Let Me Entertain You – The Free Tutorial Programme on How to Get Your Act Together.
1. Getting Started –Choosing and Learning Songs
Print off this page and keep it in a file, so you can refer to it whenever you need to.
Well, hi there everyone, thanks so much for taking the time to read this first tutorial on how to get your act together in the entertainment business.
It’s so exciting to know that I am going to be able to help you make so much progress over the coming months. Every major achievement starts with just one step, one action that gets the whole project in motion; a vision, a passion and a direction. With my help you will be able to focus all that energy in the right direction, to get your career off to the best possible start. If you are relatively new to this, then that’s great because we can travel the path together; if you have been around for a while ‘treading the boards’ so to speak, then welcome aboard! You’ll have the opportunity to check over your current situation, to make sure you’re on the right track to success.
For this first FREE TUTORIAL we are going to take a little look at YOUR ACT.
‘What is it? What does it do? Is it easily recognisable? Easily understood by the buying / listening public?’
A while ago I went to see a very well known and successful Singer perform at a Warner’s Holiday Camp – her act did exactly what it said on the tin- Yes I’ve pinched that from the Ronseal advert on the telly but it really works in this business too!
Visit her website and see if you can’t immediately see what type of singer she is.
Ask yourself the question – ‘What does it say on my tin?’
ACTION POINTS
- Think about what type of music really gives you a buzz and focus on that.
- Start to put yourself a list of songs together that you like. If you are not sure, then just spend lots and lots of your spare time listening to all types of different music. If you can’t run to downloads then watch and listen to the songs / performances on www.youtube.co.uk.
- Make a list of your favourites. From this list focus on your top 10 and download them or get them off friends, family whoever you bump into. Then your next job is to really listen to them to see whether they suit your voice.
- If you still really like the song and think it suits your voice, then it’s time to put the learning process into action. This is a personal experience but with time you will start to understand your best method for learning new songs.
I do the following:
I have the track playing in the background for hours while I am doing something else, so I am subconsciously absorbing the music, the timing, the structure of the song, the emotion of the song. Then when, and only when I feel like learning it, I download the lyrics from the Internet by typing “‘song title’ lyrics” into Google. I then check it’s the right song, copy and paste the lyrics into a word document and save it into a folder I’ve created in ‘My Music’ called ‘Lyrics’. I burn myself a practice CD to play in my car and I listen to the track for a few days whilst driving wherever I need to go. I am a very busy person so I have learned to use my time wisely.
Then once I am happy with the song and I know it’s definitely worth ‘taking to heart’, then it’s time to invest some pennies into it, by sourcing the backing track.
You can use professional musicians for this, who will create tailor made tracks for you but this can be more expensive than downloading them from the internet. Two good sites for professionally produced songs are:-
1. www.cdpmusicworks.com Contact: Chris Drury
2. www.sjmusic.co.uk Contact: Steve Warburton
Both of these contacts are very professional and give excellent customer service. They can also write professional ‘dots’ –that’s the written arrangements to your chosen songs. In fact they have substantial libraries of both written arrangements and back tracks that are a lot cheaper than getting something created especially for you. Have a look around the web sites and check out what they have.
Other than that you have sites like the following two, which although you don’t have direct contact with the musician themselves, they do sometimes produce good sounding tracks.
I find www.ameritz.co.uk a good site and www.karaoke-version.co.uk is another useful site – this one allows you to change the key up or down (a tone) to suit your voice, before downloading the track.
Be careful to check the sound quality of the tracks, some are good and some don’t sound great, so be picky. Even with a small budget I am sure you can tell the difference between something that sounds good and something that doesn’t. You wouldn’t be in the entertainment business otherwise.
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