WHY WE ARE CALLED RUGGEDLY RIGHTEOUS

We are called ruggedly righteous
We are gospel artist from Nigeria and we are very good ate what we do which is singing.
We hare so many people out there who have dreams like we do and some have died with their dreams unaccomplished.yes thats true but one thing we also must note is that you are the only one that can stop your self from achieving your dreams and your goals
Some times alot of people might not support your dreams and some people might but don't have the kind of finance you need to achieve your dreams either as a musician that you want to be or as a doctor but the funny thing is everything lies in your hands.You must not sit down and wait for some uncle or some aunty or even your parents to help you before you can achieve your dreams.I say no to that.We the ruggedly righteous have a dream of becoming super stars and hey we are not waiting for any relative to help us but we are doing it just by the help of God and the flair for what we love to do. One thing you must not do in the quest of fame or in the quest of achieving what you want is this.YOUMUST NOT COMPROMISE
EVEN AS A MAN OR A WOMAN.
the world is so modernize today that people even forget that God does exist but the truth is God exist and we can't just leave him out of our lives no matter how hard we try.So in that case what do we do?Look up to him.God in heaven
You may want to ask,why then are we called ruggedly righteous
We are called ruggedly righteous because the world in rugged and we are rugged because we are humans and we are not perfect and even as gospel musicians,we sin every day but yet we preach righteousness and we also are trying hard to be righteous and so we are called ruggedly righteous.Hope i made some sense here
so if you want to invite us for your concert or pro gramme please email me at princesschaddy@yahoo.com and i promise you that we will make your occasion a great one to always remember
BY NKENG FLORENCE

Ice Age 3 the Movie

Ice Age 3...The third in this fun kids movie series and a popular birthday party theme for kids! You probably already know what this is movie is about and have already met the wonderful Ice Age Characters, but have you thought about using this movie to get some ideas for a kids party? If your child is an Ice Age fan, why not invite this enjoyable, prehistoric cast to be your next kids party...as the party theme! Make your party invitations using pictures of the cast, make a dinosaur cake and play games like Pin the Trunk on the Wooly Mammoth.

In the first movie, we were introduced to the cast of characters. In the second movie, the characters survived a world-changing event in the meltdown. Now, taking off where the first two movies left off, Ice Age 3 will see the return of the familiar and loveable characters, Manny and Ellie the Woolly Mammoths, Sid the Megalonyx, Crash and Eddie the Opossums, Diego the Smilodon, and Scrat the squirrel in an all new adventure.

Fresh off the meltdown of the Ice Age 2, the motley crew of animals encounter something they never expected to see, dinosaurs! Thought to have been extinct millions of years ago, it is revealed that many of these ferocious beasts have survived in a frozen paradise. After the events of the second movie, with the glaciers melting down, the dinosaurs are no longer trapped in ice. Among their numbers is a monstrous Tyrannosaurus Rex which threatens Scrat the squirrel.

In a side plot, Ellie the Woolly Mammoth is also getting ready to have her and Manny's first and only baby Woolly Mammoth. And in addition to the new dinosaur characters, more animal characters are introduced in Ice Age 3, including a female companion for Scrat, a flying squirrel named Scratte.

As the characters from the Ice Age encounter their new animal counterparts, there is sure to be tension and conflict. But while the tone of the movie may get scary at times, the antics of Crash and Eddie the Opossums will continue to be amusing and light-hearted.

Check out the Tyrannosaurus Rex Pinata as a fun party game along with Dinosaur footprints and of course, you are going to need a dinosaur cake! It's easy to turn Ice Age 3 into a fun party theme for your child. Dinosaur party ideas are among the most popular theme for kids birthday parties. There are great decorating ideas and party game ideas you can use to entertain young children for hours using Ice Age 3 the Movie as inspiration.

Basic Video Editing By Thom Pryor

We already know why film, VHS and Beta should be converted to DVD. The answer is simply to preserve the media in its current state and to prevent further deterioration. The conversion process halts deterioration in its tracks, so that should be the end off the story, right. Wrong!

