Musician

It’s impossible to avoid the term ‘velocity sensitivity’ when you’re looking at electronic keyboard instruments such as pianos, keyboards and synthesizers. In this blog, we explain what velocity sensitivity is and what you can use it for.

If you can already see yourself pulling off mad dive-bombs and slick dime-squeals after witnessing a pro player showcase their skills, chances are you’ll end up buying an electric guitar with a floating tremolo bridge yourself – perhaps even one with a genuine Floyd Rose. What many beginners don’t realise, however, is that a floating bridge is rather sophisticated, which can quickly lead to confusion and irritation. To help you out, I’m going to show you exactly how you can tune a Floyd Rose, Ibanez Edge or any other comparable tremolo bridge system in just five steps.

Guestblogger Marc tells all about how to repair the electronics of your electric guitar with your own two hands and get rid of that hum, crackle, or actually get some sound out of it. From the tools you’ll need to get the job done properly, to a run through of what you need to do: Marc lays it all out and makes it clear that it’s much simpler than you think and anyone with the will and the right tools can do it themselves! And if you take the plunge, you get the added benefit of noise free tone, an in-house repair shop and the chance to get to know your guitar a little more intimately.

An electronic drum kit is the ideal tool for almost every drummer: no more heated arguments with the neighbours about the noise; practically all the sounds you could wish for and you can practice whenever you want. But let me remind you that you can do much more than simply hone your drumming here, as digital drums are also a great recording tool. As a matter of fact, ease of recording is one of the biggest advantages compared to an acoustic kit. In this blog, I’ll show you how it works and offer you three easy ways to record an electronic drum kit.

The drum kit as we know it today has undergone centuries of evolution. In all likelihood, it originates from the first instrument played by humans, as archeological evidence suggests that for thousands of years, people having been pounding and hammering on anything they could get their hands on.

Have the strings of your electric guitar seen better days? Has the top string snapped or are they sounding a wee bit dead? Then it’s probably about time that you give your cherished instrument the love it deserves by gifting it with a fresh set of strings. Only … re-stringing a guitar for a beginner might be a little bit daunting.

Unfortunately, we don’t get to see them as much as we’d like, but that’s already changing fast. Thanks to pioneers like Karen Carpenter, Sheila E., Meg White, Helen Hallsworth, and YouTube stars like Meytal Cohen, more and more girls are picking up a set of sticks and pounding the skins. In this blog, we tell you about 5 of the best known and most interesting female drummers out there.

One of the things that makes the electric guitar so seductive is the insane range of different sounds you can get out of a single instrument. The electric guitar can be used to make something heart-breakingly subtle, just as easily as it can be deployed to unleash ear-splitting brutality. This blog deals with the latter – and we’re not talking about just cranking up the volume and hoping for the best, but the subtle art of guitar distortion in all its forms. That’s not to say you can’t crank it up. Back in the day, before the dawn of effects pedals, the only way to get a distorted sound was to push the volume of an amplifier so far that it started to crack. Thankfully, those times are gone and we can now enjoy the magic offered by distortion stompboxes, even at a more sociable volume.

If you want your axe to stay in tune during a serious dive-bomb, you’ll need a Floyd Rose tremolo with a special double-locking system. Since this system can look a little daunting to set up, we’re going to show you exactly how this type of guitar bridge works, and how you can string up and intonate it.

If, as a musician, you find yourself staring at sheet music like an illiterate puppy staring at an episode of Countdown, then you’re not alone! It can be endlessly frustrating if you’re more than able to play your instrument, but learning to play a new piece costs you weeks if not months of your precious life. Maybe you give up halfway through, maybe you just keep plodding on; in any case, you probably wish you were just better at reading music. Or maybe you’re good at it, but just want to speed the process up. All of this is possible!

You’re likely to have seen a musician perform, or at least heard of one who performs with feeling as they play or sing. This particular musical feeling or expression is not only created using tempo, rhythm, and a melody, but conveying expression in a piece also has a lot to do with dynamics. This blog has been written for beginners who want to understand what dynamics mean when it comes to music, how this is notated by symbols and terms in a manuscript, and how to interpret these signs and symbols.

While it is possible, playing Rolling Stones classics like Brown Sugar and Start Me Up in standard tuning will most likely leave you utterly disappointed and forced into impossible finger positions. Granted, the rhythm parts can be played using simplified power chords, but that still won’t get you that signature Stones sound. So how does Keith Richards pull it off? Well, as someone who knows how not to take things too seriously, Richards is probably the first to admit he really isn’t the best guitarist ever to have roamed the stage. The trick here, is open G tuning.