Back to School Tips for Student Musicians

Getting ready for the annual Back to School is a mixed blessing. As the Summer Vacation wears on, students become bored. They miss their friends, and secretly they miss the routine that the school year imposes.

The student musician needs a more regimented approach to returning to school than many students. Like student athletes, musicians are expected to hit the ground running. They had achieved a certain skill level before school ended, and the orchestra, band, or chorus teacher usually hopes that the students will have continued their practicing through the Summer so that there has been no deterioration in their performance. Ideally the students will have even progressed due to practice or participation in Camps at which they can interact with other student musicians and teachers.

Sadly, not every student musician has the means, the time, or the desire to work on their musical skills through the Summer.

Brush up on the grammar of music. Spend ten or fifteen minutes per day for the last three or four weeks before school resumes studying key signatures, musical terms, and basic theory. Just having the vocabulary immediately available makes the first month of school so much easier for student and teacher alike.

Check your instrument for required maintenance three or four weeks before school starts. Does your violin need new strings, your cello need a new bridge, or your clarinet need new reeds? Check your supplies. Rosin, peg compound, lubricant and the like are all required. If you don't have them available, now is the time to order what you need. And if you find that something has occurred which requires professional attention, late July and early August would be the right time to take the instrument in for repairs rather than losing it for the first two weeks of the semester.

Look at your sheet music. Do you have the lesson books that you teacher will want you to have when school begins? If the teacher didn't tell you what your next book would be at the end of the year, check to see if there is something listed on your school's website. You might even be able to e-mail your teacher to ask for suggested materials. Most teachers continue to check their e-mail throughout the Summer.

The last few weeks of Summer is the time to start developing the physical strength, stamina, quickness and flexibility you will need to play your best. Finger exercises, whether on your instruments, using some sort of exercise device, or playing your instrument are invaluable. String players frequently complain about sore fingertips when they begin playing after a long lay-off. Now is the time to start developing those calluses and prevent the soreness you've had the first weeks of prior semesters.

Finally, start practicing early. Practicing thirty minutes or an hour a day for the month before school starts can dramatically improve your performance. Trying to impress your teacher? Play your instrument! Trying to move up a stand in your section? Etudes, scales, and arpeggios will help you do that! Just wanting to feel good about your playing? The dexterity, skill, and confidence that little bit of time you put in toward the close of Summer will develop will be invaluable as the leaves start to show their Fall colors.

Read about music. Maintain your instrument. Acquire the supplies you need. Spend some time with your instrument. Do these things and the harmony between you and your instrument as school begins will be something wonderful to hear!

Arthur Haule studied violin in a traditional program for ten years. He participated in several orchestras and an opera company in the New York City area and founded a string quartet. He has taken part in several music festivals and even acted as a violin coach. He is currently webmaster of http://www.violinstudent.com/ Although Art learned violin in a traditional setting, his daughter Adriana studied with a Suzuki Violin teacher. So Art has personal experience in both traditions. And you'll often hear him say, "It Doesn't Matter How You Learned, All That Counts Is That You Play!"

A fan of classical music, Art is dedicated to promoting the violin no matter what type of music is being played. If there is a melody there, Art probably listens to it.

Art Haule lives, plays violin, and designs T-shirts for http://www.cafepress.com/violin_student in Flower Mound, Texas with his wife Kathy and his daughter Adriana.

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The Zoom Recorder - A Critical Tool for All Musicians Who Want to Improve Quickly

If you are a serious musician and want to improve quickly, I recommend you seriously consider using a portable digital music recording device, such as a Zoom recorder. If you have never recorded yourself before, I can assure you that you will learn about aspects of your playing that you were never aware of before. It's a great way to quickly identify your strengths and weaknesses. When you are practicing, you are too bust concentrating on the music and mechanics of playing to really concentrate on what you really sound like to other people. When I first tried recording myself using my own personal favorite Zoom recorder, the Zoom H4N, I was amazed by how much I learned about my particular playing habits, including the good, bad and the ugly.