The next step is basic video editing. Imagine your favorite half hour TV show without editing. Instead of running 22 minutes (without commercials), the normal shooting ratio is 4 to 1 for a TV show. That means you would be sitting there for 88 minutes to watch your favorite show. Editing is what removes the mistakes, multiple takes for performance and the parts that no one ever wanted in the show in the first place. Now we know that the ratio won't be the same in a home video, but we also know that there are mistakes (Oops! I left the lens cap on. Why am I looking at 2 minutes of a shot of my feet? ETC!) that can easily be rectified through the editing process.

Once we have removed the obvious mistakes it is time to look at transitions that are created by cuts. Your first option is a straight cut. With a straight cut you move from one piece of tape, or film to another. If the angle changes enough, straight cuts work quite well.

Your next option is jump cut. A jump cut is cut within one continuous piece of footage. If the angle is static, a jump cut will look like a jump in time. This may work for your particular piece, or it may be jarring. With many home movies the camera moves around so that a jump cut will look like a straight cut because the angle has changed so drastically because of the movement of the camera.

A third type of transition is a dissolve, wipe, etc. between shots. These transitions provide a slow transition onto the next shot. A dissolve makes a transition from unconnected shots look smooth. They can be any length that fits your footage and that will be determined by the way it "feels" when you look at it. Try to start with dissolves because they provide the most pleasing transitions. Too many editors get caught up in using the many bizarre transitions that come with the package that they edit with. Try to remember that you are editing your footage for a bigger audience than yourself and there is no need to impress the software techie who invented the "peanut butter wipe."

Editing is about telling a story, so try mot to lose sight of that!

Thom Pryor was a professional Hollywood video editor for over 30 years working on some of your favorite films and TV shows. Now he helps people using Professional Video Editing tell a story with their video projects. Let him help you convert slides, preserve your media, and tell the story that lies underneath your video and audio projects.

By Thom Pryor

Discover How to Play Songs on the Piano By Dr. Jeannine Jordan

I discovered in all my years of teaching that what people really want to do from the first time they sit down at a piano - is play a song! Right now, today.

Most people in our busy world don't have the time for traditional weekly lessons - traditional lessons in which scales and exercises come first and the actual playing of a song might take weeks or months. They want the thrill of success in hearing themselves play songs immediately. They want to amaze their friends with their playing prowess. They are looking for a way to quickly master songs and then deal with the how and why of playing later.

So, with those piano players in mind, the rote pentantoic method was created. This method is a really enjoyable and successful way to do just what many people want to do and that is to play a song on the piano today. The pentatonic method would allow that, but the challenge remained of how to get the information to would be piano players quickly and efficiently.

Once I became aware of just how many people want to PLAY the piano without the encumbrances of a teacher and weekly scheduled lesson times, I looked for a solution for those students. I developed the concept of downloadable piano tutorials.

With these tutorials, the student decides when to try the ideas, and better yet, these tutorials can be viewed right in the comfort of the student's home using their own keyboard or piano. Never again does a person have to make sure to block out every Thursday at 5:30 p.m. to get to a piano teacher's home studio half-way across town and back.

These pentatonic method tutorials start exactly where would be pianists want to start - with playing songs! They don't start with the "this is a G on the treble clef" stuff. The idea is to play the piano TODAY! Not tomorrow or next week. TODAY.

By the end of the first session students are playing a well-known song with BOTH hands! On the first day! After all, how can you amaze your friends just playing Mary Had a Little Lamb with ONE hand? The series of tutorials allow you the flexibility for each individual to work at their own pace.

The tutorials helps a person learn a song for their first You Tube piano video and be party-performer ready. Again, the student decides how quickly they will move through the tutorials.

People just want to play the piano. They do not want any of the mind-numbing anxiety or stress which can be experienced when preparing for intense one-on-one lessons with a teacher.

