Both of the written notations for these rhythms consist of a single note with one horizontal line and also two notes each with two horizontal lines. Simply treat the two notes with the two horizontal lines as the word “apple” (one hit per syllable) and the remaining note as either “pie” or “pine” (depending on its location). This yields either the words “apple pie” or “pineapple”.

Apple pie is a very regimented three syllable word; all three syllables are said in quick succession which makes it sound like “1e&-”.

The “pine” in pineapple is slightly more drawn out than the syllables of “apple” and so this gives more of the effect of “1-&a”.

Try reading the following aloud and take note of the rhythm you naturally use. Better still, record yourself saying it, then play it back and clap along. Hopefully you will hear for yourself how this works.

Pineapple Pineapple Pineapple Pineapple | Apple-pie Apple-pie Apple-pie Apple-pie

Now try something a little more intense:

Apple-pie Apple-pie Pineapple Apple-pie | Pineapple Pineapple Pineapple Apple-Pie

That’s it! Simple huh? As always I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback so please leave a comment in the box below.

Dave

At their core, these competitions are nothing more than cruel and exploitative con tricks designed to squeeze every possible penny out of inexperienced and sometimes desperate bands/artists.

The type of contest that I’m discussing is of course based on votes from a paying audience. Participating bands are encouraged to sell tickets to their friends and family members (ie, their “fans”) to attend numerous live heats. The winner is decided mostly if not entirely on audience vote. To the blissfully ignorant this seems like a marvellous idea but simply put, the band sells the most tickets (thus makes the organisers the most dosh) wins the prize.

Prizes usually include cheaply sourced instruments, perhaps some free rehearsals and a performance at next year’s HIGHLY prestigious (vomit) unsigned “conpetition”… If you’re lucky it might even include a spot on your local village radio station after the school fête announcement.

The judging panel usually consists of laughably inexperienced plebeian trolls in the midst of their mid-life crisis trying to hide the fact that they’re about as useful as a like for like blow up doll.

Entering these competitions with any hope of a successful musical career is about tantamount to trading your pension for magic beans. All things considered, they are an epic waste of time, money and effort.

Musicians, stop wasting your time and your family’s money on these insipid cash cow competitions. Get out there and do something creative.

Apparently it is becoming more of a problem amongst WP users on dedicated and virtual platforms so I’ve decided to post up a guide here to help anybody that may be endlessly Googling like me. However, I really can’t take any of the credit for this myself, it all goes to my friends (‘Jedi’ Jim Ribi of North for the Winter and Ken Tsang of ICD Studio and also the awesome folks over at WPMUdev.org. If this solution works for you, please head over to their sites and see what they’re up to, tell them thank you.

Does this message sound familiar?

So I did a bit of digging and discovered that all the files and folders I couldn’t edit/move/delete/CHMOD etc were all assigned to www-data (user and group).

If you find this is the same problem for you, here’s the solution that worked for me:

Go to your wp-config.php and comment out the following line (so that you can always restore it later if this doesn’t work):

/**define (‘FS_METHOD’, ‘direct’); */

Then replace it with the following:

define(‘FS_METHOD’, ‘ftpsockets’);
define(‘FTP_BASE’, ‘/httpdocs/yourwpfolder’);
define(‘FTP_CONTENT_DIR’, ‘/httpdocs/yourywpfolder/wp-content/’);
define(‘FTP_PLUGIN_DIR ‘, ‘/httpdocs/yourwpfolder/wp-content/plugins/’);
define(‘FTP_USER’, ‘your-ftp-username’);
define(‘FTP_PASS’, ‘your-ftp-password’);
define(‘FTP_HOST’, ‘ftp.yourwebsite.com’);

Obviously you’ll need to replace the values above with your own.

James Dunn pointed out to me that www-data is the APACHE owner notation and apparently WP uses this owner for a lot of it’s “activities”. However, anything done through FTP is actually assigned to the FTP user NOT the APACHE user.

Unfortunately, even to the server admin (my sites are running on a virtual server) these www-data files are completely locked off so next you’ll have to change the owning user and group from within SSH. Navigate to the wp-content folder and use the following commands (again you will need to change my-ftp-user for your own ftp account:

chown my-ftp-user upgrade -R
chgrp psacln upgrade -R
chown my-ftp-user uploads -R
chgrp psacln uploads -R

psacln simpy means plesk client side so if you’re not running plesk this will need to be something else. If you’re not sure what it needs to be use the “ll” command in SSH and set it to the same as all the other folders. (That’s all I did).

