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Collapse of Silvergate and Silicon Valley Bank represent a challenge for cryptoThe fire lit by Silvergate Bank and Silicon Valley Bank will make it harder for crypto to find financial partners.
SoundExchange Joins Human Artistry Campaign to Protect Royalty Payments for CreatorsSoundExchange, the premier music-tech organization, powering the future of music, announced during SXSW 2023 in Austin, Texas, the founding of the Human Artistry CampAIgn along with more than 40 organizations, including the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), The Recording Academy, AFL-CIO, and SAG-AFTRA.
The coalition brings together organizations from music and other industries potentially impacted by artificial intelligence (AI) and outlines foundational principles for supporting human creativity while embracing opportunities presented by AI.
“Artificial intelligence is a powerful, still-emerging technology that presents unique challenges as it matures in the creative arts space,” said Michael Huppe, President and CEO of SoundExchange. “We embrace the responsible use of AI as a tool that spurs the continuing evolution of human-created works. At the same time, recent advancements in AI have underscored the need to develop consensus on responsible use and to address important intellectual property concerns. Our culture and our technology must respect the foundational role that all creators play in AI’s ultimate output.”
Organizations interested in signing the petition can do so at www.humanartistrycampaign.com.
France is ‘struggling’ to reach the paid subscription levels of other major music markets. Is TikTok partly to blame?SNEP report highlights slowdown in subscription streaming growth in key global territory
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RIAA and over 30 other groups launch AI campaign to support human creativitySignatories include the RIAA, the Recording Academy, SAG-AFTRA, SoundExchange and more
SourceThe Ultimate Guide to Pentatonic Voicings for Jazz Pianists: An Interactive CourseIntroduction
Pentatonic voicings are a valuable tool for jazz pianists and arrangers, as demonstrated by masters such as McCoy Tyner, Chick Corea, and Herbie Hancock. They provide a fresh perspective on voicings and can add depth and interest to your playing.
In this interactive PDF course, Pentatonic Voicings by mDecks Music, you’ll learn how to build and practice these essential voicings, and add them to your playing arsenal. With step-by-step video lessons and exercises accompanied by backing tracks, you’ll gain the skills and confidence to incorporate these versatile voicings into your own playing.
What are Pentatonic Voicings?
Traditionally, we think of chords as being built by stacking thirds or fourths. While this is a tried and true method for building voicings, there’s another way to think about it. By using the minor pentatonic scale as a source scale and building voicings by skips, we can create a new type of voicing, known as pentatonic voicings.
These voicings are unique and can add a fresh sound to your playing. By using pentatonic voicings, you’ll be able to create a new palette of sounds that you can draw from when playing jazz standards.
How to Use this Book
Pentatonic Voicings by mDecks Music is an interactive PDF course that contains video lessons and exercises with backing tracks. You can access all of the material from within the PDF. To view related videos, simply click on the QR codes provided.
Start by watching the introductory videos where you’ll learn the theory behind pentatonic voicings, why they are useful, and how to approach them in this course.
Demo Lesson from the Pentatonic Voicings course
How the course is organized
Substructure Studies
In this section, you’ll learn the building blocks of pentatonic voicings. You’ll learn how to transform voicings and create exercises to help you internalize the concept. From quartals and 3rds to inversions of triads and more.
Minor Pentatonic Voicings
Next, you’ll dive into minor pentatonic voicings. You’ll learn how to build them and how to play them in various keys. You’ll also learn exercises to help you practice these voicings.
Voicings Transformation Exercise
Learn how to transform voicings to create new sounds. Voicing transformations will show you a path to new pentatonic scales, which are explored further later in the course.
Mixolydian Exercise
Here, you’ll learn how to build voicings using the mixolydian scale. This is the “McCoy Tyner Sound”.
Demo Lesson from the Pentatonic Voicings course
Other Pentatonic Source Scales
In this section, you’ll learn how to build voicings using other pentatonic scales, which are transformations of the minor pentatonic, such as: the Minor Pentatonic b1, the Minor Pentatonic b5 and the Minor Pentatonic #1
Diminished Voicings
The pentatonic scale and its transformations do not offer a good set of voicings for diminished chords. In this section, you’ll learn how to build diminished voicings that match the style of the pentatonic voicings.
Cadences
The book also includes a section on cadences, which are an essential part of any jazz musician’s vocabulary. Cadences are the musical phrases that signal the end of a section or the end of a tune. In this section, you’ll learn how to use pentatonic voicings to create effective cadences that will add depth and interest to your playing.
Upper Structures & Top-note Charts
One of the most powerful techniques used by jazz musicians is the concept of upper structures. This is a way of creating complex and interesting harmonies by layering one chord on top of another. In this section, you’ll learn how to use pentatonic voicings as upper structures, and how to read the top-note charts that will help you quickly find and play these voicings in any key.
