Reviews on the latest music products. I put the newest and hottest music products to the test and see whether or not they are worth your time and your money.
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Tickets VIP
Tickets VIP
This is an interesting one that came to me the other day and I thought I’d share my results. Free Backstage Passes, a book my Ryan Even. This made me laugh a little bit to myself but after thinking about it for a while I realized that as a professional musician myself, there really are certain codes and conducts that musicians sort of live by and take for granted. This book talks in detail about these codes and conducts that separate the fan from the performer and how Even thinks any fan, given the right circumstances, can break down this barrier.
I’ve played in countless big halls around the world as a classical musician, and also been to countless ones as an audience member. I’ve also been to my share of rock concerts and played my share of rock concerts with a band I toured with a few years back. As a musician I know that there are certain barriers between performers and audience members. The barrier exists for the safety of the performers and their instruments or equipment. As an example, some violins are worth millions of dollars. You don’t want just anyone near that instrument. In the case of popular music, there are millions of people that want the chance to meet an artist, and there are bound to be a few crazies in that mass. Safety is hugely important for musicians. Another reason that the barrier exists is that performing music is extremely emotionally and physically draining. Performers don’t want distractions before a performance and afterwards, they are exhausted. Trying to meet fans during those times aren’t optimal by any means. I don’t think many people understand that concept. You wouldn’t want to bug Picasso in the middle of his painting... The same goes for performing artists.
That being said, there are ways around the system. Many big concert halls always have 2 entrances, one for the audience, one for the performers. The one for the audience has people taking tickets, the one for the performers has security, sometimes very strict security. I’ve been to halls where you have to show a picture ID just to get ‘buzzed in.’ Other venues are not strict at all. But this is where the coveted Backstage Pass comes in handy.
In his book, Free Backstage Passes, Even talks at great length how to go about getting a backstage pass. Getting access to backstage is honestly not as hard as the media tells you it is. It really is just a matter of talking to the right people at the right time. If you talk to the right people in the right way at the right time, you can pretty much get away with anything in the music business. That comes from another musician. But, if you talk to the wrong people, or anyone in the wrong way, especially at the wrong time, doors will close in your face faster than you can imagine. So, who do you talk to? When’s the right time to talk to them? How should you go about asking for freebies and not sound like you’re asking for a handout? Those are the 3 big secrets this book talks about. Is it going to work 100% of the time, probably not. But even if it doesn’t, you’ll get some great insight to what’s going on behind the scenes at a show.
The other thing Free Backstage Passes talks about is what to do and how to act when you get yours. This is just as important as obtaining one. When performers are getting ready to go on stage, they don’t want to be bothered, so if you go knock on their door, you’re going to get kicked out. If you get in the way, you’re going to get kicked out. If you ask questions or end up in the wrong place, you’re going to get kicked out. But, if you have confidence, know where it’s ok to be and stay out of the way, you just might get the chance to rub elbows with some pretty important people. So how do you know where to be is ok and where isn’t? Well you can either be in the entertainment industry for a long time and learn by experience, or read this book. Free Backstage Passes goes into detail about the different types of passes and what they all mean. It talks about where you can go, what you can do and how you should act. The biggest tip in this section is to simply have confidence. As an example: A musician being backstage is confident about where they are at because they know it’s their job to go on stage. A fan though, once they get beyond the security is curious, and it is completely obvious they are looking for something and don’t belong.
As this book talks about, confidence is the major key to being backstage. Even as an audience member I’ve been able to get backstage without a pass to congratulate and meet performers just by being confident. Confidence does come with a sense of knowledge however, and gaining that knowledge and insight has to come from somewhere.
If you are the type of person that always wanted to get backstage but never knew how, this book might be for you. If you are musician, it might be a bore because most of this stuff you know already.
But, there is a 60 day money back guarantee, so if you get it, try it out a few times and it doesn’t work, send it back. If you get it and it does work, then you did not waste your money.
How Read Music
How Read Music
As a small child, I learned how to read and write music before I could read and write english, I was one of the few like this and for the majority of people that is not the case. To me, reading music was easy, and so when I teach my cello students to read music I often struggle. I think it is often the case where the music teacher struggles to teach how to read music because it is just as common to read music as it is to read english.
