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How Can Ambitious Musicians Find Great Advice From Professionals?

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While becoming a success in any occupation is difficult, the music industry is notorious for being one of the toughest to ‘crack.’ Of course, the industry itself isn’t actually that tough anymore.

In the days before social media and polarizing television talent shows, becoming a success was dependent on someone at a record label listening to your tape, or having the good fortune to be playing a venue where someone with influence just happened to be having a drink that night.

Easier Yet More Difficult

GuitaristAlthough the various avenues to enter the music industry today make it easier to do so, it is also true that a career in the business can be much shorter than was the case when people had to do it the hard way. Yes, it might be easier to become known, but how will you endure?

How many of today’s artists do you honestly believe will have the longevity of a David Bowie or an Elton John?

If you’re an ambitious musician looking to boost your profile in the industry and set yourself up for a successful, long career, professional advice can go a long way. Where can you find it?

Social Media Interaction

While you might not want to simply log onto social media and start approaching successful artists with questions, you should keep an eye out for when they do online Q&A sessions, as many people will probably ask the sort of questions that you want to.

Sometimes, advice might be something simple, such as to keep practicing, never stop believing in yourself, and upload your music to YouTube and other sites. On other occasions you might receive some specific advice about a technique, or realize you’ve been doing something counterproductive to your hopes without realizing it.

Music Tutoringmusic tutor

Music tutors are a great source of information, and much of the time they will also be session musicians or otherwise play in a live band themselves.

Their knowledge will often go far beyond simply how to play an instrument, and they might be able to get you where you want to be. If you’re a musician looking to develop your skill set, then finding the best online guitar lessons, or those relevant to whatever instrument you play, can help. Sites such as Pro Music Tutor feature advice from world-famous musicians, and there’s probably no one better to ask for advice.

Find a Studio You Know Someone Uses

There are recording studios in towns and cities around the world. While hiring one of these might not always be particularly cheap, if you can find a studio that is used by a big artist, you’ll often find yourself with the opportunity to speak with someone and pick their brains about what you should be doing differently.

Many will even listen to you and help to develop your sound, but you shouldn’t take that for granted when you start seeking studio space.

Unearthing Music Advice

As well as pursuing these avenues, you should continue doing what you already do; practice regularly, expand your horizons, and try to secure gigs, even small ones, at whatever venues you possibly can.

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Nidia Guerra is a lifestyle consultant who works with clients from all occupations and demographics. Nidia currently has a large client base of ambitious musicians and sportspeople whom she is helping to pursue their life goals.

Which Musical Instruments Are Hardest To Learn?

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Such is the beauty of music that anyone can play any instrument.  You or I could pick up and instrument, and get started right away. Of course, there is a world of difference between playing an instrument and using an instrument to produce an amazing sound that people want to listen to and will pay for.

Which instruments are the most difficult to learn to play well? Will you dare to take them on? On the other hand, will you avoid them at all costs?

Violin

No one who has ever looked at a violin will likely be shocked to see it appearing on this list. To most people, the violin can actually look like a deceptively easy instrument to play at first. If you’ve ever picked one up, however, then you’ll know that it is something that takes a long time to master. That is, if you found the resolve to forget the initial frustration you probably felt when you first tried playing and it sounded less than great.

As one of the hardest instruments to master, the violin is also one that gives you a great feeling of reward when you start to plat to a good standard,

Piano

This is probably the perfect example of an instrument where most people could easily learn a tune or two themselves, butMusic when it comes to more complex sounds and improvising, even pianists who have been playing for years find it a challenging instrument to play.

One of the biggest challenges posed by the piano is that there are few reference points to other instruments, as it is so unique and unlike any other. Like the violin, however, if you are able to train yourself to become an accomplished pianist, the sense of achievement will be huge.

Saxophone

MusicIn terms of technical music, the saxophone is actually one of the more straightforward instruments to pick up and play. However, the difficulties come in all of the intricacies that are involved with the sax.

