Alexa Terry: Amy Walton, you’re originally from Cape Town in South Africa. You’ve lived in London, you’ve performed in Paris, you now live in Toronto so you’re quite the jet setter. Is there a place that you visited though that has trumped all the others?

Amy Walton: I’m going to shout out to my hometown because I think Cape Town is still the most beautiful place I’ve ever been.

You know, so I’ve visited quite a few places, performed quite a few places, but I would say nothing has ever impressed me, I would say, as much as Cape Town, which is actually quite irritating because I feel like I’m constantly trying to find a new version of Cape Town. I thought that Toronto had mountains.

I got confused with Vancouver, but Toronto is very lovely. But I would say my experience living in Toronto has been really lovely because Even though I kind of didn’t do much performing here and I started doing more coaching and stuff. I love living in downtown, all the little markets and cafes and everything.

And I felt like I couldn’t experience that where I was living in London as much. So I would say that Toronto has my heart in that, in that capacity. But yeah, I think one of the coolest experiences performing though was also probably, I forgot about it. I performed in Jordan as well. That was really cool.

It was like an in and out thing, but I just remember thinking it was really beautiful. Yeah. Awesome. So if you had to move to another country, do you have somewhere in mind that you’d like to explore? I think if

I wasn’t bothered by being far from my family, I would love to go visit and maybe live in New Zealand for a while, just because I’m a big Lord of the Rings fan.

It has like everything, mountains, beaches, everything, and it’s you know, it looks really, really beautiful. And they seem to be Maybe decent with their politics. So I need to do some more research, but I think England is calling me and my partner and my, my beautiful baby back home so we can be close to family.

Alexa Terry: Well, welcome Amy to the singing teachers talk podcast. We’re so glad that you’re here to chat with us about musicianship and keyboard skills. And you describe your specialities to include musical literacy and keyboard skills and throughout your career as a voice teacher. How do you think that those things have influenced you or informed you the most?

Amy Walton: To be honest, it’s just made my life a lot easier. I can transcribe accompaniment when there’s no sheet music, or if I just don’t want to pay for it. I can also quickly find the sheet music, you know, so I can search for it online and then I can play it pretty instantly. Once I read it I can transcribe things by ear too.

You know, even if it’s just quickly jotting down the form of a song, like the structure or the chords to help a new singer I can transpose exercises and songs to best accommodate my students ranges. And I think that is probably the thing that’s. The thing that my students have appreciated. One of the, one of the things they’ve appreciated the most is that they know they bring in a song.

If it’s not the right key for them, they know that I have no problem changing it in the lesson. And yeah, I think, especially if they’re used to being like bound by YouTube backing tracks with beautiful MIDI instruments. You know, I think it’s really nice for them also to have that really beautiful, organic experience of playing with your student, like kind of leaning into the musicality with each other.

Yeah. I think that’s really fun. So yeah, I feel really confident accompanying my students, both in a live and a studio setting. I can also record backing tracks for my students. And this is probably one of my favourite things as well. It really helps me bring their original songs or their arrangement ideas to life.

So I really love workshopping original music with students. And yeah, just being able to play the piano just gives that an extra dimension.

Alexa Terry: So what, what sort of students are you working with? Are they from a particular genre of music?

Amy Walton: I think it’s so mixed right now. I’m not currently teaching cause I’m on an extended maternity leave.

But that’s April, 2024. So whenever you’re listening to this, that might not be the case anymore. I can be your teacher. So I spent a lot of my coaching when I was in London, working with university students at the Academy of Contemporary Music. So they were primarily focused on just all ranges of contemporary music.

And then when I moved to Toronto, I started working with a really wide range. A lot of students who. Wanted to get really good at karaoke because karaoke is massive in Toronto. I had quite a few students and they’d be like computer engineers and working. And then one was like on quantum mechanics. And I was like, I don’t even know what that is.

And she was like, but I really want to get better at karaoke. I was like, welcome. And then I had other students that were busy in the process of releasing their own original albums. And then, yeah. So I think it’s been a wide range. I predominantly work with adult students although I do, you know, I enjoy working with kids and they’re very sweet as well.

But yeah, definitely I think my specialty would probably be with older students. You know, all walks of life. It doesn’t really matter what you want to do. I can help them with their goals basically.

Alexa Terry: So do you think Musical literacy and being able to play the piano is more important for the likes of contemporary music compared to something like musical theatre or do you think that actually it’s quite important across board?

Amy Walton: I think this really depends on what your speciality is. Are you going to be a vocal coach for a choir, or maybe you’re working with you know, coaching in terms of more of stage presence and artistry, or you’re doing a voice teaching kind of thing, where it’s really an intricate balancing of vocal function and stuff like that.

