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The 14th Bahrain International Music Festival which took place last year in November 5-11 brought in musicians from France, Palestine, Oman, Egypt and Iraq. I was only able to watch the performance oft he Manama Singers and Orchestra with their Haydn Imperial Nelson Mass and the Royal Oman Symphony Orchestra.

Overall the performance was great. It was held in the newly built Cultural Hall. I can say that the Royal Oman Symphony Orchestra with its conductor, Leif Sundstrup gave the best performance in the week long event. The Manama Singers also did an excellent job with their conductor Alistair Auld who is the formost conductor in the island kingdom.

There were several important guests, dignitaries and musicians alike. The President of the Royal Society of Music, Mr. Carrillo said that the performance made by the Royal Oman Symphony Orchestra was the best musical performance he has ever seen. The event was a success if their aim is to improve Cultural life in Bahrain. For a country with not much history in music, the Bahrain International Music Festival seems remarkable to have succeded with many people who attended.

Most singers have one major problem when starting out in the music industry… ‘How do I get myself noticed?’. Yes, there are plenty of other singers out there, and often it’s not enough just to be a better singer than them. But having a great voice is a fantastic start.

So, you’re nearly there! The next thing that you can do as a singer to set yourself apart from other singers is to perform some great original music! Original music is the best thing you can do as a performer. But how do you get original music?

There are three ways to get original music:-

1. Write your own songs.

2. Co-write songs with other musicians.

3. Find songwriters who are not also performers. (There are plenty of songwriters around on the internet).

So first let’s clear up some common questions I regularly get emailed to me about song writing!

Do I need to be able to read / write music in order to write songs?

Of course you don’t… There are plenty of singers and songwriters around who haven’t got the first idea about how to read music, let alone write it. As long as you can record it down in some way (a Dictaphone will do) then you’ve got all the equipment you need.

Remember, music existed long before people developed systems to write it down. It was even more recently that people developed ‘Music Theory’ as a way of explaining how music works. In fact I can pretty much guarantee you know LOADS of music theory, just having listened to music. I think everyone who has a interest in music should take the time to look at a basic Music Theory book especially songwriters, as you’ll find that learning a little bit about how music works will help you enormously with basic things like song structure and working out what chords go with which notes.

Do I need to be able to play an instrument in order to write songs?

As a singer you already play one of the best instruments you can possibly own. Using your voice to work out tunes is by far the easiest way of writing music.

The other really common instruments that are used by singers / songwriters are the guitar and the piano (or electronic keyboard). If you can get access to one of these instruments they that can be a great start (I’m sure you know someone with an old guitar you could borrow). You don’t have to learn how to play these instruments at a performance standard, just use them as a tool to help you develop your ideas.

So how do I start writing music?

Music is so diverse that there is no way anyone could actually tell you how to write a song. In this series of articles we will be discussing topics such as ‘What elements make up a great song’, and ‘Get inspired to write lyrics’. These articles, and many more are available by signing up to my free singers newsletter, a must read whether your an amateur or a pro!

You’ll most likely write some pretty bad tunes when you start out. Everyone does. That’s ok, don’t get disheartened. With practice and inspiration, hopefully, you’ll start writing some music that you’re happy to play to people.

Just keep trying, and above all, enjoy making music.

While gifting your loving child personalized kids CDs you might hardly think that music, the most entertaining subject for kids, can be ever boring for him. But, it has been noticed that many children withdraw themselves from music following various significant reasons. Though parents make use of various types of kids personalized music, which play a significant role for children’s education, they fail to understand what kind of songs and rhymes are interesting for the kids. Once they can understand the factors that trigger boredom in children while listening to music, they can create a better platform for the kids.

Traditional Pattern of Listening to Music

Have you ever thought of creating the best environment for your child? What else have you done for your child in spite of gifting Kids personalized CDs to improve the interest of your kids for music? What your plans are of keep the interest of the child growing with his growing age? If you are sending your kid to music schools, are you sure about the lesson plans and the teaching methods that they are following? Have you discussed with your child regarding the genre of music that he likes or the kind of songs he wants to listen to? Have you ever thought of the reasons for which music gets boring for your kids?

If you analyze the answers to the question you can understand what distracts your kid from music. It’s crucial that children should enjoy music. Introduction of kids personalized music is a great way to keep the young learners from losing interest in learning and playing music.

Lack of Exposure to Diversified Genre of Music

Often, parents and at times, teachers in schools follow the traditional songs and singing pattern with the same old music for years together. They do not feel the necessity of introducing different genre of music which is more attention grabbing for the toddlers. The parents do not try to understand that not all kids have similar taste and, their child might not be interested in that particular stream of music. But they try to impose it on the kids. It makes the children withdraw themselves from listening to songs even if they are kids personalized music and customized in the most impressive way.

The best way to keep the children from getting bored of music education is to introduce them to different genres of music. Parents can get help from kids personalized CDs and introduce their children to different types of customized songs and rhymes so that the kids come to know about various types of music. It is in fact a great way for children to get rid of the monotonous songs that gradually becomes boring for the kids.

