As the school year winds down in Spain, and the temperatures in Barcelona rise, everyone prepares for the summer vacation. Music exams are furiously studied for and students practice for the annual music concert which takes place at the end of the year. It’s an exciting occasion and one that the Estudio Shine family look forward to each year. Students invite friends and family to come and enjoy all the musical pieces and the day is filled with a fun musical energy. Each year some of our teachers perform too, in an anticipated finale!
Concerts are usually in two parts, with a principiantes show and and avanzados concert, however you are welcome to attend both!
It’s a chance for students to show off their accomplishments from the year and also an opportunity to perform in front of a crowd, which is an important learning curve for students, and an extra skill!
Our concerts are advertised on facebook and our instagram pages, and we make announcements to students via email and at the school before the due dates.
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Exams can be a tough pill to swallow. Dreaded memorizing left until the last minute, the stress and anxiety of getting everything correct and the controversy of whether exams are a worthwhile medium for judging the aptitude of a student. On the other hand exams offer many benefits too and at shine music school in Barcelona, we like to focus on why taking a music exam with us can be good for your musical development.
As the exams at shine music school draw near, we’d like to take a look at why we think it’s a good idea for students to sign up and complete the graded exams we offer.
Besides offering a scaleable way for teachers to measure the improvement and knowledge of their students, taking a music exam gives the student goals to achieve. The deadline to accomplish certain tasks and the pressure demanded to succeed in the exam creates, for some, the focus they need to practice and advance with their studies.
We offer our students two exams that they can participate in: the Exams from the Trinity College of music in London and the Royal School of Music. Our students are able to complete a whole host of exams for their particular instrument and style- from Pop and Rock exams to Classical.
Completing an exams gives our students confidence and tools and skills for performance in the future. Receiving a certificate of excellence is something that they can take with them as an accomplishment, and one that can be used to further their musical career. At shine many students have completed the highest grades of musical exams and now can teach music in their own right. The exams have pushed them from perhaps only enjoying music as a hobby into acquiring a means to succeed in their lives.
Exams take diligence and practice. Taking exams nurtures both of these abilities and even students who may not get the best results benefit from the experience of sitting an exam with a stranger or examiner that they have never met. It prepares them for possible instances in their future where they need to be adaptable and perform under pressure or think on their feet. They also learn to keep going, even if they have made a mistake, a quality that will serve them well.
Exams may be scary, but doing music exams at the school are not compulsory, and this in itself makes them beneficial as the students choose to make their own goals. The consequences are not as dire, and this allows the student some freedom to prove himself or herself on their own. Perhaps this fact alone makes taking exams at the shine school of music in Barcelona a powerful advantage for the student, as improving and accomplishing a new goal by oneself is hugely beneficial to ones self esteem!
You can find out more about our exams here.
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Study holidays have long been popular in Barcelona, where many people visit the city for longer periods of time on student visas. Barcelona boasts some of the top business schools, a respected Erasmus program and plenty of choices for studying Spanish. Study abroad is both a daunting and exciting prospect for young people, and often a right of passage.
Immersive study is a valuable way to learn and a good way to get to know the history, culture and people of Catalunya and Spain.
Shine school of music offers both extracurricular music lessons in Barcelona to students already in the city looking to expand their knowledge base and students wanting to do intensive courses on flamenco or classical Spanish guitar. Our guitar courses can be taught in Spanish, Catalan or English offering an alternative approach to learning the language. And we offer a host of other instrument courses from piano lessons to singing.
Barcelona is well suited as city for students. It’s generally safe with a large international community. The city is small enough to navigate easily and there are plenty of affordable accommodation options for students from home stays to shared apartments. Students can become involved in the vibrant meetup groups, and there are plenty of free, cheap and fun activities that won’t break the bank. Yoga in the park, jam sessions, exercise on the beach, the list goes on. Besides this, Barcelona has an action packed cultural calendar with festivals and fiestas planned throughout the year.
At shine music school we accept students of any age and welcome the chance to share our love and knowledge of music with the discerning learner. Why not study music in Barcelona with us. We offer tailored courses for individual study as well as group music lessons.
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Has the ukulele just caught your attention? Are you considering taking lessons to learn the basic chords of the trending instrument? Do you want to be the fun friend who starts the happy-go-lucky sing-alongs at parties? First you’ll need to know which one to buy.
The Sizes
There are four main ukulele sizes, but the smallest, the soprano, is the most iconic. The soprano is the size that most people associate with the ukulele. A few practice strums will immediately produce that classic ukulele sound and bring a smile to your face.
Sopranos can feel very small to many adults, however, with their traditional tininess making them a bit trickier to play than concerts or tenors. A concert or tenor size uke are good middle-of-the-road sizes that work well for beginners and give off a warmer, more resonant sound than the sopranos.
Try not to obsess about choosing the right size. Chances are you’ll find yourself starting a collection and owning ukes of every size before long.
The Woods
There are a ton of different woods used to craft ukuleles. The most common is koa, a type of wood from Hawaii. Thus, most ukuleles that come from their birthplace are made from koa. It has a beautiful grain and generates a very warm sound, but note that koa is used on more expensive ukuleles. If you’re not looking to break the bank, but still want a uke that will stay tuned, you’re probably going to get one made of mahogany. A mahogany ukulele sounds a little bit softer than one made of koa, but it’s still a good wood choice.
