Blues Traveler – Great American Jam Band Returns To The Stage

Some bands are known for their style, others their lyrics, and still others for their on-stage persona. Blues Traveler is known for all three, and the legendary live band is returning to the stage in 2006. The group has a legion of followers that span several generations, and one commonality is present in their shows – you’ll never see the same thing twice. A look at their background will provide some insight as to how they became the band they are.

Early Beginnings

Blues Traveler was formed in 1988, and continues to be known primarily through their lead singer, John Popper. Popper was a musical prodigy from almost his first breath, and his parents noticed this talent almost immediately when Popper would effortlessly sing harmonies at the age of three. They enrolled Popper in several “traditional” musical education classes, but Popper never really enjoyed learning the cello, the piano or the guitar.

The main reason that he gave up all three was that he did not enjoy structure, and bedeviled his instructors by playing all three “by ear.” This trend continued throughout his early childhood, until Popper discovered an instrument that he could learn on his own – the harmonica. His parents could not find an instructor, and after seeing the movie The Blues Brothers, Popper learned to play their entire ensemble note-for-note.

As Popper entered high school in Princeton, New Jersey, he became a member of the school band, but did not have much success in that structured environment. He became known as “that blues guy” based on his harmonica solos. He also met and befriended the future members of Blues Traveler – Brendan Hill, the drummer, Chan Kinchla, the guitarist and bassist Bobby Sheehan. A commonality they shared was a love for The Blues Brothers. This led to their first name: The Blues Band.

The Next Step

Following graduation, all the band members except one enrolled in the jazz program at New York's New School for Social Research. Kinchla attended N.Y.U. It was here that the band not only honed their performance skills but also learned how to book performances. Their talent was so transcendent that they soon had a schedule that was too packed to manage. As a result, all the band members left school with a new band name: Blues Traveler.

Career Launch

The following year, after several enormously successful live performances, the band released their first studio album, Blues Traveler, and their career as a band took off. The band has since released seven subsequent studio albums and three live cuts, and they are unique in that they encourage live tapings of their performances for dissemination to the general public.

This is how they became known as a legendary “jam” band in the tradition of such luminaries as the Grateful Dead and Led Zeppelin. Their concerts were and are true events, and every show features several extemporaneous tangents, mostly by Popper and his harmonica. Their style appeals to fans of all ages, and their appeal is universal.

Trials and Tribulations

The band did have to overcome its share of problems, however. Many of their albums did not receive critical acclaim, and their reputation is mainly based on their live performances. They also tragically lost an original member of the band, Bobby Sheehan, to a drug overdose in New Orleans in 1999. He has since been replaced by Ben Wilson.

Popper also had health problems. He was morbidly obese, and weighed as much as 420 pounds at the turn of the century. In 2003, he had gastric bypass surgery, and has lost a tremendous amount of weight. Many believe that this surgery and subsequent lifestyle changes have saved his life given the energy put forth in every performance.

Overall, there is nothing like a Blues Traveler performance. They’ll no doubt continue to light up venues all over the world, and 2006 is the next opportunity for their fans to take in a true musical experience.

By: Jay Nault -

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The Evolution of Legal Music Downloads

Music companies and artists were enraged years ago by Napster, a website that allowed online enthusiasts to download and share music without any charge. As a result record sales dipped and many companies lost millions. People figured that since you can get songs from the internet, there was no reason to buy CDs. Cases were filed at Napster and many people were charged for stealing music. After finally being closed down by record companies, Napster and similar websites have been revamped to provide legal musk download.

Although many online sites still offer free music downloads, most of these music downloads are littered by spyware and virus. These sites are illegal and can wreck havoc to you computer. You may choose to download music from these sites but do at your peril. After being reincarnated Napster is now a safe and legal music download site that offer free membership. Restrictions have been placed on some songs but these are meant to protect the rights of the music companies and the singers who made the song.

Today legal music download sites have replaced the illegal sites of the past and are becoming more popular. After realizing that paying for music downloads help the music industry, many people have become comfortable with paying for the songs they want. MP3 players have also contributed to the rise of modern digital music and legal music downloads. Those who still chose to defy the law to acquire free music are finding out the hard way that the risks of downloading music through illegal means can be costly mistakes.

