Improve Your Music

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...]

One of my all time favourite drummers has to be Steve Gadd. He is famous for his use of rudiments in his grooves and solos. One of his signature pieces is Paul Simon’s “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover”. This groove, roughly based on a paradiddle feel, sets the tone for the whole song.

(Click to enlarge)

Here is Steve demonstrating the groove himself.

[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZZLLYEzKE8]

and here is Steve performing the song live with Paul Simon.

[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91euERWH2M4]

Like always, practice this one very slowly until you can play it smoothly before attempting it at pace. Smooth is the key!

I help run an acoustic music night at a local pub in every Wednesday night and I notice that attendences go up or down depending on a whole range of things. Who is playing, the weather and so on.

Lately though, I have been thinking about how people can evolve from someone who has no idea about a band to being a rabid ‘fan’ or ‘groupie’ of that same band. I would say that there is some sort of conversion process that takes place.

It seems to me that there are four types of people that can possibly comprise a listening audience (bearing in mind that I am talking about the local scene not a stadium show)

1. Converted fans

As mentioned before these are the rabid, one eyed supporters of your music. They come to every show, know all the words to your songs and would even buy a lock of the lead singers hair if given half the chance. It is safe to say that the more of these you have in your fan base the better.

2. People that know you

I’m talking about friends, family, work collegues, acquaintances, next door neighbours and anyone who is not a total stranger to you.

NB: When you first start off as an indie music artist it’s always a great idea to make a list of everyone that you know and that you contact them to let them know of what you are doing and to make sure you have their permission to put their details on your fledgling opt-in email list.

If you are a four piece indie music band for example, then theoretically you then have four times as many people to contact and put onto your email list. If you do this before your first gig you have a better chance of getting a good crowd. [Read the rest of this entry...]

In part 1 of this series we looked at using a service such as Airplay Direct to help get your music played on a radio station. Our station AllAustralianMusic.com hunts for music on Airplay Direct and many other similar sites. While these sites have been an absolute goldmine of great music I’ve found that many of the artists still do not make it easy for me, as a producer, to use their music.
How are they making it hard for me? The main problems are:
* Poor levels. Some are far too quiet and some are so hot that they are distorting. I even get songs from the same artist that vary greatly in volume. Some loud & some soft, all on the same album.
* Leading or trailing silence. This simply means that the songs has 5 or 10 seconds of silence at the start or end of the song that will need to be trimmed.
* Poor/Missing mp3 tags. The mp3 tags help identify the song, artist and album and are critical if you want people to know who they are listening to.

These might seem like trivial items but together they add up to a massive amount of time needed just to make a track playable. If I need to listen to every track, adjust it’s level, trim the start & finish, add in or correct the mp3 tags, then that gets very time consuming when you are dealing with adding forty or fifty tracks to a playlist which I do regularly. To put it simply folks, if I need to spend too much time getting a song ready for airplay, then it will probably get pushed to the end of the pile. The easy ones get through first so do yourself a favour and make it easy for someone to play your stuff.

So, what can you do to improve the chance of getting your song played?
* Watch the levels. Get your level as close to 0DB as possible without going over and into distortion. You can get a simple freeware program like Audacity to check your levels and adjust them accordingly.
* Trim off the silence at the start and end. Again, a simple audio editor like Audacity makes this easy.
* Fill in ALL of the mp3 tags such as track title, album name and artist name. If you don’t have an album title yet, put your band’s name in or TBA or something. Just don’t leave it blank.

Until you actually get your song played, the job is only half done. If you take the time to make it easy for people to play your songs on radio, they just might!

Did you know that there are many people who can naturally play by ear? Often they sing by ear as well. Sure, they may be able to follow along as the music moves up and down the scale of the page they are looking at while performing. However, in reality, they never learned the difference between an A flat and a D flat, it is something that comes natural to them and they truly follow their ear when playing an instrument or singing vocals.

