We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive. — C. S. Lewis, http://quote.robertgenn.com/auth_search.php?authid=1176
Looking for a way to get involved in the Alberta Ave community, make some friends and make music at the same time? You are invited to join a passionate group of music makers on our fair Ave, The Alberta Avenue Choir!
Alberta Avenue Choir is a new initiative that aims to use the love of singing as a great platform to enhance relationships in the general Edmonton community. Our singers are from broad backgrounds and different musical abilities, but our love for singing is what we all have in common. We have decided to focus our repertoire on music from all over the world, and since our director is from Africa, we have started our first two seasons by learning some music from Southern Africa.
For the first time in our events five year history, we are making all of the lyrics to Bridge Songs: ?rogress available. They are downloadable for free, just below, in a beautiful little booklet that includes original photos by Aaron Maxwell Vanimere and Dave Von Bieker. We hope you enjoy this companion to the album, “Bridge Songs: ?rogress”. If you have yet to get your copy, drop me an email at info@iloveartists.ca.
Here is some information from a friend whose looking for a bass player in the city …
“THE ACCIDENT WILL is an up and coming Edmonton-based rock band and we need a new bass player or guitar player (I can play either) going forward. TAW formed in July 2010, and have gigged frequently around Edmonton in 2011 and released a 5-song EP “THE OTHER SIDE OF FOREVER.” TAW believes in rock music as communicative art with meaning, while going out and killing it live with a tremendous live performance. One rehearsal a week (the occasional extra), a couple gigs a month, people who are dedicated & willing to put in time practicing & learning songs and covers on their own, and take it seriously while having fun.
INFLUENCES/RIYL:
Smashing Pumpkins, Project 86, Stavesacre, Thrice, Foo Fighters, 30 Seconds to Mars, Blink 182, Circle of Dust, Argyle Park, Nine Inch Nails, Massivivid, The Tea Party, MuteMath, mewithoutYou, Grammatrain, Blindside, POD, Skillet, Bif Naked, Econoline Crush
Image Journal is visiting Canada in a series of four events this year. Their Calgary stop features a concert with Over The Rhine, followed by a panel discussion on art and faith. From their website;
A panel discussion after the concert on art, faith, and artistic integrity in the public square will feature: Karin Bergquist and Linford Detweiler of Over the Rhine, Gregory Wolfe, editor of Image, Val Lieske, Artistic Director/General Manager, Fire Exit Theatre, Karen Sudds, Artistic Director of Corps Bara Dance Theatre, and Sharon Graham Sargent, President, Emmaus Fine Art Group
It is free and again, from their website, here are the juicy details;
Calgary: An Evening with Over the Rhine
A Concert and Discussion
Wednesday, May 11, 7:00 PM
Engineered Air Theatre /
EPCOR Centre for the Performing Arts
205 Eighth Avenue SE, Calgary, AB
Free & Open to the Public
I plan to attend if at all possible. Anyone care to join me? ROAD TRIP! Seriously though, If you are interested in heading down for this, email info@iloveartists.ca.
SoundCloud, a website for sharing sounds, has made it possible to collect and share the songs being crafted by our Songwriters Group (sometimes known as the Bridge Songs Collective).
You can hear the latest from the group in this handy-dandy player below. Clicking links will take you to the site where you can offer helpful feedback on the songs you hear and perhaps even help them take shape!
This will also be the way to track songs tagged “Bridge Songs: Progress” as we start putting together this year’s album in the coming weeks.
February, the month of Valentines’ Day, is perhaps the perfect time to launch a new feature here, called “Web Loves Artists”. These posts will offer a list of web tools, and invite you to add to that list, to empower artists of various disciplines.
I want to start the series with the sites that inspired it. Throughout the month of January, I discovered some very useful and inspiring websites to push me forward in my music career. As an indie singer-songwriter with very little time to tour, the internet is a powerful tool that allows me to get my music out there at all times. Let me share with you five tools that are helping me share my music, make my music and be inspired to keep at my music. Hopefully they can help other musicians, too.
Located at kickstarter.com, Kickstarter is a totally new way to fund creative projects of any kind. Their website, kickstarter.com, allows users to create projects of any creative kind, set a funding goal and invite the world to donate to the cause. Bands are using this to fund albums. Artists are using this to fund installations or social experiments. Filmmakers are funding films. The possibilities are almost endless, and the success stories are really, really inspiring. It’s no wonder Kickstarter has been getting media coverage all over the place. There are few things about which one can really remark “this changes everything”, but I’d have to say … this changes everything.
How I Use It
It’s fitting that Kickstarter actually kickstarted my music this year. When my friend Karla Adolphe teamed up with the excellent Aaron Strumpel to form The Emporiums late last year, they launched an ambitious goal. They would write and release their first album by the end of January. This ambition flipped all of procrastinated excuses on their heads. If they could do something this ambitious, perhaps I could create an album this year, too. Even money was not an obstacle for them, as they turned to their fans through kickstarter.com to fund the project. Their funding goal was $1500, yet they raised $2980. I’d call that a success.
I could see myself turning to kickstarter for the inevitable costs of production when the time comes to press my album. Sadly, you currently need a US bank account to use their service, so if you are a Canadian artist (of any ilk), kickstarter is not for you. Yet.
I hear there is a Canadian equivalent, but I cannot find it online anywhere. Anyone?
SoundCloud is a way to share sounds over the cloud. The Cloud is a web 2.0 (or 3.0?) term for a great big place in the internet ether where files live, work and play (as opposed to your hard drive, their old residence). Musicians, podcasters, producers, and anyone wanting to share sounds can share up to 2 hours (they meter by time, rather than file size, thank heavens) for free. Each sound or song can be added to a playlist and embedded anywhere on the internet very easily. Sounds can be licensed a number of ways (including all rights reserved, Creative Commons, etc.), stream-able and/or download-able.
