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“B.Y.O.B.” has been playing on MTV2 steadily for a month or two now. When it first played surrounded by many younger bands the song was lost in the mix. Now that the fluff has fallen off and the real music is playing System Of A Down’s radical tune begins to stand out.
 
“B.Y.O.B.” begins with that Iron Maiden hair-band sound that amplified angry disaffectioned youths in the 1980s. If you were too young to worship guys in tights and aqua-netted hair that music usually is a turn off. Long ago Iron Maiden, Ozzy, or a billion other metal bands sang about everything in society that lacked relevance. They also spewed out devil lyrics to scare the old folks and had nasty album covers drawn by Satan himself. This is much like rappers shouting out profanity over heavy basslines to enable young kids to have the same effect on old folks in their cars today.

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While talking to Marc Gartman of No Wait Wait about his new self-titled CD I told him that it sounded very different. He said, “isn’t that what guys say to girls they are trying to let down easy?”
 
That was the first word to pop into my head, and I had called him to understand more about what I was listening to. This album was artistic and experimental with influences and musicians appearing in various roles throughout. A melting pot of rock that became, well….. Something different.

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Having taught guitar for many years, I see the majority of beginners experiencing the same problems and making the same mistakes over and over again in their quest to learn how to play guitar. It’s my job to steer them through these problem areas.

These “mistakes” are basic errors that all beginners naturally tend to make. But these mistakes can cause major problems if you allow them to become habits in your playing. Unfortunately, 90% of guitarists have done just that.

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Rarely is a chord played with its tones contained in a single octave, the root on the bottom, the third in the middle, and the fifth on the top.

Usually chords are “voiced!”

This basically means that the positions of a chord’s tones are scattered over the keyboard. The tones may be altered, doubled, added to, missing, and so forth.

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As industry insiders, we sometimes forget that when discussing the recording process, the rest of the world really has no idea what we are talking about.  Hopefully this will provide an explanation of the song formation process in layman’s terms so that there may be less disconnect between the professional and the consumer.

As with any creative process, there is no absolute hard and fast procedure that must be followed stringently, but there is a logical development that all recordings must go through, which includes:

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In the last article, the creation of a theme, its development, and the use of a libretto were discussed. As one may recall, the theme is the kernel of a production, which dictates the nature of the piece. And in relation to the theme, is the thematic structure that serves as a guide as to how the production will manifest. Ultimately this information is transferred to a libretto. In contrast to the previous article, the strengths and weaknesses of the arts will be addressed. Before one can choose the various media for their multi-artistic production, one must understand the arts in part and as a whole. There are three general categories that the arts can be classified, which include the auditory, visual, and linguistic. Although some art forms can be placed in two or more categories, such as poetry, fundamentally it is made of words, but can be executed vocally.

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In many years of arranging jazz bands for all sorts of events I am struck by the similarity of how the request is made by most of our clients.

It goes something like this: “We are looking for a jazz band to play at our wedding / book launch / family fun day / sixtieth birthday/ store opening etc.”…”oh yes, we say, what style of jazz band ?”…”Er, not quite sure. What styles have you got?”

It was because of this exchange I felt this article would be helpful in choosing the right kind of jazz band for your party, celebration or event.

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