Posted by christine on Apr 1, 2010 in
Music We all know what a ticket is but also how hard it can be to obtain one when you are talking about major events. If the NY Yankees are going to play, if Sting is going to perform live and if the biggest wrestling competition is going to be held in your town, it?s impossible that you are not interested in getting the best seats. Just like that, you hope and pray that we will still find tickets for the events we are interested in and end up being disappointed. But what would you say of purchasing tickets online? It?s a marvelous idea, isn?t it?
Knowing very well the demand for tickets, many companies have gone online and started to act as intermediary between various buyers and sellers. Today, with the help of just one website you can purchase concert tickets online and also tickets to major sports events. You can go for MLB baseball tickets, seeing your favorite team in action ? NY Mets, Boston Red Sox or Cleveland Indians for example. There are many great offers online, including when it comes to the Chicago Cubs tickets and other famous baseball teams. You can?t get enough being given so many opportunities and the truth is that there are no better prices than the ones you find online.
What others sports events can you get tickets for online? Well, apart from the ever famous baseball tickets, you can choose between the following: NBA playoff tickets, NHL playoff tickets and college football tickets. The choices will certainly cover all the favorite American sports, ranging from baseball, basketball and football to wrestling and tennis. You can find plenty of authentic tickets online, paying the right price and receiving your ticket in due time for the event. Reading the policy of the company will help you understand what is their opinion regarding refunds, cancelled or postponed events. Refunds will be given if the even is cancelled, of course and you will also be instructed against the fraudulent use of your tickets. Be sure to check the permitted use for your tickets, as this section is quite important.
When the Internet appeared for the first time, no one ever thought about using it to purchase tickets to sports events, concerts or theater plays. Nowadays, it is the preferred method to obtain less accessible tickets and enjoy the diversity of offers presented online. These websites represent the connection between buyers and sellers out there, offering one the possibility to act as an individual seller and provide others with the tickets he/she currently owns.
Many people are still afraid to purchase tickets online because of the lack of safety. That is no longer valid as these websites have increased security methods and firewall protection, ensuring the confidentiality of any information and protecting their customers no matter what. After all, they want to keep you as a loyal customer and make sure that you return to them the next time you need tickets to a major event. Just like that the Internet has become a primary source for tickets ? concert tickets, wrestling and boxing tickets, opera tickets. All the tickets you want can be found online, having great prices you just can?t say no to!
Posted by christine on Mar 28, 2010 in
Music A guide to getting a sound and trouble shooting
A good sound starts from the fingers, through the pick-up to the guitar and out. If you don?t start there, you?re spinning in circles and end up with a transparent (fuzzy) sound without body and response. ?Your fingers are your tone generators?. Not the amps or pedals. Those are tools to augment your expression. That?s what guitar lessons teach you, not teaching you a song without teaching you, and guiding you in technique.
And, if you learn a thing or two about trouble shooting ?on the fly?, you?ll go down the line to find the problem with your rig. The same goes for finding your sound. When establishing your sound you start with your technique, through the pick-up on down to the amp. With trouble shooting on stage, you should start with the amp and go down the line back to you, which make?s sense. Since you?ve established your rig set up. As you?re trying to fix what was working, you back track.
This saves time and controls moods, besides the over all situation?s under control. Then, if and when you need to use a stage tech, you?ll have a template in which to explain what it is you require from the person ?you? hire. There?s nothing more frustrating than hiring someone, that has no idea what it is you need or want. Imagine working for someone without a clue. A band leader who expects you to read his mind? Communication starts with a plan.
Good luck and sound good, where ever your muse takes you, find a clue.
Stay in touch for a more in depth study of the elusive art of tone. Whose tone is good? Someday maybe I?ll be able to dial in someone else?s tone and tell you for sure what the deal is!!! RIGHT??. It?s all subjective!
Peace, Mike Tafoya
Posted by christine on Mar 25, 2010 in
Music Here is a free acoustic guitar lesson to help you improve your guitar playing skills quickly.
This guitar learning techique will teach you how to fingerpick folk-style, but in a Latin rhythm in the key of A. This Latin rhythm has eight quick beats to the measure, and is accented on the first, the fourth, and the seventh beats.
This guitar lesson will focus on using your right hand, and your thumb will play the accented beats. Your fingers will follow. Finger number one, the index finger, is to pluck the third string on beats two, five, and eight, and fingers two and three will pluck the second and first strings together on beats three and six.
