I always figured if I practiced long and hard enough that I would become a good enough musician that my skills would guarantee a successful show every time I played. So I practiced and I became a good musician but I found that a good show doesn’t just depend on musical skill. A good show is a collective effort between several different factors.
Category: 3. Improve Your Live Band Skills
Become a better player, singer, showman and Live Band.
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Preparing For A Studio Recording Session
Abby Road Recording Studio So you’ve finally got enough songs, enough time and enough cash to get yourself some studio time and record that album you’ve always dreamed about. So what else do you need to do to get ready to make every minute count?
The number one most important thing is to have the songs fully written and learned before going into the studio. You don’t want to waste valuable studio time making changes to the songwriting in the studio. You should have all your instrument parts learned including solos. Your singer should have all the lyrics memorized and everyone should have their backup vocal parts learned and memorized. (more…)
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Writing Lyrics That People Can Relate To
Billy Joel – Piano Man There are a lot of great songwriters out there. Some writers can write a tune that will stick in your head for days on end. Some writers will write a set of lyrics that will really touch you on a deeper level. The lyrics that I enjoy the most are lyrics that I can personally relate to and that mean something to me. I like a song that will make me say “Yeah man, I’ve been there myself.”
So how can you as a writer write lyrics that other people can relate to? The best and easiest way is to write what you know. Write about what you have personally experienced in your life. The best things to write about that other people can relate to are the times in your life when you’ve felt really strong emotions. (more…)
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Am I A Good Musician?
Prince – The Complete Musician If you’re like me you’ve probably pondered the question “Am I a good musician?”. I know that for me, I’ll just get to the point where I think I’m a really good musician and then something will happen and humble me back down. I’ll go hear a great band or jam with an unbelievable guitarist and I’ll be back in the practice shed trying to get better at what I do.
It’s not a bad thing to get humbled like that if it motivates you to do better. We all feel like giving up from time to time but what makes you a great musician is rising to the challenge. I’ve always been able to use those times where I’m blown away by another musician and use them to make myself better. You can learn so much from other musicians that it’s in your best interest to search out musicians that are already great to see if you can learn from them.
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Live Musician Central – Weekend Album Downloads 7-5-08
I’m mixing it up a little bit this weekend. I’m giving you some links to great new albums from both iTunes and Amazon. As I’ve said before about Amazon.com MP3 downloads – they’re affordable, they’re DRM free, and they’re ripped at 256kbps. All Amazon.com MP3 downloads are compatible with all MP3 capable devices as well as music management interfaces such as iTunes, Zune and Windows Media Player. Enjoy!
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Take Care Of Your Hearing With Musicians Earplugs
Pete Townshend – Rock Induced Deafness One of the most important pieces of advice I can give to young musicians is simply to take good care of your hearing. I was diagnosed with a hearing loss when I was 16 years old and had only been playing in a band a couple of years. I was still pretty careless with my hearing for much of my early career. Finally the hearing specialists started telling me I needed hearing aids. That got my attention and I’ve been very careful with my hearing the last 15 years or so.
The best thing I’ve done for my hearing is to get a pair of custom molded, sonic filter type earplugs made specially for musicians. I have the Westone ES49 Custom Fit Earplugs. Mine are a light tan color and are barely visible from the audience. They sound fantastic and because they are custom molded to my ear they’re extremely comfortable.
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Line 6 TonePort KB37 Audio Interface and MIDI Controller Review
Line 6 TonePort KB37 One of the finest pieces of equipment I have ever owned is the Line 6 TonePort KB37 Audio Interface and MIDI Controller.This little device has the power to be your sole interface into your digital audio software workstation. I use this controller with my laptop and Sony Acid Pro 6
. Sony Acid works perfectly with the KB37. The KB37 provides MIDI keyboard control as well as 2 mic inputs with built in 48v phantom power, a guitar/bass input and stereo line inputs. It also has an S/PDIF out, TRS line outputs, TRS monitor input and an independent headphone jack. With that many inputs and outputs it’s your total audio interface solution when multi-tracking your projects on your computer.
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Surround Yourself With Better Musicians
Whaddya mean I suck?!? I’ve had a lot of guys tell me that they think they suck badly after they hear me play. I know, I’m stroking my ego quite a bit there but now that I’ve been playing for so many years I’m a pretty good guitar player. The thing is, I remember when I was just starting out playing in bands. I felt so far behind the others that I didn’t think there was any way I’d ever be as good as the guys I was playing with. It would have been very easy for me to say “That’s it, I suck so I’m hanging it up and quitting.” but I didn’t do that. I kept fighting to get better. When you play with other musicians that are better than you are then you can use the situation to your advantage.
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Settle Your Nerves – Dealing With Stage Fright
Elvis – Dancing or just nervous? I’ve had my bouts of stage fright over the course of my career although I’ve never had it really bad. I’ve played with other musicians who were just overwhelmed with stage fright. I’ve played with guys that were throwing up before every gig because they got so nervous.
Let me start off with a little quote from The King himself, Mr. Elvis Presley: “I’ve never gotten over what they call stage–fright. I go through it every show. I’m pretty concerned, I’m pretty much thinking about the show. I never get completely comfortable with it, and I don’t let the people around me get comfortable with it, in that I remind them that it’s a new crowd out there, it’s a new audience, and they haven’t seen us before. So it’s got to be like the first time we go on.” – taken from http://quotations.about.com
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Inadvertent Plagiarism – Did I Steal This Song?
George Harrison – My Sweet Lord Have you ever written a song and worried that you stole that song from somebody else? I was reading in the Harmony Central Songwriting Forum and a user named blue2blue started a very interesting discussion on this. Here’s the link to the discussion click here.
I’m sure that’s a question that every songwriter has pondered. What are we other than a mix of everything we’ve ever heard. Think of George Harrison getting hit with a lawsuit for “My Sweet Lord” and losing because it sounded like “He’s So Fine” recorded by the Chiffons. It makes us all question “where did my song come from?”
