Music Performance using 21st Century Technology

With the advent of music writing programs such as Cakewalk, Finale, Sibelius, and many others, the computer has become a great tool for musicians to create their own music. Using such software, the musician can create their music, create accompaniments using a few tools in the software, record, distribute their music all with a few mouse clicks. In Finale, the musician can write their music, create a Smartmusic file to practice with and record the music to be saved as an mp3 that can be uploaded to the web. Many musicians use Audacity on their computers to record. With my Ipad, I purchased the Bluefire application as a field recorder. I recorded my son's All County High School and Middle School band performances this past month using my Ipad. When I got home, I uploaded them to my computer using the instructions in the software. Best of all I was able to upload it to Itunes with a few mouse clicks. For the home studio musician, Samson makes a very good portable Mic called the "Go Mic." This microphone gives you two settings with the click of a button, is relatively inexpensive, and does a great job as a portable mic for on the go recordings, or studio recordings. With the many tools webpages and sites continue to develop for the use of recorded media, this is an opportunity for control of the personal distribution of music.