Showing posts with label Important. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Important. Show all posts

Sunday, August 8, 2010

CB Drum Sets - Important Things You Should Know


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CB Drum Sets are Affordable and Reliable. CB Educational Percussion has been making school percussion instruments for over 25 years. They are part of KMC Music that affiliates itself with many manufacturers of guitars including the Gretsch name. Support for all their products is very good and their drum sets are very affordable.

If your five year old comes to you and says they want to play drums it isn't very likely you are going to go out and purchase a full set for them. The reason is because drum kits can cost a fortune. It isn't unusual to drop $600 to over $1000 on a five pieces set and then you have to purchase the cymbals and throne separately. That would be ok if the person you were buying it for was more than a beginner or serious about making drumming a skill set.

CB makes a great set for a beginner and it does not cost an arm and a leg. The Jr XSS55 is a junior set suitable for a six to twelve year old and it comes at price most families can afford. The five piece set is prices at an amazing $300 to $350 and it can be found for even less.

This is no flimsy little set. It is built to take a beating. It comes in Black, White, Wine Red, and Dark Green. The shells are 9 ply and wrapped in fiberglass. It comes with a 16 inch bass drum with black head and the CB logo on it. The pedal is adequate and works well. The sound of the bass drum is exceptional. Also included are 8 and 10 inch toms that are mounted with heavy duty brackets. There is also a 13 inch floor tom and 12 inch snare drum.

When It comes to buying a good drum set at an affordable price keeping quality in mind you can't go wrong with CB Drums it is durable through and through and is intended to get the beginner started or a practice set. CB Drum kits have be around for years because many people trust them as beginner drum kit.

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

4 Steps to Learning How to Play Any Song on the Piano


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1. Determining the melody - Melodies are the actual tune to a song, some song are melodious and tend to be a bit flat but it sound good because it is sitting on a nice set of running chord. For beginner I would recommend starting with song that are melodious and get the tune of it, Play it on the piano in single tune, it means without the chords and bass lines. Melodies determine what chords will be played. If you can use your ear to figure out what notes are being played in the melody, you are 1/4 on your way to learning a song!

2.Harmonizing the melody - This part of it, is that you must have some understand of chords and how chords are form. In music and music theory a chord is three or more different notes that sound simultaneously. Once you have figured out the melody, it is time to harmonize it. This is simply choosing various chords to accompany the melody. There are several techniques and tricks to doing this. An example of a chord formation is always use the 1, 3 and 5 note of a scale for a major chord, example C chord is make up of C, E and G and a G chord is G, B and D.

3. Altering Chords - This is the best part! Now that you have strategically figured out the melody to a song and have harmonized it, altering your chords to produce certain sounds is the next step. If you were playing gospel music, you would alter your chords differently than if you were playing classical or country music.

4. Listening - After you have determined the melody, harmonized the melody, and altered some of your chords, there are various techniques you can use to make sure that your song sounds right. Personally I listen to the bass line and whether is from the bass guitar or from the piano this can help you more, the bass line does help you to determine the timing of the song too.

I personally learn all these theory from "The Secrets to Playing Piano By Ear" 300-pg Course by Jermaine Giggs and would strongly recommend this if you want to learn to play piano by ear. He has taught literally thousands of musicians how to play the piano by ear. This is very different from learning to read music score as what the classical pianist are trained.