In the following acoustic guitar lesson, you will chord an A for the first sample. To keep it simple, let’s take the beats one at a time…
Acoustic Guitar Lesson – 7 Steps to Chord an A:
1) First, the thumb plucks the open A string for a bass note.
2) Next, finger one plucks the third string, which is sounding an A.
3) Then fingers two and three pluck strings two and one together. These two notes will be a C-sharp and the open top E string.
4) Now the thumb immediately plucks string four, which is an E and works as an alternate bass string. That’s beat 4.
5) Now beat five is just like beat two, with finger one plucking string three.
6) Beat six is just like beat three, with fingers two and three plucking the top two strings.
7) On beat seven, use the thumb to pluck the third string, then finish up with fingers two and three plucking the top two strings again.
When you’ve practiced the acoustic guitar lesson above a few times, it will become second nature to you to pluck this Latin rhythm.
Your next part of this acoustic guitar lesson is to try the same finger picking pattern using an E chord. Since the open sixth string is your bass note, you’ll pluck it on beat one. Follow through with the rest of the measure in the same pattern, except your thumb plucks the fifth string on beat four and the fourth string on beat seven. When you’ve mastered the E chord the acoustic guitar lesson moves on to the D chord. With D, you can just use the fourth string for your thumb-plucked bass note each time.
Acoustic Guitar Lesson Tip:
Here’s a fast acoustic guitar lesson secret for making the above finger-picking style of guitar playing a little fancier. Chord an A. Here’s how…
When you pluck the fourth beat of the measure lift your chording finger – it’s the ring finger on your left hand. Lift it and then press it while plucking. You’ll get a little slur at the start of the note. This sounds great when you build speed up. Try the same little trick when playing the key of E, too. It will be finger two that you will be lifting.
Finally in this free acoustic guitar lesson for you, put everything together in a chord sequence. Play A for two measures, then D for two measures. Play E for two measures, then back to D for two measures, then A to finish up.
Posted by christine on Mar 22, 2010 in
Music Percussion instruments are very old and have quite a history. Often used in folk music, these instruments add variety and a rural charm to music. In India for example, two pieces of flat metal are struck to form a bell like sound. This form of instrument is used in temples and prayer places across the country. Other popular percussions instruments include the drum, piano and xylophone.
All percussion instruments can be divided into two major and broad categories. Membranophone, which add tambour to the sound of being struck like drums and idiophones, which sound of themselves like triangles. The division can also be made on tuning basis and other sub groups. For example, some instruments can be tuned while the others can not.
Percussionists are also called upon to play other instruments that may not be percussive in nature. These instruments include police sirens, glass harmonica, lion’s roar and wind machines. As percussionists play such a wide variety of instruments generating so many different types of melodies, they are usually the most skilled in the music industry.
Percussive instruments are the heart of a musical performance. It is difficult to name 3 or 4 songs from the classical or pop charts, which do not use percussive instruments. Since the times of the earliest composers like Mozart, all compositions include at least one pair of timpani’s playing in the background.
Some instruments like the xylophones are a pleasure to listen to. They sound like tinkling fountains in beautiful gardens. Bringing out the romantic side in us. There is another instrument where you strike at bottles filled with different levels of water that give forth delightful sounds.
If we talk of jazz, the high hats are easily associated in our minds. The ride cymbals are another percussion based instruments we look for in a jazz song. Even in military bands, soldiers can not keep time with out a bass drum.
No rock group today is complete without percussive instruments. All the bands a complete drum kit and several other percussive instruments. Pink Floyd used percussive instruments to great effect in their songs dealing with sci fi worlds and fantasy music.
Various cultures have there own percussive instruments. As I said earlier, the Indian bells are a classical example. In the west, gongs are untuned percussive instruments used in churches and other important occasions. As cultures have evolved, so has this category of instruments.
Through their diversity and wide choice, percussion instruments are the back bone of every musical ensemble. The players are brilliant and multi faceted people who can take up and play different instruments at will. The piano experts like Yanni are percussionists after all. An ensemble with full percussion is a pleasure to watch and a pleasure to hear. Chances are good that you have never heard music with out some sort of percussion accompaniment. They are the finishing touch on a great sound.
Posted by christine on Mar 19, 2010 in
Music All professional musicians, whether they’re playing jazz, rock, bluegrass and country music, have spent their first years of practicing bent over a half speed record player. You might be wondering what does this have to do with trying to learn to play the guitar by ear. As you will learn from this article, it actually has a lot to do with it.
