Creating a melody

Music cannot work a magic spell. It can, however, do wonderful things. In recent issues of BBC Music Magazine, we have explored the benefits to mental health of listening and playing music, not least

From lifting your mood to blurring the limits of fatigue, music doesn’t just soundtrack your workouts – it changes the way you move. Here's how rhythm, tempo and melody might be shaping your performance in ways you don’t even realise

The lyric essay is a relatively new form of creative non-fiction, and it’s often considered the most challenging to write because it is hard to describe and define. In fact, the key is blurring bounda

Improvisation. For many pianists, the very word can feel intimidating. We see a jazz player fly across the keys and assume they are simply making it up. But improvisation is not a random act. It is ro

Richard Barrett is on a mission to make you a better blues player – with full audio examples and backing tracks

Everything We Do Is Music – How 20th-Century Classical Music Shaped Pop Elizabeth Alker Faber 304pp (hb) £20 The concept behind Elizabeth’s Alker’s book is spelled out in the subtitle: ‘How 20th-Centu