Coldplay - Glass Of Water Cover

Here is Jonathon and I jamming during our lesson to
Coldplay's "Glass Of Water!"


ENJOY!!

Mike Welch Benefit CD - One Of Our Own

A new Benefit CD featuring current and past members of the cast of Blast in support of one of our own. I have contributed one song called "Song For You" on the album, which opens the CD up with the first track.





THE ACCIDENT
In July 2008 Mike was in Japan to perform with the show Blast II MIX as the trombone and tuba swing. The first night in Matsumoto he was riding a bicycle down a steep road on a mountain and fell off of the bike. He shattered his T5 vertebrae in his spine and fractured his T6, paralyzing him below the waist. He had a great surgeon who perform an 8 hour surgery a few days after the accident adding metal rods to stabilize his back.


THE RECOVERY
While we all hope for a full recovery, only time will tell if that will naturally happen. Perhaps stem cell therapy could help. A clinic in India offers this treatment and Mike is exploring this opportunity. But we will need your help to get there!





All proceeds from the sale of this CD will go directly to Mike Welch to help him with all his medical treatment.
If you would like some more info, please visit his website at
www.mikewelch.org >>>


If you would like to purchase this CD right now, you may do so by clicking on the link below. This link will launch iTunes for you and take you right to the album.


The Blast Family-One of Our Own

The Guitar Scale Tool

So I found this amazing tool that helps you out with learning those oh so dreaded scales. It starts out by choosing your TUNING and the default is set as STANDARD TUNING. Then the next page will display the fretboard with all of the notes along with several things that are widely customizable. Choose your KEY on the top left, then on the NOTEPAD on the bottom right, select the scale you would like to learn. And there you go, instant scales on a fretboard! It is a bit cut off on the right of this file, but you can access the full file at his website right here. It is under his "Widgets" page.





You can visit the creator of this tool at his website right here

Get your music on iTunes and YOU keep all the rights! Try Tunecore

So I am sure you may have seen these ads especially if you are looking for a solution for getting you music heard and available to the public. Tunecore seems to be a solution that makes no money from the sale of your albums, they just charge you for their service. Sounds pretty fair, maybe it is worth checking out!



How does it work?

TuneCore has arrangements with leading digital music retailers that let us place your music in their online stores and subscription services. You get 100% of the money that your music earns.

What's it cost?

TuneCore charges $0.99 per track, $0.99 per store per album, and $19.98 per album per year storage and maintenance.


I thought I would post a few reviews to inform you on what the buzz is. If you have been considering just click on the top banner and it will take you straight to Tunecore.

REVIEWS

I have two of my albums on iTunes by way of Tunecore. It's been up on iTunes now for about a week and some days. That being said, I've not gotten any money from iTune sales yet. I wish I could get something from iTunes to see how many people listen to my music on the iTunes site. Something like a report. I also have links to my iTune store on my website. Check it out when you can. www.kaiwen.com
I didn't have any problems with Tunecore and I'm glad I found them. They are by far the easiest way to get your music on to iTunes other than CD-baby. I need to get the traffic going to my website so that people will start going to the iTune store. I also have it setup so people can buy my tracks from my site using paypal. Even with that I'm not selling anything yet. It's up there, but the people just aren't feeling me like that yet. It's cool. One day I hope to reap the rewards of the all the hard work I'm putting into my music. I sell CD's out the trunk also. I have lots of friends who support me, plus family who will buy a CD here and there.
I have my music on all of the iTune stores that I could going through Tunecore. I thought that iTunes was the same all over the world, but Tunecore got me hip to how iTunes works. I've never purchased a track of iTunes, so I didn't know about the different iTune store. I hope the music lovers from other countries are more open to the music I have up on iTunes than the folks here in the US. Time will tell. I'll have to check you out. If you have a website send me a link and I'll link to you on my website.

Regards,
Kai Wen
www.kaiwen.com
Last edited by Kai Wen : 05-30-2006 at 01:29 PM.


