Which DAW should I buy?

June 15, 2010

Graeme guides us through the pros and cons of four of the most popular Digital Audio Workstations; Garageband, Cubase, Logic and Pro Tools

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Want to play rock piano? Here are some tips…

June 13, 2010

…none of which are really very complicated. Basically, if you want to play rock piano it’s a question of having (and working on) a good rhythmic sense and really knowing your chord shapes.

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How To Make Your Home Recordings Sound Better

May 17, 2010

Graeme Allen talkes us through a few simple EQ and compression tips to get a more professional sounding home recording.

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Blues and boogie woogie piano - 10 tips

May 15, 2010

I made this as a bit of fun the other afternoon - ten tips if you’re trying to improve your twelve bar skills.

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Blues piano lick in C

May 12, 2010

Here’s a quick blues lick in C that’s very flexible and handy for all kinds of blues styles. It stays within a single octave, so you don’t need to move your hand much…

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Mulgrew Miller on comping

May 10, 2010

This is a really cool short vid of Mulgrew Miller talking about the art of comping, how to practice it and how to do it well.

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Jazz piano improvisation exercise in C minor

May 6, 2010

Want to get started on jazz and blues improvisation on piano or keyboard? In this nine-minute vid I go over a really good exercise which will teach you some basics

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Update, and cool GarageBand stuff

April 23, 2010

Just a quick post to update regulars on where things are going with Jamcast. If you’re a subscriber, you’ll notice that I’ve been spending the past few weeks posting backdated material to tie in with my new book

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The suspended fourth chord

February 10, 2010

The suspended fourth chord (written “sus” or “sus4″) is used pretty extensively in contemporary ballad and indie-type sounds - it crops up a lot in songs by people like Coldplay, Ben Folds, Snow Patrol and others.

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Augmented chords

February 7, 2010

Augmented chords are relatively rare, especially if you’re playing the kind of progressions associated with blues and rock’n'roll. However, they crop up a reasonable amount in jazz and classic showtunes…

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