Almost everyone has heard about the massive crack down on Internet music piracy that has been occurring over the past few years. Napster was taken down (although it has now returned as a pay service), other file sharing programs now require users to pay for a license and the RIAA and other similar organizations are doing their best to hunt down copyright offenders and put an end to their crime sprees. The consumers on the other hand argue that their actions hurt nobody, that there is no damage done to anyone by their not buying an album. Furthermore, they claim, MP3s allow them to sample a CD before purchasing it, thus actually helping sales.

I’m not here to argue the pros and cons. Basically it’s not worth it, as neither side of the argument will ever see the opposition’s point of view. What I’d like to do is take a look at the completely free and legal alternative to ’stealing’ music. Those wonderfully talented musicians who are willing to put their creations online to download for free, solely for the joy of spreading their creations to the masses.

Free music is surprisingly easy to come by, even music by famous bands. Sometimes it needs to be ’streamed’ from the Internet, meaning that you can only listen to a song while you’re online, but with the ever-growing popularity of broadband Internet this is really no longer a problem. Sites such as MP3.com and purevolume.com provide free music by almost any band you can think of, although there is a large amount of it that has to be streamed and not downloaded. A search for ‘free legal MP3 downloads’ will reveal a huge number of pages to visit.

For something specific, try visiting the artist’s website, or the site of their record label. These will often offer a few sample tracks to download for free. It’s not quite as convenient as having access to every song that you want, but it’s not a bad alternative.

But how about we forget about the mainstream for just a while and move towards the alternative? Towards the hopefuls, the talented bands that have yet to be ‘noticed’. There are a huge number of these smaller bands out there that are sticking their stuff online for any and all to listen to, just so that they can be heard. These can be easier to find, because most MP3 sites will be filled with these smaller acts. A great place to start is http://www.garageband.com/ or the aforementioned http://purevolume.com

The great thing about smaller bands is that you can often find bands that come from your local area and then go and see them play live. Being able to see a favourite band live more than once a year (or lifetime) without expending huge amounts of money and time is pretty cool. Many music search engines will let you search for bands of a particular genre in a particular area, which makes it all quite easy.

A fairly major contributor to the online music scene is the remixer. These people take other tunes and redo them, often in a techno style because one person can do this competently. Chief among the tunes selected to be remixed are those old ditties that used to play through the simplest of sound chips on now aging consoles: the video game theme songs. People now go and grab the main tune line from an old favourite and fill it out, making real the work our imaginations used to do for us to turn the single tone melodies into orchestral masterpieces. A few good places to start are http://remix.kwed.org and http://remix.overclocked.org as well as a personal favourite band http://machinaesupremacy.com

I hope this has given you something to think about. It’s not hard to come across illegal MP3 rips, in fact it’s often hard to avoid them, but if you give the free music scene a look you may find something completely different and new that will really do it for you. With web hosts already being penalized hugely for illegal content being stored on their servers (having an entire server taken down because of one inconsiderate user is damaging and irritating beyond belief) and moves being made to charge ISPs for the content being accessed by their users, it makes more sense than ever to get out there and grab yourself an awesomely original and completely legal music collection.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Daniel Punch
M6.Net Web Hosting
http://www.m6.net
Daniel Punch is a University student gathering a large music collection to keep himself going during those long nights of ’study’ (also known as ‘playing video games’)

Hello! Welcome to the wonderful world of music. Have you always dreamed of being able to learn how to play the piano, keyboard, guitar or any other instrument? Well, your dream is just about to come true with this Free Music eCourse. This dream of yours is not something so far away that it cannot become a reality in a very short while.

Did you know that pianos in some form have been around for over 500 years? Some of the first instruments of this kind 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.