Downloadable tutorials give the would-be pianist all the information and skills needed to wow their friends and amaze themselves. The tutorials let the beginner hear how awesome your song will sound and show the student just how to get these mind-blowing skills.

The tutorials can be reviewed time and again until the player is You Tube ready. Besides that, learning to play songs on the piano with the rote pentatonic method really is fabulously FUN!

So start playing the piano using the pentatonic method and play songs on the piano!

Dr. Jeannine Jordan is a professional piano teacher and performer, who wants to open the world of music to the beginning pianist through creative enjoyable online tutorials. Creative enjoyable online tutorials.

By Dr. Jeannine Jordan

Free Piano Sheet Music - How to Find It By Peter Edvinsson

Did you know that you can find many piano scores for free on the Internet? This guide will show you some of the many sites available and what you can expect to find if you are looking for free piano sheet music!

What is free piano sheet music?

You can define this as music scores that you can download and and printout without any obligations on your part. However, some sites require that you subscribe to a newsletter or that you create a free account to have access to their music.

If you want to download completely free scores you have to search a bit and you might have to browse many search result pages before you find what you are looking for.

Search terms to use

You can search for "free sheet music", "free music scores" and include the file format you are searching for. Files can be published as PDF files, Gif files and in other formats.

You can also include the words "printable", "downloads" and of course "piano" or "keyboard".

Piano sites

There are a lot of piano sites that offer free piano sheet music. You can of course find the music on sites with primarily music scores but many sites with piano education and lessons also offer piano sheets.

To find these sites you can also search for "piano lessons", "learn to play piano" and maybe include "easy" or "beginners" and other similar search terms to find many fine but easy to play solos.

Here are just a few examples of sites with free keyboard music scores:

8notes

On 8notes.com you can find melodies and arrangements as printable free piano sheet music in various file formats. The GIF file format is available for for free without any obligations on your part.

The Gif format is a low quality graphic format used for clipart, logos and other pictures on the net. But on some sites it is also used to present sheet music.

You can also listen to the music in Scorch format. This is a plugin that you can download for free at the sibelius.com website and it makes it possible to listen to a midifile and at the same time follow the score as the music proceeds.

They also offer the free sheet music in PDF format if you subscribe to the site. PDF sheet music present music in much better quality but requires the Adobe reader plugin that can be downloaded for free at the Adobe website.

Pianostreet

Pianostreet.com offers a lot of free piano sheet music as high quality scores in PDF format. However, you have to subscribe in order to have access to all music. They offer some samples and a free membership with some limitations. You can also pay for access to all their piano sheets.

Sibeliusmusic

On sibeliusmusic.com you will find a lot of free piano scores in the Scorch format that was previously explained. You can search for keyboard music and also listen to many sheets in mp3 format.

G Major Music Theory

This is an example of a site that offers piano education and also piano solos in progressive order. The piano scores are completely free to print out in PDF format on the address gmajormusictheory.org. You will also find midifiles together with the sheets for your reference.

It is impossible to include all free piano sheet music sites here and my advice is for you to search for the sites by including the before mentioned search terms and to have patience. As you bookmark the sites of your taste you will be able to build up your own personal library with free quality piano sheets!

By Peter Edvinsson

Funk, Soul and Rhythm and Blues By Tex Johnson

n 1970, a new strand of Rhythm and Blues (R&B) was hitting the airwaves, funk music. Rhythm and Blues artists like Little Richard, James Brown, Parliament Funkadelic, and the Meters helped to pave the way to R&B Funk topping record charts and filling nightclubs with a funky new beat.

Psychedelic soul hit the music industry in the late 60's giving the R&Bs a blend of rock and soul with that had an upbeat tempo that one could move their feet to on the dance floor. It was the crack that led to the opening to funk and disco a few years later.

Funk music could be classified as a mixture of soul music with a dash of jazz, and R&B, with a strong rhythmic groove built from the electric bass, drums, and the electric guitar. They often have a strong horn section as well where the sax added the soul and the trumpets and trombone accented the rhythmic beats.

