Music is an important part of the human experience. Be it through song and dance, listening to music in a cafe or at home, going to a concert with your friends, or jamming with your band. People connect through music. Sound and rhythm are learned from early childhood, in fact babies start to hear and feel sound in the womb. Music helps us to develop and learn language as toddlers. It is part of our daily life, through movies, radio, and other places. You can sit on a terraza and buskers may pass you, playing on their instruments or singing. Music is such an integral part of being human.
As a parent you probably want to encourage a love of music, or as an individual maybe it is a hobby you would like to take up. Music can be an interesting career, with many aspects. From music production to teaching and performing. As a music school we understand the benefits of studying music and creating an environment where we can enjoy learning.
But studying music can also be daunting for a beginner, and without expert advice, it can be expensive and at worst, not a positive experience! With so many health benefits, from improving your cognitive abilities to actually being a physical workout and a stress reliever, studying music or learning an instrument should not be scary.
One vital aspect is your instrument! At Shine we offer fantastic rental instruments from our instrument rental department.
Imagine that your child wishes to start playing a musical instrument, or it’s been your dream to take a guitar class, but you just don’t know where to start. Perhaps you are spending a semester in Spain and don’t want to stop playing music, but shipping or flying with your instrument is not an option. Whatever situation you find yourself in, playing an instrument can be an expensive and often confusing endeavour as any professional musician will tell you.
This makes so much sense!
Test & Try
Hiring a musical instrument instead of buying one is an option that just adds up for multitude reasons. Not only can you try and test out a variety of instruments, but you also don’t have to make a huge investment in an instrument without some musical knowledge and know-how.
Grow with your Instrument
This is especially relevant when looking into instruments for children. More often than not, the instrument has to grow with your child. This can mean buying numerous instruments as your child requires a bigger size. A disaster if your kids decide they don’t want to play anymore, and also extra work if you have to keep buying and selling instruments.
Quality Instruments
Unfortunately as you will quickly discover, cheap instruments are difficult to play, tricky to tune, often sound bad, and in the end a cheap instrument regularly results in the player getting frustrated and not wanting to play. What a lost opportunity for musical discovery!
All your questions answered!
Long-term instrument rental is an affordable and flexible way to play an instrument. Hiring a digital piano or cello to play at home makes practice easy and practical. If you happen to move, you don’t have to lug a heavy or expensive instrument with you! You find that your musical experience will improve when you don’t have to worry about your instrument. If you are interested in finding out more, get in touch with us or head directly over to our website, where you can hire your instrument online through a few easy steps!
We have a wide array of instruments from quality brands, from beginner instruments to advanced instruments.
Barcelona is well known for being a hot spot for musicians, from all walks of life. Maybe it’s the beach and mountains, maybe it’s the unusually warm weather or the carefree attitude that its people exude, but whatever it is, Barcelona has a unique energy that inspires and nurtures artistic expression. Flamenco chords rising from random street corners, hustling reggae musicians singing with a raspy voice in the metro, Latin American Orchestras searching for their own sound. The city has always been bursting with a creative energy that has gifted us with many extraordinary artists. In fact many of our own teachers form parts of Bands or perform solo in Barcelona!
Let’s have a look at some of Barcelona’s famous exports:
One of such talents is Joan Manuel Serrat. Born to an anarchist father in the popular barrio of Poble Sec, Serrat became the voice of a generation, singing in Catalan when it was frowned upon if not openly prohibited, and singing about the daily life in Catalunya after the civil war. Infused with the sensibilities of the “coplas” and traditional music of his early childhood, his sound captures the essence of Mediterranean nostalgia, and built acultural bridge between latin american and catalan music in the XX century.
Coming out of the rock scene from the early nineties, Pau Dones and his band Jarabe de Palo, redefined what was to be expected from spanish rockers. Their intensely popular song “la flaca” propelled them to international stardom, breaking records across all the spanish speaking world. Not to be defined by their early success, they have kept pushing the envelope and constantly surprising their audiences with their creativity.
Too punk for rock, to rocker for punk, José María Sanz Beltrán, better known for his stage name, Loquillo, has had a tumultuous career. Alongside his band Los Trogloditas, and recently by himself, he has earned his place in the rock pantheon of Barcelona´s greats. Navigating easily between popular genres, he has eluded being pigeonholed by his style and continues to be one of the cities favorite prodigal sons.
