The boys are Rocktastically pumped to hear our gritty guitar riffs knocked out to some sexy Daisy and Duke boys action.

Ladies & Gentlemen – Boned have entered the building \m/

Life Begins At 40, or so they used to say. I turned 40 the other day (8th Sept 2010) and a couple of people asked me what it's like now I've turned 40. It always makes me smile when people ask that on your birthday, as if you must feel so different from yesterday when you were 39 and about 364 days old

Apparently 50 is the new 40 anyway and some say 60 is the new 40. I'm not bothered either way as turning 40 isn't such a big deal – sure I'm going to celebrate turning 40 with a party next month, but that's just an excuse to socialize with so many friends I don't see that often. Turning 40 was no different to turning 30 or 39, it's just a number and I'm actually really enjoying it.

But turning 40 did make me take a close look at where I am right now in life and ask myself if I'm happy.

The answer is yes. Both kids are happy at school, Eva is in a new year growing up fast, she's 8 going on 18 and Oscar is loving his new venture at his new Grammar school. Katrina's at home helping me with articles and transcriptions of my guitar videos and now has a little extra time now to work on her books in hope of one day being published. So, yes I'm happy, because I realised that everything I do in life has one main goal – and that's to be happy. When my family are happy, I'm happy and regardless of workload, health and finances, we're happy and we cherish every minute we get to spend with each other – and to me, that is priceless.

So from this 40 year old fart, I encourage you to take a look around you and see if those who are important to you are happy. Times maybe a little tough right now for most of us and you may not be exactly where you want to be at the moment but, with the love and support of those you hold so dear, anything seems possible and business success and financial freedom (whilst both really nice) seem to pale in comparison to happiness.

Make sure you're striving for your goals for the right reasons and not just to please others, your happiness is extremely infectious, so make sure you get plenty of it and share it out the best you can. I hope to be saying exactly the same thing in another 40 years, so look out for my next post in 2050.

Other folks who celebrate the 8th of September.

Peter Sellers	Martin Freeman	Ann Diamond	Pink	Brook Burke

Wow, can you believe that The Challenge (formerly The thirty Day Challenge) has come round again? Another year has flown by and the super-challenge-team have come up with an amazing new approach this year. You can check it out here – http://www.challenge.co/

If you've have ever wondered how to make money online and would like to set up a business working from home, then you'll need some guidance, top mentors and a plan. The challenge is now by far the best free training available anywhere on the planet and its run by some of the most wonderful people you could ever wish to meet. Do yourself a favour and check it out.

Of course a new challenge for me was to come up with a brand new theme song for this years challenge. With the help of family and few friends the music video to "Take My Hand" was born and the challenge had a new theme song. You can see what the song is all about in the synopsis below.

Song Synopsis:
As ever, the lyrics and sentiment are based around the whole ethos of what a challenge means to different people and how we all face different challenges of varying levels.

The video has a very show/theatre/Glee-style feel to it, starting off very sombre with a black and white visual. The opening shot is of the girl (Annie Larkin) see's her sharing her problems and how she's confused and unsure where to go and what to do from here. The manly hero (Josh Fish) comes to her rescue with "the challenge" being the solution to her problems – only to then reveal that he has similar problems too! They both unite and take the challenge together and the whole track ends with an upbeat crescendo which I hope will give people a positive attitude to get on with the challenge.

The whole "Take My Hand" theme runs throughout the song to let people know that they can achieve anything with the right guidance (the challenge course) and with other people behind them with the same goals and dreams as them.
End Of Synopsis

N.B: You might want to pause the video and let it stream down for a while if playback is a little choppy.

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Let me know if you're facing any challenges getting started online and I'll do my best to help. I'd also love to hear what you think about the music video and please click the "Like" box if you dig the tune. Please leave your comments below and I'll chat with you soon.
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Credit to the stars of the show.

