New Years Update: Nearing the end of the 2nd year, and a contest idea

Time to discuss some things I've been needing to discuss. First off we'd like to say happy new year to those whom are reading this on New Years day, or happy day for those reading and it's not! There appears to be an end to the computer problem in sight! After a few two weeks of headaches and frustrations over having a failed hard drive, I have someone working on it for me. Hopefully within the next few days, I'll be able to finish the final discussion post from my previous series so I can post the finale and move on to the next series. Because of this delay I am starting up a new safety protocol for blog articles via backing up on a DropBox and on SkyDrive.

There is a new look in store for the site as well. Here is the new official logo for ASMTB which was given to us by Clayton Daniels. Link to his deviantArt by clicking here. Go look at his manga stuff, it's really impressive. I love his style and his shading technique for his art. There may be a collaboration with him in the future. ;) There will be a new background up once I finish reinstalling everything back to my computer.

ASMTB's 2014 logo

Speaking of collaborating, we are giving an open invitation to anyone who would like to collaborate with ASMTB staff. We have done it before with Hit Me With Music's Anu Pattabiraman and Uni Bram. We are willing to work around whatever you are wanting to do. For example, Anu and Uni wanted to do a theory lesson, so they posted a sample of their book and a link to their KickStart. If you would like to apply for a collaboration then send us an email through our blog email or  a message to any of our social medias (all links in the header bar).

I have been working on bringing back some old classics for everyone to enjoy along with setting up a new series. The first I am bringing back is the music theory lessons! As the name of the site implies, there needs to be a music theory series in a site founded on music theory. Starting at the end of the month, I am going to begin the music theory lessons again. Things will not be the same as before however because I am going to experiment with types of delivering theory lessons in preparation of some projects in hiding. Secondly, I have decided to bring back the practicing tips series along side Faith. This will not be back anytime soon, but before the end of this season of ASMTB (March 2014) I will have them started back. Lastly, I have decided to try a series on only reviews. Once a month, I am planning on writing reviews on things that either I come across and want to give a shot or you recommend and review them. At this time, I am planning on reviewing CelloBello.com by the end of the month. Soon to be followed by "Hit Me With Music" as a copy was graciously donated to me by Anu Pattabiraman (Just so you know Anu, the reason is because I've decided to save it for a very special post but it'll be here soon! Plus I want to make sure I review it as best I can. ;) ), a review of "The Music of the Temporalist" by Andre Pogoriloffsky along with the Free Metronome and ProMetronome apps by EMUlabs.com. Beyond this however, I am out of ideas. This leads me into an idea that I am going to implement.

For those who have topics, items you want reviewed, or any ideas that you would like to share with us we would like to hear them! We at ASMTB pride ourselves on the quality of material that we post and share with you and in order the ensure this quality, we are asking for feedback. We really appreciate feedback and sharing of this site and our other sites (this page, FB, Twitter, SoundCloud and our affiliated groups' website/socials at Team Young Spark). To help promote this request for feedback and getting to understand our faithful readers, we are going to begin a contest series. The will not be an exact day that it will appear but there will be one a month. The prize will range from contest to contest however for the first one, it will be a $10 iTunes gift cards.  I am open to suggestions for more prizes but there will not be a guarantee I will do it. Official rules for this contest will be later in this month but the question will be to review us. Write a review of this site from whatever angle you want. The only requirement is there should be a minimum of 100 words, but should you feel contempt to write more then go ahead. As I previously stated, we pride ourselves on our quality of work and our easy to understand context with our lesson-based writings. This is also why I took forever to replace our last writers, and why I chose Faith to join the team. You have one month to do start so get to writing!

Along with feedback, it would really be appreciative to us and for the people who are wanting to start advertising that you subscribe to us through Feedburner. It is as simple as clicking on the information box on the top right that asks for an email and entering it. We do not spam your inbox nor do we have news letters. Feedburner is here to keep you up to date with our posts and as a tool for us to use for research purposes. So if you like what you've read (minus this... unless you like this then awesome!) then please enter your email.

