Some Ideas on Ways to Make a Living With Your Musical Skills

Of course change being the only constant, the music industry has changed into a new landscape of opportunity for independent music. Independent artists can now use the internet to share and sell their music, making them an enterprise in themselves. And being enterprising, it may be worth considering how your musical skills could generate more income for you. There are many transferable skills you are not even aware you have and you could be paid for.

There are many opportunities working as a creative facilitator working in mainstream primary and secondary schools and in schools with children with special needs. This may entail writing a song or learn to play an instrument and often leads to a performance or recording. This work is really interesting if you enjoy working with kids and young people and find it rewarding to watch them learn, express their voice and be creative. Other creative facilitator or community musician projects can be working in other contexts such as prisons, community centres and in theatres.

Being a musician you may also be able to teach others one to one how to learn and instrument. This can generate considerable income and you can advertise locally in shops and online for free to find new pupils. Again it helps to be patient, remember what is was like to learn your instrument/craft and be able to break down the steps of development into manageable tasks for your students. You may use a computer to make music, and passing on how to use music software can be much in demand.

You could advertise your musical skills as a session musician - playing music for different musicians and producers in recording studios or for live shows. This can also be a lucrative hourly rate. Contact local recording studios and rehearsal rooms and tell them of your enthusiasm and ability. Be sure to be reliable and friendly and you may get called in on a regular basis - I know of studios who always call on the same drummer and string quartet because they like working with them and they get the job done well.

You may have been recording your music for years to an acceptable standard to sell your independent music at gigs or concerts. You could then offer to be a recording engineer for other musicians you know - especially if you have the equipment and a recording space already set up. This could easily become a nice form of income if word of mouth recommendations come your way. You can also do take an intensive audio engineering course to make sure your skills as a recording engineer are up to a professional standard. If you enjoy engineering it opens you up to so many more musical styles and approaches so you can be expanding as a musician too.

Collaborating can also be rewarding and fruitful financially. You can advertise for and find other musicians to collaborate with, and their complementary skills or style may make music that is more likely to sell as independent music or mean that you may get paid for performing live. I know vocalist friends who work in cover bands that do very well on the wedding and functions circuit. Again it is all practice and you may just get to play and/or sing your favourite music. You could also consider building a portfolio of making music for dance, theatre and film.

So if you are a skilled musician or one of the more independent artists making creative music, you could find other avenues of income to allow you to be making music and learning about music part of your career.

Caro Churchill aka caro snatch is a female solo producer of creative music. She is also a creative facilitator working in school and community settings enabling others to make music.

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How to Select a Great Movie to Watch

Sometimes you just feel like a girls' or a blokes' night in, and so comes the question of how to select a great movie to watch. My friend Sam always told us that a group of three people should never go into a DVD rental store at the same time, because you'll end up being there for hours and never really decide on which movies to hire.

When we're selecting movies, we never go for the latest releases, because you pay a premium rate for movies that are new to the DVD shelves.

If you always select the movies that have been around for a while, then guess what? You have your own selection of "new" movies to choose from after a few months sincehat time the latest releases are down graded to recent releases at a discounted price. Not only do you save yourself some money, but you've also got a much better chance of having the "pick of the bunch" of the recent releases.

Here's a list of things to help you decide how to select a great movie to watch:

1. Selection by a theme

Whether it's a blokes night or a chicks night, you can decide a theme. Some great chick flicks include the "Bonnet Movies" the genre of Jane Austin's "Pride and Prejudice", "Emma" and so on.

For the blokes you may select the "X-Men" series, James Bond or such like.

2. Selection by Actor or Actress

Often we'll sit and watch a bunch of Russell Crowe or Nicole Kidman movies, you may have some favorite actors and actresses that will help you in your choice of movies to watch.

3. Selection by Genre

There's some great movies to motivate young sports players, such as Basketball, Baseball, or Grid Iron movies. You may be a fan of horror movies, romantic comedies, or action thrillers.

4. True Stories

They say that there's nothing stranger than real life, and when Hollywood screen writers are looking at new ideas for movie storylines, they often turn to taking historical events and making some great movies.

Within the category of true stories you still have a wonderful selection of movies to watch about sporting heroes, national heroes, and even ordinary folk that have done some extraordinary things.

5. Selection by ratings

When selecting a great movie to watch, you need to consider the audience, as this can help with your decision making. If you are choosing movies for a bunch of young children then it's generally a good idea to have watched those movies yourself first, so that you don't have any surprises that could shock or scare the children.

6. Choosing a Foreign Language Movie

Whilst there's a whole heap of great English Language movies, there's also some fantastic foreign language movies that deserve your attention.

Do not be afraid to consider foreign films just because they have subtitles. After the first few minutes of watching a foreign movie and reading the subtitles you soon get drawn into the movie and almost "forget" that you are not listening to English.

7. Word of Mouth

We've never really found that personal referrals of movie titles from our friends have been of much benefit. Everybody has different tastes, and just because one person doesn't like a particular movie doesn't necessarily mean that you will not enjoy it.

This is often true with media movie critics. We've all heard stories about movies that have been slammed by the critics only to become box office successes.

There's plenty of other ways to decide how to select a great movie to watch that include watching the previews or movie trailers, as well as watching movie review shows on TV and the internet.

The best thing about selecting a great movie is that there's so much choice and so many opinions these days. As each year passes more movies are released and there's still many of the good old favorites around, so sit back, relax and disappear into your own movie world, having made your own selection of great movies to watch.

Jenny Newgate has been a movie fan for many years

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What Is a Beatmaker Application?

A beatmaker application is a computer program designed to do the hard work that a producer usually does, namely making beats for whichever type of music your into. Not only do you get to control everything right down to the smallest sample but they help you do everything fast, easily and as cost effectively as possible.

This type of software allows you to create professional sounding beats without the need of a studio and expensive production equipment. Furthermore you will be able to churn out more music faster than would be possible with standard beat making tools. More music produced equals greater chance of earning more money.

If you are new to producing your own beats you will want to do your research and find a beatmaker application that will be efficient and easy to use. Finding one that comes with a tutorial that teaches you the basics while you slowly hone your skills would be a good choice.

There are a large amount of beatmakers available online and they vary in price from free to upwards of a thousand dollars. One thing to keep in mind is that no matter the cost all these softwares basically do the same thing. While the free and thousand dollar versions may do the same thing they differ greatly with sound quality, ease of use, functionality and generally every part of the application. If you are just starting out you will probably want to choose a low end version. There are many beatmaker applications that can be found for around thirty dollars. While these wont be as fancy as the more expensive ones they are more than serviceable and will do any job you need them to do.

These lower end beatmakers are very easy to use and allow you to create high quality beats in a short amount of time. This ease of use is important, you don't want to be wasting time switching through applications. Most of these will come with a video or pdf tutorial. One with a video would be a better choice, being shown exactly how to do something is much better than reading it and trying to do it yourself. Either way you can't go wrong with this type of software they will save you time and money. Beatmaker applications are obviously the way to go.

Choose carefully, pick the right software and you will be able to make professional sounding beats in the comfort of your own home.

Beatmaker applications allow you to make high quality beats without the need of a studio or expensive equipment.They can be found now online for fairly cheap with top notch sound quality. http://eazye123.blogspot.com/2011/08/dubturbo-review-best-beat-making.html

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