By Tex Johnson

When taking a trip down funk music memory lane you can't help think back to the 70's artists such as Rufus feat, Chaka Khan, Earth, Wind & Fire, Eric Burdon & War, Tower of Power, Average White Band, The Commodores, and Kool & the Gang. The thing with funk music back in the 70's and still today is that no one band or artists was bound to just that one style of music. These same artist and many more also played other genres of music such as disco and rare soul music. Funk just opened the doors to new venues as well as new genres of music such as disco beats, hip hop, and go-go and punk music.

By the early 80's funk took on a bit more of a spin and became more sultry and sexual in content with the help of artists such as Prince. After all, the initial oncoming of funk was based off the idea of getting your groove on or sexual intercourse to be more direct. A song would start with a slow rhythmic groove working up to a harder, pounding, and more insistent and demanding rhythm.

The 80's also brought musical instrument changes to the traditional funk sounds with the exchange from live horn sections to synth keyboards, organs and pianos were replaced with electronic machines and synthesizers as well. Even the drums were replaced by electronics taking a good part of the show out of funk today. Lyrics that used to be innuendos of sexual content have become straight out obvious sexual content.

The late 80's and early 90's brought funk into yet another light as rock bands started incorporating funk sounds to their venue calling it funk rock or funk metal. However through all the changes of Funk R&B influences that earlier performs such as James Brown, Sly and the Family Stone, George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic, Curtis Mayfield, The Meters, The Funk Brothers, and Bootsy Collins still remain.

Learn to Play Electric Guitar and Wow the Crowds

I can still remember a time not so long ago when I was honestly starting to be convinced that the electric guitar was at the end of its days. Do you still remember when pop music used to rule the airwaves? Instead of wanting to learn to play electric guitar, it seemed to me that becoming the next Westlife spin-off was the coolest thing ever, at least according to the rest of the pop world.

Well, thank all that is good and holy, the days of the electric guitar has risen again. A few bands played a key part in reviving rock as we know and love it today, and that means that more aspiring guitarists than ever before are interested to learn to play electric guitar. A couple awesome reasons why you should definitely give this instrument a shot is:

1) It's flexible! One of the most noticeable features of the electric guitar is its sheer versatility. A lot of aspiring musicians who just started to learn to play electric guitar starts out with good old rock music, but there are endless genres to go into. Some of the world's best electric guitar players are found in jazz and blues, and there is most definitely also place for electric guitars in pop, country, metal and every other category you can come up with.

2) You can get a great range of sound! You get a few incredible guitar players who can get almost any sound out of their guitars that they want to. You can buy yourself effects pedals or you can calibrate your own setup to produce some particular sounds. The best guitar players out there have used both these systems to great effect.

3) You'll look cool! Even though acoustic and classical guitars are excellent, there's just something about perfectly playing on an electric that just shouts cool. It's no surprise that so many guys want to learn to play the electric guitar, look at how effortlessly the rock stars get the girls!

How can you learn to play?

There are numerous of ways that you can learn to play electric guitar. These include:

1) Take classes: Having an mentor giving lessons in person is great and you will surely see some advancement towards your ultimate goal.

2) Teach yourself: There are some that have the self-discipline to sit down and learn to play electric guitar all by themselves. Just remember that if you want to play with other people like in a band it is useful if everybody has some theory framework.

3) Take internet lessons: With the digital years that we're living in it means that many things have been brought into your home, including learning to play guitar. There are websites offering lessons online and for download to your computer.

Before you play your first notes, you definitely need to make sure you have all the essential equipment. Get yourself a guitar and amplifier that is not too expensive so that you wouldn't have spent too much if you decide to stop playing for a while.

Remember, the best way to learn to play electric guitar is to ask any and all questions that you cannot get answered. You will bump into a lot of guitarists in your adventure and when something sounds impressive, ask them to show you how they did it. Never stop learning and practicing, and in no time you will be wowing the crowds like a rock star!

