Melodics lessons – covering genres, techniques, musical concepts, and more! We think that this new addition will give users a new way to structure their learning and build skills faster.

courses

Free Courses

Introduction to Melodics 

Get started with Melodics & finger drumming. This course will lead you through a selection of our free content, covering a range of genres & techniques. Start growing your skills, get a feel for what you like… and what you need work on!

Hip Hop Basics

The realness, the foundation. Take a short trip through Hip Hop history covering breaks, boom bap and soulful beats.

Subscriber Only Courses

The Evolution of Hip Hop

From break sampling, golden-era boom bap, and neo-soul, through to future beats, trap, and more – play your way through Hip Hop’s history in this course.

Independent artist

Separating your hands & fingers to play complex arrangement is a huge turning point in getting better at finger drumming – this course walks you through lessons which allow you to build this necessary skill, skipping between genres, BPMs, and exercises.

Off the grid

Put some wonk in it. Part of finger drumming is building up a feeeeeeel for the track – do those hats need to sit back a bit? Would that bassline work better dragging? Play this course and challenge yourself to make it work when it’s not exactly on-grid.

Cue Point drumming for DJs

Flip tracks, create dramatic build ups, and take your DJ set next level. Cue Point drumming is taking off with mixers like the Pioneer S9 and NI Z2 becoming increasingly popular – build the skills you need to master this surprisingly difficult technique.

This is only the beginning with more courses scheduled to arrive in the upcoming weeks. If you have any ideas for a course let us know via the Feedback section in the Melodics app.

 

 

 

 

Jan 19

Practice Mode On Melodics // Melodics Fundamentals

by in Fundamentals

Our most requested feature is finally here. ‘Practice Mode’ has been officially added to our latest release and can accessed by all Melodics users.

In a nutshell ‘Practice Mode’ will be an essential tool to helping you learn harder Melodics lessons faster. This feature will enable you to slow down and speed up the tempo of the lessons before attempting them. What is even cooler is that ‘Practice Mode’ runs on a continuous loop so you can keep practicing over and over without having to press that pesky spacebar.

While ‘Practice Mode’ allows you to slow down the tempo you will still need to complete the lessons at their original BPM to gain points. For a more comprehensive look at the capabilities of ‘Practice Mode’ check out the video below.

Let us know what you think about ‘Practice Mode’ and how it has helped you so far on your Melodics journey. You can do so via the comments section or links below.

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Dec 23

Melodics Fundamentals – New Lesson Screen, Long Notes & ASIO Support

by in Fundamentals

This week we have added some cool new features that will help you navigate and use Melodics even better :)

These features include New Lesson Screen Design, Long Notes and ASIO Support for Windows users. Check out the videos below for a visual look at these features.

New Lesson Screen – Navigate With Ease. No More Scrolling

Metronome Control, Long Notes & ASIO Support For Windows

Like these changes? You will receive them as a part of our latest build. If you have any issues with getting the build feel free to get in touch with us via support@melodics.com

Outside of this send us through any videos of yourself playing Melodics via Instagram, Facebook and now Youtube.

– The Team At Melodics.