Category: Music

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Would this be good for a teenager?

When Shawna told me that her teenage son Justin was interested in learning how to compose and mix his own music, using his computer, I was quite surprised! I had no idea that there would be any kind of software available for a regular computer that would allow a beginner to do things like that.

Shawna told me that Justin was telling her that he might like to learn more about the sony acid music studio software, and see if that would be a good idea to get. I was trying to help out by finding some reviews on the product, but so far I haven’t seen any. So, if any of my readers out there have tried this, I’d like to know what you think – would this be a good program to buy for a teenager that is just starting out?

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Guess I never thought about that before

Even though I grew up in a family of musicians, my own personal “hands-on” experience has been limited to childhood piano lessons. I used to watch my other family members play their instruments, and I enjoyed singing and dancing to the music that they played. I never really payed a lot of attention to the logistics of tuning any of their instruments. I guess that is why I was mildly surprised when Chuck was telling me that he was teaching Jack how to tune a drum set this weekend. I never really ever thought about having to tune up a drum!

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Less is More

Chatting with a musician friend, they gave me a little insight into how to play the melody and not over-arrange a song.

“I had a band leader tell us once they did not hire to get paid by the note but by the song. Stuck with me ever since. Less is more.”

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Reduced learning curve

Did you know that traditional banjos have four or five strings? Today I learned about a musicians friend banjo that has six strings! I think that is a great cross-over instrument for people that have learned to play the guitar and now want to learn to play the banjo. I enjoy watching people play the banjo, but never learned anything about what notes the strings are. Now I’m wondering if the six strings on this special banjo are the same notes as on a six string guitar!

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Unique guitars

Have you ever seen a guitar without a big hole in the middle, behind the strings? I never had, until I saw a picture of an Ovation guitar! When I saw a picture of the guitars without a big hole in the body, I was fascinated! So I decided to learn a little about the guitar, and learned that it was designed by an aeronautical engineer who was fascinated with guitars and decided to redesign the guitar. I went onto YouTube to try to find a video that explained more about the details of the different designs, but after watching several videos about the company, I finally gave up.

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Guitar lessons were too boring for me when I was a kid

When I was a young teenager, my parents gave me an acoustic guitar for a birthday gift. I was sure I wanted to learn to play the guitar! And they signed me up for music classes. Unfortunately, the music teacher didn’t seem to appreciate the fact that young teenagers don’t want to spend hours and hours every day learning ONLY to read music and play the “mary had a little lamb” types of songs. Young teenagers ALSO want to learn a few “quick and dirty” songs that they can play fairly quickly. And no one had explained how much it would hurt my fingers to put pressure on the guitar strings when pressing them down on the frets!

So I abandoned the classes fairly quickly – they were boring and my fingers hurt. I wanted no More painful, boring hours of practice alone in my room playing songs I hated! Sometimes people ask me if I wish I had kept at it, and when I hear gifted musicians play, I do find myself wishing I could play that well, too. But, my tolerance level for pain was too low, so the answer to that question is “no.” I’m not a big fan of pain!

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Yule Logs

Poking around the cable on demand, I found a cool feature that I did not know about. Comcast has a channel at Christmas that is a video of burning yule logs. They play soft Christmas music in the background and there are no commercials. This was really nice to find – I hope they do it again next year.

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Sweet little amp is just perfect

I was just watching a YouTube demonstration of a sweet little fender passport mini is the perfect amp for the musician on the go. Right now it is on sale for under $200, which makes it a perfect Christmas gift! It runs on either AC or DC, and is great for students, street musicians, or anyone that needs a small amp for presentations.

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Fool me once shame on you

My sister asked me if I would help her to buy a beginner guitar for her son so she could give it to him for Christmas. She doesn’t have any credit or debit cards, or a paypal account to use to be able to order one online for herself. She has found the one that she wants, and she told me that she will get paid this Friday and give me the money to pay for it. I told her that when she gives me the money I’ll go ahead and order it and use my paypal account to pay for it. But I’m not going to order it before she pays me! I’ve been burnt before! Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me!

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My father loved the band Kiss

I was looking at some old family photos, and saw one photo where my father and his band had dressed up like the Kiss musicians. Kiss has been really popular for a very long time now, and I thought it would be fun to see what kind of YouTube videos I could find about the band. I was surprised to see one of the YouTube videos about the band was an interview done for http://www.musiciansfriend.com/. The video I found was done by the drummer, and I decided to watch it for a little while. I found it interesting that he talked about how he started out as a little kid banging pots and pans in the kitchen, just like my kids used to do. Then he went on to talk about how he used to play the drums for his father’s band, and it really helped to make me feel as if this guy was a “real” person.

I was reading some of the comments below the video, and I was saddened to read that a lot of people were expressing low opinions of him as a person. I don’t know if he is a nice person or not, but I always feel bad when I read negative comments like that.