How do you make the most out of your recordings? You need to look at the whole recording process in a new way. No album has become successful by playing it safe. Learn what conservative recording is and why you should avoid it, and armed with this knowledge, make the best possible mixes of your music. Rethink your process, beco

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Why write BASH scripts when you could be rocking out? Rock stars don't have to worry about bosses, spreadsheets or code optimization, why should you? Get a guitar and start acting eccentric and you'll get women, real job satisfaction and sweet album covers. Still don't believe me? Just read on and see 5 reasons why you shoul

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Instead of worrying about making a polished song whenever you write music, why not simply work on whatever comes to your mind instead? This article describes the benefit of simply writing music every day as a creative exercise. If you simply don't care about what you are writing, you can write all sorts of new stuff and become

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This article discusses how you should go about picking up piano playing. It talks about buying a piano and what books to get to teach yourself. You can very easily teach yourself and become fairly decent within a few months if you're willing to practice every day. If you're a beginner with no musical experience and you don't

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I used to be intimidated by audiophiles telling me I that I had to buy the most expensive speakers I could afford. They had an attitude as though there was no way I could make good music if I didn't have the best speakers possible. When you're looking for speakers, should you really be getting the most expensive, highest qual

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I've talked a lot about the various components one should have in there studio, but I haven't actually talked about what is in my own, at least not directly. I talk about every piece of equipment that resides in my studio. Plus I give some insight on each item. There's a lot of other stuff that one needs beside the stuff tha

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Though American music today is unfathomably complex, with new sub-genres appearing practically every week, the essential roots of American music are actually pretty simple. This article gives a (very) brief introduction to the origins of American music. This covers a period of the 1800's to the 1930's, the time when American

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I often have a hard time coming up with ideas for new songs. I'll mess around with the same chords and rhythms too much and everything will start sounding the same. I've been trying to come up with a list of things to do to keep things fresh. Everything I've come up with so far mainly has to do with forcing yourself to see n

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This week, instead of my usual articles about bettering yourself musically, I'm just having some fun and posting my favorite albums ever. There's something here for everyone, including Queen, Bad Religion, Deodato, Union Station and Orbital. These are albums that everyone should listen to. Pick up the one that sounds the cool

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I write music somewhat differently than most. I've been doing it now for 8 years, so I have the process down to a somewhat well established routine. This article first covers the composing; coming up with melodies, practicing them, recording them, and implementing them with chords. It then deals with the post-production of tw

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I recently completed my first computer game soundtrack, and I learned a lot from the experience of writing 40 minutes of music in a relatively short time. I learned a lot about chord progressions, MIDI, organization and songwriting in general. There are many lessons to learn from writing a soundtrack that can apply to all aspec

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I'm not an expert on piano, but I've learned a few things from teaching myself to play. All these tips come down to one simple principle about practicing. If you can remember to play slowly and ignore the voice in your head that says certain parts are too difficult, then you'll be on your way to playing well. And if you keep

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Music is clearly a powerful force on our subconscious. Everyone loves music and we all put great effort into listening and interpreting it. But what IS music, anyway? Why are we capable of making and enjoying it at all? Is there some sort of specific social function that music was supposed to act as, or is it just an interestin

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Everyone loves Guitar Hero, and everyone secretly hopes that Guitar Hero skills translate to actual music skills. Most musicians will tell you that they don't really apply, but I wanted to do more research on the more subtle parts of music performance. I learned about sight reading, eye movement, short-term memory and muscle c

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If you're a composer, it is likely that you think a lot about the expectations of the genre you're writing for. Stop that! If you stop trying to fit your music into a genre, you can easily open up all new worlds of musical possibility. Any truly great artist will do some branching into multiple genres. You can even move throu

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