I think that that is going to impact the level of literacy and keyboard skills that are going to be Helpful to you. And that’s how I don’t want to say you need it. I want to say that what’s going to be helpful to you as a teacher. So if you were working with a choir, a lot of the time, you will need to be learning to accompany your students like bashing out their parts and everything.

So you’re going to need to be proficient enough. at being able to do that if you are working with classical students who maybe have a very strict classical syllabus and you can’t just kind of wing your way through the accompaniment, you actually need to play what’s on the page. Then again, you might need to be investing in your musical literacy and piano playing skills to a high level.

But you don’t need to be Beethoven and you don’t even need and there’s also professional accompaniment that do that. So again, with the classical thing, you know, if, if you’re not. Feeling like you’re confident enough to company or students, you can actually hire professional accompaniment and they can do that for you.

I think, yeah, we don’t need to all be incredible Jacob Collier versions of piano players and singers and everything. But I would just say, like I said You need to find out what’s going to be helpful for you to learn. And then you know, things like, you know, if a student were to give you a piece of music and they said, Oh, I want to learn this song.

Here’s the music. Or let’s listen to it. Do you think you could play this for me? What’s going to panic you the most about that? And I say that because I’ve been given these before and I was like, sort of sweating. I’m going, Oh my God, there’s so many semi quavers on this page. I don’t know how to read these rhythms.

Rhythm was a thing for me for a very long time. So what would panic you? Would it be you know, being able to play the chords, being able to play the groove, just being able to read the melody and find the thing that makes you sweat the most, and that’s what you want to work on. But I would maybe summarize some of the helpful skills would be things such as recognizing tonality.

So is it a major piece? Is it a minor piece? Identifying key signatures. So knowing, you know, how many. flats that are on A flat major can be useful. Reading and identifying. You know, so I say identify because I also want to bring in oral skills here because you might not be super efficient at maybe reading music, but you’ve got a super strong ear and that’s also very, very valid.

So, you know, for those of the teachers who are like, yeah, I can’t always read confidently, but I can hear things and I know what it means, then that’s amazing. But yeah, definitely structures of the songs, recognizing chords, being able to play the chords, even just in a very basic triadic form. Keeping time when playing and knowing the difference between different kinds of feels and also things such as simple versus compound time signatures.

I think those are the types of things that are going to be really useful and are going to aid you in your teaching. So definitely, I think The viewpoint for me is don’t look at it as what can’t I do, it’s what can theory do for you in your practice. And it’s only going to help you. That would be my experience.

I don’t think I would know what to do if I couldn’t play a bit of piano and I couldn’t help my students with a bit of reading and stuff.

Alexa Terry: We’ll have a little look at some of those things you’ve just mentioned a little later on. But I’d like to get your opinion on multitasking, because we understand now that multitasking isn’t really a thing, and you’re not weak.

Can’t give equal attention to two things simultaneously. So how do you advise that the singing teacher accompanies this singer in a way where they’re still available to look out for those visible or audible clues in technical difficulty, but equally still giving a good accompaniment to them.

Amy Walton: So realistically, cloning would be the most efficient solution, but I don’t know if I’d want another version of me to correct my pitching thing.

So I think the second best solution is that, you know, the, how to accompany the piece so well that you’re almost on autopilot at that point when you’re playing, so that you’re able to get to the point where you’re able just to kind of focus on the student. I mean, we say multitasking and I do agree. It’s very difficult to split your attention.

If you’re a driver. You could probably admit that sometimes you’ve arrived somewhere and you’re like, Oh, how did I get there? So I do think you are able to get to a level of playing on your instrument where you can sort of go on that autopilot. But that can take a very long time to get to. So I would say that.

You know, because maybe that would take a long time to get to. Let’s look at some solutions. So this one is one that I really enjoy doing. So you’re going to tell the student that you’re going to record the run through or the practice of the song, and then together you’re going to be analyzing it. So you’re kind of getting yourself off the multitasking hook there that you’re not trying to do everything at once.

So maybe there you do focus on just accompanying in a really lovely way and then together you can analyze it. And then that’s also a really great way to incorporate self assessment into your lessons, which is, as been proven by pedagogical research, is a really effective way for students to be learning.

If you are confident enough, you might be able to focus on like one thing while accompanying. Maybe you can look up every now and again and notice the visible cues, like you said, particularly if you’re only doing an audio recording. You know, if you’re doing a recording where you’re not going to be filming them, then yeah, I would say then try to focus on the physical things.

You know, how are they standing? What are they doing with their mouth? Everything like that can then be useful. And then you focus on more of the acoustic and other stuff in the self assessment task. You can also just keep the accompaniment really basic if there isn’t time to do that exercise. Sometimes we only have 30 minute lessons, so that might take quite a large portion.

So then maybe keep the accompaniment basic. And you can even say to the student, Just so I can focus on you better, I’m going to do a very basic accompaniment, or maybe I’ve recorded the accompaniment, which can be useful, even if it’s just simple, or maybe we’re going to use a backing track for this exercise, just so I can focus.