Slowing Things Down
In order to learn to play the guitar by ear you have to begin with learning the melodies, chords and leads from a recording. To be able to do this, you’ve got to slow them down a bit. Some exceptionally gifted people with really good ears are able to learn to play some slow songs just by listening to them at a normal speed. However, even those folks have problems with learning faster melodies and need to slow things down.
Most of us can’t even figure out slow songs just by listening to them at a normal speed. While most of us can match a note with our guitar or voice if it’s the only thing we’re hearing, we tend to get confused when lots of notes are played together. If you slow the music down, we can separate the notes and play them piece by piece until we learn the whole song.
Slowdown Technology
Years ago, the slowing down process was done using half speed tape recorders. However, as you slowed the music down, the pitch dropped. By the time you got to half speed, the pitch had already dropped a lot. Anyway, for most of us, half speed is still to fast. You will probably need a 1/10 speed in order to figure out certain pieces.
Fortunately, nowadays everything has been made easier with the aid of digital slowdown technology. You can now slow the melody down as much as you want, without having the pitch dropping.
Do You Really Have to Put So Much Work Into It?
You’re probably thinking that spending so much time on figuring out each note yourself must be awfully hard. Why not just buy a book and get over this part?
Of course, you can buy a book, but, as it usually happens with all music theory books, it will probably be gathering dust on your bookshelf forever. If you really want to learn to play the guitar by ear, you will have to get involved in the process and figure out the notes from a melody yourself.
While figuring out note by note on your own is the best way to go, consulting a transcription book from time to time while you’re trying to figure out the music is also good. Some beginner guitar players who want to learn to play the guitar by ear learn from a transcription book first and then play along with the original recording at a slower pace to get the rhythm.
You should learn to play the guitar by ear just because this way you get the most fun. Playing the guitar should be fun and this is why you should have started to learn it in the first place. However, the more you time you invest into the learning process by getting involved in practical activities, the faster the progress.
Posted by christine on Mar 9, 2010 in
Music When you learn to play music on guitar it is one of the most rewarding things you can learn. It can be used at a variety of occasions and can also be used to make money when you become experienced. I will try to show you some simple steps to learn to play music on guitar, but it requires a lot of patience and even more practice.
You have to remember there is no easy way out you have to practice or you won?t perfect the things you have learnt. Try not to get frustrated if it does not come to you straight away because it will develop over time.
Reference material
There is a wide range of reference materials available in book and video form. These are all available on the internet. Classes are also a great way to learn to play music on guitar. In the first few pages of most guitar books there is always a short riff, and easy song?s try. Start with them and practice those for a while until you are confident enough to continue.
Equipment
When it comes to buying a guitar go to a music shop and pick them up and hold them try to choose one that feels comfortable and if you still can?t decide talk to the shop assistant and see if they have any tips and tricks for picking the right guitar. Don?t be fooled by the price tag most of the cheap guitars are fine to begin with. When you first learn to play music on guitar you will not need a fancy guitar as most of the features will go unused and will only get in the way. However as you improve you may want to upgrade in small stages to suit your level of experience.
Classes and community lessons
There is a wide range of classes to learn to play music on guitar. Some classes are free or require a small donation. However most have a fee attached to cover the costs of teachers and equipment. When you participate in a free class, these are generally just as good as a paid class. All classes will help you with basics when you learn to play music on guitar. The best thing about classes is the hands on approach to learning; there is nothing better than having someone give you first hand knowledge on how to do something.
Practice make?s perfect
There is no such thing as too much practice when you decide to learn to play music on guitar, but you need to spread that practice out. Don?t burn yourself out to the point where you stop enjoying playing. Always remember that it?s about having fun and the second it stops becoming fun don?t do it anymore. There is no point pushing yourself to do something you don?t want to do.
Always remember that when you learn to play music o guitar it?s not just for you it?s for everyone one else to enjoy as well so don?t be afraid to share your new talent with your friends and family.
Posted by christine on Feb 24, 2010 in
Music Do we listen to music when we are in love and we are happy? No, we usually don’t. We then listen to the music of our hearts that beat in tune to the one beloved.
We listen to songs about love when it is bad times for our love or when we are lovesick.
Pragmatically the musicians know that songs about suffering love are the most money-making. The reason is that people want somebody to be present near them in times they are in love grief, for somebody to articulate their suffering. It is called empathy in psychology. This is the process when somebody shares the same feelings as you do. Musicians are psychologists. They cure our souls with their music.