It is very possible that these natural ‘by ear’ performers even found themselves puzzled as to why learning to read music was so very difficult for them, some not being able to learn how at all. Even though many of them are awesome performers and many others never discover their secret at all.

On the other hand, there are many learned performers, who know their scales by name and type as well as timing, since they put a great many hours into learning each step there is to take when learning to play and instrument or vocalize. Even though it may take many years to learn to be a master of music, you can learn to play by ear.

It is simple really, to learn to play by ear, since anything that you have ever heard is available to play by ear; you just have to learn how to do it. Then all it takes is practice to be perfect, since the more often you do something, the easier it becomes for you to do. First however, you must understand the theory of teaching your ear to understand the musical structures as they are being played is an age old practice. Actually, it is one that you often experienced as a child; before learning to play by lessons, it is something that most people come by naturally. Very simply, playing by ear is an ability to play a piece of music by listening to it continually. You are then able to play a piece of music simply because you have heard it so many times.

Basically, there are three contributing elements of music. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Over the past few months of running an online radio station I’ve had the chance to listen to a large amount of independently produced music and I must say that the standard has been amazingly high. A competent musician with a basic home recording setup can turn out results that small studios could only dream of just a few short years ago.

For those who are just starting out or who would like to expand their knowledge their are a few good online resources that can help greatly. A good place to start would be www.homemusicrecording.com. This is a great site offering a large array of helpful articles on many different facets of home recording from choosing a software platform to “black arts” such as using compression & equalisers.

Call in soon, you won’t be disappointed.

Here is a great, short video clip by Bernie Dresel of the Brian Setzer Orchestra demonstrating some simple snare drum licks based on double stroke rolls in a triplet feel.

[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WI214Jd9Ikc]

It looks simple enough doesn’t it? Try it at the speed Bernie does and see how you go!

For many bands/artists, “merchandising” is a significant source of income. What is “merchandising” I hear you ask. Merchandising simply means the selling of products other than your music. T-Shirts, posters, stickers, caps etc. We’ve all been to a concert where the T-shirt line was longer than the line to get into the gig so how how do we cash in on this?

Traditionally merchandising has been an expensive thing to set up so many bands simply don’t bother. It can cost a lot of money to have a stack of T-Shirts or caps printed in various sizes, colours etc and you are probably going to need to sell a lot to even break square, let alone making a profit. Once again, modern technology and the internet has come to our rescue.

In this article we are going to look at “Print on demand” services, specifically Cafe Press. There are many companies offering this service now but Cafe Press is the best known example. Print on demand means exactly that. When a customer wants a shirt with your bands logo on it, they can simply order and pay for it online through Cafe Press who will then print and ship the shirt to your customer. This alleviates having to keep a large and expensive stock on hand. It also means that you can offer a much wider variety of merchandise at no additional cost to you. All you need to do is supply the artwork and Cafe Press do the rest.

They offer a huge variety of products ranging from traditional T-shirts and posters to cups, CD’s, hats, stickers, mouse mats, even baby clothes! You can then set up a simple shop via links on your website to allow your fans to order whatever they want with your artwork on it. How cool is that?

From their website:
What CafePress.com does

1. Gives you a FREE online shop to promote your products
2. Produces each item when ordered using our unique print-on-demand technology
3. Handles all payment transactions including major credit cards
4. Ships your products worldwide
5. Manages all returns/exchanges
6. Offers customer service via toll-free phone and email
7. Sends you a monthly check for your earnings on sales!

The internet is rapidly providing more and more services to independent bands and artists that once would have only been possible to big name acts with large recording contracts. Now anyone can do it. Get over to Cafe Press and get started selling your own merchandise today!

Here are a couple of links that are well worth checking out.

The first is a must for all us Aussie rock fans. AusRock showcases some classic Australian rock albums, many of which I have on vinyl in my garage! They are at www.AusRock.blogspot.com

Next is a great new blog by the folks at b5 media. It covers quite a variety of general topics that would be useful to most musicians. They are at www.thegoodmusician.com