I just don’t think there’s anything wrong with saying to the student, you’re going to do a basic accompaniment so that you can focus on them. They’ll probably like that. They’ll be like, Oh yeah, I get all the attention. That’s lovely. And once you do have that down for them you know, They’re really getting into the performance.

You’ve kind of done most of the critiquing and now you’re just really ironing out the performance side of things. Then I would say, start to lean more into that performance. You know, do the free accompaniment if you want to. Getting really familiar with the repertoire ahead of time is also something that’s just going to be really important.

So, you know, when I have students, I might say, let’s decide on the next three to five songs that we’re going to be doing over the next few months. I say it’s totally okay if you come in inspired with a new song, that’s totally fine. But let’s just have an idea of the songs that you’re going to be doing.

And that way I can then prepare ahead of time too. So there isn’t a panicky kind of thing. So yeah, I totally agree. Multitasking is difficult. Just be open and honest with the students. Just say, this is what I’m going to be focusing on. You’re going to get some really basic chords right now. And then I’ll fill it up when we’ve got through this exercise.

Alexa Terry: For you, what’s the role of scales in a singing lesson, and do you use them very often? And lastly, if you don’t, what do you use instead?

Amy Walton:  So scales are multifunctional, which is why they are so great. Scales, and I’ll also include arpeggios here, can be used in the context of vocal exercises. So maybe you’re not going da da da da da da da da you know, just ascending and descending.

Maybe you’re doing patterns of a scale, that also counts. Maybe you’re using that to strengthen registers, expand the range, practice different types of articulation, legato, staccato, for example. And I know that the BAST can course, does cover this extensively. So I do use scales a lot. I usually use scale patterns as part of you know, I do a lot of SOVT exercises in the beginning, just for warming up and then I’ll, I’ll use scales in a more of a technical focused type of way but they can also be, like I said, multifunctional.

So I might use them from more of a musical perspective to. To bring awareness to different types of scale and arpeggios, which is important because melodies are simply rearrangement of scales. For example, Mary had a little lamb 3, 2, 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 2, 2, 2, 3, 5, 5. It’s just using notes, the degrees of the scale of the major scale.

So, you know, we want to then be exposed to the minor scales, such as natural minor, melodic minor, harmonic minor, even modes can be really useful. So creating exercises that use different arrangements or patterns of scales can expand your melodic vocabulary, which has been great for learning different melodies.

You might find that if you’ve been practicing the harmonic minor. And then you do a song that’s based on the hornic minor. You’re like, whoa, I’m learning this melody so much more easily. And it’s because you’ve already been exposed to that kind of scale patterns that you’ve been practicing. And then also learning different arpeggios, such as seventh arpeggios, even extending to the ninth is great for your range, but again, for melodies that can be more arpeggiated in nature.

But that being said, I do get that scales can. feel stale if overdone, especially if you’re doing like the same routine every single lesson. So I do like to change things up. I do like to use things called etudes or technical studies and these are short pieces of music that have a particular technical slash and or musical focus.

They’re very common in classical music but there are more popular or contemporary popular music etudes. being created. And I also write quite a lot of them that have been used at different universities and also in my private lessons. I started writing them with Kaya Herstad-Carney who I’m sure you’re all very familiar with if you’ve been part of the BAST community.

We started writing together when we were both working at ACM and then we just were like, this is fun. This is like a really great way to hide the vegetables in a delicious musical cake. And yeah, so I will write a, an etude that maybe focuses on agility. While also incorporating the harmonic minor scale, for example, and that way you know, the students learn it as more of a melody.

So they don’t go, Oh, it’s a scale. I don’t want to practice this. And I find that they tend just to be a little bit more engaged with it in that capacity.

Alexa Terry: Can you give us an example of one of the etudes that you have come up with? Yes. Pause.

Amy Walton: (Amy plays etude) “Listen to these words that I will sing to you. My heart is full of hope. Hoping that your love will be true today…”.

Alexa Terry: Beautiful, thank you for that Amy, that’s really helpful. In a previous podcast chat that I had with Kim Chandler, I remember her saying that singing teachers of contemporary music tend to use major scales in sessions, when a lot of the time the style is written in a minor key. What is your opinion here and do you kind of have a favorite exercise or tool that you think that us singing teachers should include in our version of our toolbox?

Amy Walton: So I do agree that many songs are in minor keys, but I would say just as many pop songs are still in major. So I think it’s a useful starting point to have your major scales. You know, if you grew up in a Western culture, your nursery rhymes are in major keys, even if they have really dark undertones, like ringer ringer, Rosie, very dark, still in the major key.

