The Jeffrey And Tracey Info Emporium

JLS The fabulous foursome are about to head out on their first headlining tour of the UK, and it’s not surprising that the boys plan to pull out all the stops for the first string of dates under their own moniker.

It looks as if JLS can check off a few items on their list of goals for 2010. The hottest boy band in the UK will be performing at the Brit Award ceremony next month, and it’s just been announced that they are also up for prizes in three categories. The new JLS One Shot song is soon to be released and looks set to land the band another top 5 hit.

“We’re so happy, this is the show we’ve been watching since we were kids and it’s extra special because it’s the 30th anniversary,” Oritse told the Daily Star. “To be here is an amazing moment so we are embracing everything about it.
“We’d love to win won but we’re going to go out and give a great performance whatever. We’re the first new boy band to have emerged over the last couple of years so it feels special.”

The fabulous foursome are about to head out on their first headlining tour of the UK, and it’s not surprising that the boys plan to pull out all the stops for the first string of dates under their own moniker.

“There’s gonna be a lot of stunts, it’ll be more like a film than a gig, that’s how many stunts there are,” Marvin explained.
Aston, the only member of JLS who is also famous for his back-flips, told the Daily Star that he wouldn’t be doing anything too dangerous: “I’m not going to walk a tightrope. I get asked to do back-flips wherever we go. I did one on the Jonathan Ross show, now I have to hide whenever I see him because he’s always asking me to do one. I’m not his performing monkey!”

When asked how they would celebrate if they do indeed take home a Brit Award or two, Aston replied: “It’s around the same time as my birthday so we will have to have a massive JLS party afterwards.”

The Need4 Video Converter can convert videos in the 3GPP2 format to MP4.

This will afford them the opportunity to be seen on a variety of sources, from your computer and cell phone, along with other mobile devices. The clips may also be uploaded to a video sharing file, to be enjoyed by family and friends.

Need4 Video has made amazing advances that has made it simple to convert 3GPP2 videos to MP4. If you wish to convert the complete video clip or audio extract all in one go, or a small piece at a time.

Step A. Launch

You will need a video converter program, such as a Need4 Video Converter.

Download the video conversion program to meet your needs.

Then follow the directions below.

Step B. Add 3GPP2 Video To Converter

• Click the +Video button to add the video that you would like to convert
• Select 3GPP2 in the Files of type field
• Choose the appropriate video file and click Open

The selected file will be added to the list of opened files.

Step C. Select Output Format

• Select General Video in the open the Profile list.
• In the Presets list opened on the right,
• Choose the right output format in the Presets list and click open.

Step D. Specify Folder to Save Video

• Open the Save as field and insert the name of the converted video.
• Specify the folder where you want to store the converted videos in the Save to field.
• Highlight any extra considerations that you may need for saving video
• Overwrite existing files and check it to replace any existing video files with the same name with brand new ones.
• You can then review the folder with a ready file in the open output folder.

Step E. Select a Video Segment to Convert

• If you wish to convert a small segment of your video, then click the Edit button next to your video in the list.

• When opening the window, you can drag the left marker to the start of the video episode you want with the right marker at the end.

Step F. Hit Convert to Save 3GPP2 Videos to MP4

• It is advisable to check the added video file in the list of opened files.

• You are then ready to hit Convert 3GPP2 to convert it to MP4.

Need4 Video offer the most far reaching selection of video conversion software programs. Try the free trial here!

JLS have hit out at The X Factor’s new format saying it’s too much like Britain’s Got Talent.

The band, who were runners-up on last year’s series, believe the decision to hold live auditions was a mistake.

Oritsé said: “It’s too much like Britain’s Got Talent now.”

Fellow band member Aston explained: “I watched it and expected to get a weird feeling because we were there a year ago - but I didn’t. It’s a completely different show now. I don’t like the new format - it’s taken the build up away.”

Marvin said: “Some of the contestants have been wicked.

