Is musical talent the most important thing for an aspiring musician? According to Laurie Niles, who has taught violin for 25 years, talent is really not the most important thing. “So you have to be really talented to play the violin, don’t you?” This was a question posed to me last week by an adult […]
Psychologists argue that music is far more powerful than language. This is because, in addition to its commonality across borders of culture, race, and nationality, it also has the ability to arouse out feelings and emotions. An increased interest in how the brain processes musical emotion can be attributed to the way in which it […]
NAMM 2016 came and went, and so did the 2016 SHE Rocks Awards, a special award function hosted at NAMM, honoring the best female musicians for their contributions. The She Rocks Awards are hosted every year at NAMM, by the Women’s International Music Network WiMN. Founder, Laura B. Whitmore, had announced that this year was going […]
The powerful effects of listening to music make it one of the best pastime activities to relax and have a good time alone or with friends and family. It therefore makes sense that the people that get the most of these benefits are those more actively involved in making and performing music – musicians. Here […]
Being a self-taught musician gives you serious bragging rights – that is not in question. However, there are a lot of misconceptions associated with being self-taught, because when most people hear that an instrumentalist is self-taught, they automatically assume the person took up an instrument and figured out how to play with no help from […]
Bassists are often the most overlooked instrumentalists in any musical group. In fact, there’s a chance you’ll find several members of an audience with no idea about what bassists do or why they’re even there. This doesn’t take away from the critical important that bass plays in any performance. In fact, while they may not […]
Vocalists are often at the receiving end of negative stereotypes about their abilities, particularly when they are in competition with instrumentalists. However, vocalists are just as musical as their instrumentalist counterparts, and their skills are just as difficult to develop. The major difference between the two groups of musicians is in their approach to music. […]
Most musicians will focus on just one instrument and stick to that. However, the voice being an instrument, some musicians have gone the extra mile to learn how to sing while playing another instrument, reaping significant benefits as a result. As an instrumentalist, it can be incredibly valuable to learn how to sing as it […]
There’s nothing as devastating to a musician as being robbed of the ability to make music, but that is exactly what happened to Rosemary Johnson, 27 years ago. The 23-year old talented violinist was a member of the Welsh National Opera Orchestra and had a bright future as a world class musician when a devastating […]
A world where singers and instrumentalists coexist as equals can lead to amazingly creative contributions to music. However, although there are some examples where this type of working relationship exists, in the vast majority of cases the musical divisions between vocalists and instrumentalists are quite prevalent. While this may be attributed to human nature – […]
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