So I think we’re very, very comfortable and we’re very familiar with major sounds and major scales, which I just think it’s why it’s such a great starting point. And again, like I said, It depends on why you’re using that scale. If you’re doing a particular exercise, you know, you’re focusing on like staccato articulation, it doesn’t really matter if it’s a major scale or a minor scale because the focus is on the technical aspect of that.

But I do think exposure to minor scales and scale patterns that I previously mentioned is really important, and it does interrupt that familiarity of the major scale pattern because da da da da da da da is, you know, it’s got the tone, tone, semitone. formula, for example. And suddenly if you do a minor scale, such as the harmonic, you’ve got this weird gap between.

So I guess interrupting that pattern that you’re familiar with. And also it’s just very, very beautiful. So I, yeah, I’m very big proponent on introducing minor scales. And again, it just keeps things fresh and fun. Cause a lot of the students go, Ooh, this is different. I really like it. And that just helps with, yeah, keeping things interesting.

Can I say two things that I like doing? Yes, please. So firstly, we all love our 1. 5 major scale or arpeggio exercise, you know, the da da da da da da da da da da da da. You know, that one’s great to move through your registers, through your range, everything, it’s, it’s beautiful. Also arpeggiated in nature, so that’s great.

But I like to make a minor pentatonic version of that, which basically has the same functionality. And the minor pentatonic is a critical. contemporary singer to know. You know, whatever sound you’re using will also further add to the functionality. So I will show you a version of that. Okay. So the minor pentatonic

sounds like that. So we’re just going to basically extend that going all the way from the octave to the fifth above the octave. So it sounds like this slowly. Eee, Eee, Eee, Eee, Eee so, I quite like that and like I said you can do an S O V T sound we can go, Fff Ffff, Ffff, uhhhhh Ffff, uhhh Ffff, Ffff So yeah it satisfies the same needs You know, in the terms of the register and range exploration of the 1. 5, except it’s just a scalar pattern and I just think it’s quite moody and quite pretty. So I like that one a lot. Okay. And then another one that I really like doing is I like to translate a major scale pattern to a minor scale pattern.

And this can be really challenging, but really fun if you like challenges. So for example, if we have the, you know, growing up in. thirds in the major scale, which would be

that type of one. We could basically turn that into a natural minor version or a melodic minor version or a harmonic minor version. So if I were to make that, this is the natural minor. So suddenly that exercise would sound like this. Ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, e. Ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee. So you’re already taking a pattern that you’re familiar with but now we’re just switching it up.

And then you can Let’s see if I can do it in harmonic minor. This one’s always a bit of a challenging one.

And, you know, to really go hardcore, you can start in the major, then you go to the natural, then you go to the harmonic, then you go to the melodic, all in one exercise. And that is It’s just amazing for your ear and it’s great just your voice is working slightly different patterns, different interval jumps and yeah, it’s just that’s my, like one of my favorite ones to do.

Yeah. Amazing. And for those of us who might not be totally familiar with that sort of musicality or musicianship, can you give us an understanding of what it means to be natural, melodic, harmonic, so on? So yeah, when we’re talking about the structure, or we can think of the DNA of the scale, if you’ve been familiar with the sound of music and solfege, you might know Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, Do or I like, I prefer numbers.

If I’m being honest, I like one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. The numbers indicate the interval distance, the gap between or distance between two notes. So one, two is a major second, one, two, three is a major third. So that’s just to understand the numbers, refer to the relationship of the distance to the tonic, which is one.

So major scale one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, Okay, and then back down, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Natural minor will be like this, 1, 2, minor 3rd, 4, 5, minor 6, minor 7, 8, 8, minor 7, minor 6, 5, 4, minor 3rd, 2, 1. So the 1, 2, minor 3rd basically means now we have a minor 3rd dissonant. Since between those two notes, then my favorite one, you might have realized I am partial to a harmonic minor scale is one two minus third, four five minus six, seven.

Major, 7, 8, 8, 7 minus 6, 5, 4 minus third, two, one. Just very tasty. And then the melodic minor, which is one, two, minor third, four, five, major 6, 7, 8, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 2, 1. If you ever did classical exams, you would have had to do melodic minor ascending and natural minor descending. But I just showed you what it sounds like ascending and descending in its pure melodic minor form.

That one’s always a little bit funny. It kind of sounds like a scale having a bit of a bad day at the start and then like bright, you know, it’s cloudy, then it becomes bright and sunny and then reverse on the way down. So those are the, that’s the structure, the DNA of the scale. That’s how the numbers and the subsequent notes relate to the tonic, which is one.

Alexa Terry:

So we’ve concentrated a little bit on the teacher. What musicianship knowledge and practical instrument skills do you believe the singer themselves would benefit from having?

And if you do include musicianship skills in your lessons, how do you make it fun?

Amy Walton: So the truth is, an incredible vocal technician doesn’t need to know a lick of theory or keyboard skills. You can have the most incredible voice and you don’t know where middle C is on the piano, or you don’t know what it looks like on the, in the music, the stave.