“It just seems like they’re already in the live finals. You don’t get to see people’s personalities properly - they’re more confident and playful. It takes away the intimacy.”

The live auditions, where hopefuls perform before a a huge audience, have come under fire from fans of the talent show.

Last year’s X Factor winner Alexandra Burke has also blasted the new format saying it’s too intimidating.

The singer admitted: “I would never have won with the new format.

“God, it’s scary performing in front of Simon full stop. But to perform in front of thousands of people who will judge you because sometimes they boo, or they laugh, or even cry is so scary.

“You can’t be everyone’s cup of tea. To only have four judges to deal with is better.”

How to Convert 3GP videos to FLV

Have you got amazing video on your cell phone that you would like to share with your friends?

Then use a Need4 Video Converter to convert your movies in 3GP and save them to FLV. Then they can be played on your computer, different mobile devices or placed on video sharing sites.

Convert 3GP videos to FLV fast and easy.

Step One. Launch

First of all, you will need a video converter program, such as a Need4 Video Converter.

Download it and follow the steps below.

Step Two. Add 3GP Video to Convert - To add video you want to convert, click the +Video button. In the Files of type field, select 3GP. Select a necessary video file and click Open. The selected file will be added to the list of opened files below.

Step Three. Select Output Format - Open the Profile list; choose General Video or a necessary device. In the Presets list opened on the right, choose a necessary output format: FLV. Then select a level of video quality.

Step Four. Specify File Name and Folder to Save Video

• In the Save as field, enter the name for the converted video.
• In the Save to field, specify the folder where to store converted videos.
• Then, specify additional options for saving video:
• Overwrite existing files ” check it to replace existing FLV files with the same name with newly created ones;
• Open output folder when done ” check it to open the folder with a ready file when conversion is finished. (Recommended).

Step Five. Select a Video Segment to Convert - To convert any segment of your video, click the Edit button next to your video in the list. In the opened window, drag the left marker to the beginning of a desired video episode and the right marker ” to the end of it.

Step Six. Hit Convert to Save 3GP video to FLV

Make sure the added video file is checked in the list of opened files and hit Convert to convert it to FLV. Need4 Video offer the finest, most far reaching video conversion software programs on the market. Be sure to visit the website to learn more about the latest incarnation of this excellent video converter software for PC.

Neil Young, The Canadian music Hall of Famer and former member of Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, and Nash has released his latest politically charged CD entitled Living With War. His second release in under a year.

Be warned that this CD is unabashedly a protest album by this Canadian born American.

Whether you’re a fan of his politics or not, I think we have to acknowledge that lyrically this is an intelligent, and well thought out CD.

I like it for the fact that it is bound to elicit a response from all who listen. Without regard for positive or negative it will certainly keep the debate open and alive. Which is exactly why it’s a good release.

I also like it for the song that closes it out. A 100 voice choir rendition of America the Beautiful.

Overall Living With War is Neil Young as we have come to know him over the course of the last 40 years. Outspoken and direct. If you don’t mind that style you will enjoy this CD.

The standout tunes on Living With War include the title track Living With War [track 2], The Restless Consumer [track 3], and Lookin’ for a Leader [track 8]. My SmoothLee Bonus Pick, and the one that got Sore […as in “Stuck On REpeat”] is track 5, America the Beautiful. Very nice!

Release Notes:

Neil Young originally released Living With War on May 9, 2006 on the Reprise record label.

CD track list follows:

1. After the Garden
2. Living With War
3. The Restless Consumer
4. Shock and Awe
5. Families
6. Flags of Freedom
7. Let’s Impeach the President
8. Lookin’ for a Leader
9. Roger and Out
10. America the Beautiful

To listen to samples of each song on Living With War by Neil Young go to:
Neil Young CD - Living With War MP3 Samples

Clyde Lee Dennis, a.k.a. SmoothLee is a life long music fanatic. In addition to writing CD Reviews like this one for several music related websites he also hosts an internet radio show, and invites you to join him daily for some of the best soul soothing smooth jazz you’ll ever hear at http://www.SmoothJazz247.com

When I was a fifteen years old guitarist playing rock solos and
classical guitar pieces I remember that I had a desire to be
able to improvise on my guitar in a classical manner.

