Hell, if I really knew how to do this I wouldnt be writing about it, Id be churning out dance floor classics like they were going out of fashion!

I think I can give some helpful advice, having ripped up many a podium in my dancing days, and having studied music all my life, but if anyone tells you they know the secret to writing Ibizas big summer tune, then theyre lying. Unless you happen to be talking to Kid Crme, in which case listen to every word he says, write it down immediately and email it to me. Cheers.

This piece assumes you have a little musical knowledge.

(before I start I feel a disclaimer coming on! Over time I will refine and rewrite these lessons so that they work well together. Please forgive if this first one is a bit hotchpotch Ill come back to it in time and in light of future lessons)

Ok. Lets get stuck in. Lesson one is all about..

The Groove

Youre sitting there in a bar with your crew looking cool, but out of nowhere you just cant stop your hips moving, or if you get it really bad, (like I did all the time) then you give up looking cool all together, ditch your drink and your buddies and shake your undoubtedly sexy thing all over the place. . What is it that gets those shoulders rollin, feet tapping and finger clicking? What is it that makes you feel like John Travolta, What is it that makes you wanna crack on with every member of the opposite sex within sight?

Its the groove man! .and getting your groove right is key to writing a successful dance tune. Its a combination of many things, but mainly its the interplay between the bassline and the percussion, or drums or rhythm section, (whatever terminology you prefer).

Kick drum spend ages getting this right. Listen to loads of samples. Bowie reputedly listened to kick drums for four weeks before choosing the one that appears on heroes. (this is probably nonsense,.. and if its not, its probably due to copious ingestion of class As) but the point is, The kick drum is the pump, the heartbeat and the engine. Use a weedy kick sound, and youll still be packing shelves one year from now.

All your sounds need space. They need to sit somewhere. Whilst a kick drum may sound buried in the mix, go listen to 5 of your favourite dance 12s. At the start of the tune you will get a good 30 seconds of kick drum that you can analyse. Listen carefully.. particularly to the tail ..(the part of the kick drum sound that is not the initial hit). I almost guarantee it is not dry. It will have some form of decay or reverb. Good reverbs for kick drums are gated which decay to a certain amplitude then cut immediately to silence. The length size and shape of this reverb or decay depend upon the tempo of the tune, your taste and whether or not you are creating a deliberate audible effect or ambience.

Bassline wow. The number of hours Ive spent trying to get the right bass sound! The type of bassline youve written will dictate the type of sound you want. .also.. listen to whats in your head. This isnt as easy as it sounds, but it comes with practice. Is it like a real bass? Is it squidgy? (like you hear in acid techno), is it deep and resonant? ..you get the picture.

Listen to your bass sound with your kick. How do they work together?

Now they probably wont be perfect. Dont worry. There is a whole world of pain between here and trying to get it perfect, including compression, mixing, limiting bla bla bla (but all that is for another time). All were interested at this point is getting the kick and bass in roughly the right ball park. Is the bass too loud? Does that kick sound too fat? Just use faders and a little Eq. Get them roughly right.

Now that bass line is it doing exactly whats in your head or is it well, groovier in your brain? Listen very carefully to what your brain is playing. Have you definitely written all the notes, are you missing crafty little finger picks or grace notes, does one of your bass notes bend, is one of the notes slightly late giving it swing, or early giving it push? If youve definitely got all the notes down. EXACTLY as youre hearing them, then your brain version sounds groovier because of production elements and thats for another lesson. So, all notes written, lets move on.

Crafty tips:

• Try using two bass sounds. The most obvious example of this is any dance tune with a slap bass. Most of the bassline will be played by a nice round fatty, with the occasional slap. This slap will be on a higher note and using a different sound. Usually a less fat mid-frequency sound.

• Play with velocities. er, try this, just for an exercise. Write four bars of sixteenths accenting every third sixteenth. Get that rolling feel? Write another four bars of sixteenths and accent the 2nd, 5th, 8th, 11th 14th, 16th, totally different feel right..but the notes and their lengths are just the same. Play about with this, and then play about with the velocities on your bassline.

Percussion so your hats are on the off beats. Your snares/claps are on beats 2 and 4 of each bar. So why doesnt it sound groovy? Because its way too straight! Crafty tips:

Try putting snare hits on the 2nd, 8th and 10th sixteenths of the bar, and taking their velocities right down. This will give you a feel for the massive potential in those hidden 16ths. With your snare sound play around with them.

