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How To Practice Properly: Timing Part 1

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Metronomes: The dreaded, soulless, torture devices inflicted upon musicians in order to make them march in line like teenagers into the cookie cutter, just like a Pink Floyd video. Well I am here to tell you if you wanna be a really tight musician, and be awesome at your instrument you are going to need to start playing to some sort of time keeper. Whether you are a Singer, Guitarist, Flutist, or Drummer, this article applies to you and your practicing habits. In this series I am going to tell you how to make playing in time fun, how to do it on the cheap, as well as why you must practice with a Time Keeper.
temporamp.jpgToday over on The Daily Swarm, they have a link to an article where a blogger shows a graph that is supposed to illustrate which bands employ the use of a click and those who abstain. The article unfortunately neglects a few simple details. We are here to clean up this mess!
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Twitter! TWITTER! Tweeting! SRSLY! WTF?!?!? Yes, even your Dad is doing this right now. Old curmudgeons like John McCain are even doing this. Now everyone is telling you that you/your band has to join Twitter (does this mean you become a Twit???) or else you will never succeed and fail at all your hopes and dreams and end up a loser like, ughhhh, JOHN MCCAIN! Seriously though, I still hate Twitter and have committed the next few hours of my life to why we need to be on Twitter and how to get there. Let's do this together!
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Do you spend countless hours having to update all of your social networking sites? A new site called Ping.FM will give you back hours of your life! With just one message sent from a variety of mediums (Twitter, Facebook, SMS, Email and many more!) to their service, they will post it to a variety of social networks for you. With one message you can update your Blog, Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and 30 more social networks! This can give you back tons of hours to do the things you really want to be doing with your life!

The First iPhone Band

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smashediphone.jpgWhile they are still technically a "cover band", we now have entered the rubicon of bands using iPhone's as a main instrument in a band. Here we have The Mentalists covering MGMT's "Kids" . I think in future listening I may be prone to Soulwax's remix of the song. The band uses Ocarina, Retro Synth, miniSynth and DigiDrummer Lite to obtain their sound, however untill the drummer gets a little more tight they may want to consider programming the drums into iDrum. Jump for the video.

The Freakonomics of Street Musicians

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streetmusician.jpg About three years ago I read a book called Freakonomics, a paradigm-shifting expose, by Steven Levett and Steven Dubner. I was particularly interested in their theory about how abortion lowers the crime rate, after it ignited a huge controversy in the political world. He also shows how many drug dealers make no real money, and the reasons real estate agents never have you in their best interests. After reading it, I found the real benefit of the book was to see the world in a new way.
taxmanshirt.jpg Since you are a musician, odds are you aren't making much money. If you are the rebellious musician then you hate the man and hate paying him a penny more then you have to. Well now you don't have to pay him just to have the privilege of paying him 1/3 of your income! Details at our favorite consumer advocate blog Consumerist!

How Much Is Your Gear Worth?

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Have you ever wanted to know how much a piece of equipment you own is worth? Well most of us go on eBay and do a "completed items" search. What if that comes up short or you can't find your exact item? Now there is Prepal, a "blue book" style site with listing of gear prices. You can see the sample number and lots of vital statistics so you yourself can determine the quality of the info. This is a great utility for selling gear to friends or on craigslist. This can also be great when buying gear and you don't know the going rate for the item you are looking to purchase. It also links you directly to an eBay or SonicState search for that particular item if you want to buy one.


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So as we all know, Apple announced they were going to start selling lessons for Garageband. This is a fantastic idea and a cheap way to learn some basic knowledge. The one part of I am questioning is the artists section: most people who need lessons are young, like REALLY young. Do we really believe teenagers think Sting, John Fogerty, Norah Jones, and Ben Folds are cool? I was 13 in 1991, and even then I didn't know one person who didn't think Sting was a douche, and now I am 31 and I still don't know anyone who would want to emulate him. Now unless Apple knows something I don't, they may be missing their demographic, and instead enlisting the artists they make love to their plump 30 something hubbies to? I am curious to know others take on this one.



Humor: Every Album Credit EVER!

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everyalbum_final.jpgNSFW!!!! Cracked.com has one hell of a satire of our silly business. Go check out one of the most realistic and hilarious mockeries of what goes into a record.


As someone who works with bands
I am shocked how many musicians I have worked with who do not put earplugs in properly. Consumer Reports being the good samaritan's they are want to help with this. The above video is a minute long does of reality that may help you from going deaf. If you are already wearing ear plugs you don't want this to happen and imagine what a fool you would feel like if you put all this effort into the epic fail of still going deaf.
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It is no secret that online radio is one of the best ways to promote your music. With services like Pandora, Last.FM, Jango, Blip.FM and other services not only can you get your music before the ears of listeners who like the type of music you make, but you can also get paid for your plays as you begin to dominate the online radio airwaves.






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Managing a group of people and keeping everyone on the same page and motivated is one of the biggest make or break factors of any sucessful group. There are many emerging tools that can make this easier and we sort through them, all the while dispensing valuable advice on how to deal with your members with minimal chaos.






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