Welcome to my blog. It will be filled with some fun guitar content and some of my personal life experiences that I will share. Feel free to interact by commenting and letting me know you’re out there.
Thank you so much for taking the time to visit.
New Release! As The Day Breaks - Lance Allen
As you may already know, I write many instrumental songs. This one, and 4 more upcoming releases, are put together by me and my music partner, Avery Bright. You may have heard of my duo, Allen & Bright. If you’ve not checked us out, you certainly should. It’s what I do, plus an extra sizzle from my extremely talented violin-playing friend, Avery. You can check out his site below and just see all the talented works he has contributed to. His strings can be heard on music from U2 to Dolly Parton and in between, he even whistle on a One Republic track.
Although…..
You’re going to have to wait for the sizzle, because these releases are our “guitar-only” versions of the tunes we have written together. Our Allen & Bright versions will come out a little while later and I’ll be glad to tell you when that is. He’s sending me some of his parts as I write this.
Below is the cover art I created and I’ve included some buttons for you to click and listen to it. Make sure you follow this blog or RSS feed to get updates about my new releases.
I’m very thankful for your support. :)
Stay tuned as I have another release happening on August 18th. Hopefully, you’ll save these tunes in your relaxing guitar playlist and enjoy those moments where it’s needed
Oldest Martin Guitar
A long long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, a year before Covid messed things up for many people (aka 2019), I got the rare opportunity to borrow, record, photograph, and play one of the oldest Martin guitars I’ve ever seen or held in my hands. Just look below at all the beautiful photos!
The guitar is from 1867! The back insides are very old Brazilian Rosewood. Probably harvested from a tree from the 1500s! Just wow!
How in the world did I end up getting an opportunity to play a guitar like this!
Well lucky enough you're reading my blog and I will tell you!
This is Django's guitar and our initial meeting was of “digital means”. No no no we didn’t meet on Tinder. it’s not what you’re thinking…. lol!
Here’s the story.
A few years back I was making these really goofy and fun coffee-making videos live on Facebook. (You can go to my profile and search my videos to see what I mean) Yeah, fun. Yeah goofy, but hey, it’s my personality. And you can learn how to make a great cup of coffee while you’re at it.
Django friended me on there because of the fun cawfee videos and my guitar-playing skillios. We quickly became friends and he told me about his 1867 Martin guitar. After meeting in person a few times, Django thought it would be cool if I borrowed his guitar and make some videos and recorded with it, to see what it would inspire. I had it for a few months and it inspired a small hand full of videos on youtube and 4, official releases on his guitar. Each one was inspired by the guitar itself.
Below are some links to listen to the songs.
Django has been a great friend and I’m so grateful for that! He’s a fan and supporter of what I do and I’m thankful!
The beautiful photography is by my wife, Twila Allen. You can see her work at this site.
My favorite music distributor, DistroKid
I’ve been releasing music since 2006, with my debut album, Sometimes in Life. Followed up that album with my Naturally album in 2008. And now I have over 100 releases! Singles, more albums, collaborations, features, etc.
To get the music out to the world, you have to use a distributor! It’s way easier than doing it manually and acting as your own label. In my beginnings, I used Cdbaby to get my physical albums out there and in the hands of people. They were the first to get my music sent to digital places like Spotify. Thanks a lot to CdBaby for getting me started!
In 2017, one of my music buddies told me about DistroKid and how I could easily upload my music to their distribution company for only $19.99 a year! And I could upload as many singles, albums, and cover songs as I want. WOW!! I really like that idea and concept. I could also easily set up splits, where I can share incoming money with my collaborators and such. WHOA, Awesome! They also provide a lot of cool widgets and things that you can use to promote your music and that is a big bonus! Not to mention how super easy it is to fill out the ONE-PAGE form to get your music ready for release. There are no up-sale pages or ads at all when using DistroKid’s site. It’s straight-up great!
So if you’re a musician and you want to get your music out there so people can hear it, look into using DistroKid. I even have a discount coupon for you below. (7% off!) and I get a lil spending cash bonus for referring you. I’ll probably buy some more cawfee!
Most streamed guitar player
The other day I hopped onto Google and typed in “most streamed guitarist”. My name was the first one!
Here’s the article that came up talking about it
Oh, and here’s another in case you’re interested.
This got me thinking: WOW!, I've done pretty well for myself as a guitarist. Especially the humble guitar player that I am. I've never toured, I don't consider myself remotely famous, and I’ve never had any sort of “viral” success yet! Just because I may be one of the world’s most streamed guitarists doesn’t mean I set around picking my nose and relaxing with royalties coming in.
I’m still driven. but I only see myself as moderately successful. Still going and going and going….
One of the biggest attributions to my success is my tenacity and setting goals! This leads me to tell you about a goal I set last year and I’m still working toward it.
The goal is to have 1 MILLION monthly listeners on Spotify.
Thus, I advertise, tell people to listen every day, and I’m always on the lookout for some sort of press opportunity that could potentially shoot me to the top and beyond. I also release music all the time, make videos, tell more people to listen, do social posts, schedule sessions, make videos on TikTok and the list can go on for a long time for sure! I’m so driven because I’m doing something I dreamed about when I was younger and first learning to play guitar. I actually wanted to be in the band, Metallica. Seriously! I thought I wanted to be a rock star. I found my place though, and couldn’t be happier… well I would be a bit happier if I had the 1 million monthly listeners on Spotify. HAHAHA!
So if you read this blog post and listened to music guitar music, you’re 1 in a million and I thank you!
Did you know I'm on Tiktok?
TikTok seems to be all the rage today. There’s a lot of humor, there’s a LOT of content there happening every second. It’s hard for me to take in a lot of the content there, but I’m glad to provide some content that is guitar related. I have a generous amount of lessons that are meant for inspiration and education. I also use TikTok as a platform to promote my music. If you’re a TikTok user, please consider following me there. If the content helps you in any way, please consider tipping me or supporting me in some way or other financially.
Now trust me about coffee. I will most likely use your donations for a coffee. I’m completely into coffee as much as I am into the guitar. The coffee hobby is legit and serious. I mean I measure my '“single-origin” beans and water in grams on a daily basis. 20g to 300g of water. nom nom nom, super good and consistent! I use my beautiful Comandante grinder too!
NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM THIS IS A CAPPUCCINO FROM 2-BIRDS COFFEE/ -CAFE Miramar Beach, FL.
The One ukulele demo videos
Not long ago, I was hired by an instrument manufacturer to produce a video of these ukuleles. I’ve done this before and have quite the presence on Amazon as regards to ukuleles. The ukulele brand is called, The One.
The first one that I am demoing here is a carbon composite ukulele. It’s a nice one for the price and it would certainly make a great starter ukulele!
Check it out on Amazon. (By using this button, I do get a small commission on the purchase)
The second uke I’m demoing here is a solid mahogany ukulele. I think it’s another great starter ukulele for sure. It tunes quite nice and an easy ukulele to make chords with.
First blog post on my artist site!
Hello everyone! Lance Allen here. Glad to be here and to write blog posts for you. Bloggin’s not dead right?!?! Please subscribe to it and be entertained by the guitar-related content I will write about. The blog will include some of my experiences, reviews about instruments, demonstrations, performances, and yada yada.
2020 in Huntville Alabama. I was an opening act for Tommy Emmanuel the Mars Music center. What a gift!