http://www.articletrader.com/ Articles at ArticleTrader en-us http://www.articletrader.com/entertainment/music/what-makes-a-great-musician.html http://www.articletrader.com/entertainment/music/what-makes-a-great-musician.html Sat, 17 Mar 2007 00:00:00 -0500 You can have two individuals, with similar musical technical ability, play the same exact notes on a guitar and receive completely different reaction from the audience. You can also have musicians who train day in and day out and become extremely good at technically manipulating their instrument but when you hear them play, they hardly evoke any emotional reaction in the audience. On the other hand, you have the other kind of musicians, who may either be technically good or not, but their delivery always triggers a palpable emotional reaction in their audience. So what is the element that makes the difference?.

Maybe we can begin to answer that by following it with these questions. Does the great musician really need an instrument to become one?. Or, to phrase it another way, does the instrument have anything to do in creating a great musician?. The answer is, as you might have guessed is, not really. The instrument is purely incidental, in fact, a great musician can merely whistle and get a favorable audience reaction. Why? because they are born with the internal knowledge of the universal language of music, also know as, the gift of music. The possession of that knowledge or talent is the critical difference between the great musician versus the instrumental player. The great musician usually has a clear connection with the musical language within themselves, making it easy for them to express it. To the extent they can tap into that energy the greater they can reach the audience. The not so great musician, on the other hand, has a blurred connection, if at all. You can play your instrument till you drop dead, if the notes are not connected to your internal language of music you are merely playing notes, not music.

The unfortunate difference between the language of music and any other language is that, you cannot learn it. If you are born with it, you can learn how to better tap into it, if you are not born with it however, you might as well take up Spanish. For those born with it, practicing your music should involve great attention to the connection of yourself to the language of music as much as the time spent with your instrument developing your technique. By that I mean, in order to tap into the energy of music easily, you will have to spend a great deal of time taking care of your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health as opposed to just concentrating on your instrument. Ultimately, it is your usefulness, in terms of inspiring and touching your audience that makes you a great musician.
Copyright©2007 by Ermias Kebede



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Ermias Kebede is primarily a musical artist who also does extensive writing. Sample his music at his website.

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/entertainment/music/the-illusive-big-sound-in-home-music-recording.html http://www.articletrader.com/entertainment/music/the-illusive-big-sound-in-home-music-recording.html Sat, 17 Mar 2007 00:00:00 -0500
However, to make your bedroom studio production sound like it was recorded in a big studio and have that "big sound" is till a tricky endeavor that requires attention. Here are some basic tricks that can help you towards that goal.

If I have to pin point one major area in the production process that is crucial and extremely important in your music sounding big is the recording of the drums. If the drums are not recorded cleanly and featured prominently in the recording the whole song is going to sound weak and small. Short of having stand alone drum sequencers like the MPC series or even live drums, which is the best way to go for your drum recordings, if you are using drum sounds from a keyboard module here is one usual mistake you need to watch for. Avoid dubbing all your separate drum parts on one track.

Since it comes easy to sequence your drum parts on one track, we tend to leave it as is and end up having a weak sound as a result. Just because it sounds good in your studio doesn't mean it going to produce a big sound in the end.

The trick is to give each drum part two separate tracks and record them in stereo. For example when recording the hi-hat, record it on two separate tracks and pan the tracks left and right. The same with all the other parts; the bass drum, snare, toms and cymbals. Now you have ten or more tracks of just the drums, you then adjust the levels accordingly and dub the tracks to the final left and right tracks. This should give you a prominent drum sound on which you can build the rest of your song. The drums are the driving rhythm force of your song, so don't hesitate to give them a good sound level.

Once you have a good sounding drum tracks, here are some simple tricks to give your other instruments instant body and presence. Again the same rule applies here, double or even triple track the same instruments. Foe example if your song requires a background guitar chord parts, play the same part twice on two different tracks and pan them left and right. Bingo, that's an immediate body and presence for your song. You can use this same trick to guitar licks as well. That illusive "big sound" doesn't have to be so if you use the techniques I described above. Hope this has been helpful and good luck with your recordings.



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Ermias Kebede is primarily a musical artist who also does extensive writing. You can listen to his music at his website ETKMUSIC.

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/self-improvement/the-positive-affirmation-dilemma.html http://www.articletrader.com/self-improvement/the-positive-affirmation-dilemma.html Fri, 16 Mar 2007 00:00:00 -0500
However, one thing that seems to be neglected in most of the information out there is the fact that we almost always don't come to the table with an empty subconscious mind ready to be filled with positive affirmation. We come loaded with all kinds of information, a considerable part of it negative, already well installed in our subconscious mind. There is very little information out there on what to do with the already existing garbage before we install new affirmations.

Although the problem is not a lack of space, the old information in the subconscious will still have an influence on our lives even if we add new affirmations on top of it. They don't necessarily cancel each other out.

By no means I am discrediting affirmation practices, in fact I completely believe in them and we should all pursue them aggressively. However, we will get even better results from them if we release the negative affirmations that we are currently holding on and playing out in our lives.

One of the fastest and better methods I know of how to do just that is called EFT or Emotional Freedom Technique. By simply tapping on specific energy meridians on the body this method helps to reconfigure the negative aspects of stored affirmation or memory into a positive energy flow, freeing us from its hold. To go into the specifics of this method is not the scope of this article but detailed info of EFT is available through my link below.

Releasing old unproductive affirmations or beliefs is definitely going to take an effort and considerable amount of self awareness to accomplish. Therefore, it is a good idea to immediately start the positive affirmation practice while we are tying to release the old and unwanted ones. The order they are done is not a major issue as long as both aspects are addressed. This way we get the benefit of both approaches quicker. Good Luck and more success to you.



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Ermias Kebede is a musical artist who also does extensive writing. You can find a great affirmation application tool at mindzoom. For EFT techniques got to emotional freedom site.

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]>