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Some Tips For Memorizing Song Lyrics

Bill says, "What was the next lyric?"

One of the most essential skills a live singer must develop is the ability to memorize song lyrics. As a singer in a live band you may be called on to memorize 40 songs or more worth of lyrics. That seems like an overwhelming amount of song lyrics to memorize when you look at that number. The fact is, singers do it all the time and believe it or not it’s not an insurmountable task. As with everything that you’ll do in a band, it begins with the first step. Today I’m going to talk about some tips that will help you in your quest to memorize a setlist worth of song lyrics.

All big tasks are easier when you break them down into smaller parts. The first thing you need to do is decide what song you want to memorize. It helps if you’re already familiar with the song but even if it’s a new song that you’re not familiar with there is a specific way to approach memorizing every song that you want to learn. The first thing you should do is find a copy of the lyrics. We used to have to sit with a recording of the song and struggle to figure out what the singer was saying. Doing that took a lot of time and led to a lot of lyrical errors. (more…)
Beat The Fender Price Increase On Bass Guitars With Deals On eBay

Click To Search Deals On Fender Basses

With the recent 30% price increase across the entire Fender product line many Fender products are now further out of reach of the average working musician. Many people are questioning why Fender would increase prices at a time when the economy is so down. There’s one sure way to fight the price increase and that’s to buy used gear. The biggest used gear market on the internet is eBay and today on Live Musician Central we’re going to feature Fender Bass Guitars! Just take a look at the listings below and if you see something you like, click the link and bid on it. You could score the bass guitar of your dreams and save a bundle of money by buying used.

[phpbay]Fender Bass, 10[/phpbay]
Jeff Beck Video – Jeff Beck at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club 2007 – Angel (Footsteps)

Jeff Beck Live At Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club

What can I say about the great Jeff Beck? Of all the guitarists in history, he’s my personal favorite. If you listen to his recordings it’s easy to believe that he uses a lot of studio wizardry on his guitar. The truth is, he doesn’t. He uses very little in the way of effects. He’ll have a Wah-Wah, echo and a distortion pedal in his signal chain and that’s usually it. He doesn’t usually use a guitar pick because he prefers to use his fingers to create his amazing sound although I have seen him employ the use of a plectrum when he’s after a certain attack. The big question is, can he create what he does live? The answer is a great big YES! He’s simply an amazing guitar player and everytime I see a video of him perform I just can’t stop watching it. (more…)
Get Great Deals On Shure Microphones

Click Image To Buy Shure Microphones

Today on Live Musician Central I’m going to put up some eBay links to my favorite Shure Microphones. I am an avid user of both the Shure SM57 instrument microphone and the Shure Beta 58A Vocal Microphone. Both of these microphones represent the best return per dollar spent on them. They are both amazingly affordable and they perform their job extremely well. I’ve never had any trouble with my Shure microphones and I’ve been using them for years. My Shure SM57 microphones have been used at hundreds of live shows as well as studio sessions and they still sound fantastic. I’ve had my Shure SM57 mic’s for about 14 years now. (more…)
Pink Floyd “The Wall” Laser Show At Clark Planetarium, Salt Lake City

Hansen Dome Theater Laser Show

As a live musician I’m always intrigued by the many ways that music is presented to an audience. One medium that has always impressed me is live laser shows at the local planetarium. I think it’s interesting to see how a live audience responds to recorded music presented this way. This weekend I went to see the Pink Floyd “The Wall” laser show in the Hansen Dome Theater at the Clark Planetarium in Salt Lake City, Utah. It has been quite a few years since I’ve been to a laser show at the planetarium so I was pretty excited to see how the technology was advancing. The last time I went to a laser show they had fog effects, starfield effects and some lighting effects. I can tell you that the planetarium has upgraded their technology quite a bit! (more…)
Sunday Funnies – Pachelbel’s Canon In D Comedy Rant

This is funny because the guy has a point about how simple Pachelbel’s Canon in D is to play. He also has a funny point about how many times that particular chord progression is used in modern pop music. Enjoy! (more…)
Live Musician Central – Weekend Album Picks 3-21-09

Every week on Live Musician Central we pick the top new album releases for the week. In case you’re wondering how we determine the top album releases, we base it solely on the level of music industry marketing behind the album. These particular releases may not be our personal favorites but they are being pushed like crazy by the music industry. How does that help us as live performing musicians? It keeps us in step with the rest of the industry and can also serve as a reference to what’s going to be played by radio, tv and dj’s across the nation. That can help you with song selection for your band when building your set lists. Knowing what people will be listening to will help you when programming your break music that you play during band breaks. It’s a fact that marketing by the music industry plays a huge part in what people in general are listening to. That can help your band appear on top of the scene by playing songs that people are going to be familiar with. We do put some classic albums and personal favorites up as well.

We feature MP3 downloads from Amazon.com because of their extremely high quality (256kbps MP3) and excellent pricing. You can save a bundle downloading from Amazon.com and everything you download from them is DRM free and can be played on multiple music players including iPods and iPhones. We also include links to the top music retailer, iTunes!
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Market Your Band With Social Networking

Visit Matt Rushton's MySpace Page

There are so many ways for live musicians to reach our audience today that there’s really no excuse not to be using some of them. Today I’m going to discuss using the social networking sites out there for marketing you, your band and your music. I’m talking about using MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn to connect with your fans as well as other musicians and bands. There are a lot of social networking sites and some that are dedicated strictly to music and musicians but I’m going to focus on Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn.

Of those three big social networking sites the one that caters the best to musicians and bands is MySpace. MySpace allows you to create a musician specific profile about you or your band and upload your own original music for playback on your profile page. You can also allow people to download your songs for free. The big advantage to MySpace is you get a unique URL that incorporates your name, or a version of it in the URL. For example, my MySpace URL is http://www.myspace.com/mattrushtonmusic . It’s fairly short and it has my name in it. (more…)
Foot Control Pedal For Fender Cyber-Twin – Behringer FCB1010 MIDI Foot Controller

Behringer FCB1010 MIDI Foot Controller

I have the Fender Cyber-Twin SE amplifier and have been using it in my live band as well as in my recording studio for about 3 years now. It has proven itself time and time again over the years and I’m very happy with the Cyber-Twin SE. I’ve recommended the amplifier often over the years to my students and fellow musicians. When I bought my Cyber-Twin SE the Cyber Foot Controller was readily available and I purchased one along with the amplifier. Since then the Cyber Foot Controller has seemingly disappeared. I haven’t seen any formal announcement from Fender that the pedal is discontinued but it sure seems to be gone. The only place I’ve seen them recently is occasionally on eBay. I have had many people ask me what MIDI controller to use with the Fender Cyber-Twin SE and I recommend the Behringer FCB1010 MIDI Foot Controller. It’s unbelievably inexpensive for how perfectly it works with the Cyber-Twin SE. (more…)
The Tielman Brothers – Rollin’ Rock (live 1960)

All I can say after watching this amazing live performance is wow! The Tielman Brothers come from Indonesia and they are just incredible to watch perform. They really knew how to put on a show. It’s a true art to have four people put on a single dynamic stageshow. They each take a turn in the spotlight and all four brothers are truly talented. This kind of energetic performance is what rock-n-roll is really all about. I do have to say, it made me a little squeamish when the lead guitarist wedged the neck of that beutiful Les Paul on the floor and put his foot down on it to play it with his foot. I thought for sure that guitar neck was going to snap.

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