What do we mean when we say, “music video blog”? Why don’t we just say it’s a plain old music blog? Well, it’s not only because we feature videos of musicians singing their favorite songs. Any blog can do that. What we do here at the Laptop Sessions is post our own videos- that means we’re creating the content we’re also writing (blogging) about! That’s an extra step you won’t find in almost any other music blog out there. That’s why we say that the Laptop Sessions is the best music blog in the world!
So, you’re probably wondering: aren’t “music videos” those things that are fully produced with Hollywood-like sets and massive production value? Well, traditionally, yes. But then again, when’s the last time you actually saw a real music video? It’s not like Music Video Television (yes, that’s what MTV stands for) actually plays music videos anymore. They’re more in the business of trash TV. That’s why we need websites like the Laptop Sessions to fill our voids of music videos!
So, our videos are a bit different. Don’t think of it as the term “music video”- think of it as a way to describe the type of video we’re doing. Literally, it’s a video that features music!
The hardest part about doing the Laptop Sessions blog is the preparations we make to get the music videos looking just right. The lighting needs to be just right, otherwise we’ll get some shadows that make our eyes look like something out of Nightmare on Elm Street. We also need to make sure we have enough light without making the picture look blown-out. It’s a game of trial and error, for sure.
After the lighting is complete, the focus turns to the color. The colors have to be correct or we’ll look to sterile. Sometimes we look too orangey, and unless you’re the Speaker of the House, it’s not a look we’re going for!
After the picture is complete, the focus turns to the sound. That’s the most important part, anyway. We could just record audio of our performances, but we’ve found that people on the Laptop Sessions site and on YouTube really like seeing how we play these cover songs. People like to see the chords, the inversions of the chords that fit well in the song, and the strumming pattern. Jim Fusco of the Laptop Sessions gets compliments on the strumming patterns he comes up with all the time. When you’re playing a solo acoustic version of a song, it’s imperative that you come up with a solid strumming pattern that will sound full while still fitting in with the rest of the song.
The sound has evolved over the years, from a simple built-in mono microphone in a Macbook laptop to a full-dimensional stereo (even surround-sound) ZOOM H2 microphone. That way, you can hear the guitar and the vocal more distinctly in each channel.
So, hopefully we’ve better explained what our music video blog is all about- we hope you’ll experience it for yourselves by clicking around the site- we have hundreds of bands and even more music videos of cover songs and original songs for you to enjoy!