Asheville Music Lessons

I’m sorry I didn’t get this posted earlier, but Wayne Erbsen at Native Ground Music wanted me to let people know about a class they have starting January 13th on beginning Bluegrass and Clawhammer Banjo.

More detail is available at the link above to Native Ground Music. If you’re not already familiar with them you really should be! They produce some great authentic cds and original sheet music collections of “period” music. For instance I’ve got a songs and ballads of the Civil War cd – they strive for authentic instrumentation and stylings.

BTW they also have fiddle and mandolin classes starting up the same day!

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The New Year is always the time for New Year’s Resolutions. I think it’s a good time of year just to look at your priorities and day to day routine and see if you’re doing what you need to do to accomplish your goals. If you’re studying music have you worked practice into your routine? Once a week is not enough to learn something new, you need to make it more a part of your daily lifestyle. I know each and every day likely isn’t possible, but if it’s MOST of the days of the week you will do a lot better long term than just a big once a week cram practice session.

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It seems that there’s always a bit of a gap between the guided approach that most method books take and the approach you need to take when you dig into “real” classical piano literature. Because of that I was very interested to find the First Impressions Music and Study Guides. They present “real” classical repertoire pieces, but give some good “walk-through” sections. (Including a section of things to do in the lesson and on your own.)

It really looks like a good “bridge” series…

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Some of the noise in recordings can come from your equipment itself. Most professional equipment is rated for what amount of self-noise or noise floor it has. One mistake that many beginners make essentially introduces more background hiss than necessary by recording at levels that are too week.

Any professional recording device should have some sort of indication of what the recording level is. In the analog days this was a peak meter with a needle that would swing left to right, many times today it’s a digital meter of some sort.

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Our brain is the most complex part of our bodies, the mysteries of how it works and stores information are still being researched and unraveled. I’ve spent some time in recent months thinking about ways to approach memorizing information. Most of the better approaches are along the lines of “Spaced Repetition” which essentially means you see the information at regular intervals until it’s well known and then you see it less frequently.

Let’s say I asked you to memorize two phone numbers. One you would not use for 10 years, the other you would use daily as part of your work. After five months which one do you think you will know better?

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Not too long ago I had someone mention the Christopher Norton Connections series. It’s more Jazz and popular oriented than some methods and is not aimed at the absolute beginner (Very Advanced Grade One is what the description over at Sheet Music Plus reads. It looks like an interesting series and I’m placing it here as a reminder to myself to look into it a bit further.

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I’ve recently been looking at CD duplication possibilities and found a pretty good deal (and well reviewed service) over at cdpostershop.com. It looks like just under $2 a cd (in jewel case/ with inserts) for a minimum of 50 discs. There are a lot of sites out there offering similar offers, this is one of the shortest runs I’ve seen advertised though.

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Just wanted to post a quick mention of a relative newcomer to the Asheville music supply scene… Soli Classica. Karen Sams runs the store and will help you find just what it is you’re looking for. She is a piano instructor and has a good knowledge of the repertoire as well as familiarity with many of the method series. Whether you’re looking for classical piano or voice, strings, woodwind or brass music I think she will have most anything you can think to look for. They’re located on Hendersonville Road in the Fugazy center (just south of where the Blue Ridge Parkway crosses over Hendersonville Rd.

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You may see some fluctuations in the posting schedule for this site. One of the things I’m considering is moving to every other week posts to allow more time for work on the pages for this site. So, if you see an “empty” week here, it’s not necessarily the start of a long absence, but just an every other week routine starting.

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There is really a very short list of golden rules when it comes to audio recording. Following those rules though can help you make the best out of your recording opportunities. Todays recording tip is related to minimizing background noise in your recordings. The world is a noisy place and not all of us are fortunate enough to have sound proofed isolation booths. So how can you get a good recording with the least possible noise?

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