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Are you in the Toronto area and looking to buy/trade/sell musical gear? Then there’s something happening this weekend.

April 10, 2025 Alan Cross 0 Comments 1 min read

Musicians tend to be packrats, never wanting to throw out any piece of gear just in case they might need it in the future. But there does come a time when it’s perhaps

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ConcertsMusicMusiciansRecommended Music

Mariposa Folk Festival Recap: 13 Best Bands I Saw (And One I Missed)

July 24, 2024 Zoe Orion 2 Comments 13 min read

Every year since I was 5 years old, I’ve looked forward to attending the Mariposa Folk Festival in Orillia. The reasons for excitement used to be different: back then, it was all about

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Music News AJMT
Musicians

Random music news for Monday, November 27, 2023

November 27, 2023 Alan Cross 0 Comments 2 min read

Faced with a charging Rhino? Better be able to reverse your Jeep fast. Take your time with music news for November 27, 2023. More music news? Look here. BONUS: The winning photograph in

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Musicians

Attention drummers: This is the “destroyer of worlds”

August 29, 2023 Alan Cross 0 Comments 0 min read

Back when I was playing drums in a band and you wanted a double-kick sound, you needed two bass drums. Then came the double pedals which allowed for double-kick rhythms with just one

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boy in gray hoodie holding white tablet computer Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com
Musicians

The Toronto Songwriting School is gearing up again

April 25, 2023 Alan Cross 1 Comment 2 min read

[Another story from correspondent Elisa FG. – AC] Cat. Rat. Hat. Chat. It takes a lot more than rhyming some words, layering tracks and a Soundcloud account to make music let alone write

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Musicians

Here’s a fun behind-the-scenes look at the Foo Fighters 606 Studios

March 30, 2023 Alan Cross 0 Comments 0 min read

The Foo Fighters HQ is hidden in plain sight on the periphery of a residential area of Van Nuys, California. It’s a big anonymous building with no signage. You really have to look

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Musicians

What are the greatest opening lines to songs?

January 31, 2023 Alan Cross 9 Comments 1 min read

Composers often agonize over lyrics, hoping to come up with an opening line that will grab the listener. My all time favourite is from Billy Bragg’s “Levi Stubbs’ Tears.” It says so much

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Musicians

There’s more to sounding like Eddie Van Halen than playing Eddie’s guitar

January 12, 2023 Alan Cross 0 Comments 0 min read

The same musical instrument can sound different depending on who’s playing it. As a way of illustrating that, blues guitarist Jared James Nichols plays one of Eddie Van Halen’s actual guitars. Try has

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Musicians

This dude has a singing voice that extends over six octaves

January 3, 2023 Alan Cross 93 Comments 0 min read

That’s a pretty impressive headline, isn’t it? And while six octaves is an amazing range, this dude is far from alone. Mike Patton can do the same and is probably the rock singer

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Musicians

This trained opera singer analyzes Kate Bush in “Running Up That Hill”

August 9, 2022 Alan Cross 0 Comments 0 min read

Kate Bush is still having her Stranger Things moment, so it seems entirely appropriate for The Charismatic Voice to take a listen to “Running Up That Hill” to offer some analysis. There’s a

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printed musical note page Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
Musicians

This video explains why it’s so hard to talk about how music sounds

July 6, 2022 Alan Cross 0 Comments 0 min read

Language often fails us when it comes to explaining why a rock song sounds like, well, a rock song. This video takes us through a way of expressing the inexpressible. There’s a little

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Ongoing History of New Music Podcast

Each week, the podcast looks at something from the alt-rock universe, from artist profiles to various thematic explorations. Whatever the episode, you’re definitely going to learn something that you might not find anywhere else. Trust us on this.

Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry

Have I got a story for you! Award-winning Music Historian and host of the chart-topping Ongoing History of New Music Podcast Alan Cross unleashes his next amazing podcast. In every episode, Alan Cross takes you inside unbelievable true stories of crime, murder, scandal, strange deaths, unexplainable events, and the general mayhem from the music industry through the decades. There is a lot of bad behaviour that needs to be talked about. It’s a one-of-a-kind podcast featuring true crime stories from the world of music. OUT NOW!

The Science of Song by Alan Cross

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