The Practice Room

Tiny Terror

If you’re looking for a high-crunch sound in a low-wattage head, read Musicians Hotline’s review of the new Tiny Terror from Orange. The Terror is a tube amp the size of a lunch box, with a 7 watt setting and a 15 watt setting. It gets high praise from MH for tone, volume, size and cost, and what more could you want than that?

What to do with your leftover Christmas cash

There’s an auction coming up in January in Scottsdale, Arizona (but of course you can bid on-line) where you can find Steven Tyler’s Visa card, Jim Morrison’s ASCAP membership card, Eric Clapton’s Roland G-505 guitar, a 1994 Dobro bass once owned by Rick Danko, gold records from everyone from Elton John to Gordon Lightfoot, Phil Spector’s birth certificate, stage costumes, contracts, posters, autographs, and a book report written by Brittney Spears [insert your own joke here]. All the gory details are at the auctioneer’s web site, www.cooperowen.com.

[TJH]

"House of the Rising Sun" Song Lesson

This great American folk tune has been recorded by many famous musicians, such as Bob Dylan, Dolly Parton or the Animals. The great thing about the song is that it’s very easy to play. WorkshopLive teacher and performer Ian Campbell breaks it down - chord by chord. He also demonstrates the finger picking pattern, so you can play it just like it is on the CD.  The song lesson for “House of the Rising Sun” is divided into two parts. If this is your first visit to our site and you just got a new guitar, then check out our song catalog and watch a song demo lesson. If you’re ready to become a subscriber, go to our sign-up page and get a free gift pack.

Tribute to Joni Mitchell

From Billboard:

Bjork, Prince, James Taylor and Elvis Costello are among the artists who have recorded covers for "A Tribute to Joni Mitchell," due in the spring via Nonesuch. The 11-track set also boasts contributions from Sarah McLachlan, k.d. lang, Emmylou Harris and Sufjan Stevens.

Track list for A Tribute to Joni Mitchell:

Learn to Play "Let It Snow" with Cathy Schane-Lydon

Our very own Cathy Schane-Lydon will teach you in easy steps how to play "Let It Snow," "We Wish You a Merry Christmas," "Deck The Halls" and other holiday favorites on the piano. Cathy shows you how to play left-hand accompaniment and right-hand melody separately and together. Learn the basics of counterpoint and the history behind these songs, and you’ll be ready to fill the holidays with your sound of music.
Just log in and go to "My Lessons-My Teachers" and click on Cathy's name.

Check out our song library and watch a song lesson demo.

WorkshopLive Affiliate Program Available to Everybody Now

Are you interested in making money on the side? You can now join WorkshopLive's Affiliate Program and earn between $10-$30 for each person who signs up using your affiliate code.

The process is simple: Apply for the program, get your affiliate code and tell friends and family to use it when they sign up with WorkshopLive. If you have a Web site, you can implement the code in a link or banner, or you can use it in an email.

Spread the word and earn money. Good luck!

Lock the vault?

If you’re of a mind to scarf up the live concert recordings from the Fillmore being offered on line at Wolfgang’s Vault, you might want to hurry. Some of the performers whose concerts you’re scarfing are suing, claiming that the current owners don’t have the right to sell the stuff. According to Billboard, “…Grateful Dead Productions, Carlos Santana and members of Led Zeppelin and the Doors, sued the current owner, claiming it was illegally offering recordings to stimulate sales of other products.”

Of course, if your legal training or your moral compass lead you to side with the artists, you’ll stay away from the site anyway.

[TJH]

Great Gift for Bassists

TECH 21 Sans Amp Bass Driver DI

The Tech 21 Sans Amp Bass Driver DI is not to be thought of as a regular effects pedal, but more as a combination of pre-amp and direct box in one. This pedal is one of the most valuable pieces of equipment that a bass player can own. Through its Tube Amplifier Emulation circuitry, the Bass Driver DI has the ability to make almost any bass rig sound like gold.

Gift idea

If there’s a musical omnivore on your Christmas list, consider the book And They All Sang: Adventures of an Eclectic Disc Jockey by Studs Terkel.

Terkel, in addition to being one of the great interviewers, used to have a daily radio show in Chicago on which he played any kind of music he wanted – classical, jazz, opera, blues, folk, rock, anything. He started in 1945, when blues records were still called “race records” and white people weren’t supposed to listen to them. He would string together recordings by Enrico Caruso, Woody Guthrie and Louis Armstrong, with no thought to playlists or formatting.

And They All Sang is a collection of interviews Terkel did with musicians over the years. Included are Pete Seeger, Leonard Bernstein, Keith Jarrett, Bob Dylan, Andres Segovia, Earl Hines, Alan Lomax, John Jacob Niles, Jon Vickers, Big Bill Broonzy and many more. The interviews are casual and conversational in tone. In many of them Terkel has cut out his side of the dialog, so it’s like hearing Dizzy Gillespie or Ravi Shankar spin their thoughts out over a cup of coffee.

[TJH]

More from Telluride

So, besides Tony Rice, what else is happening at Telluride?

Lots of bluegrass, of course, but there are also three interesting duets. All the players go way beyond bluegrass; what has happened to this legendarily conservative form of music?

Chick Corea and Bela Fleck have 20 Grammy Awards between them, and are comfortable with just about any kind of music you can throw at them. And how many other piano-banjo duets are you likely to come across?

Mike Marshall and Hamilton de Holanda – two mandolin masters and great improvisors, one from the US and one from Brazil.

Edgar Meyer and Chris Thile are two more “I-can-play-anything” guys, Meyer on bass and Thile on mandolin. I haven't heard them together, but individually they're breath-taking players.

For my taste it’s hard to beat two players sitting down and playing, without a lot of extras like overdubs, back-up musicians and special effects. Since most of us are not getting to Telluride this year, let’s hope some of these guys have gigs lined up a little closer to home.

[TJH]