Lack of Positive Environment at Home

Most parents relax after sending their children to music classes and expect their children to become genius. This attitude has changed the musical taste of the children who lack necessary inspiration at home. Sometimes parents don’t have interest and time to know what kind of music their children listen to. Often, the busy schedules of the working parents have demotivated many children to generate interest in music. But, the truth is, it is the environment at home that triggers interest in the children.

You can create a healthy surrounding of music at home for your children by gifting your loving child with personalized kids CDs. They are not only inspiring for the kids but also educational and entertaining.

It is very natural that the children will get bored of any learning process, even if it is music. This can happen if they proper learning process has not been considered by teachers, coaches, etc. The teachers and parents should pay attention to every single aspect of music learning to make it an interesting part of their lives and not a forceful implementation of any learning process. With personalized kids music there are chances of developing kids taste for learning and playing music.

The Cultural Affairs Bureau of the Macau SAR Government presents the 22nd Macau International Music Festival (MIMF) from October 5th to November 2nd, 2008.

The Macau International Music Festival, since decades, has been bringing internationally renowned artists to Macau. Every year, performances at the Macau International Music Festival are of the highest order and offer a delicate balance of Eastern and Western forms of music. Along with promoting Macau tradition and culture, the Macau International Music Festival seeks to expose the communities in Macau to diverse musical forms, and in the process enrich the cultural experience in Macau. This year the focus is on opera, symphonic, choral and chamber music, as well as contemporary, folk, pop and jazz music.

The 22nd Macau International Music Festival will see none other than Britain’s National Orchestra – The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra giving the opening performance. This is their first performance at the Macau International Music Festival and it will be conducted by Principal Guest Conductor Leonard Slotkin. (5/10, at the Macao Cultural Center Grand Auditorium, 8pm). It is of course common knowledge that ever since its inception by Sir Thomas Beecham, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra has, under his guidance and vision, been known to perform some of the greatest compositions the music world has ever heard.

The Macau International Music Festival will also see performances by the third largest symphony orchestra in Canada – The Grammy Award Winning (2008) Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, conducted by its Music Director, the British conductor Bramwell Tovey. (14/10, MCC-GA, 8pm) Joining this orchestra is the 28 year old Grammy Award winning violinist Hilary Hahn. Hilary Hahn, today, is one of the most sought after and acclaimed performers on the concert circuit.

The Macau International Music Festival promises to be more colorful and louder than ever with over seventeen different artists performing across genres as diverse as traditional, classical, pop, jazz and opera from different countries like Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Hungary, Portugal, the USA, Canada, Australia and Mainland China.

Music lovers all over the world, be ready to experience Macau from a different perspective. You can enjoy the music, atmosphere and glamor while staying at a luxury Macau hotel. Macau is well known for its sophistication, so you’ll find nothing but the best in hotels such as the Sands Macao Resort Hotel.

Listening songs is one of the best ways to relax and many people even listen songs for entertainment purpose. For many people, music has become a part of life. A number of new songs are released throughout the world by different artists and music lovers try to get hold of the songs as soon as they can. As a result of development in technology and Internet, it’s now possible to download music files from Internet. A number of websites are available that allow users to download music files. Some of the sites charge an affordable fee for providing songs whereas some sites give away songs for free.
In order to search songs online, you need to find a reputed online music store and a simple search on a search engine can get you a number of online music stores. Once you’ve found an online music store, all you need to do is to browse the collection of the albums so as to select the songs that you want to download and then you can easily download the selected songs by following the simple guidelines mentioned on the site. So, it’s pretty easy to find the songs on Internet. That being said, there are a number of benefits associated with usage of Internet for searching and downloading music files.
It’s very easy to find music files on Internet when compared to going out to the market while searching for an album or a track. It’s very difficult to find old albums at the real-world music stores but you can easily find old music files at an online music store as it’s very easy to maintain a large collection of music files on a server.
Downloading music files is a fast process when compared to standing in queues at music stores for searching albums and for billing. Also, considerable amount of time is not wasted on roads because of traffic.
When compared to real-world music stores, it’s very easy to search music files on online music stores. Generally, online music stores maintain a number of categories which helps an end-user to search the desired music files. On most of the online music stores, entering the name of the artist displays a list of all the songs sung by him and so, it becomes very easy to search the desired file. Also, it’s even possible to search the files on the basis of their popularity, user rating, release date and more. So, it’s very easy to search and download the files from an online music store when compared to real-world music stores.
With online music stores, an individual is not required to move out of his home for purchasing albums. However, a decent Internet connection is required for downloading music files from an online music store. All you need to do is to select the album, make the payment and then download the files. So, an individual can get the desired music files without even moving out of his place.
Usually, online music stores offer different kind of discounts on albums and so, you can get some considerable amount of discount on purchasing albums online. Online music stores are available 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. So, you can download the songs whenever you want to. Most of the sites even offer songs for free. So, you can use Internet to get free songs as well.