music Archives - 3 Kids and Us

Three Types of Music Teaching You May Want to Pursue

January 30, 2018 by admin

If you love music, or play in a band at home or just with your friends and want to take your talents one step further, why not get into music teaching? If you are passionate about music, teaching it will pass on your passion to the next generation of music lovers and help them get the best out of music they can. Below are three different types of music teaching you may want to sink your teeth into, depending what you play and what your musical interests and experience are like.

Instrumental Music Teacher

If you play an instrument, you may want to help others with learning and perfecting their chosen instrument too. If you’ve played any instrument for a long time, you will know the ins and outs, and you’ll be getting paid to do something you love. You need a certain amount of patience with this job as new students can take time to learn; remember how hard it was for you and you will find empathy with them. All students need are encouragement and lessons, and scores to take home to practice every week. You can do this in schools such as Kent State, privately at your own home or travelling to learners homes, therefore it is a very flexible career you could even enjoy alongside your regular job.

General Music Teacher

If you are passionate about all kinds of performers and styles of music, you could inspire the same to your students. You can teach any age range depending on what suits you best and what age you’d like to work with. Not only will you help students create their own and learn to appreciate music more, but the appreciation you have for music will also deepen. Kent State University offers an online master’s in music education to get you started and understand how to teach music; all you need is the passion.

Choral Director

If you have an ear for vocal talent and you know what singer should be harmonizing with whom and what song suits an individual best, becoming a choral director could be your calling. If you know about tone, pitch and breath control whilst singing and can teach it to your choir, you can pass on your talents and skills and make something amazing. Whether you are teaching an individual or a whole choir how to be their best, you will be inspiring and helping singers achieve their goals and perform at their greatest. You can also see how your hard work has paid off during school concerts, and watch the proud parents marvel at their talented children and the confidence you have given them.

However you wish to pursue your teaching career in music, remember if you have the love for music, playing an instrument or singing, the rest will come naturally. Who knows, you could inspire and teach the next Adele or Ed Sheeran! The best part, you will be getting paid for doing something you love and teaching it to others.

How to Choose a Handpan Drum for Easy Traveling

July 11, 2017 by admin

People, who love music, cannot imagine their lives without it. Even when you travel to another continent, you want to have your favorite musical instrument with you. True, that it would be a hard thing if you decided to carry your piano or tuba to a deserted beach somewhere in Greece, as you might have some logistic problems; but what if your choice of an instrument is something small and cool, like a handpan drum? With this easy-to-learn music tool, you will become a star both on the streets of Paris and under the palms of Indonesian coast.

A handpan is originated from Trinidad, a country that is famous for carnival music. In the 1970s, when the Western world first learned about it, handpan became a real phenomenon. Be sure that most of the people, who will hear you playing this musical instrument, will say something like: ‘How are you making this cosmic sound? It is a miracle!’. However, you know that it is not. Handpan is simply a convex steel drum tuned with multiple notes, which has the ability to produce ethereal effects and multiple layers of sound. It is played with hands only. Curious fact that its original name is hung (pronounced “hah-ng”), but later the name turned to be “hand” (thank the little Swedish producers and the Swiss-German dialect).

Choosing Handpan Guide: What To Look For

So, how to choose the instrument that would be suitable for you in your travelings? How do you find the one that can produce the best music?

First of all, if you want a real one, you should search for hand-made product only. However, there are still not many craftsmen, who produce really unique high-quality handpans. It can also be very expensive, as to buy one directly from the producer can cost you from $2,000 to $10,000, but there is a big chance that you will wait for your special handpan for a really long time, like months or even years.

Taking such an expensive thing for a journey with you will definitely make you feel uneasy to stay in 8-bed rooms of hostels, travel by bus or live in a tent with no security around. So you may consider a cheaper purchase, for instance, look for the second-hand thing on eBay. Just be careful, as if you are determined to buy a handpan drum, do not go for the tongue drums – these kinds of scams occasionally occur on the Internet.

For your immediate purchase, you can always use Amazon. There are more mass-market drums, this is why they are cheaper and not so unique. Although a perfect gear does not make you a perfect musician, so you may think of taking something from mass-market for your trip, so you won’t be worried about the safety of your precious one all the time.

Remember, that for traveling you need also a protective case or a bag. You can find special accessories for handpans or use something that you already have. Enjoy your trip and fill it with the magical handpan drum music. Let us know how you go. We might post another article about how to use handpan and some handpan music tutorials in the near future.

How to Learn to Play Guitar

May 5, 2017 by admin

I have wanted dot play guitar since I was little and through either lack of motivation, fear or lack of time, I had never got around to it. One of my best friends Elvis Dzebic had played guitar for my years and a couple of years ago I asked him how he thought I should start learning, at this stage I had not even bought my first guitar.

I was well aware that I was never going to become the next Page, Clapton or Hendrix and it turns out that I was right, I have however, improved greatly in those couple of years and here is how I got started.

Acoustic First

One of the best pieces of advice that my friend gave me was that I should start out with an acoustic guitar instead of an electric. I was unsure at first, I had dreams of stomping on the wah-wah pedal as I crunched though some AC/DC but that dream had to wait. I took my friend’s advice and you should too. The reason for this is that playing an acoustic is much tougher on your fingers and it helps you to better learn the craft of strumming and fingerpicking, you can disguise bad playing on an electric, you can not on an acoustic. Once you have played the acoustic well, you will find that playing the electric is incredible easy.

