I've just started learning the mandolin and came across this great Chris Thile video on crossing over from guitar to mandolin. I think Chris is exactly right about the challenges guitarists face when making the shift from guitar to mandolin. The string spacing is definitely a challenge, but I'm finding the biggest obstacle is the tuning. Going from standard tuning on the guitar to the mandolin's fifths based tuning is a real brain/finger tester! Still I'm absolutely loving playing the mandolin and I'm …

Here's a shot of me with my new mandolin!  It's an Eastman MD515 and it sounds absolutely fantastic!

I'm going to be playing at the TEDxOakville Launch Party on Tuesday, June 22! This should be a fantastic event and I'm thrilled to be working with New Media artist Faisal Anwar. You can check out some of Faisal's work here.

The TEDxOakville theme is: "Can an individual in Oakville really make a difference and change the world?" If you'd like to learn more about TEDxOakville, please visit this page.

To learn more about TEDx, click here.

Thanks and bye for now,
Jamie

If you have a moment, please check out the brand new video for " Water "! This is the first of two videos my brother, Randy, has created for my latest release, Side B . I hope to have the second video up sometime next week. For those of you interested in the creative/tech side of things, Randy created the "Water" video completely in Motion and edited it in Final Cut. Yes, that means it was more than a little bit of work. As a side note, the molecule at the beginning and end of the …

My union (Local 1000) is auctioning off a "Pete Seeger-Style" Vega Longneck Banjo (made available by the generosity of the Deering Banjo Company). This banjo was played and signed by Pete himself! The proceeds of the auction will benefit our Emergency Relief Fund and our Organizing efforts to bring the benefits of our union to other musicians. Check out this video of Pete Seeger playing and signing the banjo! If you'd like to place a bid for the banjo, please visit this link . Thanks and best …

I'm happy to announce the release of my new album, Side B ! As the title suggests, Side B shows a different side to my music making -- the focus on this record is electronic and orchestral textures. I've had a long time love of electronic-based music (I started out on my brother's Jupiter 4 back in the late '70s) and ended up studying electro-acoustic/computer music in school. To date, all of my albums have been guitar-based -- the electronic and orchestral elements were generally in support of my …

Thanks to Namba Gear for making me a featured artist on their website!

Sony Music to drop promo CDs I actually thought this would have happened a long time ago.  I understand that some people in the industry (reviewers, radio stations, etc.) still want a physical product, but CDs make little or no sense in 2010. There is far less environmental impact from digital downloads and digital files are far easier to manage from a delivery standpoint. They're also easier to use. Finding a particular track amongst ten thousand songs in an iTunes-like system is a breeze. Finding …

Absolutely terrific interview with Jim Selby (CEO) of Naxos of America Inc.

Two of his answers regarding sales and profit I found very interesting:

Regarding sales.... "The physical (distribution) portion would be probably 70 percent (of sales). In profit, it would be around 10 percent. Ninety percent of the profit is generated by the non-physical."

And regarding digital sales... "Our sales for digital downloads and streams for Naxos the label are well over 50 percent. Most of the industry is around 25 percent. We have our own distributor labels that are well over 35 percent."

I never would have guessed that a Classical label would have this high a percentage of digital sales and profit. Definitely interesting...

 

I have a keeper!  I just picked up an SR Technology JAM 150 Plus and it’s exactly what I was looking for: An amp that is more than an amp.  I play a fairly wide range of sounds -- everything from nylon string guitar to electric to guitar synth -- so I need an amp that can handle a huge frequency range and lots of dynamics.  The JAM 150 Plus does that with ease.   SR Technology has made the JAM 150 Plus incredibly simple to operate.  You basically have six input …

If you’re just visiting my site and wondering what the heck I’m doing writing about Hugh MacLeod's Ignore Everybody , I’ll tell you.   Derek Sivers (Founder of CD Baby) sent out an e-mail asking if anyone would be interested in receiving a book and then writing about it.  Derek's other criteria was -- must be a working musician, currently releasing and promoting music and have a blog.  A lot  of people responded, and I was one of the lucky ones Derek chose to be …

Fantastic review of St. Joseph Street by Hans-Bernd Hülsmann for Smooth Jazz Daily!

Record industry faces liability over `infringement' Hard to believe this is even true.  You have to wonder the logic behind Warner Music Canada, Sony BMG Music Canada, EMI Music Canada, and Universal Music Canada's decision to "exploit now, pay later if at all."  Maybe it's simply pure greed.  Maybe it's bad management. But as the author Michael Geist ponts out: "After years of claiming Canadian consumers disrespect copyright, the irony of having the recording industry face …

I'm currently #27 on the Smooth Jazz chart and #2 on the New Age chart @ SmoothJazzNow.com.