A huge thank you to everyone who featured in the video from the College of West Anglia- Isle Campus. Your dedication and ability to learn a routine so fast was very impressive – Cheers. Those wonderful people are;

In Alphabetical Order
Jenna Allen, Lisa Arbon, Justyna Bartosevic, Becky Best, Hannah Boast, Katie Brown, Luke Burridge, Josh Fish, Lucy Groves, Allison Harley, Bryony Hewitt, Annie Larkin, Poppie Mason, Kayleigh Moss, Alistair Penman, Ellie Pettet, Victoria Rixon, Vicky Taylor, Richard Thompson and Toni Townsend.

The choreography was quickly put together by Michele Larkin and it was amazing to watch how quickly Michele whipped the students into shape, pulling off dance sequences in time with the track they'd just heard, for the first time only minutes before. Top-shelf Michele, your professionalism is always admired, thanks.

Thank you to my super lead stars – Annie Larkin & Josh Fish for your extra dedication during filming in the studio. You're both stars in the making.

Thank you to my super hand-holders – Delia Basuc, Eva Mason, Oscar Mason and Tony Twitchett.

A big thanks to Jack & Jo Griggs for letting me borrow Ross Griggs and stuffing him in a silver wig and blue dress. He has the best figure out of the 3 of us.

A Massive Super-Spangley (with glitter on top) thank you from the bottom of my heart to my beautiful wife and kids for putting up with me over the last few weeks. This definitely would not happen without your continued support. I Love You All – Thanks.

Music by Phill Mason
Lyrics by Katrina Mason
All Instruments by Phill Mason
All Vocals by Katrina Mason, Ross Griggs and Phill Mason

The final thanks goes to the lovely Silver – Blue beauties. Not sure who they are or where they came from, but they did sing the most wonderful backing vocals and they definitely have absolutely nothing to do with me what-so-ever, honestly, eerrrmm yup for sure, to be sure.

Can you believe another year has breezed past and here we are again at the beginning of August 2009 and that means only one thing, it's Thirty Day Challenge time!

UPDATE! The Thirty Day Challenge is now know as "The Challenge".

This years Theme Song Music Video sees a collaboration of people from all over the globe and we are honoured to be graced with a brief appearance of the talents of Karen Kramer and her wacky creation of the Chip-Ed-Dale dancers, check out the video. So, to celebrate this, I have made a High definition version available for download. Now as many of you may know, the 30DC and all it stands for is Free and the training is absolutely amazing this year – best ever.

So why the paid download? Well, to keep in keeping with the 30DC's preferred charity, we want to give a little back and help those less fortunate than us, so all proceeds from the Video and Audio downloads will be donated to the Kiva charity and this is how you can help.

We're keeping it really simple – $2 for the HD Video and $1 for the MP3 Audio.

Simple click the "Buy Now" button and you can securely pay with your credit card via Paypal. It's been suggested that I include a "Donate" button for those who can afford it and would like do donate additional contributions to the Kiva charity. There's no download attached to the "Donate" button, it's simply that a donation. If you want the Video or Audio, please click the relevant "Buy Now" button for each, thanks.

Donations Only	30DC HD MP4 Video	30 DC MP3 Audio

As soon as you've paid for your item, click on "Return To Merchant" on the successful payment page and your download window will automatically popup and begin. I hope you enjoy watching the video as much as I did making it and if we can make a small difference in someone's life, then it's been well worth while, thank you.

We now basically have an entire band on board a few times over – guitarists, drummers, bassists, piano and keyboard players, a few classical players and a handful of singers. As well as some great vocal talent on board, we also have a couple of groups of singers, some dancers and people who will hold up placards with messages and lyrics on throughout the video – great! The creative ideas floating around have been amazing and I can’t wait to try and fit it all in the video, (cue 10 min album track).
 
The 30DC Theme Song is in the early writing stages, I have a couple of notepad ideas roughly recorded but I need your help before I go too much further. The song needs to be uplifting, inspirational, melodic, memorable and toe-tappingly groovy.
 
The lyrics – the vocal hook. I would like you to get your thinking caps on and ask anyone and everyone you know who’s been involved with the 30DC to come up with a lyric or a line that sums up the 30DC. What is it all about? What does it mean? How does it make you feel? Can you sum up the Thirty Day Challenge in one line that will work well in a song?
 
