Review: Magic Rosin 3G Ultra

Before I start this review, I want to thank Sarah West for her sample of Magic Rosin's 3G Ultra (click here). This was unexpected but I am so thankful you sent them to me try test out! Now I have another review for you guys out there and thanks to a few anonymous viewers, I have a few changes to my post I want to see if it helps you guys out. For those who aren't regulars and would like to see more from the blog I will have a new post out over the weekend with a contest! So don't forget to checking in!!

Now, let's break down how I conducted my test. Like I said before with Magic Rosin's 3G rosin, I started out with the rosin the testers used regularly by playing a scale and something that they knew off the top of their heads and after running my absorbent microfiber cloth over their strings and bow I applied a generous amount of the Magic Rosin to their bow and they played the same thing. This time however, when it came to the bass players, we had a little debate over which was the best so we had to have a blind audition and I'll explain how that works later.

Since I was unable to get in touch with one of my violinist I used to test the 3G ultra I decided to not to test them for the time being but I feel that it might be too strong a rosin for them. Whenever I get a hold of them I will update the post with the results.

I got a hold of one of the violist I used to test the 3G and after we went through it I feel that it might have been border line between strong rosin and too much bite for them, but it all depends on the player's style and taste. The player and I both liked it a lot like that but I do know how one of the others is with their rosin and that probably wouldn't suit those style of players well. I would recommend this for an electric violist or someone who likes to play electric viola. I give it a 4/5 for viola.

Now, going into my personal range of specialty I spent almost a week testing the rosin with my cello and I think this IS the best rosin for cellos I've tried, which ranges from student quality to $35-40 professional rosin. I found this to give me the clarity I need while also projecting well and sticking to the strings. I ran this by a couple of other cellos and I was hearing the same results from them as I was from myself. This rosin is made for cellos except for students or cellist who use very sensitive strings. I give it a 5/5 for cello.

Finally, we have our tests from the bass players! I found this series of test (yes, it took multiple trials to get through all of the tests and make a well rounded decision!). We started out with the usual method of testing rosin and discovered the huge differences between other commercial rosins and Magic Rosin. The first is the clarity of rosin, which most are either gritty, muddy or don't give the projection that is desired. Magic Rosin went and not only made it clear but it also gave us a lot of projection that the other rosin's gave us. After a few tests like this we got to the point that we thought we were hearing things so we had a blind study between Magic Rosin 3G Ultra, Magic Rosin 3G, and two competitors rosin and acquired four identical bows. We went and rosined all of them up with some rosin and had a random person write down the bows rosin to when they handed it to us and hands down we felt the Rosin 3G Ultra had everything else beat. I give it a 5/5 for bass.

It is hard to believe that there is rosin that can be used for all four instruments but it really exists! And for the price of a few cakes of Magic Rosin, you are making a wise investment into not only yourself but your students if you teach privately or in public schools. For more about the rosin click on the link above. If you would like to follow the blog, follow me on Twitter (click here), Facebook (click here) or email me directly! I want everyone to message me by any (or all) of those methods above and tell me one thing you want to see changed or one thing you like about the blog and share this with a friend!

Review: Magic Rosin 3G

Hello everyone, here is the long awaited review on "Magic Rosin 3G" by Magic Rosin. I have spent a few weeks working on giving you guys the best review I can by testing everything on all 4 instruments. I was very skeptical at first, but just a heads up I was happily mistaken in that prejudgment.

Here is my method of how I tested the rosin. First I started by taking my Microfiber cloth and cleaned off the strings of the instruments, rubbed it over the bows to knock off any rosin that would lead to a cross contamination. Then the person testing applied the rosin they use normally and played me a scale and a run threw of whatever they wanted to play for me. Afterwards, I ran the rag over the bow and strings and then gave them the Magic Rosin and they played the same thing as before.

First let's start with the violins. I started testing with 5 violins, 2 who have been playing for 3 years and 3 who have been taking private lessons. We started with a simple scale of their pick with the rosin they normally used (mostly Super Sensitive's basic rosin, but one was using a special rosin that we referred to as "star dust" rosin). They played their music and then we cleaned the instruments off and used the Magic Rosin and the first big thing that I noticed was the clarity of the instruments. It sounded so much clearer than the first time! They said they had to use a little more arm to get a louder sound, but just off of my random sampling of the students, if all of the violins used this rosin the clarity would come out. The higher registers weren't over played, and it held it's ground with the everything I could ask of them. The only drawback that they didn't have any for themselves. I rate it a 5/5 for violin.

Now, onward to violas which I will admit now wasn't my best test sample. The people that was ready for the instruments didn't show up, however I had some others to help test this rosin. I had two people test this out on their violas, both of which didn't have too much experience playing. They both used Super Sensitive's basic rosin and they both had the same result as the violins; the clarity and the overall tone came out for the viola. I will need to do an update to this post in the near future when I can get my "expert" to test this stuff for me and give you a better and more detailed review, but I give it a 4.5/5 for viola.