The risks of downloading music on sites that are not for legal music download far outweigh the gains. With each song you download you also receive a bonus of spyware, malware, and viruses to infect your system. You cannot rely on firewalls and antivirus programs to protect you every time you download free music. Sure, they will be able to detect a few corrupted files but for how long? To be on the safe side and to avoid spyware, virus, and legal charges, support legal music download sites to enjoy junk free music.

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Show Me The CD...If You Think Your Music’s Great, Record It

Throughout the history of modern music, there hasn’t been a musical artist/band who doesn’t think that their songs are all #1 hits just waiting to be discovered. Many of these artists have been correct and have stood by grinning as their tunes screeched up the charts. This inspires a new crop of musicians every year to feverishly pen their potential hits in hopes of making it big.

Musicians write. They rehearse. They play clubs and hope that one day they’ll encounter that special A&R guy (or gal) that will, see them, dig them, sign them, and make them stars. But surprisingly enough, many of these bands never complete what is probably the most important tool for any musician signed or unsigned…they never record a CD.

It cannot be stressed enough that the CD is at the heart of any musical project. It is the physical embodiment of the song, the combination of writing and performing. It’s any musician’s skeleton key for: club gigs, reviews, and radio play. CDs enable you to draw the attention of fans and industry at the same time. Whether containing one song or twenty, the possibilities of the unsigned artist’s CD are endless. Post them on the web. Get them to the press. Give them to your friends. Sell them at your shows. Send them to the record labels. Your CD lets the world know who you are and what you sound like and gives anyone who digs your music the opportunity to listen to it again and again.

So, how can you make sure that you’re CD does your music justice while appealing to fans and industry alike? While there is not one set way to record a CD, there are certain key elements that every professional CD should possess.

The following are a few tips that may help you to make sure that your CD will help your band instead of hindering it:

1.) It’s Not The Size, It’s What You Do With It---It doesn’t matter how long your CD is, only that it accurately portrays your sound and vibe. If you don’t have a lot of time or money to spend in the studio then record for quality instead of quantity. It’s better to have one really kick ass tune recorded then a full length CD that sounds like it was recorded on a boom box in your basement. But that doesn’t mean that your CD needs to be expensive or time consuming. The advanced technology of digital recordings has afforded musicians/bands the opportunity to record in smaller home studios and still come away with professional sounding recordings. It’s now all about finding an engineer with a fantastic ear and the mastery of his/her own gear regardless of how inexpensive it may be.

2.) Record And Mix For The Song---Remember a song is a collaboration. Even if you’re the sole musician and engineer of your CD, recording a song is still an ensemble project. Instruments, voices and effects must all work together as a team to produce the best possible finished project. If a guitar line is too busy, a kick drive is too loud, or a voice is perpetually off key, the overall quality of the finished product is compromised. There is a delicate balance of creativity and technology, of art and electronics that comes together to produce the wonder that is your CD. Treat that balance with respect. Put your ego aside and record with the songs as your absolute priority.

3.) Less Talk And More Action---Certainly there is a great deal of preparation that is required before recording. Mapping out the arrangements of your tunes can be an arduous process usually much more complicated than the live performance of the song. One guitar part becomes three, or five or ten, a basic drum part now includes percussion and electronic beats, two backing tracks can become twenty. Sometimes you feel as if your brain will certainly explode from the mapping out of all of the musical and vocal parts required to give your song a professionally recorded sound. But don’t get so lost in the charting and practicing of various parts and forget that time is of the essence here. It’s all well and good to tell those who inquire that you’re “in the studio” or “currently recording” but if a CD does not materialize in a reasonable amount of time both fans and industry will grow disinterested and move on to someone who has a finished product.

4.) If It Sounds Good, Make It Look Good---After the time and energy you’ve spent to make your CD sound amazing, don’t scribble on it with a blunt sharpie, throw it in a used envelope and expect a record label to be impressed with it. If your CD looks unprofessional, it will be dismissed as such and will probably spend its days unlistened to, lining the bottom of some A&R intern’s birdcage. Simple packaging is certainly acceptable but make sure your CD’s first impression a good one…your graphics are high quality, your text is neat, your paper stock is professional and all materials are unused. Even the most poorly recorded CD will get a listen, if it comes in a pretty package.

Now that you have a professional CD recorded, your possibilities are endless. Send it to anyone and everyone! Get your name out there! Make new fans! Grab some press! Get a record deal! Stand back and grin as your single goes screaming up the charts. Anything is possible if you have a good CD and can share your music with the world

http://www.articlecity.com/articles/music_and_movies/article_646.shtml

Create Your Own Online Music Store

Music download business is booming and has huge potential. According to a research by 2010 online music will generate more than 1.1 billion. More online music platforms are needed to serve the growing consumers’ demand.

