The Advantages Of Using Downloadable Royalty Free Music

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Nowadays, people are getting hip to using royalty free music for their promotions. Royalty free music is music that is licensed for a fee, without having to pay additional royalties. Using royalty free music provides many advantages and benefits. The greatest advantage to using royalty free music it can be used without the person having to fork over hefty fees to the copyright holder(s).

There are plenty of websites online that offer royalty free music for downloading. These sites allow you to download royalty free music that is of good quality. Royalty free music is also known as “buyout music”.
If a person decides to download music to use for their business or other use, they would have to pay a fee, but it would be just that one fee. Sometimes you can download royalty free music to use at a reduced cost. You still come out better than you would if you had to pay for the copyright.
Some websites are set up where there are only limited copies available of their royalty free music. They don’t want it saturated, so they have a certain number of downloads available for purchase.
When using this type of music, it can be made for unlimited use by the person that’s using it. Another good thing about this is royalty free music is legal. People use it all the time for promotions and other events as they see fit.

There are a variety of music and other clips to choose from. It depends on what your taste is. Some genres include jazz, soul, rock, pop and different movie clips. This is just a sampling of what can be found when you search online for downloadable royalty free music.
People can get easy access to this kind of music. Going online and doing a search can provide you with hundreds if not thousands of royalty free music downloads that you can choose from. There is something for everyone. Anyone can search for what they want and download it within minutes.
There are different sounds available for everyone’s taste. You can find things like nature sounds, guitar sounds, piano sounds and other sounds that may suit your needs. If you’re interested in film clips, you can find that online as well.

There is so much to choose from that it would take your many days to go through it all. The best thing to do is to narrow it down to what you really want or need. The online websites usually have royalty free music loops that you can listen to. They are always adding new music and film clips to satisfy the growing demand for this category of music.

Using downloadable royalty free music is a great advertising and promotional tool. People find it more cost-effective to do it this way than to fork out buckets of money for copyright fees.

Party Ideas For Music Lovers

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Party ideas should always bring out the personality or the interests of the celebrant or the guests. For those who love music, your gatherings will surely be more fun and memorable if you organize them with a music-related theme. And you won’t run out of ideas with music. You can just do small touches of the theme in your games and decorations. But you can also go all the way including the invites, the guests’ attire, the food and drinks, and, of course, the sounds.

Music is also a very versatile theme. You can do this for your annual company party, a birthday party that you’ll be hosting, a bridal shower, a wedding reception, or your high school reunion. You can choose the particular theme depending on your guests’ taste or the celebrant’s.

The easiest way to go for a music-themed party is to go by the decade. You can start thinking from the earliest to the latest. You can begin with the Roaring Twenties. You can pattern your ideas for party invites and decorations from the Art Deco styles that flourished during that time. You can also include accents representing the movies, which were a big deal in that era – especially The Jazz Singer (1927). It would also be exciting to see your female guests dolled up in sleeveless knee-length dresses with sparkling beads. Naturally, you must have jazz in the house, particularly the works of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Jelly Roll Morton, and the other legends from that decade.

The Fifties is an interesting source of concepts for events. If you’re planning for a wedding or an engagement party, the early part of the decade’s fashion, movies, and music are quite romantic. It’s a perfect source of inspiration for your party ideas that you’d like to center on love and being together. You’d be surprised that this doesn’t only appeal to the older generation, but to the young ones who love good music and would like something different. The overall ambience should be quite formal, which is typical of weddings and engagement parties. In fact, black tie, or even white tie, should be the required attire. Updos and gowns should be the look for the female guests. Invitations, flowers, and table settings should all be clean and elegant. Hotel function rooms, art galleries, and gardens are the perfect venues for occasions with this theme. And you need to bring out the treasured collections of songs by Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Rosemarie Clooney, Nat King Cole, and many others.

