Can you believe 2018 is almost over?! That’s right..we’re quickly approaching the holiday season.
Hanging with family and friends and eating good food is always fun. Playing music for and with those folks is even MORE fun!
Get yourself ready for the holiday season now by following our 4 tips.
#1- Make Sure Your Instrument Is In Working Order
It’s never fun to pack up your guitar to take to a party, get there, and discover a broken string. Or to invite friends to play your piano, and find it’s crazy out of tune. Our first tip is to make sure your instrument(s) is/are in working order. Make sure your strings on your uke, guitar, bass or violin (banjo or mandolin too!) are not too old. You’ll know it’s time to change your strings once your instrument starts sounding dull when you play. If you strum and the sound disappears quickly, it may be time to get it restrung. Feel free to pop by here at Starland. We’ll be glad to take a look and help you determine if it’s time to change out your strings. If it is time, we can help you pick out some new strings, and even restring it for you!
If your piano is giving you troubles, feel free to get in touch with your local piano tuner. They’ll be able to get it tuned up for you! (BTW, We LOVE Bay Area Piano Tuning Services. Daniel Doty is awesome!)
#2- Start Learning Holiday Music Now
It’s always a good idea to start working on your holiday repertoire early. Otherwise, if you wait to start once the holidays are here, by the time you have the songs down, the season is over! We just got a big order of holiday music in- come check it out. If you’re taking lessons, it’s a good idea to start working with your teacher on some of the songs too! This brings us to the next tip…
#3- Build a Repertoire
You don’t want to lug a bunch of music books and fumble with sheet music when you’re trying to make music with your friends. If possible, try memorizing some of your holiday music! This way you have a collection of songs you can play at any time. Of course the first step is to learn the songs in the first place. 😉
#4- Learn to Sing and Play at the Same Time
One of the trickiest things when first learning music is to make the songs you’re learning feel like “songs”. If you play just the melody, it sounds empty. If you only play the chords, it’s hard to tell what song you’re playing. Try singing and playing at the same time! It can be easier said than done. Check out this lesson created by Tomas and Aimee that may help!
No matter what you do to get ready for the holidays, remember to HAVE FUN on your musical journey. Know that there’s a whole team of people here at Starland cheering you on!