Friends and Music

An best friend of mine I went to school with through out middle and high school, came to visit us last summer and we had a blast reconnecting after so many years. We haven’t been able to see each other as frequently as we used to due to us moving to different states and both having families. She also has a daughter that is around my daughter age, who came along with her to visit us.

During their visit we talked about so many things, but one thing that got us had all of our interests is playing the guitar. Back in high school my friend and I played together after learning how to play by her brother and friends, that were in a garage band. Its the one thing that brought us closer over the years and now has brought not only us but our daughters closer together.

After a night of playing together, my friend had mentioned she was looking for a Shadow Sonic Tuner For Acoustic Guitar Soundhole for her guitar. I had one but it was the only one I had, so after they had gone to bed, I jumped on the net to see if I could find any deals for shadow pickups, and in no time I had found the best site to find a Shadow Sonic Tuner For Acoustic Guitar Soundhole for her, without breaking my wallet.

When arrived at my home, I quickly wrapped it up and handed it to my friend that night as a “I miss my best friend present” and she tore it open and was stunned to see exactly what shes been trying to find. Im glad I could put an even bigger smile on my best friends face.

Brasswinds

I can’t help but wonder where in the world my daughter got the idea that she wants to learn how to play the trumpet. She has gone through several instruments, trying to find the right one for her to really concentrate on and learn. I really thought that she had given up on music all together until last night at the dinner table when she announced that she was finding trumpets to be interesting and was feeling the urge to learn how to play one.

When I hear of trumpets I always think of Christmas. Since we are experiencing a heat wave right now, just the thought of Christmas was exciting and I found myself really encouraging her to go ahead and give it a try. Hopefully one of these days she will figure out the perfect instrument, it could very well be the trumpet. As far as I’m concerned you won’t know until you try.

student trumpets
Trumpets for Students

Keeping Up With Kids

Even though a lot of people don’t like rap music, the reality is that this is the music that kids everywhere are listening to. If you want to know what’s going on inside the heads of your kids, you need to be in tune with what they are seeing and hearing.

There are a lot of different kinds of rap music, including hip hop and gangsta rap. As a parent, I feel it is important to at least give rap music a listen and to keep myself informed of the top rap artists. You can keep up the latest in rap by going to this website: www.rapartists.com

This site has info on all the popular rappers, with information on their albums, their biography, pictures and a link to the artist’s homepage.

The site also has a rap forum, where people ask questions and make comments. If you have a question, you can post it there and you might be surprised at the support and help you can get from the other forum participants.

I try and listen to a variety of music, exposing my kids to a variety of music along the way. I don’t like a lot of the rap that is so popular but I don’t give my kids a hard time about listening to it. I remember my parents giving me a hard time about the music that I listened to and that made me want to listening to it more as well as turning up the volume!

Walmart

When The Eagles released their CD, Long Road Out of Eden, they did a special deal with Wal-Mart so that only Wal-Mart carried the CD. At first I thought it was clever of Wal-Mart to grab onto something practically guaranteed to be a big hit and use it to drive traffic to their stores. But later on I was reading web articles and realized that The Eagles were the ones who benefited from the exclusive distribution arrangement. What really happened is that the traditional record studios charge a ton of money for publishing, advertising and distributing music. That’s how they make their money and they make a lot. In the end, whatever other people make off your music is money that you, the artist, do not make. So by using Wal-Mart to handle the advertising and distribution, The Eagles could basically self-publish their music and keep a whole lot of the money for themselves. Sounds like a win-win situation for both of them.

You hear stories about how Wal-Mart comes to town and run the little companies out of business. Well, it looks like the mighty Wal-Mart has decided to grab even more of their money away from banks and record companies. Even though the Government told them that they cannot be a bank, they are doing everything a bank does inside of their stores – from cashing checks to credit cards and debit cards, and sending wire transfers of money out of the country and down to Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and everywhere else the immigrants came from and want to send money back to their families.