LAMA Grad Sings Anthem at Dodgers Game

Proud LAMA Grad, Jonathan Hernandez, was invited to sing the national anthem at Dodgers stadium last night by the Save a Warrior organization. He absolutely nailed it! His beautiful, strong voice and smooth, patient performance deserved the very nice ovation he received from the crowd in attendance (32K).  When he was done singing, Mary Hart (former host of Entertainment Tonight) offered him some major kudos!

Some of the LAMA staff joined Jonathan for his trip to the stadium. We received a visit from celebrities Chris Tucker and David Arquette, congratulating Jonathan on his performance. Baseball fans kept walking up to Jonathan during the game, asking for photos, congratulating him and complimenting him on his voice.

Jonathan, Iris, Wilber, Tom and Dan (who took that photo) were also shown on the Jumbotron for the whole stadium to see. What a blast! Check out some of the photos below, as well as a video during the performance:

Singing the Anthem!

and the rockets’ red glare!

David Arquette congratulates Jonathan

On the Jumbotron!

A little prep work with Nancy, organist for the Dodgers.

Jonathan enjoying a laugh with Chris Tucker

-LAMA Staff

LAMA Experience Visits 16 European Cities

If you have been following along here for the last couple years you have probably heard us mention LAMA experience, an ongoing series of interactive clinics, workshops and concerts hosted around the world in collaboration with LAMA College for Music Professionals, its partners and alumni. Attendees have the opportunity to audition for admission and apply for a scholarship to LAMA (www.lama.edu). Most importantly, they will see what it’s like to learn at a music college in Los Angeles and get an inside look at the various Music Performance and Music Producer degree programs offered by LAMA.

We are pleased to announce the schedule for 2013:

4/15/13 – Ljusdals kommun Slottegymnasiet, Ljusdal, SWEDEN
4/16/13 – Staffangymnasiet, Söderhamn, SWEDEN
4/17/13 – Vasaskolan, Gävle, SWEDEN
4/19/13 – Rytmus Stockholm, SWEDEN
4/22/13 – Den Rytmiske Højskole, Vig, DENMARK
4/23/13 – Cybergymnasiet, Malmö, SWEDEN
4/24/13 – Mora, St. Mikaelskolan
4/25/13 – Leksands Gymnasium, Leksand SWEDEN
4/26/13 – Rockgymnasiet, Örebro SWEDEN
5/2/13 – Music Academy Deutschland, Stuttgart, GERMANY
5/3/13 – Music Academy Deutschland, Cologne, GERMANY
5/5/13 – Music College Hannover, GERMANY
5/7/13 – Jazzclub Kammerlichtspiele, Klagenfurt, AUSTRIA
5/8/13 – VMI, Vienna, AUSTRIA
5/13/13 – Swiss Drum Academy, Zurich, SWITZERLAND
5/16/13 – CIAM, Bordeaux, FRANCE

For more information, visit http://www.lama.edu.

-LAMA Staff

Grammy Winning Bassist Juan Alderete Joins LAMA Bass Department

Did you ever get to see the Mars Volta play live? It was always an epic show creating and destroying musical boundaries. There was one man at the center of it all holding down the rhythm and bringing us that amazing low end. That man is Juan Alderete and as we announced on the LAMA site last week, he has joined the LAMA Bass Department as an Artist-in-Residence.

Juan has been on our radar here at the blog even before his turn with TMV. He played bass with LA noise legends Distortion Felix on their Steve Albini produced debut “I’m an Athlete” and his work with Racer X is equally cool. Juan has invested in his own musical projects of late including Big Sir and Vato Negro and recently launched the extremely popular website, www.pedalsandeffects.com. He is endorsed by Fender Basses and Behringer.

Welcome Juan to the LAMA family! Will you be bringing some of your incredible pedals to class? To read the official announcement please click here.

-LAMA Staff

LAMA Grad Pete Korpela Performing with Josh Groban

Pete Korpela is an accomplished musician in orchestral, latin, jazz, world, rock, and pop music. He is also a percussion graduate from LAMA and is currently on tour with Josh Groban. He sent us photos and a fantastic update regarding all his TV appearances with Josh over the last week or so which also includes today and tomorrow with Ellen and Jimmy Kimmel. Peter also mentioned that last week they played a show from Lincoln Center which was broadcast across the US in over 500 different movie theaters. This show was taped as a PBS special and will be aired some time this spring. Peter will be performing with Josh in Australia and New Zealand in April as follows:

AUCKLAND: Saturday April 13, Vector Arena

PERTH: Tuesday April 16, Kings Park

ADELAIDE: Thursday April 18, Festival Theatre

MELBOURNE: Saturday April 20, Palais Theatre

SYDNEY: Tuesday April 23, Sydney Opera House

BRISBANE: Friday April 26, Qpac Concert Hall

Here are some photos from his current trip:

On Conan

Pete’s Kit at Lincoln Center

Good Morning America

At rehearsal…

-LAMA Staff

Pandora Wants to be Your BFF, Musicians.