Please tune in to SmoothJazzNow.com tomorrow (Thursday, December 3) at 9 AM (Mountain Time) to hear my interview with John Beaudin.

A huge thanks to producer Donna Savoy for adding 22(!) of my tracks to the Not Too Smooth Jazz playlist!

Nice interview with Donald Passman. I liked his last insightful comment: "The more pain the industry feels, the easier the legal side gets. The better the technology gets, the closer we get to delivering an experience people want."

Terrific new review of St. Joseph Street by Denis Poole (Smooth Jazz Therapy)!

I just reached #1 on the ReverbNation Jazz Chart for Toronto!

My new EP St. Joseph Street is now available on iTunes!

I've had lots of great comments about the musicians on my new EP, St. Joseph Street -- truthfully, the album wouldn't have been possible without their input.  I'm incredibly happy with all of the performances and hope to work with Wendy, Peter, Bill, Dave and Henrik again soon!  So here's a little background on all of the St. Joseph Street players:   Bill McBirnie Bill is a jazz and Latin flute specialist based in Toronto, Ontario.  He has studied with distinguished Canadian flutist …

At long, long last I've finished off my new EP!! It's called St. Joseph Street  (named after the street I've lived on for the last 20 years), and it features some fantastic performances from: Bill McBirnie (Flute),  Henrik Bridger (Bass), Dave Patel (Drums), Wendy Irvine (Vocals) and Peter A. P. Zakarow (Drums). I'll post more info about the record in the coming days... In the meantime, here's a sneak peek of St. Joseph Street :

This article shows what is pretty clear to me -- music creators and copyright owners are moving to a vastly different way of getting music out there. Still, I'm not sure anyone has found "...ways of monetizing the creative content” that in any way equals what the record industry saw pre-2000.

Some sharp comments from a great guitar player...

Just lowered the prices of all my album downloads on CD Baby and BandCamp! Full length albums are now $5 and EPs are $2!!

Absolutely beautiful...

For those of you who haven't heard... The New Logic Studio is here!  And it looks great!

Wise words from Seth Godin.

Internet radio tuning in

Who says people aren't passionate about radio? I think the comments to this article are absolutely great! People want a sense of integrity and diversity from broadcasters and one of the places they're finding it is online.

Two very nice posts by Andrew Goodrich over at Artists House Music:

Are Music Industry Stats Relevant to You?

More On Music Industry Stats and Relevance

Be sure to check out the link to the Neilson's 2009 presentation at NARM.  There are some very interesting numbers in their report...

This man was talent.  Truly amazing...

Trent Reznor recently posted this to his blog and I think he's absolutely right on with most of his points! Everything he says makes sense to me... but speaking as an independent artist myself, I feel that his suggestions, as good as they are, are hugely time consuming. I spend an enormous amount of time (in my opinion TOO much time) in front of a computer. Still, I suppose we're lucky as independents to have sites like  ReverbNation and BandCamp  that can help lessen the amount of grunt work …

Okay maybe this isn't really "news" anymore, but still it's interesting to see the kind of money some artists are making playing corporate gigs.

All rock stars have a price, even Mick Jagger

< Watch CBS Videos Online This is embarrassing on so many levels. It's embarrassing that the record industry pursued this case this hard. It's embarrassing that the jury awarded $1.92 million in damages. But mostly, it's embarrassing that instead of talking about an exciting, new record, the focus is still on file sharing.

"This really is high stakes, if this can't work then what will," he (Jupiter analyst Mark Mulligan) said.

Yes, this truly is high stakes. For $16.30-$24.50 (US) per month, Virgin Media broadband customers will be able to stream and download an unlimited number of tracks. Right now the service only has the Universal catalogue, but apparently they're hoping to add more labels by the time the service is launched.

Of course, for something like this to work there are a lot of ifs, but it's certainly something that has some real potential. At the very least, it shows creative thinking and an interest in risk taking from Universal and Virgin.

Just finished reading Hank Bordowitz 's Dirty Little Secrets of the Record Business .  To cut to the chase, I liked it! The book is very well written and is a first rate overview of the record business. Anyone who's interested in the underpinnings of the record industry could do worse than pick up DLSRB . I have two minor criticisms of the book. Firstly, and perhaps selfishly on my part, there is little that relates to an indie artist like me. This is a criticism I have with many music business …

Here's a shot of my new acoustic pedalboard:

I'm loving the sound of this pedalboard!  The Tonebone PZ-Pre put the the final touch on the overall sound quality, but I think the Fishman Aura (Nylon String) and the Yamaha Magicstomp Acoustic are equally important to the tones I'm getting now.  And I have zero complaints about the Ernie Ball VP Jr. or the Korg DT-10 tuner.  Everything is working perfectly!

