Web Art Studio Entertainment

Many older adults regret many things as is normal to do; however, one regret that is constantly mentioned is the regret of not learning to play the piano when they were young. And even those that played the piano when they were young usually regret not continuing with it.

For the thousands of children taking piano lessons, maybe half of those will be proficient enough to play before an audience or accompany someone in their future. Whether the cause of this phenomenon is American children’s restlessness to learn an art, or the cost of learning this art, nobody can really say.

About one quarter of people will say that they simply couldn’t afford or couldn’t accommodate a piano in their house. Another one quarter will admit that they really didn’t have the time or the finances. With extracurricular sports and expensive video games at an all time high, piano lessons is just an added cost.

With the average cost of a piano lesson at $60 a month, many parents feel that it is a waste, especially if their child does not care to practice. For the rest of the piano students that become proficient in this art, only about one quarter of these will go on to become even more proficient and make piano performance their life work.

Percussion is the oldest form of instrumental music by a long way. The thousands of different percussion instruments we have today evolved from the early rattles, drums and pitched sticks that were the earliest members of the percussion family. Because there are so many different types of percussion instument, it is very important to treat them as individual instruments and not as one massed group.

Percussion instruments have been classified into two main groups, idiophones and membranophones. Idiophones are vibrating instruments, subcategories of which include: concussion idiophones such as castanets and clappers; percussion idiophones like marimbas and triangles; scraped idiphones such as the guiro; shaken idiophones which are different kinds of rattle; plucked idiophones like the jaw-harp and mbira and friction idiophones like the glass harp. Membranophones are instruments with a vibrating membrane, which can be further subcategorised into tubular drums, into which category fall most modern drums, and kettle drums, which are made in an elongated half-sphere shape with one membrane. Not all membranophones are percussion instruments – the kazoo is technically a membranophone.

There is no feeling like the feeling of creating art with a musical instrument. Jamming is an art form like no other.

The art of jamming is the delicate balance of improvisational music between two or more instruments.

One style of jamming is the two guitar, one bass, one percussionist set. Typically used by the “Phish” or “Dead” head jammers as they are commonly refer to, this set allows the drum and bass to hold down a disgusting rhythm backdrop for the two guitars to alternate painting sounds upon.

Another common set is the one guitar, one bass, and one drummer, or the “tri-jammual.” Good for fast changes as there is one less person to catch on to where the song is going. A nice round of circular soloing is often in order here with solos lasting between 1 to 7 minutes. Some guitar solos have been known to go on for as long as 20 minutes or more in some festivals.

Experienced jamologists live by the rule known as “less is more” when jamming in groups of 5 or more. When active listening more than active talking with your instrument is employed, a condition know as CF or cluster (expletive deleted) is often avoided.