Live Musician Central

Author: Live Musician Central

  • Brian May Guitar Solo – Live At Wembley Stadium

       Yes it’s the great Brian May, one of the greatest live guitarists of all time. Brian has made some incredible recordings with Queen over the years but his live performance is simply off the charts. This guitar solo is from the Queen DVD “Live At Wembley Stadium“. Brian’s solo is really fun to listen to as he plays around with delay’s and harmonies.

       This is one of Queen’s most popular recorded live shows and the filming is excellent as well as the sound. The sound on this DVD is mixed in DTS Surround Sound and it’s expansive and full.  I highly recommend Queen – Live At Wembly Stadium and you can pick it up from the Live Musician Central Store for the incredibly low price of $12.99 .   (more…)

  • Fender Standard Jazz Bass Guitar Review

    Fender Standard Jazz Bass – Midnight Wine

       I recently helped one of my students purchase a Fender Standard Jazz Bass guitar. He is going to be using it in his live band. Even though the Standard Jazz Bass is made in Mexico I was very impressed with the quality of the build of the Bass that he purchased. The Standard Jazz Bass has all the components that made the Fender Jazz Bass famous. It has two single coil pickups each with their own volume control and a single master tone control. This gives you the ability to mix the sound of the two pickups together in a multitude of different ways. It gives the Jazz Bass a lot of tonal options that you wouldn’t get with the Fender Precision Bass. 

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  • I’m Thankful For Music

       Thanksgiving week is upon us and I was just thinking about how thankful I am to be a musician and for all the incredible music that we have available to us. It’s really a great time to be a Live Musician with all the fantastic technology available to use in the creation of new music. The digital age has given us the ability to build affordable and extremely powerful digital audio workstations. Computer and audio interface hardware is very affordable and there are some fantastic software packages that give us unprecedented control over our music. It really is a great time to be a musician so here are some things I’m thankful for to celebrate this Thanksgiving.

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  • Sunday Funnies – Worst Cover Band Ever

       Okay, so there are a ton of videos of the “Worst Cover Band Ever” on YouTube. This is one of the worst I’ve seen, I don’t understand how you could be a singer and have no clue that your singing was so terrible. This bands friends must hate them to let them get onstage sounding this horrible. Anyway, enjoy this one if you can. At least it’s funny!  (more…)

  • Live Musician Central – Weekend Album Picks 11-22-08

       Every weekend here at Live Musician Central we post up several albums for you to check out and download. We feature some of the most heavily marketed new releases every week. These albums are a good example of what the music industry is marketing and you can use them as a guide for building your bands songlist. You always want to play songs the people will be familiar with and there’s an excellent chance that the albums featured in our weekend album picks will have a lot of songs that people will know. It’s a good idea to have them on your MP3 player at gigs so you can test them out on an audience before you spend the time learning them. The album picks can make great break music.

       We feature downloads from iTunes as well as MP3 downloads from Amazon.com music service. The Amazon.com MP3’s are ripped at 256kbps and are DRM free so you can copy them to as many music players as you like. They’re priced very low when you download entire albums. With the Amazon widgets below you can preview the album right here on Live Musician Central. You can bet that people will be knowing those songs as well and it’s a great deal on a full album. This week David Cook and Beyonce’ both have new albums out.
    Apple iTunes (more…)

  • How To Learn A Cover Song To Play In A Live Band

    Should I Stay Or Should I Go – The Clash

       One of the greatest challenges I’ve had as a live musician is learning new songs to play live with my band. I don’t know why I’ve struggled with it because I’ve been playing other people’s songs for as long as I’ve been playing music. Think about it, when you began learning your instrument you most likely learned how to play music that other people have written. If you took piano, I’m sure you learned out of basic piano books that had some classic folk songs or some great classical music. You probably learned how to play some pop music on the piano to keep things interesting as well. Well it’s a whole lot different when you’re learning music to play in a live band. To do it right, you need to learn to pick out and play parts by ear. That’s a real challenge for those of us that learned how to play instruments by reading music. It took me a long time to develop my ear to the point where I could play my parts exactly like the record. Here are some suggestions on how to learn a cover song to play in your live band. (more…)

  • Shopping For Gifts For Musicians

       It’s that time of year again and I like to get my Christmas shopping done early so I can relax and enjoy the holiday season. For the live musician there are so many opportunities to be out playing gigs that shopping during December can just be crazy. One thing I’ve noticed about being a musician is that a lot of my friends are musicians too. It’s always tricky buying things for each other and it can be tough to think of new things to get for the players in your band year after year. I mean how many guitar picks and sets of strings can you give out before it all just becomes the same old boring routine?

       That’s why I totally appreciate having a good musicians gift guide to use while I do my shopping. So today I’m going to give you links to 3 excellent gift guides from the top Internet music stores. I don’t know about you but I love ordering online and just waiting for the gifts to show up on my doorstep. It’s great to avoid all the crazy Christmas crowds at the stores. The only crazy Christmas crowds I like are the ones at the front of the stage cheering my live band on. So follow the links below for great musician gift guides.

    Musician's Friend Holiday Gift Guide



  • Extreme Bass Guitar Playing With Billy Sheehan

       I’ve been featuring some live musicians who are masters at their particular instrument and this week we have bass guitar master Billy Sheehan. This is a video of Billy with his live band playing his song called “The Suspense Is Killing Me” from his Cosmic Troubadour album. Just an FYI, you can get Cosmic Troubadour from Amazon.com MP3 downloads for the extremely low price of $6.99 for 15 song! Can’t beat that…   (more…)

  • The Fender American Deluxe Stratocaster – My Favorite Guitar

    Matt With American Deluxe Ash Stratocaster

       Being a guitarist in a live band, I’m constantly asked “What guitar do you play?”. The truth is I have a modest guitar collection of about 12 guitars so I play a lot of different guitars. But there is one particular model that stands out above the rest. That is my beloved Fender American Deluxe Stratocaster. I actually have two American Deluxe Strats and A Jeff Beck Signature Strat that is very similar to an American Deluxe Stratocaster. The two I’d like to talk about today are my 2004 50th Anniversary American Deluxe Stratocaster and my 2005 American Deluxe Ash Stratocaster. They are both very similar to each other and incredible guitars.

       I got the 50th Anniversary American Deluxe Stratocaster when it was released in 2004 because I had always wanted a collectible guitar and I love the Stratocaster. My Jeff Beck Signature Strat had been serving me well for about 9 years and I was looking for another good guitar. The reason I got the American Deluxe version rather than the American Standard version was because I absolutely love the feature set that is on the American Deluxe Stratocaster.

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  • How To Do A Band Rhythm Check

    Red Hot Chili Peppers Catch The Groove

       One of the things that will be an ongoing quest for your live band is your ability to play consistently in the groove. What is a groove? That’s when your band locks into a certain rhythm which defines the overall feel of the song. There’s a rock groove, funk groove, R&B groove, country groove, jazz groove and many other types of grooves. Playing in a groove can also be called “playing in the pocket.” It all comes down to a very simple concept and that is how all the parts being played by your band interlock rhythmically. Today I’m going to tell you about a very simple but very effective way for your live band to do a groove check, or rhythm check if you will. (more…)