Dear Musicians, One way in which gigs on cruise ships are different from gigs on land is that you’ll have to travel far with your gear. If you take lots of it, you will almost certainly be charged big bucks by the airlines and you’ll run the risk that they’ll damage it. Regardless of the [...]

Dear musicians, Just because you’re at sea doesn’t mean you have to stop being creative. If you’re planning to record some of your song ideas the minute they pop into your head, you need a flexible recording device with you. Korg just announced their “Sound on sound” multi-track recorder, that’s small enough to fit in [...]

Dear musicians, I’m always on the lookout for gear that either makes it easier or more fun to perform on the road, and I’ve come across a gadget that definitely delivers. TC Electronics has introduced it’s new guitar and bass tuner “PolyTune“. It’s called that because it let’s you strum all of your strings at [...]

Dear Musicians, I assume you have an iPhone by now and that you’re looking to add some useful apps to it. Well, I can help out with a quick tip about an app that’s definitely going to be of use. Guitar Toolkit is a great app made by a company called Agile Partners. The toolkit [...]

Dear Musicians, With the apps you can install on your iPhone, you can turn your phone into a flashlight, a metronome, a piano, an ocarina and even a radio. Today I’ll talk about the latter. My favorite radio iPhone app is called “Tuner” by Nullriver. The app is not free and compared to some of [...]

Playing in time is one of the fundamental aspects of musical technique. When playing with others in a group, having a great sense of time is even more critical, especially if you are laying down the foundation of a band’s groove on the bass or the drums. Bands playing in certain genres with strict, regimented [...]

It’s happened to almost any professional musician – you plug in at a new venue and are treated to a wall of noise and hum from your amps and speakers. It’s frustrating, and of course the sound engineers on site are rarely willing to admit that their building is feeding you dirty power, no matter [...]

Hardware effects have ruled the guitar universe for a very long time. Since the late 60’s, guitarists have been experimenting with devices that promise to alter the signal coming from their instrument into something wonderful and unique – or at least, loud and obnoxious. This has lead to an entire industry devoted to producing stomp [...]

Anyone who has every performed a live gig knows how much of a beating equipment can take, especially if you are playing night after night. Most musicians consider their instruments to be precious extensions of their own bodies, and treat them almost like children – wiping them down after use, wrapping them in soft cloth [...]

Dear Musicians, Recording yourself can reveal some glaring deficiencies in your playing and it is without a doubt one of the best tools to take inventory of where you are in your quest for excellency and where you should be headed. Back in the days, people were satisfied with simply hitting the play and record [...]

Dear Musicians, One thing you may not be considering when embarking on a cruise ship career is that you’ll be battling the elements. At Sea, the humidity and the salt contribute to lighting fast corrosion and before you know it, your instrument may not work properly anymore. Especially, caribbean bands that play near the pool [...]

Us musicians work hard at acquiring the necessary tools we need to be able to express ourselves properly through music. Once we acquire these tools it would be a shame to lose them. This is where my beloved friend the iPhone comes in (again). The iPhone lets you download applications from the “appstore” that add [...]