Daily Practice

Although it can be frustrating at first, you need to ensure that you are practicing for at least one hour every day. You will find that with daily practice, your finger flexibility gets better and that you will improve a great deal in a short space of time which is great to keep you motivated.

Learn to Read Tablature

Unless you can read music then you should try to learn how to read guitar tablature so that you can learn your favorite songs. Tablature is really easy to read, far easier than learning to read music, as each finger on your fret hand is given a number, the tablature has six lone resembling the strings and it shows you which number, or finger, to place on each string. If you want to learn your favorite riffs or songs then the best way to do so is to learn tablature because there is thousands of guitar tabs online which can help you learn.

Go Blues

Blues is where the guitar has its roots and if you want to become a better player then you should invest some time learning some of the blues scales. These scales are often the origins of many songs and if you can nail down the scales then whenever you have a variation on them in songs, you will be able to perfectly adapt. Blues scales also work really well when it comes to keeping your fingers nimble and flexible and they are also a great deal of fun to play.

Going to School to Learn how to Make Beautiful Sound Tracks

March 26, 2017 by admin

The world of music is huge. We often think about the performance side of music, and not about everything that goes on behind the scenes. But it is particularly behind the scenes that things are really interesting. And the added benefit is that this is where the real security is as well. Performing means getting discovered, and stars can fall as quickly as what they can rise. But if you work behind the scenes, there will always be a need for you. It is not surprise, therefore, that the audio engineering degree is now so popular.

Jobs for an Audio Engineer

If you do complete your degree in audio engineering, then there are lots of job opportunities available to you. This is also because the world of music itself is so vast. You could decide to focus on a particular element of music (production, performance, marketing, talent scouting, and so on), a particular element of sound (live music, television, recording studios, radios, and so on), or even on a particular genre of music (hip hop, rock, classical, and so on). You could even decide to go into teaching!

An audio engineering is not an individualist, however. Rather, you will have to be ready to work with a huge team of other people, something that takes very particular skills. Performing artists, for instance, have been known to develop diva attitudes, which you will have to be able to deal with. Meanwhile, their manager will have a certain sound in mind and shout at you for not producing that exact sound, suggesting that you twiddle different buttons that they know nothing of. Then, there are the groupies who believe everything is absolutely perfect so long as the star agrees. The venue manager who will complain to you about having the bass to loud, the television producers deciding that the sound should echo differently, and so on. Music is an art, and everybody involved, no matter at what stage, will have an artistic mind. And artistic minds can be quite difficult to get along with, something that you will have to learn. Remember that, if you think they are awkward, they will probably think the same about you!

So is it worth it? As a starting salary, you can expect to earn around $45,000, but this can easily build up to a six figure income, as you build a name for yourself. Plus, you can really grow in your career, even ending up as a go to source, perhaps through your own business. Some audio engineers hold copyrights over the work they have done, which in turn means you can earn royalties.

It all depends on which course you complete and where. If you go to a one year vocational college and complete a diploma, you will obviously end up in an entry level position that earns less than that what would be given to someone who has completed a four year bachelor’s degree. Think about where you want to study, therefore.

How to Improve Your Guitar Playing Skills

March 25, 2017 by admin

Guitars, along with violins and recorders are one of the most common musical instruments which are left in closets for years as the result of a failed hobby. Equally however the guitar is one of the most popular instruments that people would like to learn and if you fall into this category then it is time to get that axe out of the closet and start playing. I was chatting to guitar teacher and touring musician Tom Hess recently who gave me some tips on how to improve my guitar playing ability and now I play just like Hendrix, ok, not strictly true, but I have improved a lot and here is how you can too.

Practice, Practice, Practice

I watched an interview with Slash who says that he has a fear that if he doesn’t practice the guitar each day, he will lose the ability to play. That is quite a statement coming from someone who you would never think would need to practice daily and if he needs to practice each day, then you certainly need to as well. Set an hour or two aside each day to hone your skills, you cannot expect to not play for weeks on end and then pick it up and play a tune. You simply must put the practice hours in.

Use Tablature

There are so many free tabs online which you can find to play your favorite song, rhythm or blues lick and you should be utilizing these websites if you want to enhance your playing ability. Most of us cannot read music and learning to do so can be tough, tablature on the other hand is very simple to learn and understand and you could be playing your favorite song in no time.

YouTube

There is absolutely nothing wrong with using lessons and tutorials online in order to help improve your guitar playing ability. YouTube in particular is one such channel where you can see step by step guides for different songs, playing styles and tips and tricks on how to be a better guitarist. There is no honor in being ‘self-taught’ is it to be respected for sure but the goal here is to be a good guitar player and as such, you should use all of the help that is available to you.

Play Gigs

It is all well and good sitting in your room plucking away but if you really want to test yourself and your guitar playing abilities then you need to play in front of people. It doesn’t matter if this is friends and family or a bar full of people, playing in front of a crowd induces a little bit of fear and you can use this to improve how you play. You may find that you learn more about how good a guitarist you really are when you are playing in front of a live audience.