john

Hi Do you value what Songstuff offers? Do you value our community? Do you like what we do? Do you want more? If so, then please lets make this active community even more so. Bring in your songwriting and music industry friends. Spread the love... Please use the social bookmarking widgets at the bottom of every topic, every blog post and please share and socially bookmark our articles, posts, blog entries etc with your social and music networks. Please tell others of things you value on this site (and tell us of the things you don't). Add a link to your blog, write a testimonial, others have already, post it on twitter, on Facebook, Digg, Stumble Upon.... wherever. The Songstuff community thrives precisely because our members find something valuable HERE, and it's not just the useful articles and tutorials (and soon our products!), it's the conversations you generate, the topics that are raised, the people who take part and fundamentally the ethos that the site represents and that we all feel a part of. In this regard there is no such thing as too much love..., or too much sharing... So please, keep spreading the love. Get word out there. We are very serious about doing everything we can to help you, so please, help the community continue to grow.... share what you already have, because there's a whole lot more coming! Many thanks for all your loyal support, John

Thanks MP. We have a fairly broad church of writers, musicians and other music industry roles represented on the site. i wanted to see where people see themselves and what they want from Songstuff. Don't get me wrong, we will still be supporting all as best we can, professional interests or not, but products particularly take a lot of investment: time, a lot of money, the use of contacts etc (particularly in intelligence gathering on latest industry developments, deals etc), so I want to make sure that we provide what is wanted and needed. The same is true on a lesser scale when it comes to chosing topics for articles and tutorials, with the writers putting in a significant amount of work... I don't want to waste the time of writers or readers. I have been toying with writing a book on Songwriting among other things, but then I'm not a famous writer! That said it would probably be written "by Sonsgtuff" as it were, and Songstuff is at least a little bit known. That's not all. There are lots of things in the pipeline. I have had 12 years experience conducting online promotion (not just Songstuff or my own music but several behind the scenes projects that have taught me a lot and specifically online music marketing and promotion to add to all my years working in the real world industry before my own personal situation changed) so I think I could do something of big value there. Plus there will be some industry friends contributing on a scale that Songstuff has never seen, covering all kinds of topics. When I say some of those people are at the top of their game, I mean it, A pretty exciting time and I am hoping members will agree with that. Over the years I have retained and grown my contact list, with people right to the top of the big labels to famous writers. Not all want to be known for writing teaching articles etc, more content with their day to day role. If they are happy to pass on very useful and often valuable information under the banner of Songstuff I'm not going to argue and I hope members will see some big benefits, be they amateur enthusiasts or professionals, just for fun or very serious grafters. it's great to finally be delivering things that really will not only live up to but far exceed my expectations when I launched Songstuff. Not that I was so much holding back, but now I have far more reasons to really push Sonsgtuff to "become" that dream than I ever did before. I'm laying much, much more on the line. So much so that I think what is planned will really shake things up, far beyond Songstuff and it's current members. I'm hoping we can bring all those members with us so they really get the full benefit. After years of adding to my own knowledge about writing, performing, recording, producing, managing, marketing, promoting etc. and with seismic changes in the music industry I can see some HUGE things being missed right across the spectrum. I've not been complacent. I fully plan to pass on my own skills and learning, and I know that my friends still working in the industry plan to deliver some dynamite too. Should be lots of fun. look out for a fuller survey with an excellent free gift as an incentive over the next few weeks as I really try to hone in on delivering some truly excellent products. As ever we will still be delivering lots of free stuff. Hell we've been doing it 12 years, that's not going to stop now. Simply put, the more I know of what all our members want and need, the more likely we are to deliver exactly that. If it is outwith my own experience or skills, I will do my utmost to put someone in place who truly has that experience, or those skills. Onwards and Upwards. Cheers john Any feedback and I would love to here it, from any of our members. If you really want or need something, find something missing creatively, understanding and knowledge, tools, methods, process or just want to comment about the direction of Songstuff.... whatever... just say.

Just noticed, you have no pic MP....

lol. Member banned. Sorry, that's the reason it's been a long time since MP saw such a thing on SS, because we have zero tolerance on that topic. thanks all who reported his misrepresentations! I'll add 1 to each of your reputations

Hi I wanted to get an idea of how you perceive your understanding of the workings of the Music Industry. This will help me to decide on upcoming articles, tutorials and products. Cheers John

Hi Mary, nice to meet you. Welcome to Songstuff!

Hey Vlady There's no real mystery Vlady. Practice. Take it in 3 parts: Guitar piece practice Vocal practice Vocal and guitar practice You need to practice each separately until they are second nature, until you are at the stage you can at leat play/sing them without mistakes. If you can't do that you will never be able to play the combination of the two. As far as the vocal goes try practicing 2 ways: singing a cappella (voice only) singing along with a backing track Guitar I practice in 3 ways also: Slower than usual with attention to detail, aim for no mistakes with all the nuance you want in it. This helps your motor memory (your brain's ability to remember body position, including finger movement). Faster than usual. This helps get your fingers used to moving through the piece making it harder than normal At the correct pace. For obvious reasons this is where most of your practice time is. A good tip for accelerating this is to build in practicing both your vocals exercises and guitar exercises with your eyes closed at least some of the time. You will find that this is particularly beneficial during slow practice. This allows you to get it into your brain faster, and with a better attention to nuance. The theory is simple: cut out the input from your eyes and your brain naturally pays more attention to the other senses. Think of it like learning to drive a car with a stick shift. To begin with we break it down, we learn to do it thinking about every movement. With practice changing gear becomes second nature, so that awareness wise we simply think "change gear" and the rest happens without having to think of all those separate movements needed to accomplish the gear change. We spend our time thinking about what is going on around us: the other cars, the shape of the road, the direction we want to go in etc. We don't have time to be thinking about all those separate movements. The reason is that all that slow practice "programmed" our lower brain that deals with movements, leaving the upper brain to deal with other things. This is the essence of something becoming "second nature". I hope this helps. Cheers John

Hey Danny Welcome to Songstuff Songtuff is usually pretty active, so dive in and enjoy. I look forward to your contribution

Hi and welcome to Songstuff A quick head's up.... Please make sure you clear your biz with myself or another member of the site staff. There is a dedicated advertising board which is the only place you can post promo posts (unless they are specifically for your music). Other promo links are not allowed including promo for sites that are in competition with Songstuff. We do a lot of promo in order to build this community, not to provide free advertising for sites wanting to draw active members from Songstuff, effectively undermining the community. If your site doesn't fit into that category you will be allowed to post your biz links in the advertising section. I recommend sending me a link to your biz using the PM (Private Message) system (link to PM system is in drop down menu in top right next to your profile picture). We have these restrictions as a protection from spam covered boards. We had to draw the line somewhere. We want members to be able to post links to their own music, or indeed to post links to interesting content, their personal (and I underline personal) blog etc, but drew the line with business promotions. As a consession to music related business we set up the advertising board, providing they do not overlap with what Songstuff does. This I think is more than reasonable. Non music related businesses are not allowed to post links, or any promo text, full stop. It's better to do what you do with the go ahead from staff than to find yourself with a warning or even banned. Other than that I hope you take full advantage of Songstuff as a member of our community. Please don't be offended by this response, like many sites we have to deal with spammers and those who do not have the best interests of our community at heart. Personally I think it's better that you know up front rather than falling foul of the board rules

Hi Henning, welcome to Songstuff!

Hi Paddy, welcome to Songstuff