I can't say I agree with everything U2's manager Paul McGuinness says in this interview, but his comments sure garnered a lot of response.

Irving Azoff And The “De-Monetization” Of The Music Industry

I think a better title would have been: "Irving Azoff And The “De-Monetization” Of The Record Industry". Still it's a good article and Azoff made some interesting comments. Two that stick out to me are:

• "Recorded music is more a marketing tool than a revenue source"
• "Recorded music is down to less than 6% of major musical acts’ revenues."

The first comment I've heard many times before, but the second one is new to me. I have no way of knowing if his 6% number is correct or not, but even if he's under by 100%, recorded music is clearly not making up a very large percentage of "name" acts' income.

Mobile Music Keeps Humming As Music IndustryShrinks

I don't have a smart phone (yet!), so I can't really comment on the downloading of songs to your phone. Maybe it'll be the next big thing. Or maybe not. As the article states there are some real challenges to the music/smart phone market -- streaming (any song/any time) is just one of them.

The new Best Buy/Napster program and Danger Mouse's latest gimmick show just how quickly the value of recorded music has fallen.

Napster relaunching, again: $5 per month streaming plus five free downloads

Music industry 0-1 Illegal downloaders

My brother, Randy, just did a video (which I think looks great!) for his wife's hair salon. Here's some info about the Cinderella Hair Salon : "Cinderella Hair Salon is a TR (Thermal Reconditioning) salon located in the Annex of downtown Toronto. We specialize in Japanese Hair Straightening, aka TR, and have been doing TR for more than 10 years. We use only genuine Japanese Hair Straightening Systems such as STRAIGHT TIO and i_Style." If you'd like to contact the Cinderella Hair Salon for more …

Wow indeed!!

The Globe and Mail is doing a five part series called Download Decade. The series is focused on (oddly enough!) downloads -- everything from iTunes to P2P file sharing -- and includes some great audio interviews, graphics and video. I think the first part of the series is absolutely terrific!  I also like the new look of the Globe site -- very clear and easy to navigate. 

An interesting "behind the scenes" look at the making of stringed instruments in China.

Now this is a nice story!  And it shows the power of music and of one great teacher! 

Watch CBS Videos Online

That's not my title, but it sure seems to fit the situation the industry is in right now.  This video edit makes some great points and shows some opposing views.  But in the end, there's no answer put forth -- just more questions.

 

Labels dissatisfied with MySpace Music performance

"....With Apple dominating online music retail, MySpace Music is seen as a potential new opportunity to generate sales.

At the very least, MySpace Music's sluggish performance illustrates how difficult that task is. Music consumption on the Web has really come down to two horses: iTunes and illegal peer-to-peer sites."

Yes, but I think it's even simpler than that.  It basically comes down to the time/money balancing act. The less time one has, the more likely they are to gravitate to a paid service like iTunes.  The more time one has, the more likely they are to use P2P networks.  Maybe there's something in the middle -- say $0.50 per tune.  Then again, maybe the P2P users can never be enticed (at any price) to pay for downloads.

Some good points from Bob Lefsetz in this post. Are albums dead? Personally, for some artists I don't think the album is dead -- it's still a viable format. But, for the majority of the public I think the writing is on the wall. How many people actually sit in the sweet spot in front of a stereo and listen to an album from start to finish now-a-days.  I know I don't.  The vast majority of my own listening is to playlists that I've created or to music streamed over the web or cable.

Guitar market strikes a nostalgic chord

Even with prices slightly dropping, it looks like guitars are solid investment. "A Gibson Les Paul Standard that sold in 1958 for less than $300, including the guitar case, can now fetch $420,000 or more -- an average annual gain of 32% since 2000, according to vintage guitar price guides."  Not a bad return I'd say.  Hey, can anyone spare half a million so I can pick up a couple used guitars?

Coldplay to give away live CD at concerts

I think we're seeing a pattern emerge from name bands like Coldplay -- recorded music as a way to generate interest in a tour. I wonder how long before this type of thing filters down to indie artists like myself. Will all recorded music be free in the future? Yes, I know anyone can get just about anything on P2P networks right now, but I like to think there's still a belief that recorded music has value. Maybe I'm just being naive and the die has already been cast. The picture is becoming clearer to me though -- to make a go of it as an artist, you have to play live. A lot.

