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The piano is an important musical instrument for jazz bands since the origin of jazz music and it can be played in the style of a solo performance or as part of a band. Like the guitar, the piano is one of the few musical instruments in a jazz band which can play chords as well as notes instead just single notes only instruments such as the saxophone, trombone, trumpet or even the vibraphone (1 or 2 notes together).

Gone were the days when a jazz pianist’s role is just to keep tempo with repetitive chord combinations. Nowadays, the pianist is free to choose any technique or style to accompany a band or a singer using both short and sustained chordal and melodic fragments called comping.

An accomplshed jazz pianist must not only be good at sight-reading as well as good at improvising chord symbols but also must be able to adapt to the different playing styles of various bands he jams with. Jazz pianists must balance this interpretation and improvisation to the musical style the bands are playing.

The jazz pianist is indeed a happy musician because of the extended range of the piano. The piano offers the pianist with a much greater number of choices and techniques for improvisation, much more so than any other instruments in a jazz band.  Read more...

Music has long been known to have an emotional effect on humans. Find out how the music you listen to might be affecting you and how you can use music to manage your stress.

There are so many kinds of music – country western, classical, eastern, rap, pop, hip hop, rock and roll, soul…what kind of music are you listening to, and how is it affecting your level of stress?

Music moves us – listening to a sad song can make us feel melancholy, soft jazz piano can calm and soothe us, and rock can make us feel strong, excited, even free. Music has been proven to speed healing, is used in malls to put us in the mood to buy, in churches for inspiration and much more. So can you use music to influence your mood and lower your stress in your daily life? Absolutely.

First, consider your general mood. Are you normally stressed, happy, positive, sad, angry, fearful, even shy? Are there consistent times in your life that you would like to change your mood – maybe the drive home from work, or getting up in the morning, or maybe you stress at night, laying in bed, tossing and turning?  Read more...

With the controversy and legal issues that have plagued music download sites since their beginning, it seems like there are no good, legitimate sites for free and legal music downloads. Many sites either offer you music that they are not legally allowed to distribute, or they give you some nasty surprises when you use them: spyware, adware, and other ugly little add-ons.

Believe it or not, there are still several ways to get quality, legal music downloads for free. You won’t always be able to get the entire album and many free resources only offer downloads for relatively unknown artists. But if you’re willing to try something new and don’t mind only getting a sample of the music you want, you’ll have plenty of options for finding free music downloads.

GarageBand lets you download music from unknown artists who are hoping to make it big. You know that the music is legal to download because it is provided directly by the artists themselves. They are not signed to a label so there’s no worry about the label owning the rights to their songs.

Because the bands are unsigned, the majority of them will be new to you. GarageBand is certainly not the place to go if you want to build up your music library with perennial favorites or up-and-coming bands you heard on the radio but if you’re looking for new and unique music that you probably won’t hear anywhere else, this site is perfect.  Read more...

Many years ago, if you heard a song on the radio, in a shop or bar, you would immediately know the name of the artist or band. Back in the 80′s this was certainly true, especially the pop charts. Since the 90′s though this individuality seemed to trail off with musical styles from different genres being homogenized into rap, R&B and dance for instance. This could be due to the huge US gangsta rap influence — even the spice girls seemed to have borrowed from this. Fashion obviously has a big influence. Could this be why the 80′s is making such a big comeback?

Rock music, on the other hand has seen something of a Renaissance in recent years, often going back to its various innovations like punk, 60″s beat and classic rock. Bands like The Artic Monkeys, The Feeling and Franz Ferdinand are certainly good examples of this. The Killers and Coldplay on the other hand owe a lot to 8o”s bands like The Cure or U2 but made a style all of their own. The interesting thing with rock as opposed to pop is that the rock bands seem to stay together much longer. U2 are an obvious example. The Rolling Stones seem to roll on for ever and even Status Quo are still on the go and numerous others which you don”t hear much of these days. The biggest bands in pop on the other hand i.e. The Beatles, ABBA and The Spice Girls only lasted a few years — often being offered multi-million deals to reform with only the spice girls capitulating. Even so pop seems to have more comeback bands now such as Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet and Micheal Jackson. Though Micheal.Jackson had never really left the public eye, he hadn”t toured for over ten years. With his recent death of course, everybody wants a piece of the nostalgia that has blossomed as a result of it. It”s doubtful whether his unique blend of musical style and individuality will ever be matched.  Read more...

Indie is an abbreviation of the term independent. It is a global term that refers to rock artists. Such artists belong to unsigned bands or work for independent labels. Initially, indie artists use to make only rock music and they were characterized by unusual sense of fashion. However, in present days, they explore and make all sorts of music.

Right from rap, hip-hop, rock, jazz to classical, indie music artists have made a solid mark in the music industry. These artists cover a wide range of music and they have some amount of commitment to their cultural values.

The subcategories of indie music range from punk rock to different experimental music. Moreover, this is a considerable difference between one forms of indie music to another. Indie rock has more of guitar notes to it, and this music has the combination of guitar and pop music. Some indie music artists also combine distorted sound of instruments and mix it with older songs or folk songs.

Indie musicians have come with new form of indie music, post rock music. To make this music, they do not use traditional instruments, as they usually keep the musical intensity at a very high level. Therefore, post rock is a complex form of indie music.

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