It's also a great tool for monitoring your improvement over time. When you first start a piece, record yourself and then record yourself at regular intervals after you have practiced. You can listen to the recording and quickly identify which parts your need to practice. You can even use the in-built metronome to practice a part slowly and then gradually increase the tempo. Or use the in-built tuner if you are having intonation problems. If you are preparing for an important performance, then you should definitely record yourself prior to the performance and listen critically to your performance while reading the music. Compare your recordings to recordings by professional musicians playing the same piece. This is a great way to really identify what you need to work on.

One of my favorite things to do with my Zoom H4N is multi-tracking. Find a duet, trio, quartet or larger ensemble piece and try recording all the parts. The H4N makes it very easy to synchronize all the parts. Besides being great fun, it's also a great way to learn ensemble skills such as the ability to listen carefully to all parts so that phrases start and end at the same time. You will also have to pay close attention to intonation otherwise the chords will not be in tune.

Using a digital recorder is not only important for individual musicians, it's also a vital tool for larger music groups (bands, choirs, orchestras etc). Record your rehearsals and performances and you will quickly identify what you need to work on.

A Zoom recorder, such as the Zoom H4N is very high quality portable recording device which is easy to use and very quick to set up. You don't need to carry out large pieces of expensive equipment with you to rehearsals. Another advantage of using these devices is that the music files can quickly be downloaded to a PC for further editing. You can create MP3 files which you can then e-mail or post on a website.

So if you're a musician, try using a portable digital recorder and see how useful a tool it is for yourself. There are many very high quality, inexpensive recorders on the market so go ahead, give it a try and see how fast you improve.

Jeff Binns is a euphonium player with over 30 years experience. He has played in some of the top brass bands in the UK and USA. My goal is to help fellow musicians understand the outstanding benefits of recording their practice sessions.

To learn more and to obtain 10 Free Practice Tips, please visit my website by clicking the link below.

Zoom Recorder.

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More And More Musicians Are Finding It Beneficial To Buy Beats

A lot of musicians will shop around to buy beats, and there are many reasons for this. There are those people that would consider the purchase of tracks to limit the creativity level of an artist, yet the artists that purchase them say that quite the opposite is actually true..

Any artist that wants to use this type of beat can purchase it and add it to their music. Most of the artists that do are working within the hip hop genre though. Many of these artists do not have the equipment or knowledge that is required to make a beat. Some of them are more concerned over their lyrical work.

A lot of people might have noticed that when they turn the radio to the rock station, they will hear many songs that have the type of beat track that is being discussed here introduced. This is because most modern genre music is more hybrid than it has ever been before. Artists that are influenced by many more than one genre are starting to buy these tracks and throw them somewhere in their final mixes...

So many websites that specialize in selling such beat tracks can be found through a simple web search. There are two ways in which such tracks are sold to artists. Some artists prefer the old fashioned way, these artists like to have an actual CD shipped to them. Many other artists would rather type their payment information into the website and have access to an instant download.

Most sites that specialize in selling beat tracks to artists are naturally going to let artists sample tracks that they might be considering. Why would any artist buy something when he or she has no idea how it even sounds? It is important to remember that it is in the seller's best interest to make sure that such samples are of a much more compressed and lower quality than the purchased tracks.

Some artists practice on royalty free tracks that are free to download and use. This is because they want to learn the craft before investing their hard earned money into it. There are some publishers that specialize in free tracks. In some cases the creator of a particular track might require a credit within any final works that utilize their track. This is still a very effective way to learn.

A lot of musicians are able to concentrate on lyrical work and other musical elements when they start using the web to buy beats. It is important to not worry too much about what formats a company offers. This is because free software exists that will convert one format into any other.

Don't fool yourself into thinking you can't find great instrumentals and Buy Beats on the internet, then you should click the links in this sentence so you can find and Buy Rap Beats Online.

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