When you hear musicians talking about backbeats, they are referring to accenting beats that are normally considered weak. Most typically, that means accenting beats 2 and 4 rather than 1 and 3 in 4/4 time. Backbeats are a relatively new thing in music. In fact, you would be hard pressed to find a backbeat in […]
Category Archives: Music Philosophy
All around where I live, it has become customary to host weekend outdoor concerts in the town centers. I enjoy going to them from time to time because it is often a great atmosphere. Nine times out ten, the music is provided by a cover band. A cover band is a group of semi-pro musicians […]
IMPORTANT NOTE: When I use the terms “normal people” and “average people” in this post, that is not in a derogatory way. I am just referring to people who are not musicians or high art lovers. I had an interesting week last week. I started at a Christian music industry conference and toward the end […]
Recording music is a huge investment of time and money and very often, it is an investment that ends badly for musicians. Less than 5% of all CDs produced sell at least 1,000 copies so that means that more than 95% of all CDs produced ending up losing money. Many people want to record because […]
I live in the Atlanta, a very urban and ultra-competitive place. Atlanta has grown up a lot over the past ten years. When I first got here, it was incredibly shallow because of all the money. Somewhere along the way, the money dried up and now people have become a bit more grounded. I like […]
Some people are really hung up on gender roles. I am not referring to women’s rights so much though that is part of it. What I am more referring to is their obsession with men learning to “act like men.” As a quick aside, when I was growing up, that is how fighting was justified. […]
Over the weekend, I went to the Whispering Solo Piano concert near San Diego. The primary reason I went was to meet the musicians that are associated with that genre (New Age). I am in a very similar genre and they play my music on Whisperings and similar radio stations.
As most of you guys know, the piano has only been considered acceptable in church for about a century. Until that point, the piano was primarily a bar instrument and had heavy baggage associated with it sort of like drums might have today.
Last week on Facebook, I posted a clip of a very controversial piece of music. Most would not even call it music and I am a bit on the fence myself. Here is a link if you don’t see it below: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTEFKFiXSx4 John Cage’s 4’33” is a 4 minute 33 second song consisting of silence. “Written” […]
I often post clips of music performances on my Facebook fan page. I think the people that follow that page may be the most honest people on Facebook because they are brutally honest in their evaluations on those clips.
Recently, James Koerts self-published a book of arrangements called Be Still.
If you click on that link, you can buy and download it instantly for
$15. Some might not like the fact that you cannot buy a printed book,
but going forward, you are going to see this more and more. (Think
Kindle!)