I had to learn SSH from scratch to do this but actually once you get the basics, it’s rather easy. If like me you had no idea where to start just drop a comment down below and I’ll try to help you out.

Massive credit must go to my pal ‘Jedi’ Jim Ribi of North for the Winter and Ken Tsang of ICD Studio and the guys at WPMUdev.org - Go there and sign up now! The support alone is worth the cost of membership. Throw in the awesome plugins (many of which are in use on this very website) and you’re onto a winner. If you are a serious WordPress user, I highly suggest it.

So here I am, it’s 4:18am on 12th March 2012. My first proper blog. I might as well start with what’s keeping me up until this ludicrous hour in the morning.

For the past 3 years I have been first and foremost a full time drum teacher. I run a drum school called the Midland Academy of Drumming (MAD – aren’t I clever!) and during this time I have taught well into the hundreds of students. While I fully enjoy teaching and intend to carry on, I’m starting to discover that my interests are starting to shift quite heavily towards the glamorous world of entrepreneurialism.

It all began when I founded MAD in late 2008 with my friend and mentor Andy Edwards. All of a sudden I had dived head first into the world of business with no idea where to start or what to do next. So I did some research, I set up a website, promoted it, and the students started coming. Within a matter of months I had optimized the website enough to be receiving a surprising amount of new bookings that kept me very busy.  The whole process was truly fascinating and the concept of self employment was (and still is) a massive buzz for me. Knowing that I get out what I put in, and that I can be my own boss is the kind of freedom that I imagine many people can only dream of.

Now, just three years on, the Midland Academy of Drumming is one of the busiest independent drum schools in the West Midlands.

About a year ago while the drum school was ticking over very nicely I decided that sitting and watching the world go by wasn’t for me. I was doing 30+ hour weeks. I was earning a pretty comfortable living. I bought a nice car, I kitted out my drum studio and all was rather dandy.  But I didn’t want to be repeating the same routine day in day out any more than the guy that sits in the office from 9-5 every day repeating the same menial tasks, no matter how much better off I felt. I’m reminded of a quote by one of my favourite bloggers Steve Pavlina:

Excessive routine is the enemy of intelligence. Exposing yourself to the same types of input over and over again won’t help you grow. You’ll merely satisfy your mind’s expectations instead of pushing it to form new patterns.

I definitely did feel in a far luckier position than most people in that I was able to a job that I enjoyed that did involve a fair amount of creativity. However, I still had to feel like there was more to come; I needed something to be excited about. I had the bug.

So I began considering how I could expand my business and take it to new levels. I began brainstorming and came up with a few interesting ideas, but the main thing that let every idea down  was getting it to market and reaching a target audience. One of the hardest parts of any event or product launch is getting people to be interested enough to attend or spend. And it hit me, that itself WAS the idea. All I needed was a community of drummers. No matter which way I looked at it, having a large community of drummers would much more easily allow me the freedom to express my creativity without having to worry about how I would get the word out. Sure, great products speak for themselves and nothing holds more clout than the word of mouth, but having an active group of people would make everything infinitely more easy.

West Midland drummers was born.

“Great!” I thought, I’ll build a community of West Midland based drummers. Then if I want to hold a drum clinic, or a workshop, or sell a product I’ve invented, I can! It wasn’t long though until I realised this could be rolled out on a much bigger scale.

So the Drummer’s Database was born. I decided I wanted to form a global community of drummers. I wanted to connect drummers from all corners of the earth. I recruited two of my closest friends Chris Nagel and Mark Poulter to help with content and moderation and we have been chipping away at it since.

About a month ago, the Drummer’s Database hit a rather poignant milestone – 1 year in action. In those mere 12 months it has grown to over 26,000 members. Now comes the next part. I’ve proved that I can build a loyal community, now it’s time to make it the best.

- Watch this space -

I plan to use this website to share my thoughts and ideas on life, business and most specifically the beautifully complex world of drumming.

I hope you enjoy reading through but now, while I try think of something worthwhile to say I’ll leave you to ponder this highly prominent thought…

Bum tits willy shag.

D