musicians

The Sterrys have a new website!

| Hannah Sterry

The Sterrys have a new website!

http://sterrys.com/

At the moment it’s just bare bones, but I’m really glad we’ve finally got something up! I’m hoping to get some good images from a photoshoot on Thursday, so it should be updated fairly soon.

I should probably mention that John (in the middle in the picture above) isn’t really that short, he’s just sat down at the piano. We really need some better pictures!

Anyway, here are a few of the tracks from the site:

Hope you like them and feel free to let us know what you think!

H xxx

The Royal Oak Blues Night

Blues/Jazz trio with Saxophone, Double Bass and Slide Guitar/Vocals at the Royal Oak Pub.
| Hannah Sterry

On Wednesday 25th Jan, there was a brilliant session at the Royal Oak.

About a week before, my dad (Joe) and I had been asked we’d like to come and join in with some blues with Ben Carr and a few guest musicians. Neither of us knew exactly how it would work and we’d had no idea what we were going to play – just that it started at 8pm and that it’d probably be a lot of fun.

Ben Carr played his blues set first, with brother Tom Carr on double bass. Ben is an excellent guitarist and manages to organise things like this so quickly – I’m not sure that anyone else would be able to do it!

Next, Tez Locke played a set of completely original works and Ben asked if  Doug “Big Toe” Smith and I would join in . Tez was the only one who’d played the songs before, but I joined in with improvised flute fills and harmonies and generally had a good time. People seemed to think we’d been playing together for ages, so it must have sounded fairly good, and we all really enjoyed it.

The last set was made up of three the musicians from Hamer and Isaacs gypsy swing band (Howard, Julian and Rosie) and my dad (Joe) joined them on saxophone with fills, harmonies and improvisations. They were amazing – Rosie has a stunning voice which suited the blues/swing style perfectly and meshed really well with the guitar and bass.

The evening ended with everyone joining in for the last blues and lots of chatting! The atmosphere was just so relaxed and appreciative that I don’t think there’s anyone who wouldn’t want to play there again.

I’ll let you know when there’s another one!

H xxx

Free Classical Sheet Music from the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)

| Hannah Sterry

I’ve just found out about the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP). They provide a brilliant website for finding free classical music scores and seem to just generally have a really good collaborative/community attitude. Here’s what they have to say on their website:

“We at the IMSLP believe that music should be something that is easily accessible for everyone. For this purpose we have created a music library to provide music scores free of charge to anyone with internet access, with several other projects in planning. IMSLP is also entirely collaborative, and all contributions are greatly welcome.”
 
I just thought it was a great project that you might like to know about. If you’re really keen you can even follow them on twitter (@imslp). Hope you find it helpful!
 
Featured image by Horia Varlan (CC BY 2.0)

Advertising and Promoting Music on a Budget (Free)

| Hannah Sterry

Here are a few useful sites I’ve found whilst researching how to start advertising and and selling my music without having to pay anything. Hope it helps!

  • Bandcamp is probably the best website regarding ease and freedom of music sale. You just upload the tracks and album art and name your price. They take 15% commission, and PayPal take a little too, but if you read through their FAQs there’s plenty of information and advice to help you manage your music independently. UPDATE: Bandcamp now have a facebook app, so it’s possible to sell music via facebook pages. Here’s the info: http://bandcamp.com/facebook_app.
  • RouteNote are advertising that they can get your tunes on itunes, and you don’t have to pay anything up front as they take a percentage of the money from sales. If salesincrease you can pay a flat rate each month and keep all of the money from your sales.
  • RootMusic have quite a neat module for playing music on facebook pages. If you want to customise it, you have to pay,but the free version looks quite tidy and does the job. You can also use a facebook app by ReverbNation, but in my opinion it didn’t look so tidy.
  • Get British Businesses Online will give you 2 years worth of free domain name. The only catch that I can see (other than the fact that you have to be based in Britain) is that you have to use google sites to build a website.

If you’ve found any other useful sites like this, please don’t hesitate to comment!