Getting your music out can be tough. Before the Internet you could give some good looking groupies a few bucks to give out your demo on the sidewalk, but those times are long gone. People no longer go outside, and if they do, they don’t lift their eyes from their iPod or take those damn white, terrible sounding headphones out of their ears.
So what’s a musician gotta do to get some attention around here? I’ve scoured the Internet looking for a few good places to plaster your music and your name. Some you might know, some you might not—here we’re going beyond MySpace and trying to make your tunes as ubiquitous as possible. (more…)
If you followed along with us last week, you know how much interval ear training can help you as a musician and how to get started with training itself. If you haven’t read it, head on over to Boot Camp for Your Ear.
This time, we’re going to look at a bunch of applications and websites that will help you with regular ear training sessions. Most of these go beyond intervals, of course. (more…)
As a rocker at heart, I was never much interested in music theory. I picked it up as a matter of requirement throughout my education in bits and dribbles, though it seemed at the end of the day all I could do was read notes off a staff—a musical technology that’s not even really used in my genre.
The problem with the prevailing ideas about music theory and how supposedly useless it is, is that they lump a whole bunch of knowledge under one small label. Some of what we call “music theory” is mind-numbingly boring, some is plain useless for many popular musicians, and some is just hard to get a handle on. But there is a wealth of knowledge there that musicians can use to improve their work.
It wasn’t until about six months ago that I saw the value of interval ear training, something often lumped under that “useless music theory” banner, and started applying myself to it. And all my rocker friends said, “Why bother with all that theoretical stuff when we don’t even use it?”
But ear training isn’t theory. It’s practical. When you take a mere ten minutes out of your day, every day, to master this aspect of the musical field, you’ll find you’re better able to transcribe and dissect riffs that inspire you, and better yet, turn the tunes in your head into tunes you can play without spending hours guessing the notes. Even if you’re a rocker.
If you want to unlock these benefits, then you’re reading the right piece. I’m going to get you off to a head start by providing you with song associations for all the intervals in an octave, and next week I’m going to point you towards some great applications and Web sites that will help you get the training done. (more…)
Like most of us when we’re in the studio, it’s hard to get me to work with anything other than the industry standards; Pro Tools, Reason, Logic (which sort of falls into that category), and so on. But given the rising prices of just about everything under the sun, not to mention the chronic emptiness of the musician’s wallet, it’s worth taking a look at the alternatives out there that can be had for free.
The price is not the only great thing about free, cross-platform apps. They don’t require you to stick a damn dongle in your computer and use up a precious USB slot. And knowing that you can get on almost any computer in the world, download an app and work on your project is always reassuring.
I’m not saying that these apps can replace Pro Tools or Reason as the apps of choice, but they are totally free. It’s hard to complain about that! The main thing is that they will let you get the job done. If I could just find a free DAW that opens Pro Tools sessions…
Traverso
Traverso is a lightweight but powerful DAW that works on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. Professionals who’ve tried this software comment that despite some strange interface decisions (such as having to hold shift and click to move the playhead), it’s a viable option for those looking for a free alternative. (more…)