MUSICAL TERMS
Let’s begin our musical study with a review of the main musical terms you will need to be familiar with to proceed with your music education.
BAR LINE – A vertical line which separates notes into groups
DOUBLE BAR LINE – A set of two (2) vertical lines which stand for the end of a piece of music
REPEAT SIGN – Double bar with two dots at the end of a section or piece of music which indicates that section is to be played twice.
MEASURE – The distance between two bar lines.
TREBLE CLEF – Called the G Clef in times passed, this G-shaped symbol stands for notes played with the right hand.
BASS CLEF – The reversed C-shaped symbol which stand for notes played with the left hand.
STAFF – The five lines and four spaces of both the bass and treble clefs.
QUARTER NOTE – Musical symbol with solid note head and stem which gets one count.
QUARTER REST – Musical symbol resembling a sideways W which gets one count.
HALF NOTE – Musical symbol with hollow note head and stem which gets two counts.
HALF REST – Solid half block sitting on third line of the staff which gets two counts of silence.
DOTTED HALF NOTE – Musical symbol with hollow note head, dot and stem which gets three counts.
WHOLE NOTE – Musical symbol resembling a circle on the staff which gets four counts.
WHOLE REST – Solid half block hanging from the second line on the staff which gets four counts of silence. CHORD – Two or more notes played together.
BLOCKED CHORD – Two or more notes played at the same time
BROKEN CHORD – Two or more notes from the same chord played in sequence INTERVALS – The distance between two notes on the musical staff
INTRODUCTION TO THE WHITE KEYS

There are only seven (7) letter names used on the piano:

A B C D E F G

It is interesting to note here that no matter what instrument you play, whether it is piano, tuba or violin, ONLY the seven letter names above are used in the entire realm of music!

There are two very easy ways to visualize and remember the names of the white keys on your piano and keyboard. Remember, the note names on an electronic keyboard are the same as on the acoustic piano.
Since it is not possible to include a graphic in this format, simply remember that the ‘CDE’ note groups in always located directly underneath the two black note group. The letter name ‘D’ in the white key always located directly inbetween the two black key note groups. ANY TWO BLACK NOTE GROUP on the piano has the letter name ‘D’ as the white key located inbetween them.

Go to your keyboard NOW and start to play all of the C-D-E groups from the lowest (bottom left) to the highest (top right) on your keyboard.
Say C – D – E as you play each key.

Now we will learn about the F – G – A – B note groups. Simply located any three black note group on your piano or keyboard and realize that the F-G-A-B white keys are located directly beneath them. Directly outside of the three black note groups are ‘F’ on the left hand side of the three black note group and ‘B’ on the right hand side of the three black note group. Just fill in the outer ‘F’ and ‘B’ with G and A and you are done!

Go to your piano or keyboard NOW and find all of the F-G-A-G white keys underneath each three black note group. As above, play slowly and evenly saying the letter names as you play the F-G-A-B groups from the bottom of the piano or keyboard (low left hand end) to the top of your piano or keyboard (top right hand end).

Congratulations! You now know ALL of the white key names on the piano!

,,TREBLE CLEF NOTE NAMES

Both the Treble and Bass clefs each have five lines and four spaces. Learning the actual note names of each line and space (the spaces between each line) is very simple. Please memorize the sentences below for the Treble Clef Line and Space Notes:

Treble Clef Line Notes(starting from the bottom line and moving up)

EGBDF

Every Good Boy Does Fine (the first letter of each word helps you remember the order of the notes)

Treble Clef Space Notes (starting from the first space and going up

FACE

Just remember that the treble clef spaces spell the word ‘FACE’.

Bass Clef Line and Space Notes are as follows:
Line Notes: GBDFA
Great Big Dogs Fight Animalsb
Space Notes: ACEG

All Cars Eat Gas
Now you know all the names of the white keys on your piano or keyboard. You also learned today the acutal letter names of each line and space on both the treble and bass clefs

BASICS OF RHYTHM
Both the Quarter Note and the Quarter Rest get one beat. The Quarter Note has a filled in note head and a stem. The Quarter Rest is a vertical musical symbol which resembles a ‘W’ turned on its side.
The Quarter note symbol stands for a note that is played for the length of one beat. In other words, play any key on your instrument right now and simply hold it down while you say ‘one’. It is what we would call a short note.
The Quarter rest is a musical symbol which stands for one beat of silence.
In other words, beats of silence in music are counted just like beats of sound. The only difference between these two musical symbols is that there is complete sound for one beat during a Quarter Note and complete silence for one beat during a Quarter rest in music.

CHORDS

A chord is defined as two or more notes from a scale played together at the same time. Chords may be played in either blocked chord form or broken chord form. A blocked chord simply means that two or more notes are played at the same time. A broken chord is created when that blocked chord is just played one note after the other in sequence.