The 1960s and 1970s are two colorful decades that are fun to use as themes for parties. You can choose the Beat Culture or the Hippie. But for both these themes, they won’t work well unless all your guests will be willing to dress up according to the theme. Aside from the music of these decades, it’s the fashion that defined them. For the Beat Culture of the 60s, black turtleneck sweaters, berets, and dark glasses should be seen prominently. Men would have goatees and women would have long, unadorned hair. The Beatles and Bob Dylan, as well as the early records of Pink Floyd, should play in the background. On the other hand, the rebellious Hippie style of the 70s dictates bell-bottom pants, tight shirts, and big hair for both men and women. The air should be filled with the songs of Janis Joplin, Grateful Dead, and a host of other iconic musicians of that time. And don’t forget to hang a mirror ball and some colorful beads to complete the effect.

But no one will dare to skip the 80s. It’s also rich in music and fashion that can easily inspire you with fun party ideas. Your guests will have a wide range of choices for their outfit. Men should wear blazers with folded sleeves, slim neckties, and tight-fitting jeans. Loafers and colored sneakers should be the men’s footwear for the party. Women must come with their big hair, layered tops, and ankle-length boots. It wouldn’t be the 80s if you don’t play Michael Jackson, Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Duran Duran, Prince, and the whole lot of unforgettable music acts of the decade. If it’s for a company awards night, you can set up your venue like it’s an MTV awards show or the Grammys. Music awards and videos were at their peak in that period.

Whichever music decade you pick, you’ll surely have a grand time partying with your guests. One last tip would be for those who have friends who love to sing or play instruments. You can stage an open jam session, instead of games. Let everyone in the party really enjoy music, which is, after all, what has brought you all together.

Running An Underground Death Metal Music Record Label

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My first injection of Extreme Metal Music was back in 1985, i was 13 and a Metallica – “Ride The Lighning” cassette crossed my paths (Yes back then that was considered Extreme). I remember being at home alone with my crappy old “Ghetto Blaster” (that ‘ate tapes’) and fascinated at the cool “Electric Chair” cover art, it was at that moment within the first 30 seconds of “Fight Fire with fire” that my life would no doubt be set down a new path and Extreme Death Metal Music would be my fate. I remember being blown-away and scared shitless at the same time. The shear aggression and speed of the music was unlike anything i had ever heard (remember this was 1984 and i was 13 and Def Leppard was about the heaviest i had ever heard) and it was that very song that forever changed my life (thanx James) and led me to investigate this style of music even more. Bands like Slayer, Venom, Possessed and Death became the metal music that “Got me thru the day”

Well, the year is now 2008 and even though Metallica’s “Ride The Lighning” is still one of my top 20 favorite albums of all time, Extreme Metal Music is like drugs, one is too many and a thousand is not enough. The need for faster, heavier, more brutal and intense music dosages becomes the addiction. In today’s world of Extreme Metal Music – Metallica would probably be considered choir boys.

I guess it’s time to talk about what this article is actually about… running an underground Death Metal Record Label. First off, running an underground death metal label like this usually means running it from your parents basement, or if your a grown man who just can’t seem to grow up, your running it from your own basement and are constantly having to remind your wife, “would you rather me be here at home with you wasting all our money, or at the strip clubs wasting all our money). Truth be told probably 90% of Death Metal Record Labels that exist do it for the pure love of the music and do it on top of working 40 – 50 hours a week doing something that actually makes money, and to those who continue to do it while investing their own money and risking their marriages and relationships i raise my Corona and “Cheers You!”… But that’s just what Extreme Metal does to people, there is a devotion to it, there is just this undeniable force that encapsulates you… it’s likebeing in a gang… a really large gang!