But to be a musician, and I want to emphasize this because singers sometimes we see, or sometimes we’re also treated as separate. But we are musicians. Our instrument just happens to be our voice. We don’t have to have funny keys to play, but it’s, you know, arguably the most intricate instrument that there is.

But so as a musician, we need to know the language, whether that’s formally, we’ve trained through music theory, we’ve gone to music school or informally. But you know, there are also a lot of incredible vocalists out there. Now, particularly if you’re living in big cities like London, there’s a lot of competition.

So my advice is make yourself as employable as possible. As you can. Chances are, you know, you start your singing lessons, you go to music university, you’re not necessarily graduating and bam, you’re this famous singer who doesn’t need to worry about it because you’re getting paid millions of pounds. A lot of us go, you know, we have portfolio careers, we move up the ranks, we do lots of different gigs, function things, or, you know, we get a residency at the Net in London or something like that.

But it’s competitive. And we need to be employable. And we want people to want to work with us. We want to be easy to work with us. And what makes someone easy to work with? Communication. If you can easily communicate with a singer through musical language, terminology it just makes people want to work with you, in my opinion.

I know I’ve gotten a lot of work because they knew that if they gave me sheet music and they weren’t necessarily audio demos to go with it, that I would still show up to the gig and I would be able to perform. So I just think there’s lots of benefits. And also, you know, even for your own self, it’s empowering to have that independence over your own music and your own artistry.

You can lead the band. You don’t need anyone to count you in or tell you what key you should be playing. And you can say, no, I’m playing in this key. This is the key. That’s good for my voice. Here’s the chart. You know, you don’t ever need to get, I don’t know. I’ve had that experience even, you know, in the 2020s where, you know, People treat you like a singer and, oh, oh, wow, you know, the key of your music.

And it’s like, yeah, I know the key of my music. I worked really hard. I’m a musician. So I just, you know, I always have this thing that I don’t want any singer to ever step in a room with other musicians and feel like they are less than. or that they need to be dictated to because there is this assumption that they don’t know what they’re talking about.

Obviously, that is different if you’re working with a musical director, then you do need to listen to them because it’s their job to direct you. But yeah, for me, it’s also about your independence over your own music and your artistry. So the goal, in my opinion, would to be a know enough to do this. Can you find the best key of a song by yourself?

This could be original music as well. You know, if you’re writing an original song and you’re like, Ooh, I’m not sure this is the best key for this, or you’re maybe you listen to a Sam Smith song. You’re like, not in my range. Can you find your own key? Can you communicate any arrangement or original music ideas to other musicians?

Do you know the terminology or could you even, you know, this is great. Could you sketch out a basic form chart for them, maybe with the basic chords and stuff as well? Do you know some terminology that might be used in gigs? Or have you ever been in a gig situation where you’re like, Oh, I don’t know what they mean.

What does this mean? I’m panicking because I don’t know what’s happening right now. Could you do some basic accompaniment for yourself so that you can practice or so that you can arrange songs or do some songwriting? Just basic stuff just to help kind of get the creative juices flowing. You know, I would say those are the questions you want to ask yourself.

So this is, you know, it doesn’t matter what genre you’re in. I think these are things that we should all be asking ourselves as singers. And, you know, I’ve definitely, when I first started teaching in music universities, I did get a lot of singers going, well, why do I need to know this? And yeah, that’s because you don’t necessarily need to know it to be an amazing vocalist.

But as I said, we’re all about creating employable and independent singers here. We want you to get work. We want you to be. Yeah, have the skill set to be confident as well. So I do think that style and genre do come into play, you know, I think if you’re into slightly more complex genres like jazz or progressive metal, where they’re doing some more interesting things, it’s going to be very useful for you to know musical literacy to a higher level.

But I just think that we should all be aiming to be the best that we can be. Why not have all the skills that we can have.

Alexa Terry: Yeah, I really like that. Well, I don’t think that we give enough credit to singers sometimes in the room, as you say. So you want them to walk in and know that they’re not the anomaly. That they’re, they have a reason and right to be there too.

Amy Walton: And also that way they can correct people. And they can be like, Oh man.

I made a really funny note in that solo. You know, maybe if you go and practice. So, you know, I think it’s very easy to correct the singer and assume the singer’s made a mistake. But it also gives you the power to hear and go, Yeah, no, I think that you guys played the song too fast. I think we need to go from section B.

Let’s start from there and go again. It gives you that, it gives you that confidence. But I know that you also asked me about how do I include musicianship and in a way that is fun. You know, I hope it’s fun. I do it in a way that aligns with my students goals. Like I said, I have some students that just want to be amazing at karaoke.