There are countless programs, series’, and books that teach young students how to read music and relate it to their instrument, and all of them are based upon practice practice practice. There are some work books out there now that have students write notes as well as say, but they all depend on the same thing: memorization. Memorization is overwhelming to a child or an adult when you sit down in front of the piano and there are over 85 keys! How in the world is someone supposed to figure out all these notes! Luckily for us that have music experience we’ve organized all the notes into groups, octaves, triads, etc. But how do we go about teaching these? That’s where Read Music Notes With Ease comes in handy.
Read Music Notes With Ease is an all new approach to teaching students young and old how to read music. Instead of memorization of note names, Betty Wagner, the author, creates stories and characters for each note making learning easy and fun. No longer are we forced to memorize the relationship of the note name to where it goes on the staff and where it is on the piano, now we have a story to help organize students as to ‘why’ the note is called A and it’s on the second space of the staff. It’s not memorization, it’s reading or listening and understanding the fun story.
Read Music Notes With Ease markets to adults because of the reading, but I think that it’s very easy to teach small children with this method as well. Instead of the student reading, the teacher can read to the student and still use the method effectively.
Read Music Notes With Ease also is a great book to teach yourself how to read music. As I said before, it helps make the important stuff stick, while allowing you to have fun reading and understanding the funny characters Wagner creates.
Read Music Notes With Ease also comes with some sound clips to help you imagine Wagner’s characters. Wagner also includes some flashcards to help out us ‘old school’ learners with memorization and put your comprehension skills to the test.
If you want to learn how to read music and those other method books don’t help you or seem too old fashioned, Read Music Notes With Ease could very well be the way for you.
Sheet Piano Music
Sheet Piano Music
As a professional musician I am constantly looking for music to play but hate going to the store to buy it. Buying music can be extremely expensive and is often the most expensive part of being a musician. Thankfully, there are websites that have huge databases of music that we can access for an easily affordable price. Music-Scores is one of them.
Music-Scores has compositions by Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Albinoni, Boccherini, Brahms, Bruch, Clementi, Couperin, Debussy, Dvorak, Elgar, Faure, Franck, Grieg, Handel, Haydn, Heller, Holst, Liszt, Marcello, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Mussorgsky, Pachelbel, Paganini, Puccini, Purcell, Rameau, Ravel, Rimsky-Korsakov, Rossini, Scarlatti, Schubert, Schumann, Strauss, Tchaikovsky, Vivaldi, Wagner, Weber, and many many more! It’s a collection of most of the most popular composers from the Baroque to the Romantic Eras, with a few Contemporary composers as well!
Music-Scores doesn’t just have music for piano, it has music for nearly all instruments. Woodwinds, Brass, Strings, Keyboard instruments, and even some handbells! It not only has the original compositions, it also has many arrangements of popular pieces for your instrument. It even has music for popular ensembles like quintets, quartets, and chamber groups.
Music-Scores also has something that most music databases don’t have, the ability to listen to the piece before you waste your time working on it. Music-Scores has many midi files you can listen to that allows you to filter out the bad arrangements so you know you are going to get a high quality, good sounding arrangement of a piece.
Overall, Music-Scores is a good bargain if you are looking for a large database of downloadable and printable music for piano as well as nearly all other instruments.
How to Play the Keyboard
How to Play the Keyboard
Keyboard Crash Course is a short book, about 50 pages, that discusses how to take what you already know from learning classical piano and how to apply it to the electric keyboard and mostly within a band setting.
For the classically trained pianist, or myself as a cellist, reading lead sheets can be cumbersome and difficult. What in the world is an A#sus+4? And how does that translate into music, but more importantly, how are you supposed to play that particular chord on the piano? What happens when you get a chart that has chords like the one above and a melody, what are you supposed to do with your left hand? What is the appropriate approach to dealing with chord progressions and inversions of chords? These are just a few of the many many questions piano players deal with when they are asked to basically improvise from a chord chart. To many pianists, learning their own instrument in a new way can be extremely daunting and can sometimes feel damaging to their technique, but this book, Keyboard Crash Course really helps settle your fears and provides a unified approach to dealing with the most common problems classically trained pianist face when presented with keyboard style music.
Playing the electronic keyboard presents a whole new world of sounds to the classical piano. Now you have winds, string sounds, organ sounds, sound effects, etc. So your understanding of how to select and utilize all these new sounds needs to be clear. Keyboard Crash Course walks you through and gives examples of how to use certain sounds and become familiar with them.