The first chord we will study is the C Major chord. The notes of the C Major chord are C, E and G. Try this C Major Chord Exercise by placing fingers 1, 3 and 5 of each hand down on your desk or table top right now(remember that the thumb is finger number 1, the middle finger is number 3 and proceed to the pinky finger which is finger number 5). Press down all three fingers (1,3 and 5) at the same time. You have just played the C Major BLOCKED chord. Use this same table top method right now and similarly press down each finger 1,3 and 5 in sequence (one after the other) to create a BROKEN chord.

SPECIAL TIP** Remember, a chord with stems up means the right hand is playing and a chord with stems down means the left hand is playing the chord.

ALL ABOUT INTERVALS
An Interval is defined as the distance between two notes (Refer to Chapter 2 of this course: Musical Terms). The first interval to consider is the interval of a Second, notated as ‘2nd’. The second is also referred to as a ’step’ in music reading because it is the distance you can travel on your keyboard or piano from one key to the very next key.
It is important to learn to read music by INTERVAL rather than by FINGER NUMBER because the fingerings will not be available on all pieces of music that you encounter. Also, learning to read music by interval enables you to be a much more well rounded pianist because you can start on any given note and read your way through any piece of music. If you concentrated too much on just C Position or Middle C Position, you would soon become less able to read notes in other areas of the staff.
Now look at the series of letter names below. This series of letters corresponds with your piano or keyboard. Keys C, D and E are in that sequence right next to each other on your keyboard. Moving from one note to the next either up or down in a sequential manner is moving by Seconds. This exercise is written is centered around the concept of the Second, or step. Place your right hand thumb (finger number 1) on a table top or on your keyboard in front of you. Your thumb will be resting on C, your second finger will be resting on D and your third finger will be resting on E. You will be playing interval or distances of a Second throughout this exercise. Be sure to practice this exercise two different ways:
1. Say the Letter Names as you play. 2. Say ‘Step up’ or ‘Step Down’ as it is written on the music.
EXERCISE USING AN INTERVAL OF A ‘SECOND’
C D E D / C D E D / E D C D / E D C D / C D E D /

DYNAMIC MARKINGS

The vehicle for expression in music comes through the context of dynamic markings. Since the Italians were the ones to first write marks of expression in their music as well as print the first music manuscripts on paper, all of the marks of expression or dynamics are from Italian words. Please look over the list of dynamic markings below and familiarize yourself with them. This is by no means an exhaustive list. Only those basic symbols are included here that pertain to the pieces within the Play Piano Now piano course.
DYNAMIC MARKINGS START WITH SOFT AND GO TO LOUDEST:
Piano – Italian word for soft. symbol used in music: p
Pianissimo – Very soft; symbold used: pp
Mezzo Forte – Medium Loud; symbol used: mf
Forte – Loud; symbol used: f Fortissimo – Very Loud; symbol used: ff
Crescendo – Gradually getting louder; symbol used: < Decrescendo - Gradually getting softer; symbol used: >
You can also learn more about the Play Piano Now piano course at: http://www.MakingMusicNow.com

About the Author

Jan Durrant is the author/composer of the Play Piano Now piano courses. She holds a Master’s Degree in Music from the University of Texas at San Antonio in Texas. She has over 25 years experience in both public and private school music teaching. She is a member of the MTNA (Music Teachers National Association), the National Guild of Piano Teachers and the Conroe Music Teachers Association in southeast Texas.

Playing by ear is the ability to play a piece of music (or, eventually, learn an instrument) by simply listening to it repeatedly. The majority of self-taught musicians began their education this way; they picked up their instrument and began playing an easy melody from a well-known song, slowly picking out the notes as they went along. And even after these musicians master their instruments or a particular song, playing by ear still plays a large role. Many pop and rock bands don’t play or write their songs based on sheet music, they figure the songs out by playing by ear. It’s even common among non-musicians. Ever sit down a piano and mindlessly pick out the tune to “Mary Had a Little Lamb”? What about grabbing a guitar and suddenly finding yourself playing the opening licks to “Smoke on the Water”? That’s playing by ear. You’re able to play part of the song just because you’ve heard it so often.

