:Forest Folk

Whenever someone uses the word composer, inevitably, the names of Beethoven, Bach, and other classical personages come to mind. This can be very intimidating to those who want to record their musical thoughts and ideas down.

In fact, comparing yourself to ANY composer will be detrimental to you. Why? Because you will always have to live up to someone’s expectations of what is good music or what is not good music. This comparison trap will lead you nowhere and will result in a drying up of the creative spirit. The solution to this trap is to begin where you are and for most of us that means begin EASY!

I’ll never forget the first time I tried to “compose” something. It was for classical guitar. I tried to create something original and it took me 2 hours just to write out 4-bars of melody. Of course, I didn’t know what I was doing. There has to be some kind of method that works for you. Now, the method I use today has been very easy to work with because it gives me the freedom to compose AND improvise at the same time. I “compose” using 8-bar phrases.

To do this all one has to do is write out 8-bars on a sheet of paper. Any paper will do. It doesn’t have to be music paper or manuscript. In fact, I just use a spiral bound journal with ruled lines on it. Whenever I want to memorialize an idea, I draw out 8-bars very quickly. I then improvise and allow myself the freedom to play anything that comes out of me. If I try and think something up, the music will usually wind up sounding forced or contrived - qualities that music is better off not having.

Once the idea (either melodic or textural) appears, I write out the first 2-bars so I remember what it is and use chords to quickly fill in the 8-bar section. After this is completed, I may draw another 8-bars and see what else comes. If nothing more is coming at this particular point, I put the journal away and come back to it later on. This method has served me well over the years and is an excellent starting method for beginning composers.

Edward Weiss is a pianist/composer and webmaster of Quiescence Music’s online piano lessons. He has been helping students learn how to play piano in the New Age style for over 14 years and works with students in private, in groups, and now over the internet. Stop by now at http://www.quiescencemusic.com/piano_lessons.html for a FREE piano lesson!

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Mp3 music is audio that has been digitally encoded and compressed to make the amount of data smaller without compromising the overall sound quality. It’s a revolutionary technique with incredibly good results; mp3 music is frequently indistinguishable from music found on a CD (though some audiophiles with very sensitive ears dispute that statement).

The popularity of mp3 music made available on the Internet is a trend reaching gigantic proportions; these encoded songs are everywhere. Websites called mp3 blogs offer rare or hard-to-find mp3 music and avid fans sometimes spend hours at a time sifting through the piles of downloadable material. Newer recording artists that would often fall under the radar without the help of a well-known label are now able to convert their songs into mp3 music and make them available on the Internet, allowing huge numbers of people the chance to hear songs that they otherwise wouldn’t have been exposed to. It’s an extremely popular thing, mp3 music, one of those rare pop-culture phenomena embraced by nearly everyone.

But regardless of its massive popularity, mp3 music is surrounded with controversy. Many programs that allow users to transfer mp3 music directly from computer to computer offer the services for free, eliminating the possibility of royalties for the artist and label. Fearful of losing tons of money to fans downloading records instead of buying them, large factions of the music industry fought to make free mp3 music illegal — and succeeded to a degree. The laws, however, have loopholes, and many websites or P2P programs have exploited them for all they’re worth.

Additionally, laws regulating mp3 music in the United States aren’t necessarily applicable to other countries, so new websites and programs (particularly, for some reason, in Russia) have popped up offering the free services railed against in America. Because of the hotly argued ethical issues surrounding mp3 music, many shy away from the topic (and practice) completely. Others embrace it, citing huge record costs as justification enough for free mp3 music. It’s an argument not likely to end anytime soon; the ethical issues will be debated as long as free mp3 music is available somewhere.

In any case, MP3’s are here to stay, and wise is the musician who learns about them and takes advantage of them.

(With Mollie Wells)

Duane Shinn is the author of over 500 music books and music educational materials such as DVD’s, CD’s, musical games for kids, chord charts, musical software, and piano lesson instructional courses for adults. His book-CD-DVD course titled http://www.chordpiano.com/>”How To Play Chord Piano In Ten Days!” has sold over 100,000 copies around the world. He holds advanced degrees from Southern Oregon University and was the founder of Piano University in Southern Oregon. He is the author of the popular free 101-week online e-mail newsletter titled “Amazing Secrets Of Exciting Piano Chords & Sizzling Chord Progressions” with over 57,400 current subscribers.

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Buying a guitar is a very important, and potentially expensive,
decision. There are so many makes, models, styles, and colors,
that it becomes almost impossible to choose unless you know what
you’re looking for. The question is, which one is right for you?
You could easily buy a poor quality guitar thinking you got a
deal, or you could get a decent guitar for a price that just too
high. Here are some questions to ask before you actually buy
that guitar.