Classically trained pianists often are in only a few settings, either accompanying, performing solo, or solo with an orchestra. So when one transfers those skills over to a band, complications can arise. This book helps you understand how to work within a band setting, it even goes into specifics with working in a worship or church band. Some of these more important ideas are addressed by discussing how to leave space for other instruments and how to blend your sound with the rest of the band. And how to also deal with band that have both a keyboard and a piano!
If you’re interested in broadening your piano skills to include the keyboard, this book is a great help. And it’s cheap too. Only $15. It’s not the book that has all the answers to all your questions, but it does give you a great start at being confident and comfortable at playing the keyboards. It takes the knowledge you already know and applies it in new ways.
Recommended as an excellent quick reference.
From Tuning a Guitar to Playing with Jamorama
Learn the Guitar Quickly with Jamorama Guitar Lessons
I’ve always been musically inclined, so for me, when I learned the guitar, it wasn’t exactly difficult. But that’s part of the beauty of the guitar, it’s not that difficult to learn. So realistically, I honestly believe that anyone, yes, anyone, can learn the basics of the guitar in a few weeks. I don’t think that you need a program such Jamorama to learn the basics of the guitar, any easy guitar book will do. However.... Jamorama does give you great advice even before you go find an instrument to learn on.
If you’re like me and sometimes feel overwhelmed when you walk into a music store because you’re unsure of what you need and you know the sales person is going to try to sell you more than what you need, Jamorama is for you. Guitars can range in price from $100 or less, to the thousands, in brand names that are notoriously crappy to notoriously amazing. Here’s where Jamorama comes to the rescue. Jamorama helps you with deciding these things and navigating the music store. It gives you confidence in your dealings with the music store sales person.
When you have a guitar laying around and you just wish you knew a few chords to pluck, and lets face it, most pop songs only have three chords, Jamorama gets you going from learning how to tune the guitar, to playing those few chords (or any other chord you could imagine) in just a few lessons. And like I said, I really believe anyone can play the guitar, it just takes a little bit of practice.
For the intermediate guitar player, Jamorama packs some really great features. Not only to you get to enhance your playing skills by introducing various rhythms and more chords, Jamorama has lessons on helping train your ears too. That’s right, our ears need training as well! Jamorama is unique in this way because it helps you learn, just by the sound, what chords are being played. This allows you to be able to play by ear and jam! It also includes a number of jam tracks that you can practice jamming in the comfort of home instead of in front of other musicians.
For the advanced guitar player, Jamorama does still have value. It has lessons in various genres of music, so if you’ve been specializing in a certain style of playing and have been interested in branching out or crossing over into new genres and styles of guitar playing, these lessons would be quite valuable.
As I said before, learning to play the guitar is not difficult, it just requires some practice. It truly is my belief that anyone can learn to play the guitar. Do you need Jamorama to learn the guitar? No. But it does provide a ton of useful information, great lessons to get you going, and confidence in your instrument purchase or anytime you have to run to the music store. There are features in here that honestly would costs loads more elsewhere. Take a guitar tuner for example. You’re honestly going to pay $50 for it, well that’s the price of the whole Jamorama course and there’s even a software tuner included!
Ease of Use: 7/10 (Still have to practice)
Does it work? Yes.
Features: 8/10
Overall Value: Very good, you get more for the money than you would at the music store.
Music Making Software
DUBturb Makes Complex Beat Sequences With Garageband Ease
Click Here to go to the DUBturbo Offical Website.
Click Here to go to the DUBturbo Offical Website.
Quite honestly, when I first received this product to review I was a bit skeptical because I had never heard of it and my extensive background as a musician seems to get in the way of what I always desire in applications involving music. But, I was pleasantly surprised, this application seemed to really have it all. I was never left with the common feeling of ‘I wish it could do that’ that I get with so many music applications. In this article I plan on discussing the main points and features of DUBturbo that will allow the average and the musically inclined to make beat sequences and patterns easily.
There are 3 Main components to DUBturbo which separate it from the rest of the other recording and beat sequencing softwares out there, and of course several little things that do as well, but I’ll discuss these 3 big things first.