Online music stores not only ensure your financial prosperity, but also the prosperity of the artists, the music companies and the distributors. BurnLounge music presents golden opportunity to a part of this music downloads business. You too can listen music, sell music and earn money. All wannabe entrepreneurs, musicians, artists, as well as retailers to be a part of the most exciting and glamorous industry - music and entertainment.

BurnLounge music store comes with over 2.2 million track listings including top artists like Justin Timberlake, Styx, Black Eyed Peas, Ball in the House, U-2, ColdPlay, FogHat, Beyonce, Pink Floyd, Genesis, Beatles and Brenton Wood, Hootie and the Blowfish, James Brown, MC Lyte, Madonna, amongst many others!

Burnlounge ----The 21st century music business ---of by and for the people. It enables people across the globe to run the own online music store. Business model of burnlounge is based on personalization and has been positioned different in the music and entertainment industry. You will enjoy fully functional online music store with no tension of site design, credit processing or licensing.

Is this for real – yes it is! If it was not, why would Nokia & Cadillac become sponsors of this unique offering.

But how will you manage this huge business opportunity? BurnBuilder offers strong platform for burnloungers to run their music business effectively. BurnBuilder will empower your music business.

So join BurnLounge and have
Own online music store
Over 2.2 million songs
Over 1 billon potential customers
Be a part of an opportunity worth 4.5 billion USD in 2008.

This incredible opportunity is going to change the way music is distributed forever

http://www.articlecity.com/articles/online_business/article_4781.shtml

Where the Unknown Music Roams - Expand Your Music Library

You've heard all your favorite music and artists on your local radio station. You've tuned in while hoping to hear something new and exciting. Unfortunately, the radio stations usually play the same tunes over and over. This causes other musicians to get left out in the cold. You may never hear of many fabulous rock singers, R and B artists, jazz professionals and Gospel greats if you only listen to what your radio station has to offer. Here are some tips to show you how to expand your music library with great songs you've probably never heard before.

Where Did The Music Go?

If hundreds of singing groups and musicians submit their songs to producers each year, but only a few get chosen, then where do all these amazing musicians go? Where and how are their songs being heard? Do they just give up? In the past, many of them would likely quit playing or singing all together once they were rejected in the mainstream music industry. But nowadays, a new avenue of getting their sensational music to the public has arisen; it's called the World Wide Web!

There are now thousands of hip songs available online today that will probably never make it to the radio stations. The artists' names will probably never be mentioned in the mainstream music industry. But, that doesn't mean the songs are cheesy or that the artists have bad singing voices. It simply means they didn't get chosen to be in the top music charts. Their music might be wonderful, but was overlooked or got lost in the crowd of other musicians and bands.

A Variety of Music

This happening isn't limited to only one certain type of music or musician. Almost any type of music can fall victim to getting tossed in the "rejection" pile. This includes jazz, Latin, pop, R and B, hip hop, reggae, rock, folk, comedy, Gospel, blues, techno, spoken word, rap, etc.

No matter what your taste in music, there are probably thousands of artists who never made it in the big-time that you would enjoy listening to their music. Your music library can grow with great music CDs from these singers so you can listen to many different songs whenever you want instead of being limited to the over-played music on the radio.

Music on the Web

There are specialty websites online that focus on publicizing music and artists that have never been heard before. You can go online to listen to unique sample music, buy CDs, and buy merchandise. These artists are great even though they never made it big. You can usually try their music before you buy it to be certain it is right for you. So, there's nothing to lose, but lots of amazing music to gain.

Music for Your Business

If you own a business where music is played often, you can also play some "unknown" music over the loud speaker for others to hear. Your customers will be amazed at all the distinct songs they hear in your store. You'll be the talk of the town!

Whether it's rock, jazz or hip hop you enjoy, or if it's Gospel, country, folk, or some other type of music, you can expand your music library in no time with many great tunes that never made it to the top!

http://www.articlecity.com/articles/music_and_movies/article_657.shtml

New Age Music - How It's Made

Different styles of music have different "sounds." We can all pretty much agree on that point. For example, Jazz uses seventh chords almost exclusively. This, and the kind of chord progressions used in Jazz gives it its unique flavor. But what about new age music? Does it have it's own special ingredients?