I have personally spent a good couple of weeks tearing into this rosin on my cello and I can tell you, I have never used anything like it! It is in fact some of the best rosin I have used for my cello; it sticks to the strings well but it doesn't make the sound grainy. The only problems I have with it is I had a few moments where it might have been not sticking enough but I tend to play more along the lines of Apocalyptica so I like bite to my playing but that was during my initial testing. Since then I haven't had any problems with it and the same went when I was testing at the school. The students who used it on cello loved it and had the same argument; it wasn't sticking well at first but the issue cleared up after a little bit of use. Overall I think this is a great rosin for cellos, but I will need to test the 3G Ultra to see if it has the problem cleared up for cellos. I give it a 4.5/5 for cello. *UPDATE* I have completed a Magic Rosin 3G Ultra review (click here)

When I first read the rosin online and saw it was for all four instruments I was very skeptical; like most people online reading the same description, so I sat down with some of the more advanced bass players at the school and said, "let's run this rosin down on the basses and see if it really works well on the instruments". So with the bass players we got the rosin they used (Pops and Carlsson) and we spent a good half hour running blind test after blind test and seeing which we liked better. Here is our overall impression with each rosin: Pops gave us the greatest bite between all of them but it tended to sound very grainy at times. Carlsson had some bite but no where as much as Pops but the tone was great. Magic Rosin was the best middle ground for bass in our opinion; more bite than the Carlsson with just as much clarity but not as much bite as the Pops. Something else one of the bass players brought up to me during testing was they had a better coverage of rosin than they did with either brand. The way the Pops worked for me was it gave a lot of slick spots and places on the string that it wouldn't cover very well and would have to fight to get the bow to work. The same thing with the Carlssons; it gave us a lot more coverage but we still kept hitting slick spots on the strings. The Magic Rosin fixed that problem very well and didn't have that problem when testing. I felt like it was good for bass but if you like a lot of bass sounds from your group or yourself try the 3G Ultra. I give it a 4/5 for bass. *UPDATE* I have completed a Magic Rosin 3G Ultra review (click here)

Overall, for the money you get a great grip from the rosin and that does kind of trip me out that it makes the bass sound great without over gripping the violins and viola bows! It really did astonish me while testing, I never thought about this being a possibility and especially for the price! I think this rosin should be in EVERY starting up orchestra classroom if not every classroom. There isn't anything else out there like it on the market that I can find. I give the rosin a 4.5/5. To view my Magic Rosin 3G Ultra review click here.

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How to Practice Episode 4: Practice the Basics

Welcome back everyone! Now I know it can get very annoying to practice scales over and over again but you have to know your basics. There are many reasons why you need to know them, such as:

1). The basic skills of your instrument is what makes you a musician. If you didn't know how to play simple stuff, then how could you play the more complicated? For example how can you play work by Bach and Beethoven when you don't know the simple stuff.

2). There are crucial skills you can practice on scales that makes your whole style of playing better if you practice them on scales. For example, vibrato is a great example that you should practice on scales. Vibrato adds so much tonal flare to music, and is probably the biggest divider between musicians. However, it can be a hassle at times to practice so remember that an hour a week of nothing but good practicing is better than 3 hours a day of bad practice.


3). Practicing the easy stuff helps you be able to do things like improvising from being able to tell the chord progression and scales in the music and being better acquainted with your instrument. That is a huge factor when it comes to improving, because the less you are close to your instrument the more nerve wracking it will be. Your instrument is like your best friend, especially when your alone on a stage that has been lighted up.  

Review: D'Addario Helicore Cello Strings

Now, for those of you who are new to my blog I am a intermediate cellist. I have been playing for almost 7 years, which to most people is just a drop in the bucket but the benefit from my perspective is I am going to college in a few short months (as of now 2 and a few days) so I know where the deals are and know what to get so you get bang for your buck.

Now, for years I've been taught from my teachers that just because you have a cheap cello doesn't mean you have to think it will always sound bad. For people who are just beginning and have a student instrument, there are several changes to your instrument that will improve the tone and overall characteristics of it. The first, and usually the most effective, way to get the sounds you want is to get new strings. For people starting out the best strings you can get for cheap are D'Addario's Helicore. They are made strong, and they are made to last for a long time. Before I changed cellos, they were the only ones I would use on my cello and I never had to worry about strings popping. I kept a set on there for a few years, which is not a good thing to do but when your on a budget it works out well.

This leads me into a lesson on strings, for my stringed musicians on here. The rule of thumb for us is you should change your strings once a year, however there are strings that will last longer. Just keep in mind the longer they stay on your instrument the more they will go "flat" and the more likely they will snap.

Now, what do I mean by a string going flat? Every string is constructed where they have a core, and the metal is wrapped around it. After a while the core will start to get worn out and it causes the string to vibrate less vividly and it gives a "flat" sound to the instrument. Another key feature to know about strings is that there is a break-in period that varies between the strings. The way it works for the Helicore strings is 5-7 days. That is a good time, but you need to remember that if you have a competition, audition, or a performance you need to be able to avoid getting stuck with spotty tuning.