Pandora does not have the best reputation with musicians. Remember when they petitioned Congress to pay musicians less royalties? However, at this year’s CES founder Tim Westergren is taking baby steps to try and change that reputation. What’s first? Tour support.

According to this article in the LA Times Westergren:

“…talked about Internet radio as a means to generate income for performing artists (who don’t get paid at all by over-the-air stations) and insights. In particular, he touted Pandora’s ability to help artists figure out where to tour and promote their live shows to a receptive audience.”

It seems the idea is that sometime in the future Pandora could provide a map showing where your music is enjoyed and streamed the most across the world, then the musician could plan tours and marketing around this data. Google Analytics for streaming perhaps? Our biggest problem with this is that there is no concrete evidence that they are actually working on this. Why was this not implemented years ago! We had Pandora streaming during the Bush administration and you are just thinking about something like this?

With cloud storage services, Spotify and Google Music taking over, we appreciate that Pandora is trying to get back into the good graces of musicians but they have a lot of work to do!

-LAMA Staff

Indie Bands Get Creative with Instagram

Indie band The Plastics Revolution of Tres Marías, Mexico, took their song “Invasión” and put it to 1,905 Instagram photos for a fun and cheerful stop-motion music video (watch it below). Very creative! Another twist where an artist used Instagram as a vehicle for promotion came last year from Ellie Goulding, who asked her fans to help create a debut music video for her upcoming album. She used 1,200 Instagram photos submitted by her fan base for the song “Anything Could Happen.”

Do you have a presence on Instagram and what are you doing to engage your fans? Also, don’t forget to follow LAMA on Instagram (@lamainstagram).

-LAMA Staff

Music Notation App to Revolutionize Teaching?

What if music students could still learn how to write music by hand, but quickly turn that into computerized notation? The people at @ThinkMusicTech say this is very real thanks to a new app that we don’t have many details for just yet but more updates are coming soon. Here’s a preview — we’ll keep an eye on the developments but we are interested!

[http://youtu.be/66AEYRXiVnA]

-LAMA Staff

LAMA Knowledge is Power!

LAMA students are familiar with piles like this one from Caylon Travis who says “one and a half years of school at LAMA”. But what you really get from LAMA is a lifetime of material from which to work. It’s up to you to put it to use once you’ve graduated. Also, network with your fellow classmates and teachers and never give up! Congrats again to all our recent grads:

-LAMA Staff

Recording for Musicians Class at LAMA

LA Music Academy College of Music Instructor Dave Beyer is an in-demand professional drummer, producer and educator in the Los Angeles area. He toured and recorded for 3 years with Melissa Etheridge, and has played or recorded with The Motels, Jewel, Joan Osborne, Gregg Allman, Michael McDonald, Christopher Cross, Stephen Bishop, Helen Reddy, Jango, and Debra Davis. He has performed at major venues worldwide, including the Greek Theater, Universal Amphitheater, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Woodstock, Madison Square Garden and Royal Albert Hall; and has played on The Tonight Show, David Letterman and Ally McBeal, to name a few. Dave also stays busy as a session player, a producer and runs his own recording studio.

Last night at LAMA, Dave was teaching Recording for Musicians. Students were dialing in vocal sounds, tweaking mixes while vocal student Vanessa lays down a track with the Reactor mic from Blue. Vocal student Jackie tries out the “Bluebird” mic from Blue as well. Have any questions for Dave? Comment below and we’ll get them answered for you.

 

-LAMA Staff

To Play or Not To Play (music)?

LA Music Academy’s “LAMA connect” — the school’s internal social network — has its own message board. It’s a great forum for the school’s musicians to talk with each other about the trials and successes of being a musician in today’s industry. Recently one alum posted a contemplative message about his experiences of late:

I am going through a period of reflection as of late in regards to music. I have had a somewhat bad experience recently where I put in a lot of time on a record, got paid very little, then the whole project got thrown out. This was more than just a hired sideman deal and I’m so very tired of working and not getting what I think I’m worth (within reason of course). So I guess what I want to know is how other people handle their situation when it comes to getting paid or doing it “for the love.” I’m struggling with the fear that if I only go for gigs that pay I won’t be playing very much; yet, at the same time I don’t want to continue to provide top notch drummin to people only to get screwed in the end.

So how do you approach your gigs? Do you stick to your session rate and make no compromises? Do you play for the love? With every business, it’s a learning experience. We encourage you to never give up and think the key here is finding the right balance and utilizing networking skills. Lay out the details for your gigs or recording sessions clearly — in the beginning — so everyone is on the same page. Don’t be shy about putting together music agreements. But most of all, don’t forget to have fun.

So what say you…to play or not to play?

-LAMA Staff