JamStudio launches new, improved online music creation engine

JamStudio has announced the re-launch of its popular online music creation engine. The new look, version 2.0 site features a music arranger/mixer, providing a virtual band for music creation and songwriting, with new music libraries allowing a wide range of song styles to be created.

JamStudio.com allows musicians and songwriters to hear songs played by a full band and try out styles, tempos, and chord progressions. Songwriters are able to compose backing tracks or demos for producers to hear how the artist envisions the end product. In addition, the site allows students to practice music theory, chord progressions and music production.

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Piano Wizard versus Piano Hero

We’ve already covered the Piano Wizard software, and now Pianologist has written a comparison of Piano Wizard and Piano Hero.
What’s interesting is that it introduces Piano Wizard PREMIER, a more expensive package that allows unlimited download and learning of music in MIDI file format.

If you have any experience of either piece of software, you can leave your comments there.

Music Mini Course: Learn The Basics Of Reading Music On A Keyboard Instrument

Welcome to the wonderful world of music. As you begin reading this Music Mini Course it is fun to realize that you are also participating in a very important cultural aspect from around the world which has been going on for centuries. Did you know that pianos in some form have been around for over 500 years? Some of the first instruments of this kind were created in the late Medieval Period and were called clavichords. They had a very light, metallic sound because the small hand-pounded ‘hammers’ were made of very light weight metal-like material. These hammers struck strings of varying lengths to create different tones or pitches. The next cousin to the clavichord was the harpsichord invented by Cristofori in Italy around 1450 A.D. This keyboard instrument had a mechanism in it called the plecktrum which ‘plucked’ the strings and produced a slightly stronger sound than its predecessor. Whether you are playing an acoustic instrument, which is the closest relative to the history just mentioned, or an electronic keyboard, you are now participating in a centuries old musical art form. [Read more]