You see singing the lyric "Thirty Day Challenge" is not exactly the most satisfying lyric to sing and I reckon we can come up with something more catchy that could be influential in more ways then one.
 
If like me, you’re sick of hearing Tina Turners – "Simply The Best" at every conference you attend as the "Go Get Em" theme, then lets try and replace it with with the 30DC 2009 song. How many times have you heard James Brown’s "I Feel Good" play in a film or TV advert? About a Gazillion (big number) I imagine, because it has a great vocal hook and a brilliant lyrical message.
 
Can it be done? Is the "30DC 2009 Theme Song Collaboration team" up to the challenge? Please comment below.
 
Below are a couple of common questions I’ve been asked:
 
So what happens next?
Once we’ve got the magical lyric, I will form the song around it – and at that point I will be able to start to give parts of the song out for players/singers/dancers to learn, rehearse, practice or mime to.More detailed info about how we will record this to follow soon.
 
Which Video Format?
Just as a side not, don’t panic about this too much, but just have in the back of your head that I would prefer the video to be shot in 16:9 HD (High Definition) 720p to be exact – that is 1280 x 720. Now before you panic, I will also be taking standard def DV video which is either 720 x 480 or 720 x 576 pixels depending on where in the world you live. If you can shoot in Full HD 1080p that’s fine also, but I would like to avoid low res, grainy webcam video if possible. Perhaps you have a friend who has a camera you could borrow?
 
I’ll also post this up on my blog, so please visit my blog http://www.phillmason.com/ and leave your comments with your answers/ideas for the lyric of the century.
 
Thanks guys and I look forward to your ideas.
 
All the Best
Phill Mason
E:  30dc2009@phillmason.com

P.S If you have any additional questions I haven’t covered here, please leave them in the comments below and I will make a video that covers the most popular ones.
 
P.P.S You can also stay up to date by following me around here: http://twitter.com/PhillMason or http://www.facebook.com/PhillMason
 
P.P.P.S Nope, I got nothing!!

How could I possibly post a happy birthday video to Ed Dale a couple of days ago and then completely forget about the one and only HarmonicBarbie? Simply put, I couldn’t. Now either there’s a new trend being set here or I’m a sucker for a Happy Birthday vid. It’s not like I love being in front of the camera or anything!

Anywho! Barb has been a faithful online companion for around three years now – basically since I did my first 30 Day Challenge and even though we’ve never met, we’ve become good friends and I have the utmost respect for Barb and I look forward to the day we finally meet. Now it was clear that I couldn’t just pick up my guitar and sing into the camera another blues tune, so aside from battling Man-Flu, (listening out for sympathy) I needed to come up with something a little different. Here’s what I did.

I sponged the video from Youtube of Barb’s Dad playing a harpsichord they had for sale and attempted to write some lyrics and come up with a melody that would fit, well almost fit, well kind of. Twas not easy as my monotonic, minor, melodic baroque was a tad rusty, but this is what I came up with none the less – enjoy.

Song writing video about tips and techniques for laying down individual tracks to build up the parts of a standard rock band. Drums, bass and two guitars. This is a funk rock style guitar riff I’ve had in my head for a while and I was recently asked if I would make a video showing how I put songs together, so here it is. Please ask any questions you have and please leave your comments. Let me know if you would like to see something else in the next Studio Session. I hope to do several of these as the rock is released.

Don’t forget to wheel your big speakers in and crank it up to number 11 – it is Rock after all!

media.phillmason.com/102bpm%20Heavy%20Funk%20Rock%20in%20A.flv

After a great recording session in the studio, comes the most fun bit  – the mixdown. Putting the icing on all those individual instruments and adding a certain sparkle that just makes and instrument sing, is extremely rewarding and for me is one of the most enjoyable parts of writing and recording. Once you’ve got that blinding mix sorted, next comes the mastering. Mastering how to master a track can be a lengthy process and one of much trial and error. I remember a few years back, mixing to a stereo tape deck and then rushing to my car to see how the mix sounded in there – usually a half decent mix in the car was a sign of a nice mastering job. These days there are so many plugins to choose from like Multiband Parametric EQ’s, compressors, limiters etc, not only does it take several mixes to get your desired final master, you need a degree in software knob twiddling (real course) before you start. I’m happy to report that I’ve been through the majority of standard plugins over the years and now I tend to stick with what I know works well for me. Below are some of my favourite plugins that add a certain amount of deft punch and top end air to my stereo mixes.