My name is Jake, I do freelance production and just recently started working for the marketing department at TuneCore. Also, just wanted to mention that after I read this, I went to check out some of Kai Wen's stuff on iTunes - Kai, you are very talented and I am glad you have been happy with our service!

You can rest assured that our service is real, and if I may say so myself, really good. While producing and performing is my first passion, I immediately applied for a job after hearing about the company, and things on the inside were even better than I imagined. A lot of great people who are really passionate about what TuneCore does and about music in general.

In answer to your question djstasiak, when looking to put music on the iTunes store, you should generally allow 6-8 weeks for it to appear. This can sometimes vary, not based on our delivery to the stores but based on their own reasons/processes all albums must go through. If you want, you can contact our customer service department (support@tunecore.com) and ask about expediting your delivery for an additional fee.

I would be happy to answer any other questions you may have, glad to see people are discussing!

-Jake, jake@tunecore.com
4 Weeks Ago

When do I change my strings?

If you play on a regular basis, you'll probably want to put new strings on your guitar every 4 to 6 months. If you play a lot, you may need to change them as often as once a week. In any case, you can tell when you need to re-string your guitar by its sound, older strings tend to make your tone sound muffled, dead, or even off pitch. If you are nodding your head right now, you will also probably notice that your strings have accumulated some dirt and/or rust. Right? Some people however love the dark muffled and dead sound of old strings..that is quite alright, milk the oldness for all it is worth.

When it comes to deciding when to replace your guitar strings, your ear is definitely your best guide. If your tone sounds bright and clear, it's not necessary to replace the strings on your guitar. If they sound dull, it's probably time to head to you nearest guitar shop for a new set. It's a good idea to keep a set of strings in your guitar case so you can replace strings quickly and easily when necessary. If a string breaks, it might be an indication that it's time to replace the entire set.

Information taken from: The Guitarist's Bookshelf by Amy Appleby & Peter Pickow

John Mayer - Say

I guess I didn't intend on posting one so quick but I already had this done so I figured I might as well.
I think this song is pretty good and quite fun to play, although, one might find it somewhat repetitive especially the 20 times he says "say what you need to say" there at the end. I think however this song has a tricky intro especially when you add the singing into it. The other sections of this song have stock chords, mostly bar-type chords but clever John Mayer has this unique style of wrapping his thumb for the bass notes on some of these chords. Check out the video for this song and you will notice what I am talking about. Even though wrapping your thumb is not the correct "text book" way of playing any chord and classically-trained guitar players might throw their footrests at him, it does give a type of relaxed, no-tension way of playing a sometimes painful bar chord.
I have included the mp3 that you may listen to and a controllable slide-show of the guitar TAB sheet I created. If you click on the file to activate, pause/play, or switch through the thumbnails, you will now be able to use your keypad arrow keys(as indicated by the top right icons) to navigate through the slide show. Once you click on something else you will have to click back on the file to navigate the slides again with your arrow keys. Get it? ...I knew you would.... I just realized that this little bugger sittin' on the play button is a lefty...like Jimi.

John_Mayer_-_Say.m...

Buy & Download the Singlefrom iTunes Here

The Guitar Edge Coming Soon!

So I will be adding my first post soon and it will entail educational listings of songs I figure out and teachings of how to play them. It will probably be mostly acoustic guitar but I will see if I can sneak in several different types of guitar TABs of various covers. This is a treat for me to do and to know that knowledge can be in a place where anyone can access it...I think should definitely be utilized. For when I am long and gone, hopefully, this information will survive, that is if Blogspot does not go under (or Google rather). This site should be informative and somewhat interactive so if you have any questions or requests, just post them as a comment. I will do my best.

Oh yeah and if you haven't already noticed, there are files to each lesson that are downloadable in my BOX account over there to the left. In the mean time, here is a site chat, where you can ask questions, post requests, or get to know each other!