And then I have ones that are, you know, maybe they want to do an audition for a music university and other ones that are working on their latest R& B album. So I think knowing their goals is the most important thing and how, and the level of incorporation of musical literacy and keyboard skills. I tend to ask at the start of my journey with a student, I tend to ask, do you want to learn a little bit about theory?

Do you want to learn a little bit about keyboard? And sometimes they’ll be like, nah, I’m okay. I just want to sing. And I’m like, okay, that’s great. And some others go, yeah, I’m not sure. I just don’t think I’ve had a good experience with it. Or I didn’t really like it when I was taught in school. And some go like, yeah, I’m really interested in this.

I really want you to teach me like how to scat a bebop way. And I want to know all the different scales and everything. And I’m like, oh, yes, this is fun. So. You know, like I said, it really does depend on the profile of the student and their goals. But some of the way that I do keep it fun is I do use the etudes.

And sometimes I do that in a way, like I said, to hide the vegetables. And then, you know, the student goes, Oh, that was really interesting. I’m like, Oh yeah, you know, that was, you know, the scale that we just did, you know. Do you want to know more about it? And then sometimes like, okay, yeah, tell me. And I’m like, okay, let’s look at this.

And I think it really comes alive when I’m working with students and doing arrangements and original songs. And they’re like, Oh, what, what chord did you play? Why did that sound so good? And I’ll be like, well, this is why that sounded really nice. And that can be a really fun way, but other ways that I try to keep it fun and lighthearted is you know, I might do exercise like, you know, let’s keep, let’s sketch out the form.

How many bars were there and like, we’ll get, we’ll count things together. I might get students to conduct. I’ll teach them to do some basic conducting things and I’ll say, okay, now you’re going to conduct me in, or you’re going to count me in when I play for you so that they’re kind of feeling like they’re very in control of it.

I do sometimes make students do different hand gestures and I might make them. walk across the room when we’re learning a different scale and they have to take a big step if there’s a bigger jump in, in intervals and things like that. So I, yeah, I really keep it lighthearted. I try to incorporate movement into it.

It’s a bit of dance and stuff so that it’s fun. Hopefully, I hope that you have found it fun, all of my previous students.

Alexa Terry: I love that last bit. I hope. Yeah, it sounds fun. You’re a lecturer for the BAST Training Level 5 qualification, presenting webinars on musicianship. So for listeners who might be interested in signing up, can you tell us some of the topics that you cover there?

Amy Walton: Yes, definitely. So it’s all about, again, functionality. We’re trying to get you to that level where, you know, when we, I asked you those very first questions, like what would panic you when you looked at a piece of music? The aim is that we try to answer all of those things. So we’re looking at chord qualities.

So, you know, whether a chord is major or minor, so looking at three note chords, like our triads. Then we move on to our six and seven chords, which are glorious. We learn our minor scales and different common chord progressions, which is really fun. We learn transposition, we learn simple time and rhythms, compound time and rhythm patterns tips for accompanying singers, again, using etudes, how you could be creating your own ones, but I keep it very, very functional.

I’m always about what is the function of the chords in the song? What is the function of that melody? And that way it’s just much more useful. It’s not just Oh, you know, here, learn this thing off by heart for the sake of learning this thing off by heart. You really do understand why this, why music works in the way that it works.

You know, the puzzle pieces fitting together. And then I do find, you know, that does help students when they’re understanding things.

Alexa Terry: Perhaps we could finish this off by getting your help understanding some of the other foundational musicianship skills as well. So can you tell us how we can identify augmented and diminished chords and how we play them?

Because when they come up, I forget.

Amy Walton: Okay, excellent question. So, you know, augmented and diminished, just the sound of those tones sound quite complex. So let’s break it down in a very simple way. Let’s start with our major triad, which is the foundation for all of, all of this. One, three, five, oh, do, mi, sol, if you prefer it that way.

Da, da, da. Now, with an augmented triad, We’re going to take that fifth note, da da da, and we’re going to raise it by a semitone, or a half step to that da da da. It sounds quite open and hopeful.

So, like I said, I associate with an open, a hopeful sound. You know, a major triad sounds very resolute, very comfortable, very stable. And then just something a little more hopeful about that sound. It’s like a bit of a question almost. And then if we were to kind of go to the very opposite, we look at a diminished chord, which kind of sounds like a minor chord that’s been squished into a tiny box.

It’s a little bit tense. I do actually love a diminished chord though, but yeah, it’s a little bit like, Oh, hi, why have you squished me like this? So if we go back to our major triad, 1, 3, 5, and now we’re going to do a minor triad, 1, minor 3rd, 5. Now we’re going to take that 5th, and we’re going to lower it by a semitone or a half step, so we get this.