I work for a small record label CDN Records, a basement run 2 person operation managing over 2000 Extreme titles in the genres of Death Metal, Brutal Death Metal, Melodic Death metal, Grindcore, Goregrind, Black Metal, Thrash Metal and more. The other person involved again and actually the one who started the label, a grown man like myself in his late 30’s obsessed with metal music in it’s most extreme form and probably the biggest “Death” (the band) fan you will ever meet. He started the label over 15 years ago, originally called “Civilian Death Network”, but after 9-11 it was apparent that we needed to change the name, hence (CDN Records). The label started out mostly as a “Tape Trading” network trading various Death metal bands demos with other Death Metal music fans around the world, and back then without the internet and low-cost’s of producing cd’s the cost involved could bankrupt most people. Most of us doing this tape trading stuff usually spent every last extra penny we had, we begged borrowed and stole just so we could pay for postage.But with the advent of the internet and the ability to manufacture “CD’s” cheap the label was able to evolve into a full-blown record label, signing and releasingbands.

Currently we have over 15 of our own titles, and what we do is trade our titles with other Extreme Labels around the world which increases our distro catalogue. It’s a great system, and its probably the only form a music in the world (that i know of) that operates like this… again reminding me of the bond and devotion to Extreme Music us “Metalheads” have. It’s like there is no competition between all Underground metal labels, we work together to create an even larger network. Its and even better deal for alot of the bands in the Death Metal, Extreme Music genre. We have taken bands who would never have been able to get their music on a cd let alone shipped out and into the hands of metalheads around the world… and that’s a great feeling and what fuels us to keep going.

Although, we first do this for the love of Death Metal music, we definitely work very hard at trying to get “Death Metal Music” to pay the bills. How much better could it get? promoting the music you love and making a living do it…

Tips for staring your own Death Metal Record label:
1. Find a band that you really like and has already recorded their own full-length cd (This saves you money)
2. Sign the band to a simple distribution deal, you press 1000 copies and give the band a few hundred copies (most death metal bands will jump at the chance for this)
3. Get yourself a simple web site and the ability to sell your product online.
4. Spend countless hours surfing the internet looking for other small Extreme Death Metal labels… create a long list
5. Contact all the labels you found online and ask if they do “Trades”, usually trades are based on a point system you’ll figure that out quick.
6. Most labels will trade 3-5 copies to start, trade with 100 labels you now have 300-500 titles to add to your web sites online catalogue
7. Don not take more than 10 copies of any one title… 3-5 at most
8. Promote online, Promote Online, Promote online… forums, blogs, myspace etc etc.
9. Repeat steps 1 thru 7 once you have no more of the original 1000 cd’s you pressed, of the cd traded well press the same release, if you struggled
to get other labels to take it on trade, search for a new band and try again.
10. You will be very lucky to sell more than a few thousand copies of any 1 Extreme Death metal cd, Grindcore cd or Black Metal CD (unless you happy to get lucky enough to sign the next Cannibal Corpse or Cradle of Filth) release so don’t get frustrated, the key is to
build your online catalogue with 1000’s of titles to chose from and enjoy the fact that you are now promoting and selling 100’s of Extreme Metal bands.

For all you Death Metal, Brutal Death metal, Melodic Death metal, Grindcore, Goregrind, Black Metal and Thrash Metal needs, stop on by www.cdnrecords.com

Zulu Musical Instruments, Essential To Develop Musical Traditions In Africa

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African music is the music of Africans who live in a large region of 50 nations, each with a special culture, history and language, South of Sahara. Zulu musical instruments are part of this multilingual culture. African music has some distinct characteristics: the use of repetition is one of them. Another important characteristic is the polyphony; this is the combination of different musical parts played simultaneously.

The history is marked by the awesome military strategies of the Zulu King Shaka. The King’s and his warriors’ campaign of expansion is well known in world history. Zulu rich traditional culture includes songs, dances and colorful rituals, Zulu musical instruments are spectacular and original. A variety of Zulu musical instruments are well known, s well as the traditional Mine dance; Zulus have longtime used their music as a cry for freedom.