Yes it does.

Now, there are no hard and fast rules here but for the most part, new age music is a consonant music. That is, there is little or noharshness going on in the music. No Saxes wailing and what not. Having said that we can eliminate most of the tense jazz chords and their voicing. So what are we left with? Mostly Major and minor chords based on the regular scales and the modes. The chord progressions are simpler and usually start on the l chord. No ll-V-l progressions here.

What about melody? In jazz, we have a soloist who usually plays a lot of chromatic notes. This is rare in new age music because it would create dissonance. New age melodies tend to be softer and more on the spiritual side. Solos, if there are any, are not so much concerned with the expression of the self than they are with letting the music express itself. A subtle but very important distinction. Jazz players may have some ego invested in their performance. New age musicians learn to let the music play them. They learn to become a channel for the music itself allowing it to speak through them. Of course, I'm not saying that this can't happen in Jazz, but, just watch a Jazz performer and you'll see what I mean.

Last but not least is rhythm. Let's do a comparison/contrast between Jazz and New Age music. Jazz has a definite discernible rhythm. It is what makes Jazz Jazz. New age music can have a pattern or an underlying rhythm to the music. It can be used to create trance like states in the listener. Drums are usually a part of Jazz music. Percussion is mostly absent from the New Age sound simply because it would not add to the atmosphere most New Age musicians create. Timing is very important to the Jazz musician. The soloist has the freedom to play whatever he wants as long as he maintains the meter and stays in time. New Age music is more elastic in that timing is there, but is not a master of the player. The New Age player can disregard time altogether.

Just listen to Zen flute music as a good example of this. Now, what does all this mean for the aspiring New Age musician? A couple of good things. It means that there is a definite new age "sound" out there. That it is here to stay and that people like and need to hear it. And it means that there are some guidelines out there for what defines the meaning of New Age music.

http://www.articlecity.com/articles/music_and_movies/article_661.shtml

When is Music Learning Software Good, And When Is It Bad

With the advent of computers there has been a proliferation of software purporting to do just about every learning task the modern guitar learner could ever want to accomplish. For example, I have a piece of software I picked up somewhere that would show you every inversion of every chord on the fretboard from any root.

There are drum machines, there are recorders, there are a million other ones that are not directly linked to learning guitar, but they never-the-less contrtibute to the completeness, or the more holistic processes of becoming a well-balanced creative. These are linked to learning in very direct ways, though they are not learning software, per se.

You could even consider an electronic brochure, book, pamphlet, or monograph a piece of learning software. It serves the same function.

When are these numerous directions each of these leads in worth pursuing, and when not? When is music learning software good, and what makes it bad?

It is all very subjective, and leads directly to the learner. The question is not always when is it good, and when is it bad. Sometimes it is best put by asking what can I get from this that I couldn't get elsewhere?

For example, the first example I gave of software that shows the chords on the guitar, this can give a person a grasp on how much work is involved, or help looking up a particular inversion, or voicing.

However, this software can be counter-productive in that it may stifle the student from learning to analyze chordal structures, and build these, from the students own memory. Also, what is a person to do with all these chords?

This is after all a very graspable subject. There is a tried and true method for obtaining this knowledge, so that the creative guitarist can draw on it "in the moment" and use it in their actual playing. So in this case, this software can actually stifle learning.

The bottom line, the learner has to be responsible for their own learning, and not get bogged down in techniques, software, learning methods. Just grab it and use it is the practical solution whenever confronted with new knowledge apllicable to creative gutiar playing.

Whenever faced with mutliple choices, I always try to explore the ends to which each of these leads. Knowledge-wise, this means pursuing as many learning angles as possible. The guitar is very conducive to this in that it is very logical, precise, learnable. It is not infinite after all. Quite the contrary. There are 12 notes. It is a huge system, but far from infinite.

It is like chess in some ways, there are a million moves, but only a few are really meanigful. Creativity, and the guitar, and songcraft, and are all very simple subjects when you get to the really important, "big picture" synthesis of it all.

In the meantime, just be aware in your learning that there is a way to grasp the most important, big picture, top-down knowledge apllicable to creative guitar. It is found in the Creative Guitar Mastery series of learning. This is my personal guarantee - that any of the knowledge you get from the series will enrich your playing in ways you will be thanking us for years to come! Or I will refund your money, no questions asked!

Thanks for your time.

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