Louise Dengate takes you to the world of Gospel Choirs

 

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Tickets for the ‘Time For My Music’ evening showcase are available!

We have a date and a place! On Tuesday 29th October 2024, the women of Time For My Music will perform live at the MAC Theatre of Birmingham. Get ready for an evening of jazz, soul, gospel and reggae by these accomplished emerging musicians, in a show that’s sure to warm your heart in the midst of these progressively colder autumn days.

Tickets are only £10.00 plus a small booking fee. If you are part of a group of five people or more, please send an e-mail to [email protected] in order to arrange a discount

Get your tickets here.

Don't forget to share this information with your friends and family. We're looking forward to seeing you all at the theatre!

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Mistakes during band practise: what to do?

Xdinary Heroes is an accomplished K-Pop band with a prolific and entertaining YouTube channel. Through their short videos, they share glimpses of their life as a band, make comedy skits and show appreciation for their fans.

One of these shorts, which you can watch by clicking this link, pokes fun at the different ways people can react to a bandmate's mistake during group practise. From the one who assures that it's alright while cursing inwards, to the one who's so focused on their own thing that they don't notice something went wrong, their skit gives a humorous twist to something that, unfortunately, can snowball into big issues in real life.

Mistakes are bound to happen because we are human. There's no way to completely prevent them, so there's no point in holding yourself or your bandmates to impossible standards. If someone's skill level isn't enough to flawlessly perform a piece, or it is, but their focus slips for whatever reason and there's a mistake, that doesn't mean that t...

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A Smarter Journey: Finding Your Way Through Menopause

On her website, our director Millicent has started a series of blog entries about her experience participating in a 12 weeks programme to manage menopausal symptoms. These entries will cover what she learned, changed and improved in her life regarding nutrition, physical activity, stress levels and quality of sleep. 

Here you can read the beginning of the introduction:


I’m a musician and someone going through menopause. The symptoms of this stage of life can be detrimental to both quality of life and work performance, making it difficult to stay atop of things. To counter that and get back a feeling of normality, I’ve been informing myself extensively, trying different ways to manage my circumstances, and I’m happy to say that I’ve been successful!

In particular, this year I’ve got excellent results in two areas: quality of sleep, about which I already wrote an article with some handy tips to achieve a good night of rest, and prevention of diabetes.

To be clear, diabetes isn’t a ...

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What is in YouTube for musicians?

There are many platforms to distribute music online, which offer a number of benefits that are more or less attractive depending on each musician's goals and profile. Maintaining an active account anywhere on the internet requires time and effort, so it's important to choose carefully and go one step at a time.

A great place to build your platform and get work as a musician, especially as a gigging musician, is YouTube. Potential clients don't only want to hear your music, but also assess your stage presence and see you in action, in order to decide whether you're a good fit for their event. What's better for that than a YouTube video? And that's just the start. You can improve your discoverability with shorts, make your music and podcasts accessible through YouTube Music, interact with your audience through text posts, and once you get enough followers, offer subscription perks and even organise donation campaigns!

As independent musicians, becoming masters at YouTube is one of the ...

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Save the date!

The first ever in-person live concert by the women of Time For My Music has a date! Prepare for an evening of jazz, soul, reggae and gospel by the brilliant women who are part of this programme on Tuesday, 29th October 2024.

It has been many months of preparation, discussion, decisions and rehearsals. We're positive that the showcase will be worth all the effort! Please, stay tuned for more information coming very soon.

While you wait, you can watch the online concert that the women offered two years ago. The whole stream is available on YouTube: 

You can also revisit the photographic exhibition that the members got at OLDP in Birmingham, UK, guided by our director Millicent in this short video:

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Ideas to fund the Time For My Music concert

Our online community for emerging musicians, Time For My Music, is preparing their first ever live concert in the city of Birmingham, UK. It’s been an exciting and inspiring process so far. The participants have brought a lot of energy, ideas and dreams to the table. For example, they’ve suggested music pieces that they’ve always wanted to have in their repertoire. Without revealing the whole set list, we can say that Stevie Wonder’s Superstition and Bob Marley’s One Love are among the selected songs. They’re sounding great already!

In regard to the date, we’re aiming for some time in November. Besides the music, though, there are many things we have to figure out first. One of them is how to pay for the expenses of the event. While we will sell tickets, we’d only be able to cover all the costs if we did so for a price that we consider too high. This means that we need to compliment ticket sales with other forms of funding.

To start looking for a solution, our director Millicent atte...

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Communication between bandmates: an Xdinary example

Xdinary Heroes is a South Korean rock band that debuted in 2021. All six members are involved in writing, composing, and producing the music of the band, which might sound like a given, but isn't actually always the case with music groups. A good communication between the members of a team is always important, but it becomes even more so when everybody is involved in a creative process that goes beyond words.

Through their YouTube account, Xdinary Heroes give us charming insights of their life and work as musicians. In the topic of communication, this short humorously illustrates how the members of the band explain their ideas to Gun-il, the drummer: 

This is, arguably, how all musicians convey their ideas to percussionists. It's just the most logical way to do it, both accessible and efficient. Of course, this doesn't negate the fact that the isolated sounds, out of context, become a tad alien and quite entertaining!

Kudos to Gun-il for interpreting his bandmates' ideas so faith...

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Time for Angela's music

Angela is a long time member of Time For My Music, our online community for emerging female musicians. She plays the alto saxophone, delving mostly into jazz, although she's a versatile interpreter that's open to other genres as well. 

Last year, motivated by the workshops and discussions that take place in the T4MM community, Angela took an important step in her journey by creating her own YouTube channel.

This is her testimony about it:

T4MM has helped me in many ways. The workshops are excellent. One of the workshops that
has really helped me was the one about setting up a YouTube channel.

I used to choose a few friends to share my songs with and leave it at that, but I considered creating a YouTube channel for a while —I just didn't have the confidence to do it. However, I really wanted to do a gig to celebrate the Jamaican Independence in 2023. For doing so, I told myself: "I am going to start my YouTube Channel." I recorded two songs in one session, which added to three mor...

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TRANSCRIPTION: "Success Beyond The Score" Podcast, S.3, EP. 11

Here is the transcription of episode 11 of season 3 of the podcast "Success Beyond The Score". Happy reading!


- Watch the video of the episode here: YouTube

- Listen to the audio of the episode here: Kajabi


INTRO:

Hiya! Hope you are well and [that] you can hear me okay. I'm ready to share a fantastic 11th episode of my Success Beyond The Score. Now, a couple of things to say before we get cracking about the sound engineer.

One is: I did it. I have got to 11 live shows on YouTube. At the beginning, I didn't think I'd manage it, but I did, and I want to thank you so much for being with me, for giving me those questions, and for just rocking up, and liking, and sharing, subscribing. Thank you so much for that. Going forward, just make sure you put the bell on, so you're notified of any future broadcasts I will be doing.

Now, the second thing —before I get cracking on the sound engineer topic— is to remind you that, if you're new here, there have been ten other episodes before th...

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