Nowadays I have developed this skill and I love to improvise in
the style of composers like Sor, Tarrega, Paganini or others or
just trying to find myself somewhere among the notes. These
special moments are a form of meditation. They clear my mind and
also helps me as a composer to stimulate my creative abilities.

The most important reason for learning classical guitar
improvisation is that it’s fun!

If you learn classical guitar improvisation it will benefit you
in many other ways too:

1. It will be easier for you to memorize classical guitar sheet
music.

2. You will find it easier to compose your own guitar pieces in
a classical guitar style.

3. You can make up your own techniqal exercises on your guitar
on the go.

4. You will understand your guitar better.

There are many ways to develop classical guitar improvisation.
How?

You can start with major scales, experimenting with easy chords,
or easy classical guitar pieces. The most basic requisite is
that you want to learn this art and with this desire you will
find ways to practice classical guitar improvisation in all your
guitar playing.

I will just mention using classical guitar pieces in this
article. But how do you begin?

May I suggest that you begin with an easy melody with just one
voice or maybe a two voice piece with bass notes on open
strings. Learn a couple of bars by heart and play the melody
over and over again and try to change the melody slightly
without losing the classical touch.

The ultimate exercise is to use advanced classical guitar solos.

If you think about it you will realize that classical guitar
pieces are filled with wonderful licks, more or less complicated.

These licks can be developed and added upon to give you material
that will help you developing your improvisational skills.

For example, take a two bar passage in a classical guitar piece
that you like and practice it until you master it and then
memorize it.

Now you can play around with the passage, break it down, change
it, analyze it and so on. If you want to improve as an
improvisational guitarist and musician you can regard classical
guitar pieces as collections of very musical licks just waiting
to be used.

I hope these hints will motivate you to reap the benefits from
improvising the classical guitar way.

What do we mean when we say that someone “has a good ear?”
Actually, the term can mean several things. When someone has a
good ear, they can accomplish at least one of the following:

1) they can identify, usually by note name, the various pitches
that they hear, and sing those pitches in tune; 2) they can
identify chords by name; and/or 3) they can identify instruments
or combinations of instruments within a musical work.

Having a good ear is something that most musicians strive for.
Having a bad ear means that you can’t recognize or label the
music you are hearing - an important skill for performers and
composers.

I run a songwriting website, (The
Essential Secrets of Songwriting ), and I know how important
a good ear is. If you are a songwriter, having a good ear is
vital because the best way to improve your songwriting craft is
to listen to the music of the professionals. But if you can’t
really identify what you are hearing, you’re missing out on
opportunities to improve. Throughout my years as a music
teacher, I have observed something interesting and very
important. The marks that my students make in music theory
studies are usually very close to the marks they receive in ear
training. And more than that, I can usually gauge how a student
is going to do in one course by looking at their progress in the
other. For example, students who do well in theory but poorly in
ear training will usually see their ear training marks rise over
time. And students who have great ears but weak theory skills
will generally experience better marks in theory over time. In
other words, music theory and ear training go hand in hand. The
first and most important thing you can do to improve your ear is
to improve your theory skills. Why? When you understand how
music is structured, your ears have a reason for what they are
hearing.

Here’s one good example. In any key, there are three or four
certain chords that work well to reinforce that key, and are
more likely to occur than any other chords. Knowledge of theory
helps you know and identify those chords. So when you are
listening to music and trying to identify the chords you are
hearing, you can focus in the most likely choices. Besides
improving your theory skills, here are some other pieces of
advice for you:

1) Try some of the ear training websites that are out there.
Just do a search for “online ear training” and you’ll find lots
of resources that can help.

2) Try purchasing some ear training software. These days, most
university aural perception programs incorporate computerized
training into their curriculum.

