Sunday, January 31, 2016

Electric Guitar

For a music aficionado, the electric guitar is the instrument that offers the greatest thrill. Several classes offering courses in…

Electric Guitar is available on http://shadowkeep.co.uk


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Saturday, January 30, 2016

Buy Tickets Online

Not everybody can afford to have a luxurious air travel. People whoever would like to travel with their family will…

The blog post Buy Tickets Online was originally published on http://www.shadowkeep.co.uk


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Thursday, January 28, 2016

Buy Concert Tickets

When you visit the site Ticketbrokerpro. com, you’ll be pleased to view a very user friendly welcome page. You can…

Buy Concert Tickets Read more on: Shadow Keep


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Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Get International Exposure for your Music at Midem

A message from our sponsors, Horus Music.

Get international exposure for your music at Midem

 

Are you looking to get exposure in the worldwide music industry? 

Every year we attend Midem festival in the south of France, which is the largest business-to-business event in the music industry. We’ve been attending Midem for the past 10 years, so we have a significant presence while there.

Would you like to take your career to the next level?

If you’ve been trying to get a deal with record labels, managers, booking agents etc then this could be your lucky day. This year, we are looking for artists from all genres to represent at Midem.

This means, we will attend Midem in June 2016 on your behalf and will hold meetings with top music industry delegates while looking to get you the deal you’ve been looking for. Our reputation means that we can secure meetings that others simply cannot. We will create a tailor made electronic press kit (EPK) that will include your music, videos, bio and other relevant content that will be presented the relevant contacts and executives.

Why are you doing this?

We’re dedicated to helping musicians further their careers, this is something we do on a daily basis, and we know that there is no better place than Midem for helping musicians get the opportunities and exposure that they’re looking for.

midemWhat can I expect from this?

Each artist is different and we never guarantee any specific outcomes, but the more high-quality resources that you can provide us then there is a higher likelihood that you will get the results you’re looking for.

In recent years, we’ve had artists that have received licensing deals with Detour Records, French and European promotion through Music Media Consulting, management and recording deals with Animal Farm, synchronisation deal wit O’Neill’s surf brand, publishing opportunities in GAS territories, booking agent deal with Kir Tomkinson as well as opportunities to tour Brazil and China.

What happens after the event?

When we return, we will follow-up with each of the people we met and provide you with a full report detailing who was contacted, what meetings were organised, what comments were made and the outcomes of those meetings, along with other information that could help you when it comes to finalising deals. A copy of the EPK that we used can also be provided upon request.

How do I get involved, and what do I need?

For a small one-off payment we will attend Midem 2016 on your behalf and you will retain full rights to your music in this none exclusive deal and will keep 100% from any deals that are made, we will help you make the contacts you need to finalise your own deals.

All you need to do is get in touch here and send us more information about you, as well as links to your music, and if we like what we hear we can go ahead and start preparing your EPK.

Speak soon!


Read Full Article Here: http://www.helpforbands.co.uk/get-international-exposure-for-your-music-at-midem/

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

12 String Guitar

6-string or 12-string Acoustic guitar, which should you get? Both have pros and cons, and both are ideal instruments, depending…

The following article 12 String Guitar was first published on http://shadowkeep.co.uk


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Sunday, January 24, 2016

Tune A Guitar

There are many ways to tune an electric guitar. The easiest way is with a guitar tuner, if the intonation…

The following blog post Tune A Guitar was first published on http://www.shadowkeep.co.uk


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Thursday, January 21, 2016

Guitar Store

You can learn to play guitar free. How? I hear you ask. With the power of the internet, of course.…

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Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Hard Radio

Radio controlled planes can rack up quite a bill when you consider all of the different things you have to…

Hard Radio is courtesy of http://shadowkeep.co.uk/


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New Guitar Podcasts On the Rise

Podcasts have been around for years, but right now they’re in the midst of a renaissance.  With popular podcasts like “Serial” and “This American Life“, more people than ever are listening to the nouveau radio format. I even recommended some guitar-oriented podcasts earlier this year.

Now I’d like to follow up by noting several podcasts on the rise.  Check out the links below for some recently started guitar podcasts that have gotten good reviews:

No Guitar Is Safe

Interviews with famous players; live guitars as supporting cast.  By Jude Gold of Guitar Player Magazine.

Podcast

New Guitar Podcasts on the Rise

ToneMob

From the makers of ToneMob.com comes a freewheeling, audio odyssey through the components of tone.  Players, amps, gear, effects, and beyond.

Podcast

Guitar Podcasts on the Rise

Guitcast

An industry-oriented podcast discussing new gear releases, top players, and the latest happenings.

Podcast

Guitar Podcasts on the Rise

The post New Guitar Podcasts On the Rise appeared first on The Guitar Journal.