One, three, diminished fifth, or we sometimes say flat five, da, da, da. So it, like I said, it sounds a little bit tense, it needs a bit of aromatherapy, a little bit of massage to even it out, but, yeah, I actually really like diminished triads, I think they have a bit, a bit more character. triad form it might, yeah, just say, might say augmented, but a lot of the time it’s we’ll say like C plus.

means augmented or C the little circle, which means diminished. And then when you’re having seventh chords, it might say dominant seventh chord for the sharp five, which is a beautiful chord. So again, it’s going to be written in slightly different ways. And that’s one of the great things about doing the bass course is that I break down all the ways that you can interpret chord symbols, which is super, super useful.

If you’re like you said, I also, I love just reading chord charts. I don’t need the melody. Give me the chord chart. I’m good.

Alexa Terry: Time and practice will clearly be important here, but do you have any advice on how we can flesh out the chords so that we can give a more musical performance to our singers when we’ve just come from doing simple stuff?

Amy Walton: Absolutely. So, and again, we cover all these types of things in the course, inversions. So if you have a basic chord progression, let’s say C, F, G, just keep it three chords. If you’re just playing like this It kind of sounds like the Rugrats thing, I don’t know if you’re a 90s baby, you know the Rugrats.

Alexa Terry: Love the Rugrats, I used to have a big Chucky.

Amy Walton: Oh, God, that sounds scary now actually.

Alexa Terry: Yeah, I know, it does actually, freaky.

Amy Walton: But yeah, so You know, if you’re kind of playing like that, it does sound a little bit basic. It’s great if, you know, just helping to center, you know, a student in the tonality, the key and everything.

But if you learn your chord inversions, what it means is that if I’m going to play C F G, I can play it like this.

I could play it like this.

So I can basically change the way that I play the chord while still maintaining the code and it makes. It’s going between the chords much more smooth, so we call that voice leading. So it sounds less like I’m jumping around the piano. So, I don’t have to jump around as much and it just makes it much easier to play as well because I’m doing less jumping.

So that’s just a very kind of good starting step is just start learning your chord inversion so that you can create a more melodic voice leading between the different chords of the song. You don’t actually always need to play the melody. If your singer is singing the melody, you don’t need to play it.

That gives you two hands. for playing more lush chords. So, you know, I can then play chords like this. I do have big piano hands, which does help. But, yeah. So I would say, you know, playing like octaves in your left hand can be really helpful. So you’re creating more depth, and then playing the rest of the chord voicings in your right hand.

Yeah. Which is really nice we can also do things like add sevenths, or we can add extensions. So we can add like our nines, those are really pretty. So I can do things like sevenths with So a C major chord would sound like this. Adding the 7th would sound like this. Dreamy, right? And then instead of just playing F like that, I could do F major 7.

And I’m also adding the second degree, which is the 9.

So, that’s going to add a lot more colour to it. And also notice that I was playing block chords, where we play the notes simultaneously.

And break that up, I can create broken chords, where I basically separate the notes of the chord.

And that sounds really beautiful. Alicia Keys is queen of doing that beautiful broken chords, so just check out a lot of her songs and you’ll find that she does them. And exploring a wide range, don’t just stick to one little octave. You know, maybe you also start the song, maybe you’re doing like a ballad with the students.

Maybe you start off in a higher range, play something really simple.

Maybe they’re doing like a,

maybe doing a beautiful intro. Then maybe you kind of start bringing it down. So keep it again, bringing it down. And then maybe the verse. Starts really simple.

And then maybe getting to the big chorus and then it’s big and you’re using big octaves.

So covering a wide range, basically painting with the piano, just some really fun ways to essentially orchestrate. So have fun basically and play with, play with dynamics. You know, you can even play with using a bit of the pedal for fun as well. I’m a bit of a pedal I play the, I use the pedal way too much.

My piano teacher always used to criticise me. Hi, piano teacher, if you’re ever listening to this.

Alexa Terry: Lastly, I have found that it’s quite common for a singer to have the sheet music in one key, but they’ve been practising with a track that they’ve found on YouTube, or one that they’ve purchased, which is in a completely different key, and it’s, it’s quite a surprise to them when they come to this session, or, to a performance and realize, ah, okay, this feels and sounds different to me.

So can you help us to understand the circle of fifths? Is there a rhyme that we can keep in our heads so we can recognize keys and pass that onto our students?

Amy Walton: Absolutely. So the circle of fifths is a diagram that I think many people should consider getting as a tattoo because it really holds the keys to music.

I used to, I memorized it when I was in high school. And then before the start of every, theory exam, I would just draw it and it just like helped me so much. I used to almost feel guilty doing it. I was like, Oh, I feel like this is cheating. But it wasn’t, it just, you know, it’s a diagram that you can learn.

So it’s a circular diagram and maybe we can somehow include a link or an image of it, but it starts, if you just Google the circle of fifths, it’ll come up. Sorry, that is my bebe calling for her mama. So it’s a diagram, it’s a circle, and it starts with C which has no accidentals, so no sharps or flats and then it moves up by going up in fifths clockwise.