Hats: So you have a nice fat hat on the off beats. Now take a much smaller, tighter closed hat sound and write one on the 5th, 6th,13th,14th and 16th sixteenths of the bar. Again, play around with the positioning of these.

Congas/Bongos. Careful here! Theyre beginning to sound a bit tired these days. That said, I put them in my last tune! Haha! Tunings for all your sounds are important but for your congas etc, its key! (scuse the pun!)

They have to be tuned

1. in relation to each other. try putting them a 4th apart, or a 5th or a major 2nd
2. in relation to the rest of the tune.

Cant lie. This is difficult. But youll know when youve got it right. Panning: try having one conga biased to the right, the other slightly left(no hard panning..it will just make things sound barnyard, and wont play well on mono systems) Velocities are crucial in congas, because unlike the other drum sounds, theyre supposed to sound human. Humans dont play the same velocity twice!

Use swing quantise on your sequencer. (also known as humanise) personally I always found this gave random and undesirable results (as though the conga player had had a few too many disco biscuits) so I always nudge the timings myself. Tedious, but more realistic results.

.ok. theres loads more, but that will do for now. This is a pretty vast subject, more lessons to follow.

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In many articles on the net on learning to play guitar you will find many article authors stressing the importance of setting goals. Well, it would be interesting to find out if you can learn to play guitar without goals. Let us investigate the matter!

I have many memories of my first attemps to play the guitar. Like many boys I had many interests like reading, playing piano, singing, listening to music, athletics, chess, stamp collecting, painting and other things at different times. Playing guitar was just one of them.

I remember that I had my own way of practicing guitar playing. I always had my guitar on my bed waiting for me. I sat down on my bed many times everyday playing for a while and then starting to do other things.

Sometimes I felt inspired to play guitar for an hour or two and other times just for a minute. Did I have goals or not?

I know that I was developing as a guitarist quite fast and I think it must have been something in my way of playing and practicing guitar that was good.

I believe that some of the reasons for my progress during those early days of my learn to play guitar career were:

1. I felt no pressure to become an accomplished guitarist. I just felt the joy of sitting down with my guitar trying to find out the treasuries in the land of music.

2. My father was a guitar teacher giving me lessons at times and I always heard him play guitar in our home. Other guitarists visited our home many times and these visits inspired me a lot.

3. I never felt a pressure to play fast and thereby building tensions by playing too fast. This is one of the big mistakes beginning guitarist and even accomplished guitarists sometimes make.

4. As I mentioned previously I did a lot of other things besides playing guitar and I guess all these things I was involved in kept my mind quite healthy and helped me retain my joy when I learned to play guitar.

I guess in a sense I had goals that was not so apparent to me that directed me towards somewhere even if I was quite content being on the road of progress towards guitar land.

Can you learn something from my early guitar experiences? At least you can learn the following:

1. When learning to play guitar always remember to enjoy the act of playing without thinking too much on what you can or cannot do as a guitarist.

2. Try to associate with good musicians and guitarists that inspire you to play musically and that give you the motivation to learn to play new things on your guitar.

3. Beware of playing too fast on your guitar. There is a risk of building up muscle tensions and thereby actually reducing your ability to play fast. A remedy for this and a way to tame yourself is to use a metronome at a low tempo to reduce your speed to a level where you can play your guitar in a relaxed manner.

4. To become an interesting guitarist and musician you might benefit from being involved in other activities like listening to good music, having another hobby, reading good books, assiciate with other people and more.

Do you have to have goals to become a good guitarist? Well, even if you don’t have learn to play guitar goals in the ordinary sense you can help yourself to play everyday by having easy access to your guitar.

I had my guitar on my bed. Maybe you want to have your guitar in your favorite armchair. I guess you understand the principle….

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

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Children, like all of us, need help setting goals that wont run out of track before the end of the journey. The piano journey is no different. There are basically two kinds of goals: Dead goals that simply expire, and Living Goals that never die. What kind of goals do you want your child to reach for? If you want them to achieve living goals youll need to show them how to prepare for the future.

Preparing for the future requires having a plan in place. When it comes to planning, however, most people put the cart before the horse.

If you look at planning for a musical dream, however, the same way you would think about investing in a new business, its easy to see how one could get lost before they ever got started. For example, would you start to grow a new business by focusing on time management instead of a business plan? What difference would it make how you spend your time if you don’t have a plan with goals to guide you? So why encourage your child in piano lessons to focus on target goals that will achieve their musical goals.

