If you live in the US then you have access to a whole load of cool streaming music sites. They let you listen to a huge range of music for free and you pay if you want to download. There is a problem though, none of them have licences to provide the content in Australia. Instead you have the option of bandit.fm. It’s not a bad site but there are a few problems.
I have been sick for the last few days which has given me more time to look at the web than I would normally have. What have I found? Well I found this cool music web site (www.thesixtyone.com) . It is full of really cool music, and it look nice as well. It would take far to long to describe the site in a post so all I have to say is it involves quests and go check it out.
I played live last night for the first time in quite a ling time. Thanks to Mark and Julia at Village Guitar for putting on such an inclusive event, I am starting to get more comfortable with the idea of playing on my own in public.
Playing live in front of an audience has always been something that has been an intensely scary and uncomfortable thing for me, while at the same time being incredibly satisfying and life affirming. The event that Village guitar have put together is a perfect training ground for musicians who like me want to improve their performance chops but don’t want to run the risk of ridicule. The other musicians and audience seem to genuinely understand how hard it is to get up and do it. The result is a relaxed friendly room full of people who you know want you to do well.
There were some fantastic performances last night from covers to original material and as long as technology is on my side I will post a youtube video of my slot in the next few days.
1. I love singing live. It scares the crap out of me, quite literally, but love it.
2. I love to write songs. They mean something to me and I hope some of them mean something to others
3. I like to feel of my own voice. I can’t really say that I am a great fan of how I sound as a singer but I do love how it feels to sing.
4. I enjoy watching a song grow. Sometimes I surprise my self how a song turns out. I may start with words, chords or a riff but quite often by the end it is nothing like where it started
5. I’m a geek. I like tech stuff and there is a lot of very cool tech stuff for recording studios.
Well it is no real secret that I am in fact a geek, but some times I hate myself for it. I like to know how things work and have no real problem taking stuff apart to get it to do what I want. Some times it goes well and other times it has been an expensive mistake! This weekend I visited a music shop to buy some geeky music stuff and in the process found out that my guitar has software in it. If I had taken the time to think it through I would have realised, But as it is an acustic guitar all be it a fairly hi-tech one I have never really thought about the software and just played it. After returning from the music shop with a special cable, I plugged the guitar into my PC and “Flashed it” (upgraded its software). The upside is I can now change some of the settings (graphic equalizer, compression and mike position from the PC) the down side is I have just upgraded software on an acoustic guitar. Now I can’t stop my self thinking of the guitar of more of a computer than a musical instrument not a place I really wanted to be… never mind it still sounds good plugged into an amp and that’s all the really matters. Or is it?
It's going to be a bit of a short post but Chris has just cut his first ever track. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star....
