Muzikant

If you’ve already devoured our blog about Rhythm, Tempo & Measure and feel ready to dive in a little deeper, here’s everything you need to know about time signatures, bar lines and repeat signs. Whether you’re here to learn to read music or just want to get a better feel for timing, you’ll find useful information here.

By simply adding the right cymbals, any drum kit will sound entirely unique compared to other kits, and that’s exactly why drummers spend quite a bit of time and effort finding the perfect set of cymbals. The fact is that at some point, just like us mortals, cymbals will one day reach the end of their life. In this crash course on cymbal maintenance, I’ll let you in on a few secrets and show you how you can delay the inevitable.

The internet is already stacked with the ready-made chord arrangements of countless songs, but what if you can’t find the song you’re looking for? No problem. There are also apps that you can download and use to pick out the right chords for you. But… regularly figuring out the chords of a song is actually a far better idea. Why? Because it’s a great opportunity to train your ear. In this blog, we explain how it’s done and how to use lead sheets.

Whether caused by a bad habit or a passionate performance, the injuries related to being a musician can range from a gradually niggling and continuous beep in one ear, to chronic and unbearable wrist pain. If you want to play comfortably for the rest of your life, then it’s more than worth learning to listen to your body, practise some good-old self care, and avoid long-term injury, hearing damage, and dreaded RSI!

When you hear the word piano, most people may still think of an acoustic upright or a big majestic grand piano. But for decades already, digital pianos have been on the rise and they’re only getting better. Also known as electric pianos, what are the main differences between digital and acoustic pianos, and which one would suit you best? In this blog, I hope to help you find out.

Jazz doesn’t just include putting some great techniques under your fingers, but if you really get into it, finding the right guitar for the job can be a nice little journey in itself. Since many different genres sit under the jazz umbrella, some guitars will suit one sub-genre better than another. In this little blog, we talk about the most common jazz guitar models and the jazz genres where you’re most likely to find them. Before we get into it, and for all the beginner jazz-guitarists out there: if you’re looking for your first jazz guitar, the best place to start is by looking at the model that’s in the hands of your hero.

The fretboard, or fingerboard, of a stringed-instrument is the surface that the strings are held against to change the pitch and produce different notes and chords, whether you’re playing an electric or acoustic guitar or bass, ukulele, or similar stringed-instrument. Why should you keep your fingerboard clean? How exactly do you clean a fretboard? And what happens if you don’t clean your fretboard? Our Guestblogger, Karylynn explains it all in this handy article and reveals that anyone can clean the fretboard of their instrument, no matter their level of experience, and that the hardest part is removing and replacing the strings.

In our blog explaining how chords work, we already touched on the diminished, augmented, and seventh chords. Here, we dive a little deeper into the inner workings of these chords and their function, covering everything from a normal seventh chord (the dominant seventh), to minor sevenths and major sevenths, and the difference between a diminished and half-diminished chord. We’ll also explain terms like ‘diatonic’, ‘modal’, and ‘enharmonic’, setting you up with a bank of knowledge to help you get writing.

In our blog covering chord theory, we looked at how chords are built, and here, we’ll see what happens when you place one chord after another to build a chord progression and why some combinations work better than others. We’ll talk about intervals, how to build tension, what leading notes do, resolutions and sus-chords. There will be a bit of studying involved, but in the end, it’ll only speed up your writing process.

If you’ve already read our Drumhead Buyer’s Guide and you’re ready to learn more, this article is the logical next step since I’ll be covering drumheads and the various ways in which these help to shape the sound of a drum kit. While it all boils down to simply trying different things, the info in this blog is essential reading for creating your own signature drum sound.

If you want to dampen your drums, this can mean one of two things: 1) you want your drums to sound as quiet as possible so you can practise at home without incurring the wrath of the neighbours, or 2) you just want to reduce the natural sustain and resonance of your drum kit to get a more focussed sound. Of course, there’s plenty of gear you can buy to help solve either problem, but there are also plenty of much cheaper tricks you could try using nothing but stuff you can find lying around the house.

Even if you’ve been drumming for a while, there’s a chance you’ve never thought about the way you hold your drumsticks. Since there are a few rules of thumb that can actually help you hone your skills, we’ve compiled a humble list of stick-based tips and tricks for you in this blog.