1. Budget.

With so many guitars available, you shouldn’t have a problem
finding one that fits your budget. The key is to know your
budget. You do get what you pay for and you should keep in mind
that you will be spending hours and hours practicing so you
should look for one you will enjoy playing. That said, remember
your budget. If you’re just starting out and you’re not sure how
you’ll take to it, set aside an amount that’s right for you. You
can always upgrade later if you want. Once you’ve set your
limit, do not waste time looking at guitars that don’t fit into
your price range. The trick is to find something you can be
satisfied with and is right for YOU.

2. Music Style.

Your guitar should depend on your style of music. Rock music
should be played on an electric guitar for the maximum effect.
If you want to play blues and jazz you could get a semi-acoustic
guitar. An accoustic nylon string guitar is probably the best
choice for classical music. While you basically need some of the
same skills to play the different styles, if you know what style
you want to play before you start, you can begin to sound like
what you want to sound like a lot sooner if you buy the right
style of guitar.

3. Age.

A 1/2 size or 3/4 size guitar is perfect for a child. Because of
a child’s limited reach, a regular guitar might not work and
could even stop the child’s interest. If you can afford an
electrical guitar, you could buy that for your child because
they have a small neck and thin strings and are easier to play.
Necks vary greatly and the one you find needs to be right for
YOU. Some are round, some are v-necked. Thin necks tend to be
easier for small hands like a child’s. Thick necks tend to be
stronger. A 7-string will have a thicker neck than a 6-string
guitar.

4. Guitar tone and woodtype.

For the most part, the lighter the wood the lighter the tone and
the darker the wood the richer the tone.

5. What experience do you have?

Electric or an acoustic guitar with nylon strings are typically
the best for beginners. However, students with small hands may
find the wider neck of a classical guitar or acoustic guitar
hard to play because of the reach. Again a 1/2 or 3/4 acoustic
would be perfect. For intermediate and advanced players, more
depends on your style of music and specific interests.

What now?

The most important thing is sound, not looks. The sound that
comes from superior craftmanship is what you should look for to
give you the extra edge. Some of the best prices and selection
can be found at everything-instruments a>. Enjoy!

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There are really only two ways you can play chords on the piano - solid or broken. While solid chords are nice, it’s the arpeggio or broken chord that students love to play! Cascading notes shimmer and glide up and down the piano keyboard to create a waterfall of sound!

Creating a broken chord piano improvisation need not be difficult. All that you need to know is what chords to play and how to create the broken chord sound. Knowing the chords you will play is the easy part. Creating the broken chord sound can present some with problems. These problems can be easily overcome if we start out by using a special chord structure known as the open position chord.

Here, both hands are used to create a modern sounding seventh chord. The left hand gets the root, fifth, and seventh of the chord while the right takes care of the third and seventh as well. With this chord structure, the beginner can create that beautiful lush sound right away!

We can begin in the left hand and go up to play what is called an ascending piano run, or we can begin in the right and go down. We can alternate fingers back and forth to create different textures and use the notes under our fingers to explore a whole new world of broken chord possibilities.

For example, in the lesson Forest’s Edge, we use open position chords in the Key of B Major to create an ascending broken chord run. Both hands are used to create it. The right plays melody notes as well. The amazing thing about this lesson is that it sounds a lot more difficult than it actually is to play.

Of course, broken chords can be played using triads, closed position chords, and any number of infinite chord varieties. But by using the open position chord first, students can quickly create a modern broken chord sound right away!

Edward Weiss is a pianist/composer and webmaster of Quiescence Music’s online piano lessons. He has been helping students learn how to play piano in the New Age style for over 14 years and works with students in private, in groups, and now over the internet. Stop by now at http://www.quiescencemusic.com/piano_lessons.html for a FREE piano lesson!

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Music marketing is by and large difficult for most artists, that is something we need to realise. Marketing yourself, being confident to allow people to listen to your tracks and most importantly, handling criticism takes a bit of time to get used to. In the majority of cases though, marketing plans do fail. you may have a great sounding track, but if it is not marketed properly then it will just be white noise.

However all is not lost.

The main reasons why music marketing fails is that 1) there is always some money involved, and 2) we market our music.

