The Material Girl To Tour (beat the crowd) Spain in September

August 10th, 2008 admin Posted in music |

By Roger Munns

Madonna recently announced plans to tour Spain in September 2008. Her Spanish shows will include a show on 16 September in Madrid, which will be followed by a show two days later at the Cheste Race Track in Valencia.

Madonna is currently on tour to support her latest album, Hard Candy, which was released on 29 April 2008. Hard Candy is her 11th studio album with Warner Brothers. It is the follow up album to Confessions on a Dance Floor, which sold over eight million copies worldwide and debuted at number one on the charts in thirty countries.

Hard Candy expands on the clubby dance anthems of Confessions on a Dance Floor. On the new album, Madonna collaborates with the top names in modern dance music, like Timbaland, Justin Timberlake, Pharrell Williams of The Neptunes and Nate ‘Danja’ Hills.

The first single off the album, entitled ‘4 Minutes’ is a collaboration with Timberlake and Timbaland. It was released on 17 March. It earned Madonna her 37th Billboard Top 100 hit, making her the artist with the most Top 10 hits in the history of the chart. The record was previously held by Elvis Presley. In the UK, the song was Madonna’s thirteenth number one single, retaining her record for the most number one singles for a female artist.

Madonna’s career in the entertainment industry began when she left her hometown in the suburbs of Detroit to become a ballet dancer in New York City. She arrived in the Big Apple with only $35 in her pocket. She often states that the move was the bravest thing she’d ever done.

She soon became romantically involved with musician Dan Gilroy, and they formed a band called Breakfast Club. Madonna sang and played drums and guitar. In 1980, she formed another band called Emmy with former boyfriend Stephen Bray. This project caught the attention of New York’s club scene, and a local dj passed their demo along to Sire Records executive Seymour Stein.

Madonna was soon signed to the label. By 1983, she released a self-titled debut solo album. Over the course of the 1980’s, she released three consecutive albums that made their way into the Billboard Top 200.

Since the early days of her career, Madonna has been a pop icon and a fashion trendsetter. Her success is due in part to her ability to transform her image. From naughty girl to children’s book author, Madonna has been everything in between over the course of the last three decades.

Madonna has been dubbed ‘The Queen of Pop’ by music journalists. She is the top-earning female musician in the world with an estimated net worth of over $400 million US dollars, according to Guinness World Records. With over 200 million albums sold, she is the top selling female artist of the twentieth century.

In March 2008, she was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Fans in Spain and the world over are sure to enjoy her upcoming tour dates in support of her new album.

More information about Spain, including the island of Lanzarote is at yourlanzarote.net

They include hotels in Lanzarote with the Lanzarote weather

Learning Music as an Adult
By Duane Shinn

While we have all heard stories of child prodigies and the importance of learning music as a child, an adult can still learn to play an instrument quite well. Even with no prior experience, the right training can help an adult learn to play music just as well as a child. The main thing is to find the right way to learn, whether it’s through a tutor or self-study.

Adult learners come with their own baggage, often from childhood lessons. Adult piano students may have had bad experiences with music lessons as a child. These can range from scary instructors to endless exercises or abusive teacher-student relationships. Sometimes a teacher may have punished the student for not being skilled enough, while other times a teacher may have pushed a promising student too hard. This is one of the hurdles that come with learning music as an adult.

Accepting the teacher as an authority figure is another difficulty that comes with learning music as an adult. An adult has learned to be independent. An adult wants to take part in the development of curriculum and wants to be able to self-evaluate. It may be difficult for an adult to simply listen and take instruction from a music instructor. So the best avenue for learning music as an adult may be to self-tutor or to find an instructor who teaches by long distance via the internet. There are many wonderful piano courses available nowdays on the web: just type in something like “play piano” on any search engine, and you’ll find several.

Though the process of learning music as an adult is different from a child’s, it’s not necessarily harder. For a child, making music is magical, while an adult sees the work involved to get to the music making stage. It’s mainly a mental hurdle that must be overcome. Also, learning music as a child is part of the natural development process, while learning music as an adult is usually part of a larger goal. For example, an adult learns how to play an instrument to join the church worship team.

Learning music as an adult can also be difficult because of ingrained personality traits. Even the most outwardly confident adults get insecure when someone points out their flaws. So it goes with learning music. If a tutor is used, an adult can get embarrassed when the tutor corrects a mistaken note or technique. Some adults may have difficulty breathing and concentrating when they’re highly nervous. All of these can lead to a difficult learning environment.

Adults also demand comfort. This is why adults often learn an instrument in their own home. Children are less demanding about the hardness of a piano bench, for example. Adults may have back problems or other conditions that require a high comfort level.

So the basic ingredients for learning music as an adult are adaptable tutoring, reason for learning, confidence and comfort. By taking these key points and seeking the best method of learning for yourself, you can become an adult musical genius — well, maybe not a genius — maybe just a person who has more fun. Or maybe you’ll be the guy or gal at parties who knows how to play the latest song everyone is talking about. With the right teaching, grown ups can enjoy playing music wherever they go.

Duane Shinn is the author of the popular online newsletter on piano chords, available free at “Exciting Piano Chords & Chord Progressions!”

Fiddle or Violin - You Make The Call
By Chris Jensen

Violin is associated with western Classical music where musicians learn by reading printed music and they play exactly what is written, note for note. This music can be extremely complex and challenging. A very accessible example of classical music for the violin would be Tschaikovsky’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra.

When Tschaikovsky wrote it, it was so difficult that no one could play it. The violinist to whom it was dedicated, Leopold Auer, wasn’t able to play it, but he taught it to his students, including Jascha Heifitz. Now most serious violinists can play this piece of music, but it remains both challenging and beautiful.

Violin is also associated with Indian Classical music (as in India). They also have a written tradition, although there is more improvisation than is usually found in western Classical. The various fiddle styles have actually preserved aspects of music that Classical lost in the 16th and 17th centuries. Many fiddle tunes are written in scales that Classical no longer uses (Old Joe Clark, Salt Creek, Road to Lisdoonvarna, Swallowtail Jig).

Also fiddle involves a lot more improvisation, which was popular to do during the 1700’s but which Classical music lost in the 19th century. Finally, Classical violinists played instruments with a number of different tunings but settled into one tuning (GDAE) by the 1700’s. Occasional fiddle tunes and fiddle styles require changing the tuning of the instrument. There are many fiddle traditions, from Scottish to Cajun, from Canadian to Irish, from Old Time to Cape Breton.

Within regions there are multiple styles; for example, Irish fiddling styles vary from county to county. Fiddling is passed down not by written music but through the oral tradition where a younger fiddler learns from an older fiddler directly. Currently fiddlers still learn from each other, either in person or through recordings.

Oral tradition changes music in interesting ways. A fiddler may not exactly remember what someone else played and may play a few notes differently. Also, fiddlers often play for dances and playing the same tune over and over again the exact same way, for ten minutes while people do a whole dance set, is boring. So they tend to vary the tunes.

Also, some traditions are historically related. For example, Devil’s Dream was originally an Irish tune which made its way into the Appalachian mountains. Irish and Appalachian versions differ and yet there is still something in common to both versions of any given tune.

Chris Jensen is a contributing author of Jetfly Blog. For more related articles and views visit Jetfly Music Blog now. Also, for the best up-to-date related online products, check out Jetfly Violin Shop for todays current online deals.

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