From the way you hold the instrument to your movements when playing each note, not to mention the type of reed you use, everything needs to be perfect in order for you to get a definitive sound. That is before you even start to think about mastering techniques such as circular breathing – breathing in and out at the same time. However, saxophone lessons are great fun, and they will help you to pick up everything you need to know in order to become a decent level saxophonist.

Drums – From a Band Perspective

Drums are reasonably straightforward to learn, which is why they are the instrument of choice for parents buying for their children, even when they are fully aware of the noise they will make.

However, if you’re a solo drummer, making the transition into drumming in a band situation can be very difficult. Now, you’re not just the drummer, but the leader and pacemaker of the whole band. One mistake, especially in a live situation, can make a whole track sound like an awkward mash-up, making it a much-pressured role.

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Robert is an accomplished guitarist who is more than happy to stick with one instrument. Robert has a lot of admiration for anyone who can play more than one instrument, as well as people who play difficult looking instruments, such as the saxophone and violin, to a competent standard.




Learning Guitar Basics Online

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Music is an expression of the soul. People dabble in different instruments to educate themselves in music appreciation and to create a new form of relaxation.

Learning to play the guitar can be difficult and may require a sense of discipline. Many people have the ability to teach themselves new instruments and with online technology and patients, you can learn to play the guitar online.

Guitar Basics

The first step to learning to play the guitar is learning the basics of the guitar. There are many websites that allow you to research the basic components of the guitar such as each part of the guitar and its function. These websites will offer you all the insight you may need to get familiar with guitar from how to properly hold it, stringing the guitar, and tightening and loosening the strings.

Tuning Your Guitar

The second step to learning to play the guitar is learning to prepare your guitar to be played. Your guitar will have to be tuned every time you play it. Different elements will cause your guitar strings to stretch changing the sound you will get from them. Online resources can provide you with a virtual guitar tuner that you can select your tuning preferences.

Most beginners will use standard tuning which is usually the default setting on most guitar tuners online. The guitar tuners will play each strong for you allowing you to use your ears to compare the sound of the tuner to the sound coming from your guitar. You adjust the sound of your guitar by turning the keys on the top of the guitar loosening or tightening the strings. Tightening the strings gives you a higher sound where loosening them gives you a lower sound.

Reading Guitar Tabs and Chords

The beautiful thing about learning to play guitar is there are two ways to play it. You can stick with rhythm by playing chords, which is where most beginners will start out. Once you have an understanding of the various chords, you can move on to playing individual notes. Part of learning to play any instrument requires learning to read music specific to that instrument.

If you have basic sheet reading skills, learning to read music for a specific instrument is a little bit easier. There are several online resources that can teach the basics of reading music showing note placement on a bar graph.

It is important to have patients when learning to play a new instrument. Though you haven’t learned any basic chords or notes yet, you have started learning the guitar online by getting to know your guitar and the basic functions you will need for when you begin learning to play.

The Internet offers a lot of resources for beginners learning to play guitar that range from Youtube videos, guitar tuners, and advice from professional guitar players. If you have followed these steps in this blog, you have taken the first step to learning the guitar and will be playing in no time.

Robert has over 15 years in the music industry, researching the different forms of music appreciation. Robert has learned to play three instruments through internet resources. He has shared his music experiences through writing for the past three years assisting others in achieving their music goals.

The Easy Guide To Booking And Planning A Gig For Your Band

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When you are in a band, many times the biggest hassle is booking a gig. If you have a manager, then you don’t have to worry about it. The manager handles all of that hassle. However, most bands just starting out don’t have a manager. They have to do everything on their own. If you are looking to book a gig, follow this simple guide to make things easy on yourself.

Have a Press Kit

You want to have a press kit that you can give club owners and venue managers. This press kit will have a lot of information about your band in an easy-to-read package. The press kit should include your contact information, a brief biography of your band, an example set list, your musical influences, a band photo and a CD of your music. If you want to make things really simple on yourself, you can have all of this information available on your band’s website. You do have a website, right? If you don’t have one, then you need to set one up right away. No booking agent at a venue will take a band seriously these days without a website. One page on your website can have an electronic version of your press kit.