3) Try writing down the melodies that you hear being played.
Transcribing music in this manner actually does not require
strong music reading skills, and you will find that what skills
you do possess will improve greatly and quickly. Take a simple
song, and play it on your CD player a bit at a time, writing
down whatever notes you hear. Even if you aren’t sure of the
rhythms, write whatever pitches you can. If you’re stuck on a
note, find it on your guitar or piano, and then write it down.
This is the best ear training exercise there is!

Practicing your instrument is crucial to becoming a better
musician. But be certain that you don’t neglect your ear!

The voiceover business has radically changed today. This is because of the internet, digital computer-based recording studios in homes and garages and offices, weakened performers’ unions in our current climate of non-union preferences (or so it often seems), the quest for lower cost voiceover talents, and the easy-access many have to training in the voiceover skills area. All of these factors have combined to make voiceover work, today, far different than it was three (or even two or one) decades ago when I entered the marketplace.

Today, voiceover talents must have representation from broadcasting agents in many locations, not only in the U.S., but hopefully, in foreign countries too. The voiceover talent must have a digital computer-based recording studio and know how to operate it (being a capable audio engineer is a big plus!). The voiceover performer must self-promote constantly, realizing that agents are not the be-all-and-end-all of our business anymore, but rather, are helpers who assist talents. Basically, the voiceover performer must find his or her own jobs, his or her own loyal accounts. Networking is paramount in obtaining new connections and cementing former ones. Doing regular mailers and publishing ads in selected target publications is a must. A voiceover talent is an entrepreneur.

A voiceover talent is a business owner and that business is the talent’s voice!

Newcomers: Keep the faith. Old-timers, get in step with today!

Bettye Zoller is the voice of many hundreds of national TV commercials, narrator of major videos and films heard worldwide. She owns and operates a digital recording studio in her homebase, Dallas, Texas. She is an audio commercial and audio book producer. She is a Simon and Schuster audio author. She is well known as the coach who has helped so many enter broadcasting over the years. She is an authority in the voiceover demo and clients travel far to avail themselves of her expertise as a demo producer and career consultant in-person or by telephone.

In the world of music, many Jazz improvisers and Classical composers eventually venture into exploring poly-harmony within their respective art form. Poly harmony is the simultaneous sounding of more than one harmonic concept. The preponderance with poly-harmony began the late 19th-early 20th centuries with classical composers as Stravinsky and Debussy. About sixty years later, jazz musicians as John Coltrane and Richie Bierach incorporated such ideas into their music. The benefits of learning poly-chords will enhance an improviser’s repertoire of harmonic concepts. Thus they can create harmonic colorings that can influence a listener’s outlook. This article will focus on how once can practice and incorporate tertian polychords into their improvisational styles. Many of the examples and references within this article will make use of the seventh chord and triad. One should to explore other tertian harmonies such as ninths, elevenths, and all other similar formulations.

Tertian harmony is harmony that spaces its notes a third a part from other notes. Additionally, tertian harmony includes the harmonic inversion of thirds. Before one begins their exploration into poly-chords, one should be familiar with tertian harmony in its simplest terms of inversions and through a few applied patterns. From this understanding of tertian harmony through inversions and patterns and after one has accomplished or, in the least, feels comfortable with tertian harmony, one should then attempt to combine more than one chord.

The first step in gaining an understanding tertian ploychords is to write triads and 7th chords in a formulaic fashion. For example, begin by writing each major chord a major second apart (i.e. Cmaj-Dmaj, Ebmaj-Fmaj, etc.) After writing these series of chords, write out triads that are minor third apart. For example: Ebmaj-Gbmaj, Amaj-Cmaj, and all other similar progressions. As one can see from the two previous examples, one should continue this process until one has exhausted all the permutations of the triad progression. In a similar fashion, one should continue this writing exercise with seventh chords. The purpose to this writing exercise is for the musician/composer to develop a visual and intellectual connection to the concepts that they will use in a open/free musical environment.