African music is really rich in modes of expression: drum ensembles are using Zulu musical instruments from the percussion family. Each drummer uses special methods to produce sounds to distinguish his drum from the others. Iron bells are very popular Zulu musical instruments; they are used to produce a repeated sound to help the drummers to play at the correct time.

Zulu musical instruments, rare and very special
The akadinda is a king of xylophone; two groups of African musicians are playing simultaneously. The first group is playing repeatedly the same pattern; the second group plays to fill in the missing sounds. Groups of Zulu musicians play also using flutes, trumpets or xylophones. Each player plays a single note in a strange rotation with the other players. The result is a polyphonic piece, characteristic to African music.

Musical practices of South African people were observed from many years; Zulu musical instruments are obsolete. Venda mbila is an old Zulu musical instrument; it is not used anymore. Reed flutes, contrary, are still very popular. The influence of foreign cultures and civilizations causes many of old Zulu musical instruments to become obsolete.

Musical instruments such as tsonga a horn, ingungu a friction drum, nkoka a drum, pedi a flute, venda musical bow and stick, deze and demba thumb piano and resonatos, umfece ankle rattles are almost obsolete.

To preserve this awesome heritage of Zulu musical instruments, the necessary information was entered into a database; each Zulu musical instrument was digitally photographed to preserve all information about it.

Indian Classical Music vs Western Classical Music The Classical Story

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Indian Classical Music is all about ragas. A raga portrays a mood, a sentiment, expressed through a microtonal scale. There are a number of ragas, each with its own mood and its own corresponding microtonal scale that is based on the natural harmonic series – the natural law of vibrations.
Today, Indian Classical music is influenced by a foreign tonal system that is not based on the natural harmonic series. This is the Western tonal system that has had a big influence on Indian Classical music. Many Indian Classical musicians, nowadays, make use of Western instruments such as guitar and drums.
Most Western audiences find Indian Classical music to be quite exotic. Two major reasons are the differences between the two traditions in tuning and scales.
The subtle differences
Let’s straightaway delve into the differences between these two vast genres of music to get a better idea:
Indian Classical Music (ICM) is primarily homophonic, which means that it focuses on creating melodies using a sequence of notes, whereas Western Classical Music (WCM) is to an extent polyphonic, which means multiple notes are played/sung together, where the counterpoint, harmony, and texture created using multiple voices is very important.

WCM is composed, whereas ICM is improvised. WCM compositions are formally written using Staff Notation, and performers usually follow that. But in the case of ICM, the Teacher-Student tradition of learning leads to each performance being an improvisation.

ICM uses “Taal”, where Taal is a cycle of beats that is centered on “Sam” that repeats itself. In the case of WCM, there aren’t any complex beat cycles.

WCM is modal and so has a chord for each note of the scale. On the contrary, ICM is tonal and, hence, is based on a single scale (a single drone, chord, and key).
Fusion all the way
But then again fusion is a growing concept in India. So, their differences and some similarities make fusion music even more interesting and challenging. If we take a deeper look, we will actually find a number of similarities. Today, “guitar” has acquired prime position and popularity in Indian Classical Music with Indian Ragas being played on guitar.
There are two types of Guitars that is used for fusion in India: Spanish guitar and Hawaiian guitar.A wide variety and mix of instruments ranging from Guitar, Drums, and Saxophone to Sitar, Tabla, and Flute are used for fusion music/concerts.
My band, known as Kaivalyaa, is also a fusion band, where we fuse various western genres with Indian Classical music. The Western and Indian instruments we use include Guitar, Drums, Keyboards, Mouth Organ, Bass Guitar, Harmonium, Flute, Sarod, Tabla, and a number of percussion instruments. Some of the big names in the Indian fusion scenario are Indian Ocean, Avial, Advaita, Raghu Dixit Project, Mother Jane, Tabla Beat Science, and Bandish Fusion. With varied influences, experiments, scales, tones, and sounds, fusion is the next big thing. So, if you want to know more about the Indian Classical scales/Ragas, you are at the right place.