Since music is basically composed of 3 elements – melody, rhythm, and harmony, it is logical that there are also 3 basic steps to learning to play music by ear:

1.Charting the contour of the melody. Tunes move higher and lower – up and down – as the song progresses. Being aware of that movement is the first step. Once you mentally define the parameters of the melody, you can then begin to hone in on picking it out on your instrument. As an example, think of “Joy To The World”. We’ve all sung it a zillion times, but have you ever noticed that the melody moves down exactly 8 steps (an octave), then gradually moves back up in increments, then repeats the down movement, etc. The entire melody is contained within those 8 notes, so you now know the parameters of the song and can begin to pick out the melody intelligently.

2.Harmonizing the melody with matching chords. The second element of music is harmony, and you can harmonize any melody just by matching the supporting chords to that melody. For example, if the melody is a “G”, you can harmonize that melody by using a chord with G in it, such as the G chord (G, B, D), the C chord (C, E, G), or the Em chord (E, G, B), or the Eb chord (Eb, G, Bb) and so forth. By using your ear to guide you, you can learn to harmonize the melody of most any song using matching chords.

3.Using an appropriate rhythm that matches the feel of the song. This is usually the easiest part, since most people “feel” the beat and don’t have to do any mental gymnastics to come up with an appropriate rhythm for a song. But for those of us that might be “rhythmically challenged”, just by knowing that there are basically two meters available – duple meter and triple meter — that can be combined in infinite combinations, we can give the song either a “3” feeling (like a waltz or a jazz waltz) or a “4” feeling (like swing or a march or a ballad).

Playing by ear is a valuable technique for many musicians; learning songs based solely on hearing them is a great way to understand song and chord structure. In fact, a great number of rock and pop musicians learned to play their instruments this way. Instead of picking up a book or taking lessons, they concentrated on figuring out the notes and rhythms to a song until it was mastered. Then they moved on to another song. And another.

Gradually, they learned their instrument just by playing by ear — and in the process learned how to effectively structure a song in that particular genre. Playing by ear is also beneficial in helping a musician develop his or her own style; sure, they’ll at first mimic the style of the song they’re imitating, but the amalgamation of the music that they’re playing by ear will help them create something distinctive, something indicative of them only.

About the Author

Duane Shinn is the author of over 500 music courses for adults. His book-CD-DVD course titled “How To Play Piano By Ear Using Chords!” at www.pianoplayingbyear.com has sold over 30,000 copies around the world. He is the author of the popular free 101-week online e-mail newsletter titled “Amazing Secrets Of Exciting Piano Chords & Sizzling Chord Progressions” available from www.playpiano.com

Most of you have probably heard of the RIAA’s quest to crush online music piracy. The illegal sharing of copyrighted songs via the MP3 format over the Internet costs the music industry billions of dollars. This is conventionally done using illegal file sharing programs like KaZaa and iMesh. This article explores the legal ways to download and enjoy music from the Internet.

Method 1: Check out Free Music Sites

There are many free music websites which provide free music downloads. These are not the websites of your music pirates – they are totally legal. Don’t expect to find full albums to download, particularly if the song is from a famous artist (only music pirate websites allow full album downloads). You’ll only find a few “teasers” intended to make you want to buy the artists’ CD. Independent, less well-known artists are an exception – many of them will let you down their complete song catalog to promote themselves.

Here are a few of the free music websites which I recommend:

* AMPCAST.com
* Amazon.com Digital Music Downloads
* RollingStone.com
* ElectronicScene.com
* The Internet Underground Music Archive

Method 2: Buy Music Online

An increasingly popular way to find and download music online is to head for legal online music services. The most popular of these is the Apples iTune service. Currently it provides over 400,000 songs from all five major labels. Each song is available for a standard price of 99 cents each. Here are the best online music services I’ve come across:

* EMusic.com
* iTunes
* MusicMatch Downloads
* Napster 2.0
* Rhapsody
* Weblisten.com

Conclusion

It is very tempting to use KaZaa and other file sharing programs to download music – but please don’t. If you wrote a song and sold a CD, would you be happy to see millions of people distributing that song for free? No. You don’t have to break the law to find and download free MP3 music. There are many websites out there offering free music – you just need to find them.

Gary Hendricks – http://digital-music-guide.com
gary_hendricks@digital-music-guide.com