The Brands
There’s a bewildering range of ukulele brands available today. The brand you choose really depends on what your local music store has to offer, and your personal preferences and budget. Some brands that come to mind are:
Ashbury—good quality, entry-level ukes from a UK company
Kala—hugely popular in the islands and elsewhere, but generally with a big price tag
Kamaka—the oldest surviving ukulele maker, family-owned and Hawaii-based
As always with instruments, it’s best to try them out before making a purchase decision. Here’s our favourite music store in Barcelona where you can do a test run to find the perfect uke for you.
When it opened in 2008, the Barcelona branch of the Shine School of Music was the first specialised guitar school in the city, offering classes in all styles of guitar—from classic to flamenco to electric—with qualified and experienced teachers in English, Spanish and Catalan. Today, they continue to provide guitar lessons to all ages and levels, but have also begun training students on a variety of other instruments including piano, ukulele, cavaquinho, accordion, clarinet, saxophone and more. Understanding that most people study music for enjoyment, as a hobby, the school delivers a simultaneously structured, creative and fun approach to learning an instrument. At Shine, people feel comfortable socialising, collaborating with other musicians and showcasing their progress.
Shine is also one of two music schools in Barcelona that offer intensive flamenco/guitar/piano courses to tourists looking for an educational holiday, along with being one of the few music schools worldwide to give private online music classes in a coherent and organised fashion for you tech-savvy musicians out there.
When it comes to the ukulele, Shine is keeping up with that trend, too. Not only can their teachers melt your heart with a few joyous chords and teach you how to delight friends and family with some melodies of your own, but the school in Gràcia sells ukes, as well. They sell mostly sopranos because “it’s the most popular,” said Shine’s owner Miloš. “The soprano is what everyone plays, what’s all over YouTube these days.” You can also rent a dynamic ukulele from Shine for 30 euros a month.
Once you’ve bought your first (or maybe your tenth!) ukulele, go to our list of top 12 ukulele songs to play, some time-honoured classics but others you may not have previously associated with the uke.
Not long ago, the ukulele, no more than a comic prop to accompany your lei and grass skirt, was an endangered species. Now in its third heyday, the ukulele’s powerfully cheerful sound is permeating the pop charts, serenading us during TV commercial breaks and showing up in YouTube videos by the thousands. The uke can even be heard in jam sessions on Barcelona beaches and has infiltrated some of the city’s Meetup groups.
A Brief History
Based on several small members of the guitar family, the ukulele was first developed in Hawaii during the 1880s by Portuguese immigrants. Roughly translated as “jumping flea”, the ukulele’s popularity spread to the United States in the 1920s. Thanks to the production of millions of inexpensive plastic ukuleles, their presence in popular music surged from the 1940s to the 1960s, but interest began to decline after that.
Don’t worry. There’s a comeback in our story. The ukulele reclaimed centre stage due to the enthusiasm for Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s version of “Over the Rainbow”. Since its release on the album Facing Future in 1993, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World” has been heard so often on TV and in movies, young generations may not realise Israel actually redefined the beloved classic originally sung by Judy Garland.
“Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World” tops our list of the 12 most fitting, yet unconventional songs for the ukulele. Check out the other songs on the list here.
The Ukulele Movement Today
According to the New York Times article “Ukulele Crazy” from 2011, “The trend, building for a decade and now reaching a saturation point, is being fueled by a mix of Hollywood directors, corporate advertisers, professional musicians looking for a new sound and amateurs who have discovered how easy the uke is to use”. Each group’s interest may be driven by different motivations, but they are all united in their belief that the ukulele, with its folksy sound, invokes joy and sincerity in an electronic guitar and auto-tune-obsessed age.
And why shouldn’t the ukulele be this year’s trending topic? Its dainty size makes it a great instrument to travel with. It’s easy for kids and adults alike to play. It provides players with instant satisfaction—being defined in some music circles as “idiot-proof”, anyone can learn to play in a short period of time. No matter how off tune you go, it never sounds awful because of the uke’s sweet-natured sound. Playing the uke will enlarge your circle of friends. And it makes you and those listening around you happy.
Even George Harrison was a ukulele lover, quoted as saying, “I love them—the more the merrier…So get yourself a few and enjoy yourselves”.
More recently, stars like Eddie Vedder and Jack Johnson have taken up the ukulele, and its featured prominently on the TV show Glee. It’s become a habit for Zooey Deschanel to strum one while crooning sweetly with Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Tony Blair disrupts Labour Party conventions with one. The ukulele creates intimacy to scenes in Her and How I Met Your Mother. There’s even an eight-member Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain—originally formed as a bit of fun—that has given thousands of sold-out concerts across the world. We’ve come a long way from mocking the uke after Tiny Tim used it in his 1968 novelty song “Tiptoe Through the Tulips”.
Despite its higher profile, the ukulele still plays its role as an everyman instrument quite convincingly. “The ukulele has always fascinated me because it doesn’t intimidate other people,” said Hawaiian artist Jake Shimabukuro, whose career skyrocketed when his elaborate, introspective variation of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” on a ukulele went viral on YouTube with more than 13 million views.
There’s no right or wrong way to play the ukulele, only your way. So get out there and start strumming!