There is no excuse for not having a good plan when it comes to helping your child in piano lessons achieve their musical dreams because it’s so easy. Just start by asking three simple questions.

1. Why do you want to learn to play the piano?

2. What will you need to learn to in order to do that?

3. How will you go about accumulating the resources and knowledge you’ll need?

Help your child start making their list and checking if off and by Christmas they’ll be wishing they’d done this sooner.

For great home piano activities parents can use to help children ages 5 to 11 develop their musical talent, visit Piano Adventure Bears Music Education Resources Youll find a treasure box filled with piano resources to create an exciting musical adventure for your child – right in your own home! Visit their website and subscribe to their free internet newsletter so you can download free piano sheet music and mp3s of original piano compositions.

These exciting stories, games, piano lessons, and inspirational gifts feature the Piano Adventure Bears, Mrs. Treble Beary and her new piano student, Albeart Littlebud. Young students follow along with Albeart to learn what piano lessons are all about in a fun way that kids readily understand appreciate. Click here to visit PianoAdventureBears.com For a wealth of information about piano lessons, visit tallypiano.com

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Oh My Goodness!!!

These three words perfectly express what I think of Brian Culbertson’s seductively titled It’s On Tonight CD.

This CD, although mostly containing songs completely without lyrics, comes extremely close to being explicit. I mean it just drips track after seductive track with some of the most intensely suggestive smooth jazz you’ll ever hear.

It starts off HOT with track 1, Let’s Get Started and only gets hotter.

Track 4, Sensuality, he should have just flat out named Sex. It’s that good.

These days it’s a very rare CD on which every single song is good or better than the one before it. This CD is certainly one of those rare CDs.

Smooth Jazz music fans will recognize some of the well known guests that have been assembled to play along with Culbertson on several of the tracks. Artists like Boney James, Kirk Whalum and the incomparable Chris Botti just to name a few.

Fans of smooth vocalists will enjoy the contributions made by Will Downing, Patti Austin and Marc Nelson to songs on this CD as well.

If you’re a Brian Culbertson fan this is a CD your collection flat cannot be without. In fact, this is one of those CDs that you don’t even have to be a fan of Culbertson, or even smooth jazz to know is good. It’s just good music. Period.

The standout tunes are The Way You Feel [track 5, Dreaming of You [track 7, and Secret Affair [track 9. My SmoothLee Bonus Pick, and the one that got Sore […as in Stuck On REpeat is track 4, Sensuality. Wow! Be very careful who you’re in the room with when you press play on this one. Unless of course…

You were warned.

Release Notes:

This CD was originally released July 26, 2005 on the GRP Records label.

CD track list follows:

1. Let’s Get Started
2. Hookin’ Up
3. It’s On Tonight
4. Sensuality
5. The Way You Feel
6. Forbidden Love
7. Dreaming Of You
8. Wear It Out
9. Secret Affair
10. Touch Me
11. Love Will Never Let You Down
12. Reflections

To hear samples of each song on this CD go to Brian Culbertson CD – It’s On Tonight [www.smoothlee.com/music-samples/brian-culbertson-its-on-tonight

Clyde Lee Dennis, a.k.a. SmoothLee has been bumping around on the web since 1999 and is a self described Web Head, and Life long AVID music fan. Smooth Jazz Music in particular. In addition to writing CD Reviews for I Love Smooth Jazz.com he is also the Program Director, and can be heard during his daily radio show which airs on one of the internets most listened to smooth jazz radio stations, Smooth Jazz 24/7

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When you want to have a child learn the enjoyment of playing the guitar. You will find that there are so many options for a child and these wonderful guitars. These items are found to be a perfect way to introduce any child into the world of music. They will enjoy the pleasure that they get from playing and learning the fun that they can have with music.

You can find the perfect fender guitar for any child online. There are so many to choose from and you will see that you can get one to match your childs personality and style. There are ones that have bolder colors as well as ones that are more plain and ordinary. No matter what the style you choose, you will find one to fit your childs needs and let them truly get closer with the wonderful world of music.

Any child that has not played a guitar before will soon learn once they are introduced to their fender guitar. They will find that they want to learn more and get acquainted with the guitar. It is not going to be something that they learn overnight, they will have to have some lessons or even just some one on one time with the guitar to learn how to play and understand the object. Once they get the feel and the information that they need, they can learn to play it without any hassles or problems.