Advertising have been a rather popular question related to the site. At this time, we are beginning to start a BETA run for advertising (I'm a musician, not a technician or a magician so I have to learn how to code in the ads so I know the stats and etc.). Once I finish this BETA testing and it appears to work, I will open it up to whomever wants to pay for it. I was hoping on not going to the point of charging however life has come to the point of needing to find a job and since I want to make this succeed, the easiest way is to start ads. I will make sure that there will not be a charge for the information we teach or share. Also, there will be a limit to ads so it will not look like a page of ads from a newspaper. I will limit them to a handful of ads at a time, more than likely three or four ads on a page. Donations, however are always open if you feel moved enough to donate. If anyone is moved enough to donated towards this project (say $20+), then we can set up a thank you wall or work out a way to show our appreciation for your contribution.

Anyways, hopefully there was something that interested you in this update. There will be another one to celebrate the success of two years and the welcoming of our third year! Don't forget to share with social media and follow us via email/feedburner and on the social medias if you have one!

Question of the Week 4: Thoughts on New Authors?

Hey eveybody, Sulli here and I had an interesting conversation with someone the other night to drive this question. Here's the back story for anyone who's asking: I was up one night talk to some friends of mine who write on a fan generated content site called "Fimfiction.net" (beware, this is brony territory if you don't like them) and he was wanting to write some reviews on here of CD's and stuff. Of course the matter now seems to have fallen through (though he may end up writing some things anyways but not regularly) but it had me thinking. Also it reminded me to figure out about our other authors, Lester and Dallas. Dallas has been having a rough time in his life and has decided to take a little break to work on some music. Lester has been working a lot in college, but says he will be back to work on the series in the near future.

So then, here's my question to you: Would you like for me to try a new author on here? Or perhaps open up the possibility of looking for more authors to post on here along with me? Maybe even you are wanting to write on here. Either way, leave a comment below on what you think and we'll see how the results turn out! As always, don't forget to subscribe by entering your email in the box on the right and following us on the social media listed above!

YouTube Ad Campaign: Intro and Revisiting the blog series

Hey everyone! Sulli here with a quick announcement! I've created an intro/ad for the blog! We're getting to the point of needing this so let us know what you think of the ad! Also, I'm revisiting the old episodes of the blog and working out a new video series for them. First episode will be posted on here and I'll try to post the announcements on here as I get them uploaded. I felt really bad about the stats nearly at 5K and then stopping the reason you all subscribed so I'm doing that before I start continuing with the series. So, there isn't going to be anything new for a little while but when there is, it will be better than before!

So here's the Intro:




As always, don't forget to let us know what you think in the comments below, share us (please?!?) and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. And don't forget to stay tuned for more thrilling adventures of... The Adam Sullivan Music Theory Blog! (*applause!*)

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The World Music Experiment: Introduction

Hello to all of you out there to all of you who subscribe to this blog. Allow me to more formally introduce myself. My name is Lester St. Louis, I also for other creative purposes go by the pseudonym Distonal. I am a 19 year old multi - instrumentalist, (primarily cellist and bassist), and composer based in New York city. I like to believe that I have accumulated a considerable amount of knowledge on various styles, forms, types of music, and sound art from the world. With said information I hope to help you all become better acquainted with world music and other topics in music ranging from style and form, to history, theory and everything in between. For this to be thoroughly interesting, I will need a lot of user feedback letting me know if they want more or if something is hard to follow and so on. You can do so via the Facebook page, or leave a comment on the articles. Now that we are all better acquainted lets start off lightly. I believe that we shall start with the music of Latin America. Latin American music is music that originates from the regions of Central America to South America (Mexico downward connected land). Latin America has had a very substantial amount of genres and styles to come out; such as the Samba, Forro, and Bossa Novas of Brasil, The tango, and Chacarera's of Argentina, as well as the Salsa, Merengue, Bolero, raggaeton, and many other forms from these regions. In the coming time we will cover all the different forms of Latin American music as well as enjoying a lot of it along the way. Don't worry we will also cover every other region of the world and their native music styling, as well as their contemporary scenes. I hope this doesn't sound too over ambitious, but we have all the time in the world. I will (try my very best) to post a new volume every Wednesday here, so look out for it. In the mean time enjoy one of my favorite tunes from Brasil. This is a Bossa Nova by Joao Gilberto called ''O sapo''. The language is Portuguese for all of you wondering.
 Side note- Joao Gilberto played a seminal part in establishing the form known as Bossa Nova.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7C2ZJDbFGmQ

Special Post: 2,000 US views and an announcement!