Find a Venue

Whether you are looking to book your first gig in your hometown or are looking to go out on the road for the first time, it is important to choose the right venue. Set your sights on somewhere small when you are just starting out. Even if you are only playing for a couple dozen people, you have to start somewhere. Find a coffee shop, bar, pub or club that looks like it would appeal to fans of your type of music. Once you find the venue, then you can contact them. Either give them a call or shoot them an email asking who you need to speak to about booking. When you get the booking agent’s contact information, then go ahead and send them a short email. In this introductory email, tell them that you are interested in playing at their venue. Ask them which dates they have available in the next few months. Include a link to the electronic press kit on the band’s website. Keep this introductory email short, somewhere in the neighborhood of 35-50 words. Once you have sent this email, wait three weeks for a response. If you haven’t heard from them after three weeks, send a follow up email asking them if they received your introductory email. After that, keep sending them follow up emails every three weeks. Don’t stop until they either give you a solid rejection or ask you to play. Being persistent is one of the keys to landing gigs. You never know when a follow up email will land in a booking agent’s email box at the perfect time to get you a gig.

Equipment

When planning for your gig, remember that you need the right equipment to sound your best. Scout out the venue to see if they have all the audio equipment you will need. Use the house PA system if they have one. If they don’t, then you will need to bring your own. Depending on the scale of the show you have in mind you may need amps, microphones, speakers, stage equipment, lighting and/or a sound board. You can rent this from an audio visual hire company if you don’t have it. Make sure to include the cost of the rental in your calculations for the gig fee.

Negotiating

Once you receive an offer to play a gig, then the most aggravating part of the process begins. Negotiating a fair deal is one of the biggest headaches in the music business, and it is the primary reason most bands have managers once they can afford one. The booking agents will lowball bands as much as they can get away with. Don’t be afraid to ask for more money than they offer at first. You want to receive enough pay to make the gig worth your time. It should be enough to cover food and drinks for the band for the evening. There should also be enough to pay a fair hourly rate to each member of the band. If the gig is out of town, you also want there to be enough to cover gas and lodging costs. Add all this up and make sure that you are receiving enough dough to make the gig worth your time. Keep after it and you will land a gig before you know it.

Attached Images:
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This article is written by Aaron Edwards, a Perth-based musician who has been gigging locally in his spare time for over six years.

How To Turn Scales Into Solos

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For beginner guitarists, starting to turn scales into solos can be difficult, but is important to developing as a player. Mastering scales, and being able to adapt them through major, minor and pentatonic variations means that you have the foundation on which to experiment with different chord progressions and phrasings.

In this context, solos represent notes and riffs that are played over the chord progression of a song, and are relative to minor and major key scales and notes, mixing phrases within the same basic finger positions and combinations of half and whole tones. It’s worth briefly reviewing scales, chord progressions, the uses of pentatonic and blues scales, and how solos can be refined through actual songs.

Understanding Scales

Scales represent variations on a set of twelve basic notes that are are laid out in ascending to descending order of pitch on a fretboard. Whole steps and half steps comprise the difference between the notes, with a scale consisting of a sequence based on a root note, such as G, and a number of sharps and flats. A basic guitar scale is the chromatic scale, which moves down the fretboard of a root note. Other scales include major, melodic and harmonic minors, whole tones and pentatonic scales. The major, or heptatonic scale is among the most popular for songwriting, and has seven notes. For example, a D major scale can basically consist of D, E, F, G, A, B, C, and D, which is played in the pattern of a whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole and half step.

By contrast, a pentatonic scale consists of just five notes per octave, which can be played in a major and minor key, and tend to involve less frets and changes in finger position along the fretboard. Pentatonic scales can be understood as major sales that have some notes removed, while the minor pentatonic scale is taken from the major pentatonic, and can use complementary keys like G major and E minor, or C major and A minor. Different scale patterns apply for different keys, so try to practice as many as possible.

