Live Musician Central

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  • Sunday Funnies – How To Play Cowbell

       There’s a definite art to playing percussion and especially that famous rock-n-roll percussion instument – the cowbell.  Enjoy!

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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!

     Apple iTunesApple iTunes

  • Happy 4th Of July From Live Musician Central

    Gibson Rocks The U.S.A.

       I hope everybody is having a great 4th of July! It’s my personal favorite summer holiday and my 2nd favorite after Christmas. I’ve played a lot of memorable 4th of July gigs over the years. I guess you could say my earliest 4th of July gigs were marching in parades from 5th grade to when I graduated High School. So I’ve played a lot of music on the 4th of July.

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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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  • The Gibson Robot Guitar

      There are a lot of people out there talking about the new Gibson Robot Guitar. If you’re unfamiliar with this guitar let me tell you a little bit about it. The Robot Guitar is essentially a Gibson Les Paul Studio model. From a distance it looks just like a plain old Les Paul. From the front, the only thing that really looks different is one of the tone knobs. Once you take a closer look you’ll notice that the tuners look normal from the front but from the rear they’re bigger. That’s because each tuner has its own motor that will tighten or loosen the strings automatically. What’s surprising is the tuners don’t actually weigh any more than a standard tuner. They’re controlled by a pair of CPU’s that are connected to tuning sensors built into the bridge. All these components work together to automatically tune the Gibson Robot Guitar.

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  • Sunday Funnies – Lego Beer Song

       Happy Sunday everybody! Todays funny clip is for my good friend Tom.       (more…)

  • Live Musician Central Weekend Album Recommendations

       We’re featuring downloads from Amazon.com again this week. Amazon’s MP3 selection is huge, their prices are incredible and they’re ripped at 256kbps which sound excellent. So here’s our album picks for this week.         (more…)

  • 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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