Dummies.com: Music & Creative Arts

A Brief Fusion Jazz History

Free jazz constituted one jazz branch that flowed during the 1960s. Another stream blended jazz with rock, funk, and other styles and became known as fusion [more…]

A Brief History of the Banjo

Modern banjo-playing has historical roots that go back over 150 years to late 19th and early 20th century classic banjo styles, mid-19th century minstrel banjo styles, and even earlier African musical [more…]

Alleviating Performance Anxiety through Preparation

Performance anxiety is a big problem among performers of all kinds and at all levels of experience. Finding ways of dealing with anxiety and turning nerves and adrenaline into positive forces in your performance [more…]

Auditioning Players for Your Blues Band

Before you can audition players for your blues band, you have to find them. You can pass the word around your neighborhood, workplace, or school, but that will net you just so many candidates, and their [more…]

Auditioning for an Acting Role: What to Expect

When you're called in for an acting audition, the people present at the audition will include you, the casting director, and maybe a handful of other complete strangers. Some of these other people may [more…]

Ballet Moves: Demi-Pliés

The first ballet exercise at the barre is the small knee bend, or demi-plié ("duh-MEE plee-AY"). This article shows you how to perform a demi-plié from first, second, fourth, and fifth positions. [more…]

Basic Guidelines of Choreography for Ballet

When you decide to choreograph your own ballet dances, you have complete freedom of expression for your choreography. And that's as it should be. But artists of all kinds have found that they flourish [more…]

Beating the Bongos

When someone mentions playing bongos, you probably think of a beatnik poet embellishing his obscure poetry with flourishes on a pair of these little drums. Though this image may seem somewhat ridiculous [more…]

Bebop's Birth into the Jazz Scene

Bebop jazz was born from the unique difficulties faced by jazz musicians during World War II. Because of limitations on many aspects of the jazz world, the growth of bebop coincided with the breakdown [more…]

Bending an Ear to Atonal Music

Atonality is a condition of music in which the constructs of the music do not "live" within the confines of a particular key signature, scale, or mode. To the uninitiated listener, [more…]

Breathing Basics for Singing

Normal breathing involves a shallow inhalation and an even exhalation followed by a pause before it all starts again. But when you sing, breath control means taking your breathing off autopilot. You not [more…]

Choosing Brushes for Oil Painting

The best brushes for beginning oil painters are probably china bristle brushes, which are made from natural pig hair. They're tough and durable enough to stand up to the oil paint and still clean up nicely [more…]

Choosing a Resonator or Open-Back Banjo

Five-string banjos can be either resonator banjos or open-back banjos. There isn't a big difference, physically, to the way these two types look, and which type you choose depends largely on your own preferences [more…]

Choosing the Perfect Rhythm for Your Drum Part

Playing a percussion instrument is all about rhythm. So if you play the drums, when you get together with other musicians, you need to be able to choose the correct rhythm for each song. If you end up [more…]

Choosing the Right Notes for a Bass Guitar Groove

The bass guitar is the foundation of any band, so playing a good bass groove can make or break a song. Here are a few guitar-playing guidelines to remember when you're creating a bass groove. [more…]

Cleaning Your Bass Guitar Part by Part

Cleaning your bass guitar is the most basic of maintenance jobs, and the first step is to wash your hands. No, really! The finish on the wood and hardware shows every fingerprint. So the least you should [more…]

Coming Up with Concepts for Songs

Songwriting can be a rewarding experience, but there's more to it than just writing down song lyrics as they pop into your head. Before you set your pen to paper to write the words to your song, it's good [more…]

Concert Pitch and Transposition

The piano is a well-loved music composition tool for a reason. Not only do the piano's 88 keys contain virtually all the notes you'll ever need to create a solid foundation for a full orchestral composition [more…]

Constructing Music Concrête

Music concrête is a type of music that sprang directly out of the evolution of music technology. As a throwback to classical music being inspired by poetic forms, music concrête has its roots in the 1920s [more…]

Constructing Your Manga Plot

Following are the basic stages that a manga-ka (a manga artist) uses to create an original plot. The basic stages are widely embraced by the manga-ka community today, and they originate from classical [more…]