Hello and welcome back to all of my regulars, and an especially warm welcome to the people who are being referred to the site thanks to Magic Rosin! I am proud to announce the 2,000 US viewer was seen last night which is a milestone for me! I honestly imagined this site to be a random page that was searched every now and again for a laugh as I talked about something that no one cared to read! But seeing I have hit the 2,000 viewer in the US, and a grand total of 2,400 viewers which there are about 40 or 50 regulars. I would like for all of the new viewers to have a nice start with the blog. As you have probably guessed, my name's Adam and I play the cello and love to compose music... And not just one genre in particular. I think that all music, even if it's not one kind that I listen to often or at all, is valid on some level. It should be shared with the public and cherished as a piece of art. The differences in music should be separated by a permeable wall; Classical, for example, should influence modern music just as much as modern "classical" music should be influenced by modern music such as pop, rock and etc. This doesn't necessarily mean for one to put a beat box to Vivaldi's Four Seasons but if you can make it work then do so. Music is determined by the composer!

Now, you may be looking at that and wondering why it: A) sounds like a vitamin water bottle label, or B) what is the point of that if this is a blog about music theory. The answer to latter question is this blog isn't all about theory. I try to put a mix of things on here to not only open people up to the variety in the world! In order to understand music, you need to know what music is like all over the world and try mixing new elements into your style. For example, I am working on a few arrangements of some classical Christmas tunes for the holidays and one that I'm going to assume a lot of you have heard is The Piano Guys' version of Nearer, My God, To Thee (link). For those who haven't heard the original, then it is a standard SATB (Soprano, Alto, Tener, Bass) hymn for a church choir. However as you hear around half way into a 7/8 feel and sounds almost syncopated at times. That is the general idea behind composing and arranging music: Find (or create) a tune and make it fit in the context of what you want. And in the blog I have a couple of series that I have to help you with this adventure and an important announcement. The first series I started was the actual music theory lessons which have been going on for a while. Coming up after ever 5 to 10 episodes, I do a theory recap post to help catch everyone up on what they missed. Following that, I started the "How to Practice" series in which I give situations where a lot of student musicians get stuck and I present solutions to those problems by either giving the most common way out of it or I create a method (which is what the next episode will be on *hint hint*).

And now, down to the final and the most important part of the post: The big announcement. I am starting 3 new series for the blog: "Interviews with the Professionals", a Fan Music series and The "Global Musical Experiment". The first series is exactly what is says; being a student at Winthrop University I get to talk to the professionals who stop by and ask questions so I have created a series of questions that I ask everyone and share their knowledge with you. The second is also as it sounds as well, if you guys want to write a song, submit it to me and I like it, I will post it on here for everyone to see and get you some views. Finally, the last one is a little more complex than it appears.

As I stated before, I have a somewhat large international fan base ranging from Great Britain, France and Russia to South Korea, Indonesia and Japan. I would like to start an interactive page where everyone can post a little bit about where they are from and post a video describing the song they choose to post and why they chose it. I have already started this "forum" sort of discussion on my Facebook Fan Page with a few people but I need everyone to help pitch some music in! However, the magic begins when I select your post and put it on here to share! So if everyone will join the Facebook Fan Page and post one thing on it then this will be an amazing musical learning adventure for everyone to see life from other parts of the world. And if you're not a fan of Facebook, then I have a Twitter page you can follow as well! Hope you decide to stick around and don't be afraid to look around the page or contact me with questions, changes or ideas you have!