Looking for fresh inspiration or guidance, or just some entertainment? Here are a few things from the world of music and sound which might be of interest!

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Experts weigh in: How to improve the sound of your recordings

Learn better recording techniques from the REAPER pros
Many keen amateur, semi-professional and professional recording engineers are now choosing the superb Reaper DAW software for making and editing their recordings. In this epic thread on the Reaper Forums, many of them weigh in on the classic question: “Why don’t my recordings sound good?”:

MuseScore Provides Top Tricks for Transcribing Music Quickly

Top Music Transcription TipsIf you read Matthew Abdallah‘s article on song transcription you might find this one interesting too: the MuseScoreTips website regularly publishes tips for the free score editing program MuseScore and score writing in general, and they recently compiled their tips and tricks for transcribing music quickly.

Thanks to Brian Wis/@teaching_music for the link!

How do beatboxers make those sounds? Let’s take a look…

UK champion beatboxer, Reeps One explaining his techniques
Sometimes the only way to find out how something works is to take it apart and have a look. Sadly we can’t do that do beatboxers, but here’s the next best thing: Put them in an MRI machine!

Scan their brains, find out how they work
Is there a particular musician or type of artist you’d like to put in an MRI machine? Have your say in the comments below.

Top sites for music educators

Top 40 Site List For Music EducatorsA lot of our visitors to EasyEarTraining.com aren’t only students of ear training – they’re also music educators, in all kinds of different areas. Here’s a great list of other sites which might be useful to music educators, from the degree info site OnlineMusicDegree.com:

Know of a great site for music education not listed there? Leave a comment and let us know!

JazzAdvice.com on how to hear what you want to play

Forrest and Eric over at JazzAdvice.com talk frequently about the importance of ear training, and this recent article makes a great point:

They go on to offer clear, practical advice on how to improve your auralisation so that you can hear what you want to – in your head and on your instrument.

The “Truck Driver’s Gear Change” through the ages

That most heinous of musical crimes: The truck driver's gear shiftThe latest in a series of fascinating articles by Matthias Mauch at Last.FM, “Anatomy of the UK Charts. Part 5 — King of Gear Shifts” analyses the use of that most terrible of pop music crimes: The Truck Driver’s Gear Change, that sudden upwards key shift to desperately inject a song with new energy as the end closes in.

Matthias introduces the phenomenon itself and then uses science and Last.FM’s vast music collection to track its use through the decades and see how some particular famous artists have (ab)used it.

Over to you!

Have you discovered any great new ear training resources lately? Have a tip or idea to share? If you’ve found any of the news above useful or interesting we’d love to hear from you.

Have your say in the comments below!