Monday, January 18, 2016

Buy Tickets

Airline travel is not as pleasant as it used to be! Over the last few years as airline profits have…

The article Buy Tickets was first published to Shadow Keep Band


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Friday, January 15, 2016

Concert Ticket

Concerts are fun to go to and if you are a music fan of any genre, you may be wondering…

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Guitar Aerobics: An 80’s Title, But 2016 Worthy

We’re two weeks into 2016.  Right around the time that your willpower begins to wear out on those New Year’s Resolutions.  The gyms will slowly be emptying out over the next few weeks.  The fast food restaurants will be slowly filling back up.

What about you?  Did you make any resolutions for guitar?  To record more?  Practice more?

I didn’t make a resolution, per se, but I did try to start practicing more.  And, sure enough, this week got crazy and blew me out of the water.  Last week I practiced every day.  This week was…2 days.  Geez.

Why the bad track record?  Part of it has been a result of a crazy workweek.  But it’s also a lack of structure.  Structuring your practice helps for lots of reasons.

  • It takes away the head game of “what should I practice today?”, which
  • makes you more productive
  • and more likely to get started.
  • It’s also is the right way to build complex skills – step-by-steady-step, with incremental progress.

So I’m going to go back and try a book I was using last year to structure part of my practice time:

Guitar Aerobics: A 52-Week, One-lick-per-day Workout Program for Developing, Improving and Maintaining Guitar Technique.

Guitar Aerobics: A 52-Week, One-lick-per-day Workout Program for Developing, Improving and Maintaining Guitar Technique

 

More book info >>

Admittedly, the title is very 80’s (do people even do aerobics anymore?).  And long.  But it’s descriptive, right?

The book is similarly straightfoward.  It provides daily exercises, with audio track accompaniments, to build your vocabulary of licks, keys, styles, and tempos.  From the book description:

From the former editor of Guitar One magazine, here is a daily dose of vitamins to keep your chops fine tuned for a full 52 weeks. The guitar exercises cover several musical styles including rock, blues, jazz, metal, country, and funk. Techniques taught include alternate picking, arpeggios, sweep picking, string skipping, legato, string bending, and rhythm guitar. These exercises will increase your speed and improve your dexterity and pick- and fret-hand accuracy the more you practice them. The accompanying CD includes all 365 workout licks plus play-along grooves in every style at eight different metronome settings.

I enjoyed using this last year, so I’m going to give it a try to structure my practice a bit more next week.

The post Guitar Aerobics: An 80’s Title, But 2016 Worthy appeared first on The Guitar Journal.

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Acoustic Guitars

Tuning your acoustic guitar is the first step in your guitar playing career. Whether by skill, talent or technology, you…

Acoustic Guitars is courtesy of Shadow Keep Band Blog


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Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Guitar Scales

Learning blues guitar can be frustrating if you don’t know what guitar scales to use. Because of that, in this…

The following post Guitar Scales See more on: Shadow Keep


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Monday, January 11, 2016

5 More Great Guitar Blogs Worth A Follow

I wrote a popular post a while back called “10 Great Guitar Blogs Worth a Follow”.

Well, the time has come to update that list a bit with “5 more great guitar blogs worth a follow”. In no particular order:

1. tonefiend.com

ToneFiend Guitar Blog

The personal blog of David Gore, editor and write for Premier Guitar. His in-depth and somewhat eclectic posts share insight into someone obsessed with music theory, technology, and good music.

Go to Blog >>

2. Reverb.com/blog

Reverb Blog

I recently wrote about Reverb.com, where you can buy and sell music instruments, gear, etc. Their blog is great. So many interesting articles on everything from artist interviews to instrument history.

Go to Blog >>

3. Stewmac.com/How-To/Trade_Secrets

StewMac Blog

Stewart-MacDonald supplies guitar parts and luthier tools. But if you check out their “Trade Secrets” blog, you’ll find a wealth of information on how to tweak, care for, and otherwise love your guitar.

Go to Blog >>

4. Blog.martinguitar.com/blog

Martin Guitar Blog

Because Martin is just so good and so popular, all at the same time. The blog is (of course) kind of heavy on promoting their latest guitars, which may be good or bad, depending if you’re a Martin fan…

Go to Blog >>

5. PremierGuitar.com Blog

Premier Guitar Blog

Premier Guitar’s blog page is a ‘meta’ extraction of all the recent posts from their array of specialist blogs. Find info on acoustics, pedals, vintage gear, etc.

Go to Blog >>


Got some more good blogs?  Put ’em in the comments below!

 

The post 5 More Great Guitar Blogs Worth A Follow appeared first on The Guitar Journal.

Looking to Tour France? Be Your Own Booking Agency

Below we have a table of venues across different regions in France. This information is only for subscribers to our newsletter. If you’ve not signed up yet and want contact details for venues in France, booking agents or managers then please do so here: http://www.helpforbands.co.uk/newsletter-2/   The Venues vary in size from just 300 seats…

This content is for Yearly and Monthly members only. Visit the site and log in/register to read.