Can you see what I did there in the photo?

Ok folks, I’d like to ask you all a favour. I have a couple of questions I’d like you to comment on. I’m doing some research into the music for video field and your feedback would be very much appreciated.

Let’s say you’ve finished filming for your latest video masterpiece and you know it requires something else to give it that crucial edge, that final pro touch, because you’re looking at dominating your competitors and it needs that extra sparkle they just don’t have. Either an Intro jingle, signature tune, musical branding, underscore for voiceover, an outro etc, call it what you like, but music is the emotional icing your video requires. What I would like to know is this;

1. Would you not bother with music and put your video out as it is – perhaps it doesn’t need musical enhancement?

2. Do you search online for the masterpiece to compliment your video and purchase the piece if its right?

3. What would you pay for a Royalty Free Piece of music? Something or Nothing?

I’m sure there are many of you who are capable of writing your own piece of original music, so this really goes out to those who can’t, but I’d still be interested to know if you like the idea of such a service.

I’m in the process of putting together some "Modular Royalty Free Music", let me explain. This came about when a friend asked if I could put a piece of music to their video – no problem I said, I’d love to. Thing is, there was a problem – how long should the music be! Sure he knew his video would be approx 4 minutes long, but he also said it could be 4 or 6 minutes.

You see he wanted to have the piece of finished music with him out in the field, so when he’d finished editing his filming for the day, he could upload his video to his office or client completely topped, tailed and with music and all the trimmings to boot.  This is when the modular music idea kicked in. If I could provide a client with modular pieces of music to accompany their video, the length would not be an issue and neither would its length need to be predetermined.

Here’s How The Modular Royalty Free Music Works

I provide you with an intro piece of 2 and/or 4 bars, a main underscore piece of 4 and 8 bar lengths similar to a verse of a song for the bulk of the video – something that’s easy to narrate over and finally an outro piece with alternate endings. Also additional layered pieces of music can also be provided in order to give your music additional variation throughout. Various fill-ins, Chorus pieces and Middle 8 parts can provide total flexibility and freedom for music creation without the difficulty of editing and arranging your video to fit the music. With music in MP3 or WAV modular form, arranging your music can be as easy as a simple drag and drop procedure in your NLE video software.

I have plans to provide music ranging from totally free music loops, to paid modular pieces right up to a music score you can purchase outright. I’m considering publishing other peoples compositions in order to provide a platform and outlet for other musicians/composers and also to provide clients with a vast varied library of Royalty Free Music all in one place.

I’ll add some modular audio examples to this post in a few days for you to listen to. You’ll be free to download them and try them in your next video creation so you can let me know how it worked out for you. Please consider commenting on my questions above as this will give me with some insight into whether or not you would use a service like this and in return I hope I can provide you with some useful compositions.

Thanks for your time and have a cracking 2009 – Happy New Year.

Laden with stacks of showbiz memorabilia, the Dress Circle is hailed as the greatest store in the world for new theatre merchandise and showbiz related merch and its frequently visited by the ‘creme de la creme’ of the West End big-wigs. Our in-store shelf presence next to the likes of Mamma Mia, Les Miserables, Witches of Eastwick, Miss Saigon, Chicago, Grease and Hairspray to mention a few is totally amazing and we are grateful to all at the Dress Circle for the exposure – thank you. Also a quick thanks to Malcolm Prince and the ‘Queen of Theatreland’ – Elaine Paige who is also appearing at the Dress Circle for a signing on the 15th Nov 2008. They kindly played one of our tracks on BBC Radio 2 recently and the feedback was amazing. Our next challenge is to have someone like Elaine perform Mmm Mmm The Musical in a West End Theatre, perhaps Elaine could have a chat with Andrew Lloyd Webber sometime soon and hook us up – Please, pretty please Look out London – we’re on our way!