Chord Progression Variations

Solos work around variations within a scale, in which series of notes are phrased according to the chord progression of a song and its minor and major equivalent. A G major pentatonic scale can be played over a song written in G major, or can be played in the key of E minor. Major, minor and pentatonic scales played by a lead guitarist are generally easier to play over a full chord progression being played by a rhythm guitarist

Using the Pentatonic Scale

The pentatonic scale can be varied through a major and minor key progression, and through a blues progression, which rearranges the order of notes in a scale. The focus should be placed on combining different notes within a scale pattern into a solo melody, which can be varied by alternating major and minor scales. A solo can consequently be matched to the tempo of a song, and can maintain progressions based on a scale within the same key. Solo phrasing can be varied for longer intervals within notes to establish rhythm.

Adjusting for Blues

In terms of blues music, minor pentatonic scales are varied through the use of ‘blue’ notes, which use flattened thirds, fifths and sevenths in scales to alter the pace of a scale’s progression and its transformation into a solo. Twelve bar blues solos depends on varying a five note scale through root, minor third, fourth, fifth and minor seventh patterns.

Understanding Individual Songs

The main thing to focus on is developing solos from scales  and the difference between half and full tones, how scales create a series of notes based on a key, and how this series can be varied and played in a corresponding minor, major and pentatonic scale at its simplest levels. Listen to different songs and see how solos work for respective songs. Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix are ideal starting points for working out the use of different pentatonic and major scales

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Chris is a rock guitarist who has played since 1993. He began learning from a variety of sheet music but soon found that the musicians community at LickLibrary.com was a fantastic place for guitar lessons. His guitar influences include Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Val Halen, Ritchie Blackmore, Chuck Berry and many more!

Endless, what a great Toto song!

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Toto is one of those great bands from the 70’s and 80’s that didn’t get a ton of good reviews. Sure, some of their tunes were down right too pop-ish for some peoples likings but other songs they performed were great! For example there’s Rockmaker, Georgy Porgy, and one of my favorites is Child Anthem. Other bands that fit their genre are Saga and Cerafim.

I recall picking up Toto’s first album and fell in love with it right away. Everything from the arrangements/progressions to the vocals were the kind of style that I would have really enjoyed playing. Too bad back then there wasn’t any musicians living in my home town who wanted to venture off in this musical direction, their loss. In my defense, I remember playing in my first band Deuce that played Toto’s Hold the Line at St. Bernard School way back in 1979?

I vividly recall playing the opening song called Duece, and Brian M singing the words “Get up and get the Hell on out of here!” The kicker is he was looking directly at this nun in the first row, that was way too funny! Way to go Ginchy!

My nephew and I were in a car traveling to my cousin’s house 2 years ago to do some landscaping and gardening, see I’m good at something else too as I said in my last e-mail. He pulled out this new Toto album called Toto’s Greatest Hits Silver Box set. The kid is the Data of the movie trivia and facts world. The guy is just amazing at what he knows about movies, it borderlines on scary actually. Check out his site, he’s working on it just to give you a head up.

The band had put just about the the whole first album on it! I was floored when we put in the stereo. The songs on this CD instantly brought back all those childhood memories, thanx again JC!

Now a days while taking the pooch out for a walk along the Danforth, I listen to this collection on the old iPOD. Over the past couple of hours the one song that gets me going the most called Endless. It’s originally on the Isolation album if anyone if interested. Everything about this one is outstanding, listen for yourself!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HE63SN46AeA

Love ya Live!

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Possible Fleetwood Mac Tour!

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Both Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham have both talked on the record about the possibility of the 70’s & 80’s Mega group Fleetwood Mac going out on the road to support a new album in the near future? I missed when they toured in 2009 so hell ya, I’ll go see them! All this is just talk and nothing yet is on the books … they are all just Rumors!
I hate being teased like this. Everywhere I searched, this is all that I come up with.

Anyways, have you heard of these guys before? In all honesty, I still run into some people of my age who have not.

