Improve Your Music

The band Radiohead made all the news shows and papers this year after announcing they were going to release an album and let the fans decide how much, if anything, they would pay.

It seems like a pretty brave move to let the customer have the product for free with no guarantee of any return but are you just setting yourself up to be ripped off?

“Online busking” is a term that’s been around for a little while but it’s usually associated with the smaller, more independent part of the industry. This was busking on a pretty grand scale!

So how did they go? [Read the rest of this entry...]

Merry Christmas to all our readers, commenters and contributors.

Thanks to you all for a wonderful 2007 and here’s to a great 2008.

We have a few new, exciting projects that will be unveiled over the early part of 2008. Stay tuned!

Nothing beats the experience of playing with other musicians. No matter if it’s performing with a band, jamming with a friend or writing a song with someone. The act of sharing is a big part of music for a lot of people. However today’s busy lifestyles make it hard to spend as much time as we’d like working on musical projects with other people. Sometimes the people we are collaborating with are quite distant to us and we may not have the opportunity to physically get together as often as we’d like. this is another area where we can use modern communications technology to our advantage.

Basecamp is an online collaboration tool that has:

• Messageboards
• To Do lists
• Collaborative writing
• File sharing and more

I originally started using Basecamp as a way of keeping in touch with my beta testers in my software business but quickly realised how useful it would be to a band. I play in one particular band where we gig and rehearse infrequently and we don’t all live in the same area. That meant we had to come up with a way of working together while being physically separated.

We use the message board to discuss issues from song suggestions to rehearsal times and it’s all kept nice and neat in one central place. Much neater than trying to keep track of a conversation by email. We can upload simple mp3 recordings of rehearsals so each band member can download them and get some practice in.

Basecamp is ideal for a teams of people, whether it be a band or a songwriting team, to work together on a common project. A tool that the songwriters will love in particular is Writeboards. Writeboards are like a simple word processor that teams of people can work on. The nice thing is that you can see what changes have been made to each document and by whom.You can compare old & new versions very easily & keep a list of every change.

The best way to find out what it does is to try it for yourself. The basic version is free.

Here is a great excercise using paradiddles that was left in the comments by reader Pete Privitere.

This paradiddle is brilliant for developing 4 way independence as you are playing diagonally across your body.In other words, your left foot and right hand play together and vice-versa. It’s not as simple as it looks. Try it out & see. Like always, start off nice and slow and till you can play it confidently then start increasing the speed.

If you have an excercise or a comment then please do what Pete did and leave it in the comments & I’ll publish it.

Hi Folks, I just want to give you all a heads up on a brand new website that I’ve launched this week. It’s called www.AVHints.com and aims to provide helpful hints and tips for anyone from the novice through to the Audio-Visual Pro. Initially I was going to start adding some A/V related articles to this site but it really is a subject all of its’ own so a seperate website is the right way to go.

If you dabble in the more technical aspects of music and production you’ll find it very helpful I’m sure. Drop in, take a look around and let me know what you think.

www.AVHints.com

So far in my series on Selling Your Music Online we’ve looked at moving physical CD’s with CD Baby and selling digital downloads using Tunecore to get you into iTunes & others. In both of these cases we have been looking at selling our music to fans. Those people who listen to our music for their own pleasure.

There is another market totally that most artists don’t consider, but would love to be part of, that being Television, Film and Advertising. Traditionally this has been a difficult maketplace to get into but once again the internet has come to the rescue of the independant musician.

Pump Audio is a website where musicians and bands can upload there songs into an online catalogue where TV, film and advertsing producers can browse. I’ll let them explain it a bit further:

” Pump Audio licenses more independent music to television, advertising, and film than anyone else in the world—hands down.

• There is no submission fee.
  If your music is not used, you lose nothing.
• Pump has earned millions of dollars for independent artists.
  Pump generated over 80,000 placements in TV for independent artists last year alone.
• You will receive 50% of the license fees we receive for your music.
  (You’ll also earn performance royalties for many uses.)
• Pump’s deal is completely non-exclusive.
  Our deal will never prevent you from working with anyone else.
• You retain 100% ownership of your songs.
  You know, the way it should be.

Pump has created a real marketplace for independent artists, and we get our artists paid. We’re always looking for new music in every genre.Founded in 2001, Pump Audio is a new kind of agent for independent musicians, digitally connecting them with buyers in the mainstream media. With Pump Audio, artists can license their music into productions without giving up any ownership, while TV and advertising producers can discover new music ready for use.