Once a child learns to play the fender guitar well, they may decide to go even further with their playing and get more active with it. They may want to use their fender guitar in a band after school or maybe they can use it in the band at school. This would be a great way to encourage the child to use what they have learned so that they can truly get the fun of the guitar and what it is all about.

A fender guitar would be a great gift to give to any child for their birthday or Christmas. This is something that they would love to have and would enjoy for many years to come. Once they outgrow their first one, they can go on with others in the future. A fender guitar is some thing that can be handed down to future generations for a long time to come.

You can also include many fender guitar accessories for your child. There are guitar cases, strings, and even amplifiers and strings that are so important to maintaining the guitar so that you can keep it for many years to come. You will see that your child will learn with the proper information how to take care of this precious instrument for a lifetime.

Article written by Hilde Berge, Norway. More information at: http://www.online-fenderguitar.com

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Before the internet, unsigned music artists couldnt make a living, off the thing they love and enjoy the most: Their music! They would have to send in demos to major record companys, hoping that the CEO’s would love their music and actually call them up on the phone offering them a recorddeal! But what they dont know is that the CEO’s dont give a f*#% about music!! They ONLY offer recordeals to artists who they know will become succesfull!

To say it in another way: They NEVER risk millions of dollars on bands that they dont see any future with!

Today there’s thousands, maybe millions of music artists looking for a way to make a living off their music. Those artists may now have a chance!

Former A&R Agent – Interscope Records, Fisnik Imeraj has written an eBook explaining just what the unsigned music artists should do! Publish their own music! Thats right! Since the internet is already invented, then why not take advantage of it?

In his new book Fisnik Imeraj explains to the ambitious artists how they can publish their own music on the internet, and keep 100% of their profits themselfs! He explains every part of music publishing on the internet! From creating a website to marketing their music! And the best part is that any artist can start with virtually NO money!!

If you ever dreamed of becoming a successful music artist, you should definately purchase this book! It might change your life! The book can be downloaded instantly after payment on http://www.deluxepass.dk

Fisnik Imeraj has worked along with THE biggest names in the music industry! He now reveals everything about music publishing on his new book Music Industry Secrets Revealed! How to become successful in the music industry without a recorddeal!

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The idea that studying music improves the social development of a child is not a new one, but at last there is incontrovertible evidence from a study conducted out of the University of Toronto.

The study, published in the August issue of Psychological Science was led by Dr. E. Glenn Schellenberg, and examined the effect of extra-curricular activities on the intellectual and social development of six-year-old children. A group of 144 children were recruited through an ad in a local newspaper and assigned randomly to one of four activities: piano lessons, voice lessons, drama lessons, or no lessons.

Two types of music lessons were offered in order to be able to generalize the results, while the groups receiving drama lessons or no lessons were considered control groups in order to test the effect of music lessons over other art lessons requiring similar skill sets and nothing at all. The activities were provided for one year.

The participating children were given IQ tests before and after the lessons. The results of this study revealed that increases in IQ from pre- to post-test were larger in the music groups than in the two others. Generally these increases occurred across IQ subtests, index scores, and academic achievement.

While music teachers across the country greeted the new research enthusiastically, in fact, many other studies have previously shown a correlation between music study and academic achievement.

In 1997, well known music researchers Frances Rauscher, Gordon Shaw and their team at the University of California (Irvine) reported that music training is far superior to computer instruction in dramatically enhancing children’s abstract reasoning skills, the skills necessary for learning math and science. A group led by the same two scientists had earlier showed that after eight months of piano lessons, preschoolers showed a 46 percent boost in their spatial reasoning IQ.

The March 1999 issue of Neurological Research published a report by another group of researchers, also at the University of California (Irvine), who found that second-grade students given four months of piano keyboard training, as well as time playing newly designed computer software, scored 27% higher on proportional math and fractions tests than other children.

Students with coursework and experience in music performance and music appreciation scored higher on the SAT, according to a Profile of Program Test Takers released by the Princeton, NJ, College Entrance Examination Board in 2001. This report stated that students in music performance scored 57 points higher on the verbal and 41 points higher on the math, and students in music appreciation scored 63 points higher on verbal and 44 points higher on the math, than did students with no arts participation.