Read Full Article Here: http://www.helpforbands.co.uk/looking-to-tour-france-be-your-own-booking-agency/

Saturday, January 9, 2016

Hard Radio

When you build a remote controlled car, you usually pour hundreds of hours, and even more dollars into making it…

Hard Radio was originally published to Shadow Keep


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Friday, January 8, 2016

Pinn Pannelle, Pushing the Boundary of Guitar and Technology

 

Pinn Panelle, a group headed by guitarist Derek Song, has hit almost 13 million views on their ‘live’ cover of Skrillex’s “Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites”.

The song is great, and the live cover is perfect.  But the real amazing thing here is the technology.  Check out the Hot Hand the bass player is using to control his instrument.  And the QWERTY keyboard attached behind the bridge of Derek Song’s guitar.

Inspiring.

This is especially relevant seeing as I’ll be attending NAMM in just a few weeks here in Southern California.  We’ll see what the latest and greatest is in terms of pushing the boundaries of guitar and technology.

P.S. You can preview their new album, “Ghosts & Liars” here.


Pinn Panelle website

Derek Song website

Source Audio SA115 Hot Hand 3 Wireless Adapter 

The post Pinn Pannelle, Pushing the Boundary of Guitar and Technology appeared first on The Guitar Journal.

Bass Guitar Tabs

You need a manual to operate a new appliance. You need to read the rules before you play a new…

Bass Guitar Tabs was first seen on Shadow Keep


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Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Craigslist, eBay…Reverb?

Where did you buy your last guitar? Chances are, the next guitar (or gear) that you buy could be through the recently funded Reverb.com.

Buying a guitar, or guitar equipment, can still be oddly challenging. In an era of Uber and Airbnb, it seems like buying and selling musical instruments should be simple, transparent, and safe. And yet it isn’t.

The Sultans of Swing

If you’re like me, you’ve used Craigslist before. Craigslist is great because you can meet the other person, play the instrument, and negotiate the price. But it has it’s limitations. It’s limited to driving distance. And hit or miss whether the guitar you’re looking for will be listed this month (or ever).

I’ve also bought and sold through eBay. The sheer size of eBay makes it easier to match buyers and sellers and geography, of course, is no limitation. But there’s a lot of trust issues here. For example, I sold a bright red Ibanez Artcore semi-hollowbody through eBay a few years ago. It was a terrible experience.

The purchaser returned it because there was damage. UPS denied my insurance claim, though I had paid for extra insurance, and eBay said it was my problem. To this day, I’m not sure if the guitar was damaged (and it was truly damaged) by UPS in shipping? Or by the customer at his house? So I don’t use eBay anymore.

The fees were too high, anyways.

New Kids on the Block

I’m intrigued by Reverb, though. Based in Chicago, Reverb.com is a snappy online marketplace for buying and selling new and used musical instruments and gear. They want to be more than functional, they want to be inspirational. New, vintage, guitars, keyboards, they’ve got it all.

The business was founded by David Kalt, owner of Chicago Music Exchange, a large and cool music store also based in Chicago.

Reverb.com LogoAfter poking around on the site and reading a bit.  Here’s some feedback. Buyer beware:  I haven’t bought or sold through them…yet.

 

Pros

  • The listings are set up Pinterest-style, making it fun to scroll through instruments and gear.
  • Lots of good feedback from users who seem to be turning away from eBay.
  • They’re producing fun, quality stories. Articles like this interview of Mimi Fox are genuinely interesting and inspiring.
  • Reverb provides a Price Guide to benchmark used gear pricing.
  • They provide “Reverb Protection” to arbitrate any purchasing disputes. An account manager will walk you through a clear process to handle any problems. (This would’ve been helpful with my Ibanez.)
  • The site looks nice and the technology is flawless, making me very confident in their checkout, chat, email services, etc.
  • iOS and Android apps available.

Cons

  • Listings can vary, research required. Similar to eBay, there are certain standard fields when listing a guitar for sale. But a lot of the listing content is determined by the seller. So, searching for “Larrivee LV”, for example, will yield everything from private sellers in Pennsylvania to brick’n’mortar shops in Montana. Be ready to do a little research.
  • Prices may be a bit high. Communicating with the seller can allow you to negotiate, though.
  • Nothing is ever a sure thing.  So, as with Craigslist and eBay, the rule is still “Buyer beware”.

Have you used Reverb.com?  Let us know your experience in the comments.

Bonus Question:  What other sites are good for buying and selling acoustic guitars?

The post Craigslist, eBay…Reverb? appeared first on The Guitar Journal.