So you start from C, which has no accidentals, then you move up to G, because G is a fifth away, which then has the first accidental, which is going to be an F sharp. The reason why we have accidentals is we need to maintain the structure and the integrity of the major scale structure and so that’s the reason why we have that, and that, again, gets explained in the course.

So Once we hit G, which has one sharp, F sharp, then we move, we go up another fifth, which hits us, or gets us to D, which has two sharps, which has F sharp and C sharp. So there is, and then if you go the other way, so if you’re going from C and you’re going anti clockwise to get to your flats, you’d go down a fifth from C to F, so then F has the first flat accidental, which is B flat.

Then from there you move down another fifth. F down to B flat, which then has two flats, E flat and B flat. It looks a lot simpler than probably what the words spewing out my mouth sound like. And there is a saying to learn the order of the sharps. You’d go, Father Charles goes down and ends battle.

So, you know, G has the father, F sharp, Charles, with D major then has father Charles, F sharp, and C sharp. The flats, you reverse it, battle ends and down goes Charles father. And so that’s the little kind of saying that you can remember. But yeah, so you, you know, the reason why the diagram is useful is because the diagrams often have, you know, images of all the different key signatures.

So reading the keys or identifying key signatures on sheet music is a lot more simple because if you know where your key signatures are and you see three flats, then you know that you’re in E flat major. One tip is don’t depend on reading the first chord of the song to tell you your key signature because that’s not always going to be true.

So you might have, be in E flat major, but your first chord It’s called a C minus. You’re like, oh, I’m in C minor. You’re not necessarily, you’re most likely an E flat major. Though C minor is the relative minor, so sometimes you can be. I would say it takes a little bit more practice to identify the key if you’re just trying to listen to it.

So my advice is you need to find the note that feels like home. Now many of us have this innate ability to sing along and we can kind of hum this note that really feels like home. And it’s the kind of the note that we keep returning to. We’ll often, the chords will resolve there. And if you can then pick Find that note on the keyboard, you’re most likely in that key then.

And you can always check that with your teacher and do this as an exercise together. But yeah, I would say do both exercises. You know, if you’re really confident in identifying key signatures on sheet music, challenge yourself and try to do it by ear and vice versa.

Alexa Terry: Great, thank you. And do you have any other resources or, or things that we should check out to continue our work with musicianship skills and keyboard skills?

Amy Walton: So I would definitely suggest, you know, if you are wanting to really invest in yourself as a singing teacher, like doing the bass course would be great, but there is also something called Viva Pressbooks Open Music Theory. So if you were to type open music theory into Google they’ve got a lot of stuff.

It tends to be a little bit more classical based, but I really liked the way that they explain things. And it’s all for free. There’s also a popular music theory book that was designed by University of West London. And there, yeah, so it’s just called popular music theory. And if you were to type that in, you’ll find that.

And that’s again, a little going to be a bit more potentially interesting and maybe more useful for those of you that are focusing more in that pop world. And that’s what, that’s what music literacy I would then say, I mean, You know, there’s a very adult piano adventure, adventures. There’s a very classic way to learn piano.

It’s very basic by favor but I’ve used that with students before, and that can be useful to adult piano adventures. A lot of the new ones also come with CDs and stuff too, or CDs, Ooh, showing, showing my millennial age. With like online, you know, you can find basically the like how Leonard, they have like a whole like online database of all the backing tracks and stuff.

There’s also something called modern pop keyboard, the complete guide with audio again, another how Leonard thing. And again, that’s using more pop music stuff. And you know, there’s also nothing wrong with going onto YouTube and typing in stuff to I find that there’s a lot of really interesting resources that are also then both visual and audio, which I’m a visual learner.

So I really like the video format of learning music theory too.

Alexa Terry: Amazing. Thank you so much, Amy. And where can our listeners find out more about you and the work you do for when you’re back from maternity leave?

Amy Walton: So I’m going to be very honest here. I need to do a whole rebrand and revamp of all my stuff.

I’m not the biggest social media user. You’re welcome to follow me at Amy Walton music. I haven’t posted anything in a really long time because I am just, Right now on a pace where I’m focusing on La Bebe and enjoying all of that. I have done a bit of freelance work here and there, but I’m kind of keeping things on a slow pace until I feel ready.

Like I said, this is April 2024. So if you’re reading this and it’s 2025 and listening, you know, contact me. So for now, I would say if you’re interested in learning from me, again, the BAST Course has all of my, my knowledge spewed out there, but then yeah, on Amy Walton Music on Instagram, you can always send me a DM.

And you can always just find out if I’m open to lessons again, and I will start advertising in a more professional manner when, when I am ready for that.

Alexa Terry: Amazing. Well, Amy Walton,

Amy Walton: thank you so much for your company today. And thank you for having me, I really enjoyed it.