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  • Songstuff Writer and Artist Development Challenges

    By john

    Independent writers and artists face several large disadvantages when they are compared to signed, mainstream writers and artists.  Disadvantages that add up to making it a competition that indies can’t win. Hell they can’t even compete.   Lack of budget and poor contacts are fairly obvious disadvantages. Lack of experience and a lack of knowledge restricts songwriters and artists alike. Lack of an overall strategy, and a limited set of incomplete tactics, makes for a critical problem
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The Writer's Blog

Relay For Life Summit (&c.)..

All in all, a good trip to Portland. I got a lot of encouragement from the employment consultant, and new leads to follow. “Justin” the big desktop PC got fixed (bought him a keyboard as a “welcome back” present). Got new business-card software, T-shirt transfers, and T-shirts. Got to look over the square dance caller’s equipment—I think I have a lot of what the “job” requires—and he’s interested in teaching me! (He’s teaching another caller-wannabe, too.) We’ll get together after Thanksgiv

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The Writer's Blog

Leftovers Day Setlist...

Setlist is done for the Leftovers Day show. We have: SET ONE (11 songs): Pole Dancing for Jesus—slow & sleazy Gospel Santa’s Fallen and He Can’t Get Up—fast bluegrass Hank’s Song—deliberate two-step Welcome to Hebo Waltz—fast waltz Hey, Little Chicken—slow & sleazy quasi-blues Bungee Jumpin’ Jesus—mod. tempo Gospel The Occupation Song—ragtime Tillamook Railroad Blues—deliberate blues Santa, Baby (Javits, Springer & Springer)—slow, sleazy quasi-jazz Abominat

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The Writer's Blog

Vignettes...

The truck has brakes now. Considering how they feel (the stopping, and all), I don’t think it really did before (with a standard transmission, it’s not like you use the brakes much). The brake job cost so much money I’m probably committed to keeping the truck for a much longer time than I’d planned. I didn’t make it to Manzanita for their little weekly “Occupy” demonstration (gotta watch that gas expense, now), but I still might be able to get footage of the “Occupy Portland” encampment.

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The Writer's Blog

Square Dance Calling? (&c.)

Trip to Portland next Friday; bunch of “next time I’m in town” stuff to do. The big Dell desktop still needs to go to a Dell repair place (if they want to charge too much money, though, I’ll either postpone doing something or do it myself). There’s an employment consultant I promised to visit, and I’ve got to go by a music store. I’ll be in Portland because the next day (Saturday) is a big Relay for Life meeting there (and as the local entertainment chairman I need to be at the meeting). I’l

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Songstuff Stuff

New Lyrics Writing Article - Doing Time, For 'forced-Rhymes'

Forced-rhymes are for new songwriters, something that just tends to happen by accident. They appear in songs with no real forethought other than "I need something to rhyme with this". Rhymes of course appear in many forms and can be used in many ways. There are circumstances where forced-rhymes stand out like a sore thumb and others where although it is a forced-rhyme it somehow blends well with the song. In his first article for Songstuff, Songstuff site author Jon Hanover ta

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The Writer's Blog

"jedi Pigs Of Oz"...

Draft script for the Wizard of Oz puppet show is done. Tentative title: “JEDI PIGS OF OZ.” With our all-pigs, all-Star Wars characters cast: Princess Leah as the girl, Luke as the Zombie Scarecrow (who needs a brain), Darth Vader as the Tin Man, Chewy as the Cowardly Wookie, Hansolo as the Great and Powerful Wizard, and Yoda as the Wicked Witch of the West. One new character: sassy Glyn the Good Witch, who’s trapped inside a balloon and can’t get out. (So we can use a balloon and Karen does

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The Writer's Blog

Music Video Of "the Occupation Song"?

People seem to like “The Occupation Song”—I played it at both the Tillamook Library and the Bay City Arts Center Open Mike, and it got a good response both times. Guess it’s time to record it. Folks at the library wanted me to make a music video of it, and that’s possible to do, too. I always want to incorporate new techniques into each new video and this one’s no exception. This time I want to try a variation on the “green screen” technique I saw used in a video of one of Gene Burnet

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The Writer's Blog

A Gig, A Play And An Insight (Of Sorts)...

A gig! Well, sort of: the 2nd Street Market called, wanting me to play one of two dates the end of November (I picked Friday Nov. 25, the day after Thanksgiving). Nice that they called, wanting me—I much prefer that to me soliciting them. 2-hour show; unpaid, of course (the Market has no money, and won’t for a while). I can do two hours easily on my own, but like I told them, I’d rather have company, and I’ll enlist some if I can. That’ll affect what I (or we) play, but not much. They have

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The Writer's Blog

The Goodnight Kiss Contest...

Well, they lied. Broadjam, that is. The pitch was if you signed up for their “Free Mini-MoB” account, you could upload a video for the Goodnight Kiss Music Contest. (The contest would still charge an entry fee, of course.) Alas, ‘tain’t so. I am told I am not “allowed” to upload any videos until and unless I sign up for Broadjam’s not-free ($5-a-month) regular membership, and on my non-existent salary, I am not doing that. (And I hate bait-and-switch tactics. I will not participate in the

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The Writer's Blog

Thoughts On The Country-Music Opera...