Guitar Shop

Learning how to play guitar well isn’t easy. There are so many methods and so many conflicting opinions, it makes…

Guitar Shop is republished from http://www.shadowkeep.co.uk/


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Monday, January 4, 2016

Fingerstyle (AKA Fundamentals) with Don Ross

I’ve been trying out the JamPlay video course, Fingerstyle With Don Ross, and I have to say, it’s really good.  For a few reasons:

  • Don is a really likable guy.
  • He’s very clear in his teaching and easy to follow.
  • The exercises build in a sensible and achievable way.
  • The technical side of the course (audio/video quality, etc.) is all high quality.

The Real Reason

I’ve played finger style acoustic guitar for a while, but what strikes me in this course is how much room there is for improvement in fundamental techniques.

For example: 

Ross does a nice job in the opening lessons of building up to an intermediate level fingerpicking pattern.  Thumb and three fingers working a Travis picking pattern over G – Em – C – Am.  Shouldn’t be too much of a challenge, right?  Au contraire, mon frere!

When Ross plays, it sounds flawless, evenly timed, and with great tone.  When I tried to follow along?  Well… let’s it was less than flawless.  Keeping consistent time across the chord changes proved to be harder than I expected.

So I’ll be finishing up the course over the next couple weeks.  Evidently I need to work on my fundamentals.  And as Michael Jordan once said,

“Get the fundamentals down and the level of everything you do will rise.”
Screen Shot 2016-01-04 at 4.35.53 PM
Screenshot from Video Course.

More info on Don Ross here:  www.gobyfish.com

The post Fingerstyle (AKA Fundamentals) with Don Ross appeared first on The Guitar Journal.

Top Apps For Musicians

Top Apps For Musicians
image-3201

 

The world of smartphone apps is ever growing and it can be hard to sift through what is bad versus what is good. Fortunately, we are here to do the hard work for you! In this new series of posts we will be highlighting apps that are particularly useful for the touring artist, and where better to begin than with an app called Road Trip!

Road Trip – £4.99

Road Trip is an app available on iOS that helps you to plan out fuel economy and costs for any journey. It is vey extensive, allowing you to see graphs with details of your MPG over the course of the trip, add in any extra expenses such as service and maintenance repairs, check how much distance you can cover until you absolutely have to refuel, and export all of the data to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet for you to use. The graphs show various statistics about your trip, with the average cost per day, total distance and fuel used, total fuel cost, and average cost per mile being key figures to help economise on a journey.

While this app sounds useful for any driver, the uses of it for a touring musician are unparalleled. The more money you can save while on tour the better, as many independent artists will profess. A lot of bands that are on their first or second tour will inevitably lose money in the end because they did not economise, but for those that do, they can often come out with a profit. As this app also lets you track the cost of repairs, its also great for making sure the band split costs evenly when on the road.

Songwriter’s Pad – £7.99

Songwriter’s pad is an app available on iOS, Mac and PC, with the promise of release on Android and Windows phones coming soon. It allows users to write song lyrics into it like a standard notepad, but with a twist. This app helps people with writers block, by suggesting ideas for lyrics using a word generator. The artist can choose where they need a little hint of inspiration in their song and the app will make its suggestions. You can even change between different moods depending on the tone of the song to receive different suggestions. The app will leave an annotation by that line of the track reminding you to look at the lyrics there so you can keep track of where you are in the writing process at any one time. It can also help with arranging the lyrics, allowing you to swap verses round and alter the structure.

The app also includes a voice recording feature with cloud storage so that you can record a vocal idea or melody whenever inspiration hits, chord notation for laying out the basic structure of the song, and a built in Dictionary or Thesaurus for finding alternative words to go into the lyrics. All of this, together with the ability to import backing tracks to write lyrics over, make this a very complete package.

Some of the names that praise this app on the app store also make this a must have.The creators state that they have found anyone from an independent artist to a grammy award winner using their app, which goes to show just how diverse and useful this app can be for anyone writing songs.

Both of these apps are well worth checking out, and will undoubtedly help you to plan out your song writing and travelling. We have plenty more apps to tell you about in the coming weeks, so keep an eye out for the next post!

Links

Road Trip – https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/road-trip-mpg-mileage-fuel/id298398207?mt=8

Songwriter’s Pad – https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/songwriters-pad-songwriting/id380151611?mt=8

Written by Robert Hill


Read Full Article Here: http://www.helpforbands.co.uk/top-apps-for-musicians/

Beginners Guitar

Electric guitars have made their home in our universe. There are even classical pieces composed for electric guitar. This is…

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Saturday, January 2, 2016

Guitar Techniques

Have you been noticing lately that after you have put on a fresh set of guitar strings, and rock out…

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Guitar Shops

When you first start learning to play the guitar you really need easy to learn guitar tunes to start with.…

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Friday, January 1, 2016

Beginner Guitar

Beginner guitar lessons mostly have basic music scales and how to position for certain chords; it is vital to have…

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