Happy New Year! 2011

Hello everyone and Happy New Year!

The year 2011 will begin shortly. I thought it would be a good time to provide an extended progress report for this site as well as to present some ideas  planned for 2011.

Thank You!

Before I begin, please let me extend a most heartfelt thank you to all who have supported this site as well as the StringTunes website. Collectively, throughout 2010 we have seen substantial growth for an independent music composer and music publisher. It is only because of you and your participation that this site remains and continues to grow. Once again I extend a huge thank-you to all for helping me to make this a wonderful website with all of the valuable resources made available here for those interested in learning about music theory and music composition.

Site Summaries – Data

This site was started in December of 2009 just over one year ago. Since then it has grown into a pretty big website with a future of much more to come!

Number of Posts – 71

Number of Categories – 18

Number of Pages – 91

Page Views – At least one page view has been recorded in 105 Countries of the World. The following list is showing the top five countries who have visited this site over the past year. The fact that a single composer can reach so far is absolutely amazing and a testament to the value of the Internet for someone like me.

United States

Canada

Great Britain

Philippines

India

Average Monthly Page Views – 5,000 on average for the past three months. Slightly over 3,000 per month on average for the entire year although that is a bit misleading as the chart below shows. The recent months have seen a substantial growth  to the overall site stats for the Music Theory and Education website.

There is no other way to demonstrate the growth of this site than through the use of this chart. Hopefully, 2011 will show even more growth as we move through the new year. There is a few more days left in the month so I expect the site views to exceed 5,000 in December 2010.

Focus – The primary focus of this site remains that of music theory and music composition. The majority of the posts at this time have been on the topic of music theory. The purpose and reasoning for this is to set the foundation for advancing the website to include more about musical instruments, music composition and music production (digital). All of which are planned for the coming time period.

This site is not just about classical music alone. It is about music in all its forms of expression.

Guests – Five Guests have appeared on this site. They are; Michael DeMaria, Alex Shapiro, Gary Forbes, John and Nelle O’Neill and Christopher Tin. Again, a huge thank you to these wonderful artists/composers who have so graciously given us permission to present them here!

We plan on continuing to present artists, composers, performers , conductors and luthiers on this site whenever possible for two main reasons; to provide Internet exposure for these creative people which is part of our Mission Statement and to provide an avenue for you to learn about music as applied by those being presented that  you may not have otherwise known about. They represent modern or contemporary applications of the information being presented here.

Affiliate Advertisers – We have added affiliate advertisers to this site to help recover the costs of running it. The research that has gone into the selection of advertisers was done to assure that; they do fair and just business, to make sure they operate with you the customer in mind and that they offer products which are in direct alignment with the content of this site. They do.

The decision to add them to this site was a difficult one as the intention was never to have to do this. However, the costs of running this site exceeds my ability to maintain it over time. I had no other choice if I wanted to continue sharing with you valuable information and resources as I have done and will continue to do as long as I can. Hopefully you will find them a valuable resource for you along your musical journey.

I am not planning on plastering ads everywhere on this site in hopes of making huge amounts of money from an effort like that. Consequently, they were put in a side bar widget on the right so you had easy access to them. The individual content will have some advertising relative to its topic so not all pages or posts will have advertising on them. We hope this does not offend or detract from the value you receive from this website. Again, it will help me to keep this site going.

Sharing – I hope that if you find value in this site  for your own interests. Further, if you know of someone who might benefit from the information contained in it that you will refer them to this site. I also hope that you can or would help in promoting this site within your own educational, social and business networks.

It’s impossible for me to compose new music, write articles, make graphics for those articles, maintain this site, etc., and do all of the promotion necessary to increase its visibility too.  That’s why I need your help in getting the word out. I thank you in advance for whatever you can do to help me expand our Internet exposure.

Coming Attractions

Musical Instruments – 2011 begins my second year of creating more posts and pages providing even more information and resources for you to partake of. With that in mind, I am planning on providing information about musical instruments which will include photos and other graphics, information about the instrument within a post, and the limits of each instruments capabilities along with the contribution each instrument can make to small group ensembles and full orchestras.

As time continues on, I plan on offering insights into how to write music for each instrument including the articulations available for each. I do not play every instrument and therefore any help you can provide for a given instrument would be greatly appreciated. This site is for you and for others who play musical instruments together we can make this site a phenomenal resource for all to enjoy.

Music Composition – Writing about music theory is in and of itself important as one would guess, however, it should not stop there. My intention is to provide valuable information about how to use the music theory information to gain and/or to support improving your skills at composing music. The plan here is to reference the music theory information when describing compositional techniques. In that way your skills as a composer may be enhanced further still.

Music Production – I use a lot of tools to create music. From the type and configuration for a computer system to music notation software to music mastering and enhancing software and sound samples, etc. The plan here is to describe the needed components of a Digital Audio Workstation and how to use these various tools to enhance your ability in making your own music. This focus provides not only music composition itself but presentation of that music in the form of a decent demo of your work as well as the possibility of actually making formalized sound files which can be used in making your CD’s. All of this information will support you in making music right on your own desktop or laptop computer system.

Music Theory – Te article series Scales in Music – A Tonal System will continue through to its completion. Some of the most important information in music theory is yet to be presented. The additional articles will be posted as they are produced until I have completed the overall article series. Please be patient with my progress as there remains a lot more information planned on being provided on this topic.

Conclusion

This website is a huge project as you have already come to know. It’s not so much about me as it is about you and your ability to make wonderful music. In the least this sight will afford you a greater level of music appreciation than you may already have but in a broader sense.

So it is, 2010 is now a piece of history. 2011 faces forward with promises and hopes that you will have a wonderfully successful year and that your skills and abilities to write beautiful music will be enhanced by your involvement with this website.

With that said, may you have a fantastic and Happy New Year!

All the Best,

Don

StringTunes – Music to Soothe Your Soul!