Piano Arrangements
The book also includes several piano arrangements of classic jazz tunes, including “Here’s That Rainy Day,” “When I Fall in Love,” and “I’ll Remember Clifford.” These arrangements are designed to showcase the pentatonic voicings you’ve learned throughout the course, and will help you integrate them into your playing in a practical way.
Comping Etude
Finally, the book concludes with a comping etude that will allow you to practice all of the techniques you’ve learned in a musical context. The etude features a simple chord progression, and will give you the opportunity to experiment with different pentatonic voicings and explore their musical possibilities.
Conclusion
If you’re looking for a comprehensive guide to pentatonic voicings, this book/course from mDecks Music is an excellent resource. With detailed explanations, clear demonstrations, and practical exercises, you’ll learn how to build and use these voicings in a variety of musical contexts. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced jazz musician, this course will help you take your playing to the next level. So why wait? Visit mDecks.com and start exploring the world of pentatonic voicings today!
7-Step Exercise to Improve Your Bebop Skills: Learning Charlie Parker’s “Confirmation”Are you a jazz musician looking to improve your improvisation skills and develop your bebop techniques? If so, learning Charlie Parker’s “Confirmation” is a great place to start. In this blog post, we’ll take you through a 7-step exercise that will help you achieve these goals.
We’ve created an entire video with slow and fast versions of each step so you can play along. We’ve also included two backing tracks (slow & fast) for you to practice. The complete PDF is available on the mDecks Music Youtube Channel on their “Exclusive Access” membership tab. They have amazing content with hundreds of lessons like this one. You can join here: Join mDecks “Exclusive Access”
Charlie Parker’s Confirmation 7-Step Exercise explained step-by-step
Let’s take a look at the 7-step exercise outlined in the video:
Step 1 and 2 involve playing the broken chords up in root position and inversions, respectively, focusing on target notes. These exercises help you gain a solid understanding of the chord structure of the tune, which is essential for improvisation.
Step 1: Broken chords up in root position Begin by playing the basic chords of the tune in root position, but instead of playing them all at once, play them one note at a time. This is known as playing broken chords.
Step 2: Broken chord up in inversions (think of target notes) Next, play the broken chords in inversions, and focus on hitting target notes as you play each chord.
Step 3 and 4 help you build speed and agility by playing the broken chords in ascending and descending order. These exercises help you gain dexterity in your fingers and become more comfortable moving around the chords.
Step 3: Up then down Play the broken chords in ascending order, then descend back down the chords in the same order.
Step 4: Down then up Now, do the opposite of step 3. Descend the chords, and then ascend back up in the same order.
Step 5 is all about playing the notes in an angular and broken pattern, focusing on key target notes. This step helps you break away from the strict chord structure and adds an interesting element to your playing.
Step 6 is where you add chromaticism to your playing. You’ll approach the first note of the chord from one half-step below, giving your playing a more sophisticated sound.
Step 7 is the most advanced step, where you add enclosures to your playing. By trapping a note with notes above and below before resolving to the target note, you’ll create a more complex sound. You’ll also learn how to anticipate the enclosure by adding both diatonic and chromatic notes.
Once you’ve completed all seven steps, it’s time to practice “free play,” where you can take the skills you’ve learned and improvise over the tune in your unique way.
By following this 7-step exercise, you’ll improve your bebop skills and get closer to the sound of Charlie Parker. This exercise is an excellent way to develop your jazz musicianship and improvisation skills, and is a fundamental part of any jazz education. So grab your instrument and start practicing!
If you’re looking for a great book with a collection of bebop lines in all keys, backing tracks and a more advanced approach, check out Bebop Lines You Should Know.
This book is an essential guide for anyone who wants to master bebop improvisation. It covers everything from basic to advanced concepts like Chromatic Approaches, Enclosures, Scale Combinations, Lick Transformations, and Beat Targeting.The book also includes a collection of bebop lines from legendary artists like Bud Powell, Kenny Barron, Wynton Kelly, and Bill Evans, along with play-along backing tracks, video lessons, and a Mapping Tonal Harmony Pro XML file with progressions from the bebop lines.
British Drama Toolkit: Brass & Reeds from Spitfire Audio Spitfire's latest collaboration with composer Samuel Sim offers a selection of brass and woodwind instruments, and provides a closer and more intimate sound than their larger symphonic libraries.
Bandcamp workers launch bid to form unionBandcamp workers across multiple departments want to unionize and are calling on the company and owner Epic Games to allow a “timely and fair election.” The effort has affiliated with. Continue reading
The post Bandcamp workers launch bid to form union appeared first on Hypebot.Recorded music market 2022 | Reality bitesFollowing a spectacular year of growth in 2021, global recorded music revenue growth slowed significantly in 2022 due to the combined impact of global economic headwinds and growth slowdown in mature streaming markets. Context, though, is everything – not many industries can deliver solid growth while the global economy is in turmoil, ad markets are falling and many emerging tech sectors are in crisis.