Another part of this same study shows that longer music study means higher SAT scores. For example, students participating in the arts for two years averaged 29 points higher on the verbal portion and 18 points higher on the math portion of the SAT than students with no coursework or experience in the arts. Students with four or more years in the arts scored 57 points higher and 39 points higher on the verbal and math portions respectively than students with no arts coursework.

Another study also found support for a relationship between math achievement and participation in instrumental music instruction. The researchers found that students who participated in instrumental music instruction in high school took on the average 2.9 more advanced math courses then did students who did not participate.

In fact, various studies over the last 10 years suggest teaching kids music can heighten their aptitude for math, reading, and engineering. (One explanation for improved ability in mathematics is that music theory is based on mathematical truths. Rhythms are divided into fractions – half notes, quarter notes and eighth notes. Scales have eight tones, and the steps between them follow an equation.)

A McGill University study in 1998 found that pattern recognition and mental representation scores improved significantly for students given piano instruction over a three-year period. The researchers also found that self-esteem and musical skills measures improved for the students given piano instruction.

And data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 revealed music participants received more academic honors and awards than non-music students, and that the percentage of music participants receiving As, As/Bs, and Bs was higher than the percentage of non- participants receiving those grades.

In 1994, a report entitled The Case For Music Study In Schools was printed in Phi Delta Kappan, the professional print journal for education. It included details of research conducted by physician and biologist Lewis Thomas, who studied the undergraduate majors of medical school applicants. Thomas found that 66 percent of music majors who applied to medical school were admitted, the highest percentage of any group.

The same report asserted that the very best engineers and technical designers in the Silicon Valley industry were, almost without exception, practicing musicians.

The world’s top academic countries also place a high value on music education. In a study of the ability of fourteen year-old science students in seventeen countries, the top three countries were Hungary, the Netherlands, and Japan. All three include music throughout the curriculum from kindergarten through high school.

St. Augustine Bronx elementary school, about to fail in 1984, implemented an intensive music program, and today 90 percent of the school’s students are reading at or above grade level. And a ten-year study at UCLA tracked more than 25,000 students, and showed that music making improves test scores. Regardless of socio-economic background, music-making students get higher marks in standardized tests than those who had no music involvement. The test scores studied were not only standardized tests, such as the SAT, but also in reading proficiency exams.

Music training helps under-achievers as well, according to research published in Nature magazine in May 1996. In Rhode Island, researchers studied eight public school first grade classes. Half of the classes became test arts groups, receiving ongoing music and visual arts training. In kindergarten, this group had lagged behind in scholastic performance. After seven months, the students were given a standardized test. The test arts group had caught up to their fellow students in reading and surpassed their classmates in math by 22 percent. In the second year of the project, the arts students widened this margin even further. Students were also evaluated on attitude and behavior. Classroom teachers noted improvement in these areas also.

In 2005, it appears the pace of scientific research into music making has never been greater. The most recent evidence from the University of Toronto confirms what many other researchers have already detected – that music boosts brainpower, academic achievement,socialization skills, and emotional health.

It’s logical, when you think about it. People who learn to play an instruments are in groups — bands, choirs, orchestras, combos, worship teams, etc. And working and making music with others is bound to help relateabilty with people and foster close bonds with fellow musicians.

So it appears that learning to play music, whether guitar, piano, or some other instrument, actually does contribute to your ability to win friends and influence people.

Duane Shinn is the author of over 500 music books and products such as DVD’s, CD’s, musical games for kids, chord charts, musical software, and piano lesson instructional courses for adults. He holds an advanced degree from Southern Oregon University and was the founder of Piano University in Southern Oregon. He can be reached at http://www.pianolessonsbyvideo.com He is the author of the popular free 101-week e-mail newsletter titled Amazing Secrets Of Piano Chords & Sizzling Chord Progressions with over 55,000 current subscribers. Those interested may obtain a free two-year subscription by going to http://www.playpiano.com/

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Have you ever been to a Greek Wedding? I have. And its been a wonderful experience for me. Ive never seen the Greek Dance before that wedding and have never heard their music. The moment I heard that music it amazed me so much, that I still think its the most brilliant and astonishing music.

At that wedding I observed the level of importance music and dance had upon Greek Culture. After changing my topic for our final project for Music248 three times, I decided to concentrate my expository paper on ancient and modern Greek dance. I asked myself: How has Greek Culture effect Greek dance?, What role does gender play in Greek dance? Utilizing a widespread of sources for research, I found that the history, religion, and gender have played key roles in shaping Greek dance. Moreover, stability in Greek culture has enabled Greek dance to stay alive for nearly 2500 years.

