Yesterdays and Used-to-be's

Thanks to the Internet, it's easier than ever for new bands and artists to be discovered and to sell their music directly to fans. How do you get started and what's the best way to promote your band? Here are some tips:

One of the first places you'll want to visit is MySpace. By now, everyone has heard of it and millions and millions of people have their own accounts. But I bet you didn't know that MySpace offers a special type of account just for promoting a band or artist? It's called MySpace Music and it's completely free to sign up. With this type of account, you can add up to 4 full songs to your account for people to listen to while they are reading your MySpace page. This alone makes a MySpace Music page worthwhile to set up, since getting people to listen to and discover your music is the main goal of most new artists. Include a link to buy your CD from your own website, iTunes or other music store and you've got a great way to increase sales.

If someone likes the music on your profile, they can add your band as a friend, which means they can get email notices when you add a blog or send out a bulletin. Blogging on MySpace is one of the best ways to communicate with your audience (friends), when your band has a tour coming up, an appearance, is working on new music or has any news of any kind, you'll want to post it to your blog and keep your fans up to date. The more your communicate with fans, the more they will feel like a part of your community.

In addition, you can take advantage of a multitude of other options, including listing your influences, adding a picture gallery, adding full videos, adding banners and many other options.

Just be sure to log in often to approve new friends and to communicate with other members. There are also many MySpace Groups you can join where a message board is set up for members to communicate. Joining an emerging artist type group would help you to network with other new artists and even to promote each other, discuss new ways to get new fans, find someone to tour with or even to collaborate with.

Another essential step to promoting your music online is to have your own website. While MySpace is excellent, it's best to have as many avenues of promotion as possible. It can be simple, with just a bit about your band and links to buy your album or it can be a major presence loaded with content. The more content you add and the more often you update your website and your MySpace profile, the better, as people will keep coming back to see your fresh content and news. Some elements to consider adding to your band's website include biographies of the members, history of the band, news section, tour dates and appearance schedule, photos, music videos, sample songs to download, wallpapers, icons, ringtones, links to buy your album or merchandise, discography and anything else you want to let people know about. You'll also want to link your website to your MySpace and vice versa.

Lydia Quinn writes for APB Records, a directory of the best music download sites online. Visit us at http://www.apbrecords.com/

Pretenders

HUNDREDS of LPs and BOOKS available at kissa89s marketplace store, check out our inventory!!! Produced by Chris Thomas (except "Stop Your Sobbing" which was produced by Nick Lowe)1980 Portugese ImportFace A: (1) Precious... (2) The Phone Call... (3) Up the Neck.. (4) Tattoed Love Boys... (5) Space Invader... (6) The Wait... (7) Stop Your SobbingFace B: (1) Kid.. (2) Private Life... (3) Brass in Pocket... (4) Lovers of Today... (5) Mystery Achievement

So, you want to play beginner guitar. I'm sure if you've spent any time finding someone to learn from that you've found there are about 1,000 people that play guitar in your neighborhood that are all willing to teach you for $20/hr. or more. The thing about learning instruments is that it's like learning a trade, especially beginner guitar. You really need to not only think about how much you're paying, the teacher's experience and skill, but you need to also think about WHY you are learning guitar. Think about it, if you want to learn how to play your favorite metal bands' riffs, you might now want to go to a classical guitar teacher, no matter how good they are!

This is really something to think about, wouldn't you say? I mean, even if you get an amazing teacher with 20+ year of experience, but there's now way their going to teach you how to play Megadeth or Slayer, then find a different teacher. Would you expect a surgeon to know the exact process of how whale's mate and their anatomy? NO! That's for a marine biologist to learn. So, if you're learning to play beginner guitar, really think about what you want to do with it and what you want to accomplish. If you do so, you might be able to save yourself a lot of time and money learning a bunch of crap you didn't need to know.

Mark Meyer has been playing guitar since he was 15. He's played for multiple bands of different genres but recently has moved into management working with a new pop band from St. Louis, MO called This is Energy.

You can find their music at http://www.myspace.com/thisisenergy

Ultimate Guitar Techniques:Effects Pe

It seems like many guitarists have a hard time reading sheet music. Let's start by learning to know the fretboard!

I think the most important part in learning to know the fretboard is to make a concentrated effort.

To be a poor sight reader is not part of your personality. Maybe it has become a habit to not doing something about it. Let's start with step one!

In this guitar lesson you will learn to find your way around the guitar fretboard and learning the notes on the six strings.

I call this a string safari as it might be a thilling experience to at last understand what you can find on the guitar fretboard.

Let's start by taking a look at the note E. Where can you find it on the fretboard?

With the conventional tuning of your guitar you will have the note E on the first open string. I guess you are aware of the fact that you can find the same note on the second string too.

This is the strength but also the difficulty with fretted instruments. You have a choice as to which string to choose.

On the second string you'll find the note E on the fifth fret. When you play E on the first and second string you'll find that they will have the same pitch but they sound a bit different.

On the third string you will find E on the ninth fret. Now you can practice playing the E notes on these three strings just to get used to the positions. It will help you immensely to know the positions for these notes as you play guitar sheet music.

You can proceed learning more of the guitar fretboard in a similar way. Let's continue!

On the fourth string you will find E on the second fret. This E will be one octave lower. On the fifth string you will find this E on the seventh fret.

On the sixth string you have the open E one octave lower. Let's make an exercice:

Try to play the note E on all the strings going from the first string, nearest your feet, up to the sixth string. What frets do you have to press down?

Using numbers indicating what frets you will have to press down we will get the following row of numbers:

0 5 9 2 7 0

0 means that you play the open first string. 5 means that you play the fifth fret on the second string and so on. Let's make the sequence a little bit longer.

We will play the strings from the sixth string down to the first and then back again. Remember to start with the sixth string!

Here you have the sequence written out:

0 7 2 9 5 0 5 9 2 7 0

You might want to invent other small exercises on you guitar fretboard, like playing all A's on all six strings until you can play them with ease.

Playing all A's on the fingerboard starting with the sixth string down to the first and back again will look as follows:

5 0 7 2 10 5 10 2 7 0 5

Knowing the notes on the guitar fingerboard will be a great help for you when you sight read guitar sheet music as you don't have to guess or search for the note on the fretboard anymore. It will also help you when you try to play a melody by ear or when improvising a solo.

Peter Edvinsson is a musician, composer and music teacher. Visit his site Capotasto Music and download your free guitar sheet music and learn to play guitar resources at http://www.capotastomusic.com