I've been teaching guitar at the Reaching Out Through Music program one afternoon a week since last September. The program's chief mandate is to offer private instruction to inner-city children and youth who cannot otherwise obtain music lessons for financial reasons. There's a fundraiser for the program happening on Saturday, May 9th. If you'd like to lend your support, here are the details: Time: Saturday, May 9th at 7:30 p.m. Location: St Simon-the-Apostle Anglican Church 525 Bloor St East Toronto, …

Here's a couple shots of me playing with Audio X last weekend...  ( Photo by  David Leadbitter ) Jamie Bonk (Guitar)  |  Dave Patel  (Drums)  |  Lori Nuic (Vocals/Guitar) | Wendy Irvine  (Keys/Vocals) ( Photo by  David Leadbitter ) Jamie Bonk (Guitar)  |  Dave Patel  (Drums)  |  Lori Nuic (Vocals/Guitar) | Wendy Irvine  (Keys/Vocals)  

If you lurk on various music tech forums like I do, it's pretty hard to miss all of the talk regarding USB and FireWire audio interfaces. The general consensus seems to be that for audio, USB is vastly inferior to FireWire -- that you'll get far less performance out of a USB device than you will out of a FireWire one. Well, I'm a hands on guy, so I wanted to test this out for myself. This clearly is not an exhaustive, definitive test, but honestly, I was surprised by the results. Here's the gear I used …

Over my almost thirty years of working with computers, I've picked up a few tips and tricks that I'd like to share. I'm going to start very generally and over the next few months (hopefully!), I'll get more specific. So here we go! Suspenders and a belt . I think everyone knows this one... But still, I've seen lots of people lose LOTS of data -- including songs and entire albums (yikes!). So... If the only place that your data exists is on your one and only hard drive, your data (meaning your songs, …

Seth Godin gets it right in his blog entry, Music Lessons. If you're an artist releasing your own music, this should be required reading.

Actually, meet my two little friends -- the Mackie  SRM150 's. Without a doubt these are some of the best pieces of gear I've purchased in a long time. So what exactly is the Mackie SRM150?Well, it's a lot of things. Mackie calls it a Compact Active PA System -- an apt, but fairly broad and non-committal description. It can be used as a PA, but it has so many other uses. With a three channel mixer, three band eq, phantom power, an audio "thru" with a mic/line switch, 150 watts of power …

So you're a musician and you want to start up a record label, eh? Well, it's not all fun and games. For me, the most not fun thing is all of the business I have to do. And if you're an indie musician like me, you're going to have to do the same not fun things that I have to. Lots of not fun things. If you want to keep your focus on music and not business, I've found one "trick" is to streamline your business software. And the best way, in my opinion, to do that is to buy a Mac. Yeah, I'm …

This seems like a good idea.  The bundling of records, merchandise, live shows, etc. has been done before, but whether through creative thinking or simply lack of choice, the record companies look like they are changing.

Metheny has written so many absolutely beautiful tunes... This is one of my favourites:

 

Lots of good questions, but few real answers. My guess is the further we go down this road, the more important live performance will become. It remains to be seen if online streaming music services can make a go of it.

This track off of Buddha-Bar VIII has been in constant rotation on my iPod. The composition and arrangement of this remix by Sam Popat are outstanding, but it's the vocal by Peter Heppner that puts the tune over the top for me.

You can check out the original version of this track here.

I just saw this 1999 video of the Jeff Beck Group live... Wow! What a terrific tune played by an amazing band! I grew up listening to Beck, but I've never had the chance to see him play live. Hopefully, he'll come to Toronto (or near by) soon.

I realize that for many "name" artists it's now all about the show, but No Doubt's latest tour has truly hammered home the point. To help promote their upcoming tour, No Doubt is giving away their entire recorded catalogue with every ticket over $42.50! This is a pretty gutsy move. I wonder how this will affect the rest of the industry.

This quote by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe truly speaks to me:

"Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it."

I just uploaded all of my albums to Bandcamp. I absolutely love this site -- very clearly laid out and extremely artist and consumer friendly. Basically, Bandcamp let's artists upload their tracks and then sell downloads directly (via PayPal) to their audience. Artists can also set whatever price (all the way down to zero) they'd like for their downloads. At this point, Bandcamp isn't taking any sort of cut of the download, which I hope they change in the future. They need to make money to stay in business (they acknowledge this). One striking plus to Bandcamp's downloads is that they come in a very wide variety of formats -- MP3, AAC, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC and Apple Lossless. And they are completely DRM-free. So head on over to the Bandcamp site!

There are quite a few top notch sources for info on Logic, but here are some good ones to get you started.

 

Okay this is definitely a little (or a lot!) nerdy, but still I think it's pretty funny...   ----------   C, E-flat and G go into a bar. The bartender says, "sorry, but we don't serve minors." So E-flat leaves, and C and G have an open fifth between them. After a few drinks, the fifth is diminished and G is out flat. F comes in and tries to augment the situation, but is not sharp enough. D comes in and heads for the bathroom saying, "Excuse me. I'll just be a second." …

Great demo and a great product! I think Omnisphere will keep me busy for years...