Week 124: Content Is King & Making Easy Slideshows

Hi Music Lovers!

Well it's been a difficult week with the change of climate and my allergic reaction to the change of season which became a cold, as well as having to visit the dentist twice this last month. Thank you 'Paracetamol & Antihistamine'. As my doctor in Istanbul once said, "If you don't take medication, your flu will last a week... If you take medication it will last 7 days...! But taking it will help you tolerate and work better". Thanks Dr.Birgul!

On the work front, things have been slow but I feel positive opportunities around the corner. I've spent the time resting and studying, preparing a blog and new English courses for the spring and getting ready to take my students to Brighton this summer for English courses.

On the music front, I've made some slideshows for two songs that are not very visible on my website: Sofia's Song and Living a Lie... I'm posting them here for you to get a good look and listen. It's important to create content to give more exposure to songs with visuals. Mainly due to the growing influence of YouTube for discovering new music.

I've also added individual pages that allow you to 'rate this song'. You can also see the Stats of how others rated the song from 5 (I love it!) to 1 (Poor).

I'm looking into 'screen capture' software so I can show you exactly how to make the slideshows in a DIY training video (coming soon). Making slideshows is an easier way of getting a video of a song up on YouTube without the production expense of making a video clip. In future I may have a go at a storyboard of photographic stills using models/props/lighting effects etc... Any of you that would like to collaborate, please send me a email at zackqureshi@gmail.com

It finally took me about 20 minutes to put a slideshow together. The first time I remember it was 2 hours or so! Once you learn the software you intuitively know it's possible to cut and paste repeated actions. So I learned that I could 'highlight/select' all my photos and add an 'effect' to them as a 'batch' and do the same for 'transitions'. The effect I generally use is 'Ease In' It creates a gentle zooming-in effect. The transition I most commonly use is 'Fade' because it is possibly the smoothest transition between photos. There is also an automatic slideshow generator that adds effects and transitions but I will reserve that for more energetic up-tempo songs.

All the slideshows here were made using 'Microsoft movie maker', so when you're happy with your slideshow, just click 'publish' and wait for it to convert the format and generate a version compatible for the web. Then 'upload' to YouTube.

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Week 123: Covers Progress

Hi Guys!

I was at the Nike FlyKnit product launch this week. It was a beautiful structure and a great piece of engineering. Looks like a great place for a private party. I gonna get me one for my garden! Very interesting promotion, great branding and lots of money to do things properly :)!

It was a productive week for the Pop/Rock CoversBand Project

Songs Practiced:

One Key: C (Original)

Wonderful Life: (Original Em), key Gm (Play Em on 3rd fret)

Mad World: (Original Fm), key of Gm (Play Em on 3rd fret)

Light my fire: In original Key of Am.

We arrived at El Patio Studio at 9.15pm. It was the first time I had seen Luis and we went down to the basement. There were 2 small rooms, a medium sized room and a larger room with a sofa.

The studio was well equipped with amps, cables, mics and mixer.

We set up the mics and positioned the instruments in a circle. By 9.30pm the others were arriving and we began with our first song- One by U2. We played round and round with chords to the verse, Am D F G for 10-15 minutes taking it in turns to enter. I started with the acoustic guitar for 4 bars, then Sheera entered with Ukulele, 4 bars later Luis started with Clean Electric guitar. Then Gustavo came in on the drums, Dom added more rhythm on acoustic guitar 2, Carolyn created bass notes on her trombone, Miquel entered with Acoustic guitar 3 and finally Narani began with the first verse.

We then worked on the chorus C Am F C & finally put the whole song together. It was great because everyone was listening to each other and playing steadily.

2 hours went really quickly and we also did; Light my fire (the doors), Mad World ( Tears for fears), Wonderful Life (Black).

We shared the cost of the large room which was 17e/hour, so it worked out about 3euros each. Much better than going to play in the music bar, cheaper and more productive. We are planning to put a set of 15 songs together then start looking for small venues to make some fun gigs. Great way to join in, sing in English and learn words to great songs.

We look forward to seeing you at our first concert!

Zack & Members of Pop/Rock Coversband at BAMM

Miquel - piano/guitar

Narani - vox

Gustavo - drums

Luis - Electric gtr w/effects

Dom - Rhythmn Gtr

Carolyn - Trombone

Sheera - Ukulele

Tony - Guitar/Vox

Manel M - Acoustic Guitar 2

Guests Singers: Ester Galeote & Elena Mendez  Jose Galeote

Other songs: (Click o song for YouTube video link)

Wicked game (Chris Isaak)

1. Mad World Tears for fears

2. My Immortal Evanescence

3. One U2

4. Stand By Me Ben E. King

5. Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay Otis Redding

6. Wish You Were Here Pink Floyd

7. Wonderful Life Black

8. Wonderwall Oasis

9. Light My Fire The Doors

10. Another Brick in a Wall Pt2 Pink Floyd

11. Hey Jude The Beatles

12. Fields of Gold Sting

13. California Dreaming

14. Angie

15. Mrs. Robinson/ The sound of silence

16. Every Breath You Take Sting

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Week 119: Technology as an Accelerator

Hi Guys!

I wanted to do something simple like a slideshow with all those lovely photos that I´m taking. So I uploaded to FLICKR and embedded to my website and blog. Only problem is that people on mobile devices couldn´t see the slideshows! Then I tried with HTML5 but it didn´t work.

Finally good old YouTube and movie maker (free in windows) gave me this result. I played around a little more and added my guitar audio tracks as background music as well as effects and cool transitions between the pictures. I could also add text to some of the pictures. Finally add intro title and credits at the end and voila! You have a more interesting way of looking at photos.

I'm also preparing some Pink Floyd songs for our Jam session this coming Friday 15th Feb. We are planning some gigs and recordings in the coming months.

Look forward to seeing you there and streaming online in the near future.

Zack a.k.a. RedeyeZack

Here's an interesting reference to technology in music:

David Byrne, founding member of the Talking Heads, label owner, Byrne makes the point that while technological innovation creates efficiency for the savvy artist, technology alone cannot enable you to have a successful career. 

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