Greeks often dance to poetry by using their body in rhythmic manners in way that they can express themselves without speaking. Hence, Greeks use dance as a way to symbolically express themselves.

What roles do women play in the Greek musical world? According to Kimberly Marshall, author of Rediscovering the Muses, Greek society was inclined not to recognize women. However, women were always active in the musical life of Greece. The most renown women in music were educated women, usually from the upper-class of society. Other well-known females in ancient Greek music were the hetairai, who were the high-class prostitutes. The hetairai were considered to be companions to men and were physically stunning. Moreover, these women had artistic talents for singing, dance and musical instruments. Amazingly enough, some of these women had better educations than that of their male (high-class) patrons. Wives and reputable women were left at home during festivals and dances because the hetairai were of high demand, though never respected for their talents in music.

Hermes first invented or discovered music in Greece. Moreover, Hermes was the first to examine the precise arrangement of the stars and the harmony of music. In addition, the Greeks connected music with astronomy through Pythagoras’ theory of the harmony of the spheres. Greek mythology had deep impact on Greek music and dance. Dance in Ancient Greece has been fundamentally linked to religion and culture.

The word music was derived from the Greek word mousike or muse which then became music.

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You have to find radio airplay time if youre going to be heard and were not just talking the local college campus. The trick is called promotion. Now that doesnt mean you just put your press kit in an envelope with a demo and hope they take pity on you. Perhaps you call a station and they give you the standard pitch of, Send it and if we like it well put you in rotation. After a few months of never hearing your music, you automatically think youre not worthy.

First, dont buy that. Youre one of hundreds, maybe even thousands depending on your city. Your disc will probably end up in the trash or, for more enterprising DJ’s, on Ebay in a one-cent CD sale. If you want to be heard and make potential sales, you have to stand out from the crowd, and in this jewel of an article, Ill show you Five(5) Knock em Dead Ways to Do Just That!:

#1 – Get your CD into the right hands. The intern thats too busy to getting coffee or typing up a report for the station manager isnt going to be the one making the airplay decision. So find out who the head honcho is in that department and touch base with them. If the club youre playing at charges an admission or you have a show coming up offer to send the stations tickets to give away to listeners. Now keep in mind you cant give the tickets to the staff, since thats illegal and called payola, but you can offer free giveaway items to your potential audience.

#2 – If youve got one station in your pocket, then drop names. Let them know that WABC is playing your music and its getting a great response.

#3 – Make genuine friends in the business. If youve got a disc jockey thats got you in rotation and really likes your sound, get to know them. Find out why they enjoy it and see if theyve gotten any responses from listeners. If they havent, ask if perhaps they might Q & A their callers about your music so you get a feel for your target audience. Its not a bad idea to ask them for a testimonial or quote if theyre well known in your area if you know them personally. People help people. Thats a fact so if you treat your area disc jockeys like a living and breathing human and not dollar signs, thats a foot in the door. Another good source is club owners. If they play your music and the fans go nuts ask them to say a few words about your sound that you can pass along to prospective stations, but be sure to sit down for a drink with them. Ask them about the picture of him and the woman and two kids behind the Magic Kingdom. Dont be fake, but be genuinely interested.

#4 – Network. Find out if someone you know (or someone they know) has connections to the music stations. Remember six degrees of separation – youre only six people away from knowing anyone on the planet and yes that includes station managers, concert promoters and record execs. The trick is it takes a great deal of work and time, but if youre serious, its well worth it.

#5 – Go local, state, national. Dont think youre going to skip your local and state stations and be the next Matchbox Twenty. It doesnt work that way. Start small and then get big.

Making contacts and getting names can be tough, thats why you should start with a tested and proven music industry resource like The Industry Yellow Pages – Music Industry Contact Directory at http://www.TheIndustryYellowPages.com

The TIYP is helpful and loaded with contacts you can start using immediately without doing all the legwork yourself.

This article was written by Ty Cohen, the music industry’s most recognizable voice! Ty is the C.E.O of Platinum Millennium Publishing, Platinum Millennium Records as well as owner of http://www.MusicContracts101.com and http://www.MusicIndustrySuccess.com .

