I was chatting with a few other teachers and some students recently about how to learn a song quickly and how I go about learning songs, as well as what the most effective method is. Learning a song is a remarkably complex process. There’s the lyrics, the melody, the rhythm, the harmony, perhaps some ornamentation […]
In the guitar world, tube amplifiers (the very first kind of amps for guitar that were ever created) have been the sought after tone machines for guitarists. The issues with valve/tube amps are that they are heavy, too loud when delivering a great tone, require increasingly expensive maintenance, etc. As such, despite sounding great, with
A while ago I did a blog post on just five songs that had been brought into the studio in the last week, and that got such a great response from people I decided to do it again this week! #1 – Jamie Cullum – Save Your Soul This was brought in by a fab
I ended up having a fairly long Facebook chat with a few students today on a variety of songs, and five songs came up that I recommended they have a listen to… and they just hadn’t heard them before! So I figured I’d share the five right here for your listening pleasure! #1 – Bonnie
Hey folks Here’s one of my favourite bands. They are a proper old school hard rock band called ‘Rival Sons’. I’ve blogged about them before, but this is to illustrate a particular point. Watch the video below. It’s essentially just recorded “in the room”. There is some mixing that has gone on (as evidenced by
OK, this one is going to be a little different. DISCLAIMER: What is about to follow builds on concepts of bridging, registration, and the tendencies that different singers have. If these terms are unfamiliar to you, or if you’ve not read the various articles on my site on bridges and the various vocal tendencies, please
This week I want to talk about the importance of function over sound when it comes to building a great singing voice. I’ve had some new clients start recently. One of these clients received classical repertoire voice training at a very young age for a long time, and she has a lovely voice. One of
I came across this Wall Street Journal video article today on Beyonce and her Songwriters. In summary, Beyonce has come under fire for using over 60 songwriters to help her write her latest album ‘Lemonade’. But how have things evolved over the last few decades? Why do we react so strongly to this idea of