Global recorded music growth has oscillated in recent years, slowing in the pandemic, booming in 2021, and then returning to more modest growth in 2022.
2022 was a year of realignment for much of the global economy, and the music business had to contend not only with the wider trend of the cost-of-living-crisis, but also rising interest rates softening music catalogue M+A demand and the long expected streaming slowdown kicking in. It is testament to the solidity of the recorded music market that, despite these multiple headwinds, global revenues grew by 6.7% to reach $31.2 billion in 2022. While this was significantly down on the 24.8% registered in 2021, it illustrates the strong role music plays in consumers’ lives, especially in uncertain times when escapism and identity are more important than ever. The persistent value of music was even more strongly illustrated by music publishing, which grew by 16.6% in 2022.
Streaming was again the main driver of industry growth, with revenues up by $1.5 billion in 2022 (8.3% growth), though this was less than half the $4.2 billion added in 2021. The slowdown was underpinned by a) slowing subscriptions growth in mature markets; b) a slowdown in ad-supported revenues, reflecting wider advertising market dynamics. Music subscriber growth was markedly stronger, up by 13.7% to 652 million, however, the more mature North America and Europe regions accounted for just a third of the growth. Emerging markets will become a progressively larger part of global streaming growth, but due to lower ARPU and low shares of Anglo repertoire, the divergence between growth revenue and subscriber growth rates seen in 2022 will become a long-term market characteristic.
Independent labels and artists direct both strongly out-performed the wider streaming market, growing streaming revenues by 13.9% and 17.9% respectively. In terms of total recorded music revenues,
UMG added more recorded music revenue in 2022 than the other two majors, adding $0.5 billion to reach $9.2 billion, giving it a 29.5% share of the global recorded music market. UMG’s percentage growth (6.2%), though, was slower than SMG’s (8.7%), with SMG gaining 0.4 points of market share.
Artists direct (i.e., artists who release without labels, directly via a distributor) were the big success story once again, growing by 16.6% in 2022 to generate $1.7 billion of recorded music revenue, giving it a 5.7% market share, up from 5.2% in 2021.
Independent labels also outgrew the wider market (up by 7.1%), and the combined market share of artists direct and independent labels reached 34.6% in 2022, up from 34.0% in 2021. Though it is worth noting that this does not include the additional revenue from independent labels distributed by major labels.
Combined, independent labels and artists direct, were the largest single market segment with $10.8 billion.
Though overall market growth was down in 2022 compared to 2021, 2021 was in many respects a year of artificially accentuated, post-Covid growth, while 2022 was at the opposite end of the scale, with a host of economic headwinds. In this context, 6.7% growth for 2022 could be considered even more of an achievement than the 24.8% achieved in 2021.
The full report and dataset (with quarterly revenue by segment and format going back to Q1 2015) will be shortly available to MIDiA clients. If you are not a MIDiA client and would like to learn how to get access to our research, data and analysis, email stephen@midiaresearch.com
Redefining independent artist success: Their narrative is not your narrative [Keith Jopling of MIDiA]Keith Jopling from MIDiA Research discusses how important it is for artists to keep control of their own careers apart from industry expectations and demands, along with advice on how. Continue reading
The post Redefining independent artist success: Their narrative is not your narrative [Keith Jopling of MIDiA] appeared first on Hypebot.Stephen Dusenberry & Ricky Ken on how (and when) music changed their lives foreverThe pivotal performances that convinced two renowned artists to build their lives around music are not what you might expect. by Michael Gallant of Disc Makers Blog Some artists may. Continue reading
The post Stephen Dusenberry & Ricky Ken on how (and when) music changed their lives forever appeared first on Hypebot.OSC Audio Releases FREE Thru-Zero E-Piano
OSC Audio releases Thru-Zero E-Piano, a freeware electric piano virtual instrument for Decent Sampler. Electric pianos have been a staple of music for decades. OSC Audio’s latest release, Thru-Zero E-Piano, is a novel take on the instrument. It is entirely sample-based, using rich-sounding VCOs and analog saturation over 88 keys. Thru-Zero E-Piano uses the SSF [...]
View post: OSC Audio Releases FREE Thru-Zero E-PianoASM Hydrasynth 2.0 update ASM's latest Hydrasynth update delivers some powerful new features including a new Step mode for the One-Shot LFO feature, expanded arpeggiator functionality, and some interesting new options for the VoiceMod menu.
Noisebud Bear Bear is a low-end enhancer plugin that employs the principle that you will perceive the fundamentals as louder if you add or enhance the harmonics of a signal. Other developers have plugins... Read More