Some of his work includes: books, directories, mini-courses and software programs including the titles: How to Make a Fortune in the Music Industry by Doing it Yourself and How to Make $500,000.00 or More A Year in the Music Industry by Doing it Yourself.

To find out more about Ty Cohen, his services, products and how he may be able to help you succeed in the music industry go to http://www.MusicIndustrySuccess.com and sign up for his free limited edition music industry success 10-part Mini-Course, it will work wonders for you and best of all, its FREE, but EXTREMELY VALUABLE!

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Having worked in music radio, most of that at Country music radio stations, for the past 35 years, I recently stopped to reflect on the evolution of Country music that Ive seen and way Country music radio has reacted.

As with everything, Country music and radio arent as straightforward or simple as they once were. When I first started playing Country in Eugene, Oregon in 1971 the raging discussion was the emergence in some markets of a Country-politan format distinctly different from the traditional Country format that everybody else was playing. Essentially the discussion revolved around programming crossover artists and music styles, and whether the harder heritage Country acts were acceptable as Country music radio evolved.

To put this into perspective, in 1971 the debate was whether John Denver and Ann Murray were Country acts and should be played, and whether a contemporary Country music station should play Hank Williams in regular oldies rotation! By todays standards this is laughable, but it does serve to make the point that as the Country radio format sought to broaden its appeal and attract a larger audience some felt that compromises would be necessary. More importantly it signaled the recognition that Country music fans were a more diverse group than they had been given credit for. This discussion of segmentation of the Country music format was the start of what we now have come to accept as the diversity of the tastes of Country music fans.

Today there are recognized music charts for the traditional Country Singles and Albums, but there are also now Bluegrass, Americana and Texas Music charts as well, all under the umbrella of Country music.

I find it most interesting that while Country music has quite obviously diversified, AM and FM Country music radio stations generally havent followed this trend and branched out to any great degree. If you were to go into any market today I would lay odds that you will find the Country music station or stations will all be much the same playing 10 or 12-in-a-row, with a station playlist of fewer than 750 songs little of which will be older than 10 years. Some of these stations will have an oldies or bluegrass show as we did in San Diego, but the station that weaves these elements into the day to day format is very rare indeed.

To be fair I must acknowledge that in some markets you may also find a Classic Country station, generally on an otherwise unused AM frequency, but I find these stations personally unfulfilling. I suspect that this may be because I like a good deal of contemporary Country music and want to hear it, and that by and large the people behind classic Country formats werent alive when these songs were hits, and, but thats another gripe!

As one who has been part of the research and strategy behind the contemporary Country music approach I dont criticize playing either extremely contemporary or exclusively classic Country music. On the contrary I understand that this kind of conservative approach is dictated to capture the most desirable (saleable) segment of the audience possible. I do suggest, however, that stations do this at their own peril as they continue to narrow their focus and leave larger numbers of Country music fans disaffected and unserved.

This wouldnt necessarily be a problem except that AM and FM radio no longer has a monopoly on delivery of music. The emergence of satellite and more importantly internet radio where startup and operating costs are negligible now presents an alternative that will play an increasingly important role. The fact is no matter what your personal flavor of Country music is, there is an internet station playing it. If you like mainly current hits but some 70s and Bluegrass, someone offers it. If you Texas Country and Bluegrass, its there.

Although internet radio has been around for more than a decade it is still in its infancy. Indications are, however that it will grow up to be a 900 lb. gorilla. Estimates are that something approaching 50% of the younger and more adaptable age groups are already turning to the net as their primary source for new music. At the other end of the spectrum, the 55 generation is the fastest growing segment of internet users. As the 55 group represents an increasingly economically attractive audience, and one that used to be the domain of Country music radio, this is an ominous sign for traditional broadcasters who will be increasingly forced to compete with low budget operators.

This will likely be a double-edged sword. On the one hand the audience will be able to find a radio format either on a satellite service or more likely on the net that more closely approaches their ideal music mix. On the other hand the audiences for individual stations will be much smaller than broadcasters are used to working with. This will have the effect that the sterility and compromises of low budget broadcasting that has turned some listeners off will become more widespread. This will in turn further erode and put economic pressure on AM and FM broadcasters in a vicious downward cycle.

John Peterson is a 35 year radio veteran who has announced, programmed and owned radio stations in the US and overseas. Currently John owns and operates The Ranch Online (http://www.theranchonline.org) which plays a traditional mix of contemporary and classic Country music. Send comments to jp@theranchonline.org.

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