London is an amazing setting for any creative, but especially for musicians. Whether you have just picked up a guitar or are looking for unique spots to take your seasoned band members, London is brimming with interesting locals for musicians to thrive, including a repair shop for even the most obscure instruments, studio space to practice or record, and the best open mic nights throughout the city.
Hobgoblin Music
Tucked along Rathbone Place near Oxford Street and open seven days a week, this music shop is more than meets the eye. Hobgoblin Music has everything a folk musician would ever need, as well as an impressive array of guitars, recorders, and world percussions. They also buy and sell second-hand instruments, including ukuleles, violins, keyboards, accordions, and much more. They even rent out some instruments short or long-term.
One of the most amazing aspects of this shop is their staff’s expertise. From bagpipes to sitars, to tablas – any instrumental question you have can be tackled. Hobgoblin Music also has a specialist in-shop repairer to restring, repair brass, and replace drum skin, to name a few.
Pirate Studio Spaces
Pirate is a studio space for many musicians and creatives with locations all over London including Camden, Croydon, Dalston, Earlsfield, Greenwich, Hackney, Notting Hill, Tottenham, and Wembley. Anyone can rent out spaces by the hour to rehearse, record, produce, write, and dance.
Depending on what space you book, the studio could contain guitar amps, bass amps, drums, microphones, PA speakers, an audio interface, a MIDI keyboard, condenser microphones, headphones, monitors, and mixers. There are also studio spaces for DJs with decks, mixers, and speakers, and some have custom lighting and temperature control if you want to replicate the club experience with a few friends.
Pirate’s studio spaces also have a new in-studio tech for DJs dubbed CAPTURE.AUDIO, which records high-quality audio straight from the mixer to a mobile phone without cables, apps, a laptop, or software. To hear the quality for yourself, check out these CAPTURE.AUDIO mixes from London based artists. Everything is controlled through your mobile device and stored in your Pirate account where you can download it anytime.
Open Mic Nights
London is also known for its live music scene, with musicians dreaming of the day they can sell out the O2 Arena and The Royal Albert Hall, but until then, musicians just need a space they can perfect their performance. Enter: open mic nights.
Many pubs and music venues throughout the city open up their stages to aspiring and grassroots musicians with open mic nights available most days of the week. Some standouts to get you started are The Spice of Life Bar Soho and The Blues Kitchen Camden.
The Spice of Life Bar has open mic nights free on the first Wednesday of every month downstairs at their Backstage Bar. Sign up from 7 pm on the day to play in their acoustic sessions. The Blues Kitchen has a free Blues Jam every Sunday at 8 pm with musicians encouraged to bring along their instruments.
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