They all sound a bit strange I know, but my plan is for you to get over these hurdles and to get your music out there without any hassle. I will take each of the above points in turn, but remember they are interlinked:

1) Money marketing. This is bad. The economics of this is so: you have to sell slot of tracks to get back the amount you spent on marketing, then you need to sell a few more to make any profit. The problems is, why are we spending so much money on music marketing, or, why are we spending any money on marketing at all?! The Internet has greatly reduced the cost of marketing by 100%. Yep, marketing should be free, then any tracks that you do sell is pure profit. There are so many music marketing strategies, some of which are simple ideas that are not being utilised.

Here are some fantastic free marketing strategies are not being used, at all. How about leaflet distribution, flyers, making a mailing list then advertising your new tracks on that (they already like your tracks because they have signed upto your mailing list). Applying to competitions will always bring in some much needed traffic as competitions generate 1) leads and interest from the host site, 2) your tracks will get viral marketed especially if it has become in the top 3. Viral marketing is just another way of spreading interest, all the people who voted for your tracks will recommend the great track that they heard, and you name spreads. 3) You can always advertise the fact that you got in first, second or third in X competition (always state how many other competitors were there as well- coming third out of four entries is nothing to promote really).

Surely the ultimate advertising strategy is…give away your MP3s for FREE! A simple technique that promotes your tracks. People then trust you, they love quality items, they assume then, “hmm, if this is free, and it’s good, what would his selling tracks be like?” Free stuff sells pay goods, fact. Give away alot of free stuff…MP3s being the main one, and then be patient.

Once you have finished your free marketing, start again. Just keep on promoting yourself by free processes. It gets your name banded around, people will see your Webpage link and click on it increasing your traffic. It might not too successful in the first few months or maybe even a year, but stick with it, gaining visitor confidence will ultimately prevail.

2) The above is great, but why would anyone buy any track from you in the first place? To most surfers you are faceless, they don’t see you on the music videos, so why should they buy anything from you?

Harsh words I know, I’m sorry, but it is true. That is the real reason why there are thousands of good groups and artists out there in Internet land marketing away, spending cash and showing nothing for it. They marketed first, wanting cash, and their visitors are literally saying “I don’t think so”. You then become the banner ad- looks really good, but never gets the click.

What you need to do is create content within your site. Simple as that. Without content you are just another site that the visitor has no real reason to come back to. Content also increases the chances of you being picked up by the search engines. Please note:Google, and the other big search engines have stated that their thousands of calculations per site includes content search. This is a fundamental statement, even if you are a music site giving away your MP3s.

If you have ever looked for MP3s within the search engines, there are about 6 million sites dedicated to the term MP3. Now, your one site has to be found by a visitor, the chances are very low. However, if your site has content focused keywords, such as “good guitar riffs”, “how to gig” etc, then you will be picked up much easily than a simple MP3 search. Within the various pages that you have created you put, “download free guitar MP3s” or something that suits your music, and you then advertise your MP3s through the “back door”. Content will also bring back the visitors, they love a site that they are interested in, they sign up to your news-letter, and then you email them with new updates, your new MP3s etc. Then you start to create your own little buzz, you create people willing to listen to your tracks.

A sideline to content is always relevant, up-to-date content. Offering tapes with your tracks on is music marketing suicide. I have seen these actually being offered on some websites. Offering a tape states that 1. You are not up-to-date hence your sounds won’t be, 2. You are offering poor quality, hence your tracks won’t shine, and 3. You have to pay out for the tape (postage and packaging etc). People on the Internet want things now, not tomorrow, offering MP3s, even short WAV files is giving the visitor what they want- immediate access to your tracks.

Relevant content is just as important as current content. If you have a rock website stick to rock related web pages. If I was into hip-hop I wouldn’t go onto your rock site and look at hip-hop related articles. Obvious I know, but scarily this has been done. It also has another effect. The search engines see topic specific sites as just that, topic specific. If you stray away from your chosen topic it will not look good for you with the engines. They will see that your relevance has reduced and so to will your page ranking.

Content is not that easy to accomplish. It comes with time, you need to tweak, track whether that has done any good to your traffic or click throughs. You could also just be writing alot of drivel. Content needs to be “Search Engine Focused”, you need to honestly persuade people to buy from you, you need to have a one to one style (like you are talking to a friend), and definitely not be boring. Nearly forgot, you need to assess who your audience is. Are they young, middle aged, technophobic? You writing style should cater for your audience. For example, a younger audience will like more colour, more tech information, a friendly banter, and up-to-date chart acts. Generally if you write as you would talk to a friend then you will be on safe lines.

Dominic Hough has made music for over 18 years. On his site http://www.make-your-own-dance-and-techno-songs.com he has proved that you can make, and market your own techno songs for free. His site also covers sampling, MP3s, loops and much more.

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