Barcelona has always been characterized for being a melting pot of identities. The city lends itself for cultural cross-pollination. It’s no surprise then, that a group like Ojos de Brujo found its footing in the streets of el Raval. A genre-bending experiment in musical creativity, these talented musicians have fused their influences in a large pallette of sounds that they have come to define as jipjop flamenkillo, a tongue twister of a name but a clear and focused execution of modern fusion styles.
Walk around the streets of the gothic quarter on a Friday evening and you will soon understand why this city is loved by the creative types. Maybe it’s the fact that the city defined itself in a opposition to the XX century dictatorship in the country, or the amount of talented immigrants who like to call Barcelona their home, whatever it is, the musical effervescence felt around every corner has surely inspired many souls, and lures the artist with its energy.
Do you wanna be part of the music revolution? Learn more at the Shine Music School, we offer combo and band lessons! And don’t forget to browse our Teacher pages, where we have featured videos of many of our teachers performing!
As summer vacation is fast approaching, and international and national restrictions lift, holidays are looming, and even perhaps a little bit of travel if you can! Perhaps you have already planned your first trip! You can start dreaming again of sand between your toes on a beach in Ibiza, or the Canary Islands. Perhaps even a secret cove in Mallorca. Close your eyes and think of the mountain hike you can go on in the Pyranees. The birds singing in the trees, the sound of a softly trickling stream. Suddenly you realize something is missing. What could possibly make this moment even more magical? Yes! Music! What if you had an ukulele or guitalele right next to you?
Traveling with an instrument is difficult!
Most guitar players that travel are worried about their precious guitar getting damaged on the plane. Imagine turbulence as you descend over the Pyrenees bumps and scratches your favourite guitar! And you didn’t insure it! Even worse, you are forced to stow it in the luggage bay, or pay for an extra seat to accommodate your instrument. Then the baggage handlers loose your luggage, including your guitar! A nightmare for musicians! This is why finding other options than traveling with your guitar can be a smart idea.
Here are some benefits of choosing an ukelele or guitalele as your travel instrument of choice:
1# Size and weight: The ukulele and guitalele are small enough for taking inside the airplane and are easy to transport, making them the perfect instruments for travel. Extremely lightweight and easy to transport, they fit perfectly in the overhead luggage compartment in an airplane. Small and easy to carry, but offering a similar sound to the original guitar.
2# To socialize: Because of their small size and weight, both instruments become a great way to make friends and meet people. The great thing about them is you can take them everywhere! You can easily play the ukulele or guitalele on Barceloneta beach, perform on Barcelona streets or jam in the most popular pubs and bars around town. The joyful sound of both instruments easily attracts peoples attention and you will often find yourself surrounded by smiley faces. People love singing along to today’s favourites played on a cheerful little instrument.
3# Price: You can get any of these two instruments at a very reasonable price and not worry if they get damaged. While traveling it’s easy for your instrument to get damaged by the sun, bumps or too much use. So better not take your expensive guitar on the road! You can easily rent or buy an ukelele or guitalele and not worry so much if something happens to your little buddy.
So why not give it a try?
Our teacher Sebastian Pan regularly plays his electric guitalele, you can get a lesson with him if you like!
If you in Barcelona and want to try an ukelele or guitalele, please contact shinemusicrental.com for more details.
UPDATED We are excited to announce the launch of our new shinemusicrental.com website. What did we do? A complete rebrand, fresh new web-design and whole lot of new functionality to make renting instruments easier.
The aim with the new website was to streamline the process of renting instruments. We focused on improving user experience which included better product listing, better overall design, smoother e-commerce process and a lot more content. We also looked at how we could be better at providing pre-sale and post-sale support to our clients.
For those of you who don’t know about our rental services we offer instrument rental services to event companies, wedding organisers, parents renting instruments for school children, professionals playing in concerts and individuals that are in Barcelona for holidays. From Digital Pianos, Acoustic Guitars to Speakers you name it we have it.
Although this was a major upgrade our work continues. There are several areas that we want to improve further and are currently working toward that so stay tuned.
Opening of the new studio! Swing by for a glass of cava or for a free trial class!
The Shine School of Music in Barcelona opens doors to it’s new Space on Carrer de Pere Serafi, 23.
There will be music, drink and good people. And free classes! 😀
To reserve your free class in advance, follow the link below:
https://estudioshine.simplybook.it/v2/
Our teachers will be imparting classes from 16:00 to 20:00. Click the link below (or contact us) to book a free trial lesson lesson in any of the subjects on display that day: Guitar, Piano, Ukulele, Singing, Bass Guitar, Drums, Violin, Viola, Double Bass.