The biggest thing that grabs my attention about the band is their distinctive sound. Not only vocally, way before Lindsey Buckingham showed up in 1975, but it’s after he joined the band when he brought with him his fantastic open tuning guitar style/sound and his unique vocals that drew me in.

I could always figure out anything that was thrown at me but I wasn’t completely satisfied with the Fleetwood Mac songs. I knew deep down inside that I was way off base here.

Open tuning was something I hadn’t heard of at the time so I had to struggle to reproduce a tune, nice try but … The greatest example of this struggle was a song called Never Going Back Again. I played this one in the first position G and D then migrating up the neck to around the 9th to 12th fret area. Some day I just have to start doing some tunes to show you what I mean.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHoxoXw6byM&feature=related

Keep on Jammin’

Does bigger drums means a better drummer?

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Is the old saying more is better always correct or what about less is more? Sometimes it is and sometimes …

I ran into this situation a couple of minutes ago. I was watching a neat little video from a drummer name Gavin Harrison. It was a video from a concert that he performed titled Sound of Muzak, in which he and his huge drum kit are the only things on the stage. I must admit that I have never seen a video like this, so I had to watch it in it’s entirety.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzFfNk4xGTE&feature=related

The video is not about a drummer performing inhuman drum solo over and over again, in what seems like eternity!

It shows us a guy who has perfect command of his drumming technique. Gavin’s style shows us that every one of his movements (rolls) are extremely fluid, flowing seamlessly from one drum to another. His drum kit in huge and the sound is just amazing! Now here is where I run into that old saying!

A old buddy of mine, Domenic, has shown us time and time again that he too exhibits these same musical skills as Gavin, but Domenic does so on a much smaller drum kit. He makes his modest gear sound like he is playing on a much larger one. Not that I’m bashing Gavin Harrison, not at all! It’s just that I think, most non musicians out there believe that you must have a lot of drums to produce a sound big. Now listen to by buddy to see what I am getting at.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgXnYew2YRE

So my question to you is does a bigger drum kit mean that you are a better drummer?

Keep on Jammin’

Just listening to some good old Wilton Said

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I’m sitting back and relaxing this morning with a cup of Joe and not craving a smoke! Quitting is not all that hard … it’s just fighting the cravings once or twice a day that is a killer!

When checking out Facebook to see what was up, I realized that a buddy of mine (Wilton Said) had some sort of new web site, actually it’s his newsletter, that I was unaware of so I visited it. The newsletter had been around for a while, man am I ever behind on the old computer, so I just had to search for some neat ideas from this great keyboardists!

The site is nice and sleek. Simple to navigate and of coarse full of great tunes from the band! Right now I’m listening over and over to a song that I believe, sums up the idea of the band. It’s called The Empty Sky part 1. Every time I hear it, this one song brings me back to the first time I saw Wilton and his band at the Nuance festival for the first time two years ago.

I came across this fantastic interview of Wilton on Bill’s Prog Blog that I enjoyed reading. It talks about Wilton’s humble beginnings, what he and his band are up to now and what’s to come in the future. If you’ve never heard of this band before or your just into music that will make you think, then your search is over! Enjoy everyone and your welcome!

Keep on Jammin’ Wilton Said

Treme my favorite show on HBO!

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I think that the best TV series out there today is a show called Treme that is on HBO.

The character development is fabulous, the feel to the show seems very honest but the best part of the show is hands down the music! The traditional New Orleans sound that they have there makes me want to sell the house and move on down to the promised musical land!

My wife and I were scrolling through our PVR guide a few months ago and came across a show about post Katrina New Orleans in the 7th Ward. We thought that it was going to be one of those cheesy shows with no substance or originality. When we first read the descriptions/info about the show, my first thought was that Treme was some bad documentary about the area and that it was not true to what really is going on there.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPVMxuoarbg

Even though I’ve never been there, watching Treme makes me curious about what it’s really like, this distinctive and historical American city. Has anyone out there been there before? If you watch this show and been there, are there similarities to both?

Keep on Jammin’

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