By Jonas Marshall

Professional Music Production Tips - A Few Friendly Tips to Help You on Your Way By Steven Grout

When I started out in music production, I wished that I could have someone that could answer all the questions I had and explain everything and expand my knowledge in the areas I was lacking. The problem is that the whole area of music production is huge, not to mention most people have their own unique way of doing things. I am now going to give you some pieces of advice that are important in your success and will help you to pave a path to a professional music production. Producers widely accept the following as "rules" within music production.

Do not mix for too long; let your ears rest - It is important to take breaks during mixing. For each hour you are mixing a track allow a twenty minutes break. This can be quite hard if you are doing computer music production, as the computer you will be mixing on will no doubt be in the room you spend most of your time. Now. Nobody really sticks to this break-time formula as regular clockwork but it is something to aim for and maybe let this time overlap slightly. I would say to take a break sooner if you are working on a small repetitive section of a song for a while, as your mind will just 'let go' and not be sharp and anything will sound amazing after a while sabotaging any plan to get a professional music production finished. This art cannot be rushed or forced.

Do not mix in a large spacious environment - Anything that alters the sound of your track that is outside of computer music production or a mixing desk is a problem. If you mix like this, you might get a professional music production out of your track but once you take it out of the room you mixed it in it will sound completely terrible as the ambiance and acoustics of that room are no longer present. You need to make your mixing room a 'dead' room, which means you need to dampen any sort of effects the room is creating. Natural reverb is normally the biggest problem; clapping your hands is a good way to see if there is a problem.

Do not mix a music track on the same day recording it - This is for two reasons. First reason would be because you use two different parts of your brain to do each. For one you have to really concentrate hard and the other is the opposite, you want to concentrate too but you also want forget what you are doing and sense or feel. It is hard to explain but it is universally expected you cannot do both on the same day. The second reason would be due to the possible levels your ears have been exposed to during recording, some artists/bands would not have this but they would have the first reason as a reason not to do both mixing and recording on one day. It can be hard if you are working on a computer music production but you really must learn to leave it alone and give your mind and ears a rest; do something that uses your other senses and do not sit in the same place that you will mix in when you are not mixing.

There are many other music mixing tips to consider if you are interested in helping yourself understand how to produce music. I believe that if anyone ever wants to improve their music mixing techniques they should take a look at THIS website. It could be the case that you are stuck and do not know what to do next or it could be you are wanting to learn more skills and 'tricks of the trade', either way you should take a look.

By Steven Grout

Enjoying the Experience of a Music Festival By Keith Barrett

Music festivals provide a great opportunity to get together with people who have similar musical tastes and to watch some great live bands. Since most festivals will bring together a large number of bands, you could be watching a number of your favourite artists in a relatively short amount of time.

With some musicians making less income from record sales, many have realised that there's money to be made from live performances. That helps to explain why there are so many more festivals now when compared to a decade ago. But it's not the only explanation.

Another key factor is that so many people love attending these events. If you've not been to one before then you may be interested in our overview here, which will help you to make the most of the experience.

One thing to point out is that the very largest events now operate on a grand basis. That means that they'll often have multiple stages, with acts performing simultaneously. Fortunately, the stages are often for specific musical genres, meaning that you probably won't often have a situation where two bands that you like are playing at the same time, on different stages.

Such instances do occur though. That's why you can really make the most of things by making sure that you're aware of the timetable of events. By doing so, you can plan your day well in advance to make sure that you see the acts that you really want to see.

The beauty of a festival is that you'll have the opportunity to quickly move between stages, allowing you to be that bit more flexible.

If there's a particular act that you're really desperate to see then you might consider arriving at that stage a little early. That way, you'll be able to grab a spot in the crowd that will give you the sort of view that you want.

Don't forget that most bands will sound completely different when they are playing in front of a live audience. Embrace that different sound - it's all part of the fun of a music festival!