Here’s the cool part. Sound gets social with SoundCloud. Songs and sounds can be commented on by other users (and guests, I think). You can comment on an entire song (“great track – love the writing!”) or comment at a certain point along the tracks time line (“how did you record the clapping at this point?”). This is really, really useful for musicians like me looking for feedback while we work a song into its final glory.
How I Use It
I’ve had my SoundCloud account for under a week, but have already uploaded two tracks to share with the public. You can view my profile at http://soundcloud.com/vonbieker. I am using SoundCloud to power my Song A Month project this year, where I record one song per month, start to finish, and share the results online. The feedback is proving invaluable. Also, seeing the stats of how many people have listened to the tracks just makes me feel really good inside. If you are wanting a simple way to share your music online, I highly recommend SoundCloud.
Aside from sharing my own music, I’ve uploaded a bass track to SoundCloud and given private access to myself and my producer, so that he can download the track and add it to a project we are working on together. He can in turn send me mixes via SoundCloud to review and comment on.
We’ll also be using SoundCloud with the Songwriters Group I’m a part of, to share tracks with each other and offer up feedback. We’ve done this in the past via email, which really keeps conversation segmented and hard to follow. Being able to offer group, timeline-based feedback on a song is killer. This will be used heavily as we write and record the Bridge Songs:?rogress album this year, so stay tuned for links to that.
Finally, I’m using SoundCloud to discover new artists. It’s cool to start forming musical community with users in the US and the UK. Viva internet!
Unlike the other tools listed here, The Recording Revolution is a site powered by one man, Graham Cochrane. Graham is a musician and producer who passionately believes that people with home studios can produce great music. Amen, brother.
Here is an inspiring description by Graham himself on the site …
“My goal for this blog is to educate and empower a new generation of musicians and songwriters to make outstanding music with their home studio. I hope to break through the hype and marketing that tells people they need to spend more money if they want better results. I want to eliminate any and all excuses prohibiting great talent from making great recordings.”
The site offers frequent updates (usually a couple each week) with short, snappy tips on making great music. These tips can be followed by people like me, with little money to spend on their art, but a lot of desire to move forward anyways. After hearing so much about the money I need to spend to make better music, and how much I can’t do at home by myself, it’s refreshing to be empowered.
The Recording Revolution also offers a feature called Fix My Mix, where Graham invites readers to send in a mix that needs some help. He will actually professionally mix the track and send it back to the user, for free. He will then post the process and let us know what was fixed, how and why. Now that is generous.
How I Use It
I’ve likely logged a few hours on the site since January, watching tutorial videos, reading the free PDF on The Number One Rule of Home Recording, listening to interviews and reading post after post about the recording, mixing and mastering process. I have grown as a musician and a producer as a direct result of The Recording Revolution. My guitar also got a new set of strings at Graham’s suggestion. Thanks Graham!
I’m debating trying out the Fix My Mix offering as well. Why not?
Part of the excelled network of Tuts sites, AudioTuts offers tutorials on a wide range of audio topics. One post may be about getting better guitar tone from your amp. Another offers tips on soundproofing your home recording environment. One may be as specific as creating a certain type of loop in Reason or using compression in Logic. These are just examples, but the site offers so much helpful information across the spectrum that you will find something useful before long.
AudioTuts also offers a workshop feature, where users can submit their tracks for helpful feedback from their large community of readers. Very handy indeed.
How I Use It
I’m considering trying out workshop feature, but so far I have made use of many of their tutorials, both read-along and video. A lot of really useful information, well filed and cataloged, can be found here.
MailChimp is an online service for sending emails to large lists of subscribers. Sign up forms can be placed on your website, or you can route people to a special form on MailChimp’s site to sign up. There are many templates to choose from for emails, or you can select your own. The best news is that MailChimp is free for lists of up to 1000 subscribers, sending up to 6000 messages a month.
A service like MailChimp helps your email get sent correctly, and looking fantastic when it arrives. It allows users to add or remove themselves from your list. It allows you to keep in touch with your fans in a consistent way. MailChimp is just SO much better than copy-pasting a list of emails into Mail, or the like.
How I Use It
If you receive email updates from iLoveArtists, you are seeing MailChimp at work first-hand. I use it to manage our subscriber list here. When my music becomes a bit more regular/active I’ll likely set up a list for that as well. Keeping in constant contact with your community is really important, especially as an independent musician.
What About You?
How does the Web show you love as a musician? What have I missed?
I’ve mentioned here previously that my goal for this year is to record at least one song per month, which I will upload and share online. My hope is that you will listen to the song and take a moment to offer some feedback. I’m using SoundCloud to share these, which offers awesome commenting options, including allowing you to comment on specific sections of the song (along the timeline).
My song for January is “fittingly” Cold Hands. How can I make it better? What do you like best about it?
It’s been a long while folks, but a Dave Von Bieker solo show is just around the corner.
The Carrot is Dave’s favorite venue to play, and Dave’s new MacBook is ready to work overtime. Expect some new songs, hope for some special guests, and know that beyond a shadow of a doubt, there will be a banjo present. Families welcome, too. Dave’s kids need companions (and their cover is free).
If you are on Facebook and plan on attending, please RSVP here …
For the first time in our events five year history, we are making all of the lyrics to Bridge Songs: ?rogress available. They are downloadable for free, just below, in a beautiful little booklet that includes original photos by Aaron Maxwell Vanimere and Dave Von Bieker. We hope you enjoy this companion to the album, “Bridge Songs: ?rogress”. If you have yet to get your copy, drop me an email at 