About The Opera: I don’t have a plot, or characters; one of the folks I told about the idea said if it was a Joe Opera, it had to have dead animals, and I suppose that’s right (Reputation To Protect and all). For all I know, maybe all the characters will be animals—animals are a lot easier to deal with than people. It’s been suggested I adapt something like Bryan Jacques’ “Redfern” series—science-fiction novels whose characters are all animals—but I don’t know as I want to get that cute. Cut

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Songstuff Stuff

Jazz, Blues Singer Cheryl Hodge Goes To Hollywood Music In Media Awards

Hey, my friends over at Songstuff.com - what's shakin'?? Wow; Hollywood; just like I pictured it! No, no kidding... I'm actually nominated for BEST BLUES SONG, "THAT'S WHY I'M HERE" . Guess songwriting has it's occasional rewards! Last year I was nominated for Best Jazz Song (Indigo). Didn't win. Who cares? It's great just beingaround all that talent and energy. Y'all should think about entering a contest, now and again... or going to a songwriter's seminar.This year at te HMMAs (Ho

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The Writer's Blog

Christmas Show Setlist Thoughts...

For the Christmas Show, we want about an hour and a half’s worth of songs. That’s 18. I should start a list (I like lists). With “Alice” the ‘puter dead, I don’t have past setlists to work from; they were all on her hard drive. I have to invent one from scratch. Could include—not in any kind of order yet, of course: CHRISTMAS SONGS: Santa’s Fallen and He Can’t Get Up—fast bluegrass I’m Giving Mom a Dead Dog for Christmas—slow & sleazy Christmas Roadkill—slow & sleazy -

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The Writer's Blog

Recording Denise's Song--An Idea...

Denise Drake has a new song: “Cheap Replacement,” I believe it’s called. We played it last night at the Tsunami, and I’ve suggested she record it—and she suggested recording it with the “jam band,” i.e., us. I think that actually might be doable. With my equipment, no less. Let’s say it would be a lot of fun to try. How? My Tascam has four channels, but I can only record on two at a time, and what I record will appear on both the left and right channels simultaneously—I can’t put some

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The Writer's Blog

"the Occupation Song"...

I might have broken a writers’ block, finally—and I have the writers’ group to thank for that. It was Bobbi, one of our poets, who came up with the idea of a “Complaint Choir” (envision a gaggle of folks dressed as faux Victorian Christmas carolers, descending upon various places to deliver off-the-wall “carols” about current events) and suggested we all come up with “carols” to sing. (“We all” has only been three, lately. Participation has been just a bit short of abysmal.) So I did a

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The Writer's Blog

Discouraging Words...

Took a survey from the Future of Music people; they wanted to know how us independent (i.e., non-record company controlled) musicians were doing in the New and Modern World. This independent musician is not doing well, thank you. How much money have I made in royalties from radio stations playing my songs? None. From movie and TV placements of my songs? None. From ringtones? None. (Nice idea though.) From record sales? From the new album, not enough—yet—to make back production costs.

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The Writer's Blog

Ulan Bator...

In Going Bovine, by Libba Bray, the protagonist, a high-school kid diagnosed with fatal Mad Cow Disease (hence the title), escapes from the hospital on a quest to find—within two weeks—the one doctor who can cure him (he has to save the world at the same time). The kid fails—turns out there is no cure and never was one—and he dies. His complaint to the angel who sent him on the quest: “But I wanted to live!” And the angel tells him, look, you traveled all over the place; you made a new best f

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The Writer's Blog

The Video--And A "complaint Choir"?

Working on the video… A lot of the photos I took were dark (it is dark around here a lot because of the clouds and rain) and I have been fixing that, photo by photo. I also have a habit of taking photos of a wider area than I need, planning on cropping what I need later. (I have cropping to do, too, in other words.) It’s a far cry from the days of black-and-white 35mm cameras, when you had to frame each shot very carefully because the lab in San Francisco was going to give you back—just in t

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The Writer's Blog

Relay For Life, Computer Repair And The Samba...

I should turn into a computer hardware person for a while. A friend replaced the keyboard on his Dell laptop, and said it wasn’t too much of a pain; Lazarus’ keyboard is different, though (Dell was getting as bad as IBM with their “every model must be completely different” mantra)—non-standard shape, and all—but it turns out I can get a replacement keyboard online (and cheaper than going to a repair place) and according to the instructional video, it’s not hard to install. That’d be more profe

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The Writer's Blog

Of Tsunamis And Sambas...

Well, the Tsunami Grill was fun. Small turnout because of the Oregon Ducks game, and that meant I got to play more stuff, which was nice—but what I really go there for is the chance to play lead guitar to (mostly) rock ‘n’ roll music. I wouldn’t call it “practice,” because I’m trying to be perfect when I do it, and I don’t have many chances to do it. With a few exceptions, the cover songs the other musicians are playing are things I’ve never heard the originals of, so I’m not trying to recrea

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Site Development

Community Boards Re-Structured

Why? A re-structuring of our Community boards has been long overdue and it has been a fairly major set of changes. Community members have requested : Simplified Navigation Less Forums and Less Scrolling On the Community Index Page The new structure simplifies navigation of the boards in a way that new members should more easily find their way around. With the new structure you will also find you don't have to scroll as much as you used to as the number of forums displaying

Songstuff

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The Writer's Blog

Updates...

Stuff to do… “Lazarus” the laptop needs to learn some more programs, mostly of the graphic-design variety; if he’s going to be the “basic” computer he needs to be able to do more basic stuff. Really important is going to be equipping him with a conventional keyboard (one without 3 missing keys, in other words). For the nonce, all the desktop computers—the nearly-new Dell that doesn’t work, the short-on-brains Compaq I got as a temporary replacement for “Alice,” and old “StuartLittle” the semi

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