With a growing catalog of tens of thousands of songs, all by independent artists from around the world, customers access music through Pump’s innovative search software and delivery services, the Soundtrack Service online, and the PumpBox™, which is currently on the desktops of thousands of creative professionals worldwide.”

I suppose the first question that hits your mind is “How much do I get paid?”Again, from their site:

“What are the possible payments I can expect?
Payments vary according to type of use—a TV show vs. commercial, the broadcast market it is used in, etc. Many of our artists have received thousands of dollars as a result of dozens of incidental uses. Some have received thousands for a single use. Usage fees can range from several thousand dollars for a national advertising spot, to hundreds of dollars for a national promo spot, to tens of dollars for an incidental background use on television programming. Remember that Pump and its artists are partners in this process in that we always attempt to get the most money we can for every project. However, each project demands that we price competitively in order secure the license in the first place, and to ensure future business with each client.”

As we’ve seen throughout this short series, there are new opportunities opening up every day that are allowing independant artists the ability to sell there music to all sorts of markets and make a good living doing so. These are good days indeed!

www.PumpAudio.com

We’ve just published our first ever survey to find out what our readers like and don’t like about this site and to research some new features we are planning.

It’s only quite short and doesn’t hurt a bit so please take a moment to visit our survey and help us to continually improve this site for your benefit.

Here is a great instructional video on the art of snare drum tuning by Bob Gatzen.

Over the next little while I will be doing a series of articles on a topic dear to the hearts of most musicians, the home studio. Whether it’s purely for practice or for recording, we’d all love a place where we can go to make a bit of noise without bothering the neighbours or to put down a few tracks without recording the traffic going past. The reason this subject is topical for me is that I’ve recently decided to take the plunge and build a basic rehearsal/recording space in my garage. What I originally thought would be a simple matter of putting up a few walls and a bit of carpet has turned out to be a bit more complex than I first thought. Because I live on a fairly busy street I need to keep noise out as much as I need to keep it in. This means “doing the job properly” and building a structure that is a bit more solid than at first planned.

I will post a series of articles detailing my progress but I’d also like to share a few of the tips I’ve found in doing my research. The first article I’d like to present is by Mark Rustad, President of NetWell Noise Control who will give you a great overview of what is invloved in turning a garage into a home studio. Stay tuned for more…
Cheers, Mark Gibson.

Sound Reduction Solutions - Garage Band Practice

Any band must endure hours of practice in order to progress and take its talent to the next level. Amateur musicians are faced with an omnipresent catch 22 when it comes to band practice: where can I practice if I am an amateur and do not have access to a studio, and how can I develop my skills and reach a professional level without a place to practice? [Read the rest of this entry...]

Music is undoubtedly a form of communication and/or expression. Coincidently, the skills of improvisation are certainly related to the dexterity and formalities that are imperative to accomplishing your role as a communicator. Therefore, as you are preparing to become a musician, improvising will firmly assists with your development of the overall perception and understanding of musicianship.

Improvisation often focuses on the recognition of one’s personal awareness, into the present moment. The skill also enables the development of a profound understanding of the action that one is currently displaying. Once you are aware and understand the concept, you will be provided as the practitioner with a sense of belief and accomplishment.

As a practitioner you will display pure confidence in which you are able to execute with a range of options that best conforms to the current situation regardless of previous successes or failures. Quite frankly, the practice of improvisation symbolizes acting and reacting, making and creating of “in the moment” response to the stimulus of one’s immediate environment.

In music, specifically, improvisation is spontaneous composition. The performer is challenged by performing music that is composed at the spur-of-the-moment. This is usually achieved through solo or cadenza. Improvisation has actually dominated in Jazz musicals. The challenge of improvisation is not to be confused or compared with technique. The two concepts are different in that improvisation is described as a creative performance art.

On the other hand, technique or sight reading is a reconstructive process. It is noted, however, that as both technique and improvisation require that you react immediately to any changes needed to the music in response to stimuli, they do demonstrate primary differences. Namely, the process is executed externally for successful sight- reading and internally to execute improvisation. Furthermore, they both are greatly enhanced by a strong musical knowledge base. [Read the rest of this entry...]