A Community for Up and Coming Musicians
Happy New Year’s everyone! To celebrate the start of 2016, we thought that we would share a few fun facts and accomplishments on Teen Jazz in the last year. Towards the end of 2015 we took a bit of a break – Teen Jazz Founder Shannon Kennedy was quite busy on tour promoting her new …
Continue reading “A Look Back at 2015”
This is a guest post from Rheuben Allen, taken from his site with permission. Why do young clarinet players play flat? Elementary school and middle school students who choose to play the clarinet often have an issue playing in tune. But they’re not necessarily to blame. The manufacturers of many student clarinets sell instruments with …
Continue reading “Why Do Young Clarinet Players Play Flat?”
Now, more than ever before, your next fan is more likely to discover you and your music online than they are to find out about you at a show. Social media now dominates the music industry, and new platforms like TikTok have a greater influence on who discovers your music than anything else. This is …
Continue reading “Build Your Music Brand Platform Online”
Amongst the language learning community, there are a lot of products marketed to learners as being the newest and fastest way to learn a language. The problem with this, is with how they’re defining what it means to have learnt a language. Is this to fluency? To basic conversation ability? It is rarely clear just …
Continue reading “There Are No Shortcuts”
When we make the transition from school to the real world, maintaining our learning curve can present a challenge. In school we’re often handed things that we need to work on in the form or homework or assignments, and so we rarely have to think about the next step. But what happens when you no …
Continue reading “How to Learn Something from Any Situation”
I began my career as a professional musician while in high school and I’ve learned more outside of school these past few years than I did in all of my time in school (and I went to school through a Master’s degree). Some of the lessons that I’ve learned were much harder than others, but …
Continue reading “13 Things No One Told Me About Being A Professional Musician”
I’ve recently had a few of my students’ parents ask me about the music equipment that their child should have and so I decided to answer it here. I think it’s also apt at this point to mention the importance of storing musical instruments and accessories correctly and safely to avoid any damage. Parents, take …
Continue reading “The Essentials for Any Musician”
At some point or another we’ve all had or will have gigs where the room is nearly empty. You can’t win them all. But, how those gigs turn out all depend on how you behave and how you perform despite whatever disappointment you may be feeling. So let me start by saying it’s not easy. …
Continue reading “How I Earned More in Tips than What the Gig Paid Playing to a Nearly Empty Room”
Maintaining your health and keeping your body in shape while on and off the road as a musician is essential to a long-lasting career. By not taking care of your body, you could inhibit your ability to perform and so it’s important to be fit. One of the best things you can do to help …
Continue reading “Why It’s Important to Stretch as a Musician”
Getting ready for shows can be stressful – especially when their big or important events. There are a lot of different things that go into preparing for a gig. There’s practicing your parts. Making sure you have all the equipment you need. Having the right clothes and shoes to change into. Making sure that you …
Continue reading ““Automating” Your Gigs”
