The site which I located was BlankSheetMusic.net. What is unique about it is that it allows the musician to customize the staff paper to the specifications that are needed. For example, you may pick a single treble, treble and bass for keyboard, and four part for choral, just to name a few.

One neat feature about the site is that you can save your custom configurations for later. In order to do this, a FREE account needs to be created.

There are so many great features to this site and too many to mention. I’d highly recommend checking it out.

With new compact gear and computer recording technology, it has become possible to almost record a whole song or album in a personal project studio, mix it down and publish it to the whole world in a number of different methods. This fast paced production in some ways, I feel, has allowed music quality to become mediocre rather than good. Combined with artists who are not good lyric writers, the number of songs which are considered timeless have depleted. We still turn to recordings which were done in the old fashioned method with dedication, time, and talent.

It may be a mixture consisting of the record companies and the artists that have allowed this to happen. Since the record companies are not as daring as they once were to accept new material, artists are not willing to expend the time to create material which will be overlooked. If cookie-cutter is what is being sought after by the labels, than nothing new will ever transpire unless independent labels take over.

Even though songwriting has its unique forms to follow, it all comes down to the writing of lyrics that the listener will sympathize with and understand. For example, any songwriter that writes about a breakup of a relationship will be able to have listeners understand because everyone has had those feelings. On the other hand, if we talk about a personal situation that someone else would not know, we need to paint a bigger picture containing more details about the story.

I’m not discounting that the musical portion is not important. Trust me, it is! Any good songwriter will use create a “hook” that will keep bringing listeners back to that song or album. In other words, we need to create that section that will continuously play in your head all day. A carefully crafted song should affect the mind like a drug affects the mind.

A great song will grab us, lure us into the story. It should take us from beginning to a climax where we are in great anticipation of what is going to happen and then resolve at the end. Without this recipe in a song or any piece of music, the listener will be lost or loose complete interest in the song. That is why songs from years ago still are played on the radio today. The listeners are hooked and want more. At the same time, the song become part of them. When the song is over, there is a desire for more. If this recipe were to be followed the way it used to be followed, the music of today would be as good as it was years ago.

Some of us have a talent to be able to create music to not only make ourselves feel better but also others. It is an art that some of us have that requires sharing. In sharing it, we become better people. We have always as a people come together with music to share in celebrations and mourning. Music truly is a part of human nature and will continue to be for generations. We should never forget that and creating it needs to continue and be encouraged.

What would make the album different? The biggest difference I could see is in the sound that they have. The JB have a sound that almost resembles The Rembrants and Rick Springfield. People really get into the home based sound and personal life involvements. That sound combined with many Christmas favorites would make for a great album.

In thinking about this topic, I realized that the first time I wrote a song was when I was probably 9 or 10 years old. It was a very quick and silly piece, but it was my first. The words were simple, but I had never written music before either. After the words, my piano teacher at the time showed me the basics of putting words to music and the rest is history. Since then, I have written over 40 songs.

I would recommend to anyone at any age that it is never too late to start writing songs and music. One may not be able to sing them or play them directly on stage, but through companies like TAXI, it is possible to market them to other bands and publishers.

• Band or Personal web site
• MySpace
• Facebook
• Tunecore

The two most popular are definitely publishing the track on MySpace and/or listing the tracks for download on your own site. Facebook has just recently gotten into the music segment of the social networking game. If profit is part of the plan, one can use distribution services to help promote your name.

Let us not forget the method that can work wonders, word-of-mouth. With current technology, we can make copies of our works on CDs and MP3 on the computer and graphically make it look good. Make many copies of CDs or MP3s and hand them out to friends and family. If they think it’s good stuff, they will start the snowball effect rolling.

Another way of promoting yourself is to have someone host a performance featuring you either at their home or at the park. These concerts tend to be very personal, so make sure to have copies of your songs available to hand out. If the guests like what they hear, then others will want to have you play your songs at their events and the calls will start coming.

Even though it has become easier to get music out there for people to hear and experience, it involves a lot more time on the artists part to market. It is only after tons of hours of hard work and practice that one might get picked up by the big labels. In the meantime, we keep plugging along doing what we do best and that is writing great songs with great music and getting people’s opinions.

Songwriting is not difficult. It just takes great practice and perseverance. Even though one might seem to think that there are rules that have to be followed when writing a song, there are none. We are free to write whatever we’d like and how we’d like. They are an expression of us, the writers. It may seem daunting at first, but that is because we let our critical thinking interfere with our creative thinking.  If we begin to inhibit our critical thinking, our ability to create great songs is possible.

We all at one time or another have sung something original in the shower. This happens because we are actually relaxed and thinking not with our critical side but our creative side. It is this portion of thinking that needs to be let loose more. The trick is to be able to catch those moments with paper and pen or with a recording device before we loose them. Whatever comes to mind needs to be caught in its rough stage without thinking.

From the various gatherings of ideas, full structures can be created that will become songs. Those thoughts whether lyrics or musical thoughts,  will help create full fledged pieces. We just have to be there to acknowledge the creativeness that is part of our humanity.