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Imaginary Studio Performance How do you protect your voice when your studio session is set up to only record voice for the day? Judy Rodman suggests "pretending" that your instrument is still there. Johnny Cash's studio tech used to take the strings out of his guitar and give it to him to hold while singing because the producer noticed that he sang better when attached to his guitar. It all goes back to muscle memory.

Learning musical notes in a flash. As musicians have we put much thought about the ways in which we will pass down or knowledge of music to our children? It always surprises me when i look at a piece of music and realize that this is a language that not everybody knows how to speak. There are many acronyms and mnemonics that help facilitate the learning of an instrument but they don't encourage the instant note recognition that flash cards do. Try out these simple flash card naming and timing games with your little ones and you just might find your musical skills increase as a result.

"The difference between theory and practice is that in theory, there is no difference and in practice, there is." (practiceofpracitceblog) As a musician you can't always have your instrument in hand, especially if music is only your part time gig. But being instrumentless doesn't mean that you can't practice. It's called mental practice and it's the best use of your time ever, especially if you hate your job.

Could this be the future of music creation? DYI instruments, an alien version of the Blueman group. If you are remotely close to Austin Texas this would be something very cool to check out. October 18 is the full event.

Explore music has recently published the results of a poll determining the scariest theme songs in film. As a songwriter i find this list as an invaluable tool that you can use to compare songs in your library that you have deemed scary. Take a listen to each song in the list, most can be found on Youtube, and listen carefully to what instruments are being used and how they are being used, then mimmic these styles and sounds in your productions. Music supervisors are constantly basing their selections off of similar sounding songs, so having songs that mimmic the top 5 should definitely help with increased placements. Remember good artists copy, great artists steal. Landing at number 1 by the way, Psycho Theme (Psycho) by Bernard Hermann.

How nice of Alicia Keys to lend Alicia's Keys to the rest of humanity. Grammy winning award winner Alicia keys has teamed up with KONTAKT to release new software that recreates Alicia Keys' personal grand piano with outstanding authenticity and playability. Now musicians can use Alicia's acclaimed signature piano sound in their own music production, live performance and recreational playing. Using vintage microphones, high-end outboard studio gear and two years worth of meticulously recorded key sampling, Alicia's custom Yamah "C3 Neo" can now be passed down through the community instead of selfishly being hoarded away in some fancy million dollar studio.