The first main component of DUBturbo is the sequencer. The sequencer is the all familar ProTools/GarageBand style screen which shows you the tracks and when they are playing or not playing. It’s not too special, but what does set this apart is that it’s got 16 tracks. A drum sequencer with 16 tracks is pretty uncommon because most have far fewer! It’s not the unlimited that ProTools will give you, but will ProTools run on your netbook? I don’t think so; DUBturbo will. DUBturbo lays out all the tracks easily in the sequencer view, I tend to think of this as my home screen.
The next main component of DUBturbo is the drum machine. It’s obvious that this was very well thought out. Unlike GarageBand where you are forced into drum sequences, DUBturbo lets you create anyone you like, or modify one that already exists. It’s limited to just 10 pads per track, but this allows you to ‘type’ in the rhythm by using your computer keyboard as the drum pad. It converts your number pad into a drum set and you get to define each sound. There couldn’t be a more customized way of doing this either. You can choose either predefined drum ‘sets’ or make your own. To enter rhythms, you can either use your mouse and click on which part of the beat you want sound to happen or type it in on your drum pad/keyboard. This thing is awesome.
The other main component to DUBturbo is the 4 Octave Keyboard feature. This is THE thing that sets DUBturbo apart from the competition. You can insert melodic ideas, harmonic ideas, bass lines, anything with this. Beats without bass are boring, repetitive and seriously lame. But add a bass line, or some sort of harmonic or melodic interest and all of a sudden those repetitive beats seem to have some sort of flow and provide interest to your listeners. DUBturbo also makes it easy as pie to use the keyboard feature. By using your computer keyboard, you can put the notes in just like you were at a piano. It’s so easy and simple to do, I wish that Sibelius or Finale notation software were this easy! DUBturbo allows you to use up to 4 Octaves which is a big range. To some that may seem limited, but if you separate your tracks it’s difficult to feel limited.
Here are the other things that are really cool about DUBturbo...
There are soooo many sounds you can play with. If you’ve ever used GarageBand, there are a lot of different sounds and sequences you can use, but navigating them takes practice to learn and it’s not that easy, with DUBturbo, all the sounds are easy to navigate. They pop up in the middle of the screen, not just at the bottom like in GarageBand. You can do more with the sounds, you can even change the keys the sounds are in. In GarageBand you are stuck to whatever key the sample is in, which may not be the key of your beat. DUBturbo makes changing keys easy.
DUBturbo lets you upload your beats and sell them to other DUBturbo users. That’s right, writing music is easy on DUBturbo and getting paid for those beats is just as easy!
DUBturbo outputs studio quality sounds so you don’t have to worry about loss of quality when you burn to CD.
Using DUBturbo is easy, even for the non-musical user. It includes a video tutorial series to walk you through, step by step, on how to make simple beats all the way through advanced user features. So learning the program couldn’t be easier! These videos are even great for users familiar with similar style applications because it tells you shortcuts and secrets to make using the program easier.
Honestly, I haven’t seen an beat sequencing application as thoroughly put together as DUBturbo. It really does have it all and it makes putting together beats from any genre easy and fun.
Ease of Use: 9/10
Quality of Application: 9/10
Features: 10/10
Overall Value: 9.5/10
This really is the cream of the crop application.
Learn the Guitar Quickly with Jamorama Guitar Lessons
Click here to go to the Jamorama Official Site!
Learn the Guitar Quickly with Jamorama Guitar Lessons
I’ve always been musically inclined, so for me, when I learned the guitar, it wasn’t exactly difficult. But that’s part of the beauty of the guitar, it’s not that difficult to learn. So realistically, I honestly believe that anyone, yes, anyone, can learn the basics of the guitar in a few weeks. I don’t think that you need a program such Jamorama to learn the basics of the guitar, any easy guitar book will do. However.... Jamorama does give you great advice even before you go find an instrument to learn on.
If you’re like me and sometimes feel overwhelmed when you walk into a music store because you’re unsure of what you need and you know the sales person is going to try to sell you more than what you need, Jamorama is for you. Guitars can range in price from $100 or less, to the thousands, in brand names that are notoriously crappy to notoriously amazing. Here’s where Jamorama comes to the rescue. Jamorama helps you with deciding these things and navigating the music store. It gives you confidence in your dealings with the music store sales person.