On the other hand: too much of sad depressive music catalyzes of your sufferings. Some bands even “advise” their addressees to jump off the roof. Think one has to perceive that very figuratively. Such suicidal motifs can be mostly found in the repertoire of “Muse”.
The lexicon of the songs about love is also so crammed with the words like “broken”, “hurt”, “heart”, “only you”. “Radiohead” uses also the word “bruise” as the alternative. And the pronoun “you” is the most widely used.
The saddest thing is that everybody who listens to a song about love imagines oneself at the place of the singing one and always wants to address the one he/she loves but is unable of that.
Still, songs about love prove that this feeling is not only the chain of chemical reactions. It is more than that…
Posted by christine on Feb 21, 2010 in
Music Mac Dre was born on the fifth of July 1970 in Oakland, he grew up in Vallejo, California and lived there most of his life.
In 1989 Mac Dre released his first album, an EP titled ‘Young Black Brotha’ it had 4 tracks on it and one track ironicly titled ‘Too Hard for the Fuckin Radio’ started getting air play in North Californian radio stations. In 1991 Mac Dre returned with ‘California Livin” and by the time he released his third album ‘Whats really goin on’(1992) his music was being played all over Vallejo and North California for that matter. In clubs and peoples cars, it looked like Mac Dre was going to reach the big time. But his hopes and dreams were snatched away from him as he was put into prison as the police believed he was behind a few bank robberys. Mac Dre was followed 300 miles by police from the ‘Bay Area’ to Fresno, his friend was wired and recorded a conversation which he started asking Mac Dre about the bank robberys. He was sentenced to five years inprisonment in 1992 for this but he wasn’t done making albums yet. ‘Back N Da Hood’ was what his fourth album was called, it was an EP which was recorded from Fresno county Jail by phone. The album shows that Mac Dre doesn’t need lots of takes to have a song the way he wants it. In the same year he recorded some more songs over the phone and his record company made an album from them and some of his previously released songs, the album was called ‘Young Black Brotha: The Album’.
Mac Dre was released in 1995. He got on his compilation ‘The Rompilation’ which was released under his new record company ‘Romp Records’ and sold over 60,000 copies, in the Rompalation Mac Dre appears on eight tracks alongside some of his ‘homies’ such as Mac Mall, Da Unda dog and JT the Bigga Figga. After his release he started working like crazy on his albums averaging on two albums a year. His first solo release after his release from jail was called ‘Stupid Doo Doo Dumb’, the very same year he released ‘Don’t hate the Player, Hate the Game’. In the next three years that followed he released 11 albums the latest of them ‘Thizzelle Washington’ got him the most fans and respect. In 2003 he made ‘al boo boo’ which was a cd with a free dvd and he released a dvd called Treal TV. His fans loved the dvd as it opened a window into how he lived his life.
If you ask a fan of Mac Dre whats Mac Dres best album they are likly to say all of them, this shows the consistincy of his work it was all fantastic. His career in rap was not a fair one though, he never got the commercial praise he definatly deserved. In 2004 Mac Dre released three albums ‘Genie of the Lamp’, ‘Ronald Dregan: Dreganomics’ and ‘The Game is thick, Vol 2′. These albums had North California buzzing with excitment they thought this would be the man to put the spotlight back on westcoast rap.But this as of now has not happened. On November 1st 2004 Mac Dre was victim of a drive-by on Highway 71, Kansas City. The incident happened just after a concert he was doing in Kansas, the shooting was a shock, fans in Kansas enjoyed the show, noone from Kansas had any right to shoot a North Californian rapper as the Kansas City rap scene was getting respect and money from that area. When Mac Dres mother Wanda Salvatto heard about the shooting she did not believe it. This was because she was told previously her son was dead from an overdose of drugs but yet he was fine, other Vallejo residents did not believe this either and were shocked and sad when they heard that it was true. Mac Dre was buried at Moutain View Cemetary, Oakland, CA.
Now in 2005 Mac Dre has many die-hard fans and new ones too, he is still releasing albums too! ‘Da US Open’ was released on the 22nd of March it is a collaberation between Mac Dre and Mac Mall in which they pick up the alter egos ‘Andre Macassi’ and ‘Mall Macenroe’. Later ‘Money iz Motive’ was released, it wasn’t a Mac Dre solo it was an album made by the ‘Cutthoat Committee’ which Mac Dre was a part of. ‘Treal TV 2′ is currently in its final stages before its released, on top of that Mac Dres record label ‘Thizz Entertainment’ has some unreleased Mac Dre material that they will be selling in the near future. To Mac Dres fans he will always be the best rapper from the ‘Bay Area’.
