#vocalizeu

Mike Posner Unplugged – VocalizeU Summer Artist Intensive 2014

Watch Mike Posner perform on opening night at VocalizeU Summer Artist Intensive 2014 at Mount St. Mary’s College in Los Angeles, CA on Friday, July 18! Enjoy his amazing performance on the piano with his guitarist Jake Moses, and his cute commentaries for each song! :)

“Buried In Detroit”

Over the weekend I had the privilege of teaching a class at the VocalizeU Summer Artist Intensive at Mount Saint Mary’s University, in Los Angeles. The Artist Intensive is a camp that singers of all ages attend to learn about everything from songwriting to dancing and singing on stage. Going to the camp, I had no idea what to expect. The overall experience was reminiscent to my college days as everyone at the camp stayed in the dorms on campus. The ages of the students in attendance ranged from about 7 (with their parents, of course), to people in their 40s.

Each night at the camp there was a performance. The first night featured Terry Ellis from En Vogue and David Pack. Every night after that a handful of students would take the stage and perform along with a band (I posted some footage of a couple performances on my Vine). That first night I realized how good those kids were! I was very impressed and loved every performance. On the first night of performances I actually got to be one of the judges on the judges’ panel, alongside Terry Ellis, Nikola Bedingfield, Shane Adams, and Wendy Parr.

The class that I taught was on chords, chord progressions, and how you can use the two to create melodies. I loved teaching this class because it showed the singers that the chords didn’t only have to be used to accompany their vocals, but they could also be used to create their vocal melodies. Many of the students were surprised at how easily they could build melodies just by playing different chord progressions. Along with this lesson, I also showed the kids Playground Sessions and allowed for them to play on it. They all enjoyed the program, some of them even spent the entire class playing it. After my classes I had a few kids come up to me and thank me for teaching them about chords and chord progressions, some saying they never fully understood how they worked until my class. That’s always great to hear as an instructor.

The only downside to the weekend was that I had to leave the camp early. The camp runs for just over a week but I could only spend the first few days with there. I gotta say, the thing that impressed me the most about this camp was that people came from all over the world to take part in it. There were people who flew out from London, Mexico, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, and various states within America.