When you have a guitar laying around and you just wish you knew a few chords to pluck, and lets face it, most pop songs only have three chords, Jamorama gets you going from learning how to tune the guitar, to playing those few chords (or any other chord you could imagine) in just a few lessons. And like I said, I really believe anyone can play the guitar, it just takes a little bit of practice.
For the intermediate guitar player, Jamorama packs some really great features. Not only to you get to enhance your playing skills by introducing various rhythms and more chords, Jamorama has lessons on helping train your ears too. That’s right, our ears need training as well! Jamorama is unique in this way because it helps you learn, just by the sound, what chords are being played. This allows you to be able to play by ear and jam! It also includes a number of jam tracks that you can practice jamming in the comfort of home instead of in front of other musicians.
For the advanced guitar player, Jamorama does still have value. It has lessons in various genres of music, so if you’ve been specializing in a certain style of playing and have been interested in branching out or crossing over into new genres and styles of guitar playing, these lessons would be quite valuable.
As I said before, learning to play the guitar is not difficult, it just requires some practice. It truly is my belief that anyone can learn to play the guitar. Do you need Jamorama to learn the guitar? No. But it does provide a ton of useful information, great lessons to get you going, and confidence in your instrument purchase or anytime you have to run to the music store. There are features in here that honestly would costs loads more elsewhere. Take a guitar tuner for example. You’re honestly going to pay $50 for it, well that’s the price of the whole Jamorama course and there’s even a software tuner included!
Ease of Use: 7/10 (Still have to practice)
Does it work? Yes.
Features: 8/10
Overall Value: Very good, you get more for the money than you would at the music store.
Click here to go to the Jamorama official site!
For more information on Jamorama, Click Here!
Learn the Guitar Quickly with Jamorama Guitar Lessons
I’ve always been musically inclined, so for me, when I learned the guitar, it wasn’t exactly difficult. But that’s part of the beauty of the guitar, it’s not that difficult to learn. So realistically, I honestly believe that anyone, yes, anyone, can learn the basics of the guitar in a few weeks. I don’t think that you need a program such Jamorama to learn the basics of the guitar, any easy guitar book will do. However.... Jamorama does give you great advice even before you go find an instrument to learn on.
If you’re like me and sometimes feel overwhelmed when you walk into a music store because you’re unsure of what you need and you know the sales person is going to try to sell you more than what you need, Jamorama is for you. Guitars can range in price from $100 or less, to the thousands, in brand names that are notoriously crappy to notoriously amazing. Here’s where Jamorama comes to the rescue. Jamorama helps you with deciding these things and navigating the music store. It gives you confidence in your dealings with the music store sales person.
When you have a guitar laying around and you just wish you knew a few chords to pluck, and lets face it, most pop songs only have three chords, Jamorama gets you going from learning how to tune the guitar, to playing those few chords (or any other chord you could imagine) in just a few lessons. And like I said, I really believe anyone can play the guitar, it just takes a little bit of practice.
For the intermediate guitar player, Jamorama packs some really great features. Not only to you get to enhance your playing skills by introducing various rhythms and more chords, Jamorama has lessons on helping train your ears too. That’s right, our ears need training as well! Jamorama is unique in this way because it helps you learn, just by the sound, what chords are being played. This allows you to be able to play by ear and jam! It also includes a number of jam tracks that you can practice jamming in the comfort of home instead of in front of other musicians.
For the advanced guitar player, Jamorama does still have value. It has lessons in various genres of music, so if you’ve been specializing in a certain style of playing and have been interested in branching out or crossing over into new genres and styles of guitar playing, these lessons would be quite valuable.
As I said before, learning to play the guitar is not difficult, it just requires some practice. It truly is my belief that anyone can learn to play the guitar. Do you need Jamorama to learn the guitar? No. But it does provide a ton of useful information, great lessons to get you going, and confidence in your instrument purchase or anytime you have to run to the music store. There are features in here that honestly would costs loads more elsewhere. Take a guitar tuner for example. You’re honestly going to pay $50 for it, well that’s the price of the whole Jamorama course and there’s even a software tuner included!
Ease of Use: 7/10 (Still have to practice)
Does it work? Yes.
Features: 8/10
Overall Value: Very good, you get more for the money than you would at the music store.
Click here to go to the Jamorama official site!
For more information on Jamorama, Click Here!
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