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Episode 4: Defining the Signatures

Hello, and welcome back to this week's episode on Sulliadm's Music Theory Blog! This week's lesson is explaining the two signatures: Time and Key signatures.


First, we will start with the key signature. The Key Signature of music is what we use to tell  what sharps or flats should be used in the piece. For example, we can have 2 sharps in the key of D, or the key of F has 1 flat. The way to know what key we are in is by learning The Order of Sharps and The Order of Flats. The Order of Sharps are F#, C#, G#, D#, A#, E#, B#, and the easiest way to remember the keys is to go up a half step from the sharp. Using my example above, the key of D uses 2 sharps: F# and C#. Another common key to use is G, and it has one sharp: F#. In order to find the Order of flats, it is simply reversing that order. They are Bb, Eb, Ab, Db, Gb, Cb, and Fb. The way to remember the keys here is to go back one letter in the line. So, using the example above, the key of F has only one flat, Bb. The key of Eb major has 3 flats: Bb, Eb and Ab.

Now, we will discuss time signatures. The Time Signature is the division of music that divides the number of beats by what note value gets the beat. As previously stated, every note can be subdivided. A quarter note can be split into 2 eighth notes, and similarly two quarter notes can be combined into a half note. Now the time signature tells you how many of what note can go within a measure. Commonly used time signatures are 4/4, 3/4. and 6/8. To simplify that, 4/4 time means there are four notes in a measure and the quarter note gets the beat. 6/8 means there are 6 notes in each measure while the eighth note gets the beat. There are unusual time signatures as well, such as 5/8, 7/4, and 2.5/4. Those are very rare to come by however it is just as simple to understand how to count.

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Episode 3: Treble and Bass Clef

Hello everyone,

Today's lesson is on the different clefs, which are Treble Clef and Bass Clef. Treble clef or G clef as it is more commonly called, is the clef that is commonly used today within music. Many instruments use it, such as violin, flute, oboe, clarinet, xylophone, and guitar. There are times where lower instruments, such as cello, bass and trombone, must read this cleft as well but this isn't always true. Those instruments, and many others, use the Bass clef, or F clef as it is more commonly called, to read music naturally. There are more than simply these two clef, but in order to keep everything simple for the lesson we will stick to learning just these two today.

The reason for why treble clef is called G clef is because the loop on the clef is the note G and is the G above middle C. The lowest note on the picture above is middle C, and in this case, the picture is a C major scale. As discussed in the last episode, there are intervals between notes and a Scale is a series of these intervals. C major is C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C, or interval wise, where W is a whole step and H is half step, is W-W-H-W-W-W-H. This interval pattern will work on all major scales, for example G major is G-A-B-C-D-E-F#-G, or F major would be F-G-A-Bb-C-D-E-F. You can keep experimenting with any notes on the keyboard to find the scales.

Now, this is the Bass clef, also called an F clef. The reason it is called the F clef, like the G clef, is it circles around the note F. However, the same is not true about middle C, the top of the scale is considered middle C. This is also a C major scale, only an octave lower than the one shown before. An Octave is a set of notes that are played with two different places on the staff than the same one. For example, there is an octave jump from the low C to the high C in the picture above. Similarly, there is an octave jump from the lower C on the treble clef than the higher one. Also note the pattern for the scale is the same as with the treble clef, this being a C major scale.

I will expand of each staff specifically in a few days. Thanks for reading, and don't forget to subscribe and follow me on Twitter or Facebook for more information and suggestions for future ideas, like mini video series and contest!

Episode 2: Sharps and Flats

Hello, and welcome back to my blog! The first thing we need to discuss is intervals. An Interval is the distance between two notes. In most cases on a piano, the space between any two white keys or between any two black keys is considered a whole step. Let's take this piano for instance...

Look to the left and you see there is a black key between each white key EXCEPT between B-C and E-F. Those spaces between white keys with a black key in between them are called Whole Steps. The spaces in which there isn't a key in between them, for example B-C or E-F are called Half Steps.

Now, you may be wondering what are the black keys are called. They are called Accidentals. They are listed as a Sharp (#) or Flat (b). If you need to, you can also make the note a Natural but we will discuss that later. All white keys are considered naturals, for example the C's are read as "C Natural", but when you hit the key between C and D, you have a C sharp (C#) and enharmonically a D flat (Db). Enharmonics are notes that are read in different ways. A good way to practice that is going up the octave (from left to right) make everything sharp (C, C#, D, D#, E, etc.) until you get to the next C. Then go back down and say everything with flats (C, B, Bb, A, Ab, G, etc.)

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Welcome!

Welcome to my blog! I will be demonstrating general musical theory concepts to people who either want to learn an instrument, get better at the instrument they play, or just want to know some secrets in music.