RIP Andre ‘Mac Dre’ Hicks
Posted by christine on Feb 17, 2010 in
Music You’ve heard all your favorite music and artists on your local radio station. You’ve tuned in while hoping to hear something new and exciting. Unfortunately, the radio stations usually play the same tunes over and over. This causes other musicians to get left out in the cold. You may never hear of many fabulous rock singers, R and B artists, jazz professionals and Gospel greats if you only listen to what your radio station has to offer. Here are some tips to show you how to expand your music library with great songs you’ve probably never heard before.
Where Did The Music Go?
If hundreds of singing groups and musicians submit their songs to producers each year, but only a few get chosen, then where do all these amazing musicians go? Where and how are their songs being heard? Do they just give up? In the past, many of them would likely quit playing or singing all together once they were rejected in the mainstream music industry. But nowadays, a new avenue of getting their sensational music to the public has arisen; it’s called the World Wide Web!
There are now thousands of hip songs available online today that will probably never make it to the radio stations. The artists’ names will probably never be mentioned in the mainstream music industry. But, that doesn’t mean the songs are cheesy or that the artists have bad singing voices. It simply means they didn’t get chosen to be in the top music charts. Their music might be wonderful, but was overlooked or got lost in the crowd of other musicians and bands.
A Variety of Music
This happening isn’t limited to only one certain type of music or musician. Almost any type of music can fall victim to getting tossed in the “rejection” pile. This includes jazz, Latin, pop, R and B, hip hop, reggae, rock, folk, comedy, Gospel, blues, techno, spoken word, rap, etc.
No matter what your taste in music, there are probably thousands of artists who never made it in the big-time that you would enjoy listening to their music. Your music library can grow with great music CDs from these singers so you can listen to many different songs whenever you want instead of being limited to the over-played music on the radio.
Music on the Web
There are specialty websites online that focus on publicizing music and artists that have never been heard before. You can go online to listen to unique sample music, buy CDs, and buy merchandise. These artists are great even though they never made it big. You can usually try their music before you buy it to be certain it is right for you. So, there’s nothing to lose, but lots of amazing music to gain.
Music for Your Business
If you own a business where music is played often, you can also play some “unknown” music over the loud speaker for others to hear. Your customers will be amazed at all the distinct songs they hear in your store. You’ll be the talk of the town!
Whether it’s rock, jazz or hip hop you enjoy, or if it’s Gospel, country, folk, or some other type of music, you can expand your music library in no time with many great tunes that never made it to the top!
Posted by christine on Feb 14, 2010 in
Music Many people download lyrics off from the internet today. Having done that they many times wish that they did buy the disc as even the legal downloads do not come with any lyrics to the songs that they have. Finding lyrics online is easy with the growth of the internet but intergrating them with your mp3 software might not be as easy as what many think.
With so many download services on the internet today, most companies still ignore the issue of lyrics as most uses would like to have the music with the lyrics. So how do you get your lyrics onto your mp3 player?
Just as there are many lyrics sites, there is today a huge variety of shareware developers who have created plugins for most of the devices on the market. Now you can import the lyrics into your IPod or MP3 player for most music bought on the internet. A good example is the iTunes tracker software that which connects online to retrieve your lyrics. The software not only allows you to organize the lyrics but also to save, edit and store them.
The software is very simple when reading lyrics. The progams are similiar to to the first version on Windows Player where it would read the file to extract the name of the song and the artist. What most of these software packages does is merely to connect to the internet after completing the same process and downloading the lyrics for the song that it had identified. The technology for find lyrics is not new.
Now that you have the song, what do you do with it. Most of the lyric software allows you to tag or mark the lyrics so that each time the music was played it would display the lyrics on your screen. The software varies and each is different. Some will not store the lyrics for you on a long term bases and you need to download the lyrics each time you listen tot he song. Others keep the lyrics for you on your player so each time you play it the lyrics would be displayed. Very few of these however allow you to print the lyrics when done. So they do limit the use of lyrics on your mp3 player. The shareware market is filled with lyrics readers, but most of them have very limited features as they require you to but the full version or proffessional edition of the software to make use of all the features.
Lyrics can be download or view online for most applications. Happy singing!