To continue with this process of learning tertian polychords, the next step, after one has learned by rote and memorized the permutations, is to apply their understanding of poly chords to an improvisation setting. Before one begins improvising with other musicians, one should improvise alone. This will familiarize oneself with the polychords without the aid of written materials. One should strive, during this stage, to improvise with polychords without much thought. Other permutations on this stage include the improvising within a strict harmonic setting. For example, one can improvise on chords that are a minor third apart. Similarly, one can improvise on a series of polychords.

In the last stage of development, one should perform with other musicians and observe how polychords affect other musicians playing and one’s performance. During this stage, one should apply their polychord knowledge towards Jazz standards, modal tunes, or atonal standards. Each form of Jazz standard offers its own rewards and challenges. Due to the pros and cons of each form of standard, the outcome will greatly differ. In addition to performing Jazz standards, one should attempt create their original composition with polychords. Furthermore, one should attempt to re-harmonize a Jazz standard with their new understanding of polychords.

In the end, this article focused primarily on the practicing and application seventh chords and triads in a polychordal environment. One can venture into larger tertian harmonies or into other harmonic formulations, such as segundel, quartal, quintal, and all other similar formulations. During one’s venture into other tertian or non-tertian formulations, one should observe the impact polychords have on one’s and other performances. As a reminder to one’s practicing of polychords, for one to be successful at polychords, one should remain diligent in their practice and application of tertian polychords. The process of learning polychords can be tedious, but in the long run, the rewards are greater than not learning this harmonic concept. In the next article on polychords, polychord progressions and its application to composition will be discussed.

Andrew Hanna is the CEO & Production Manager of At Hand Productions, Inc. At Hand Productions is a leading Philadelphia concert and theatrical production company. Andrew Hanna has 20 years of composition experience and 16 years of performance experience. His compositions range from duets to large theatrical productions such as My Journal, Requiem for the Now, and Prophecies of War.

This article compares the differences between legal music download sites VS file sharing networks.

1) Music files available for download:

The p2p file sharing networks heavily out number the legal music sites when it comes to the amount of files available for download. A p2p application provides millions of unlimited mp3 music files, while a legal music download site provides legitimately licensed music files in the hundreds of thousands.

2) The cost of downloading music:

You can download p2p file sharing networks for free, or for a very cheap one-time fee. A legal music download site is usually either “subscription-based” or “pay-per-download”. A legal site will also usually charge extra for the ability to rip or burn music.

3) Variety of files available for download:

A legal music site mainly provides ONLY music files for downloading. A p2p application gives you, besides music files, full movie, game, video, software, TV show and ring-tone files to download as well.

4) Legal Issues & Controversy:

Legitimate legal music download sites are completely free of controversy and 100% legal to use. P2p file sharing networks, while legal, are not without lawsuit concerns and controversy due to how the file sharing technology can be used.

If you choose to use a p2p file sharing program, there are potential risks you need to be aware of, including:

Lawsuit Risks - Peer to peer file sharing networks have been ruled legal in a court of law. However, if you download and share “copyrighted material” you could risk becoming targeted, and possibly sued, by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America).

Virus And Privacy Risks - In using a file sharing application, you risk the possibility of installing harmful spyware, viruses, worms and malware on your computer. And if that’s not bad enough, many p2p applications also leave you exposed to online hackers and identity thieves that can steal you personal information.

Legal Music Download Sites VS P2P File Sharing - Summary:

At first glance the p2p file sharing networks may seem to offer an easy way to get unlimited free file downloads. But remember, nothing is really free and this is especially true with the p2p file sharing applications.

The file sharing programs come with a price of increased privacy and security threats, and potential RIAA lawsuit risks. The ONLY way to guarantee getting safe music downloads online is by using a legitimately licensed music site that provides downloads of music legally licensed from the record labels and artists themselves.

Article by Anna Rowe, webmaster of 1st Free Music Download .com that provides music download site reviews and quality online music download solutions. Sign-up for a Free Mp3 mini-course that details critical facts about downloading music online.