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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

Saturday Night, And The Moon Is Out...

Like the song says (not one of mine), “it’s Saturday night and the moon is out.” And I have no intention of going anywhere. I marched two miles in the Dairy Parade, as part of the TAPA contingent, wearing my “Beauty Queen of Leenane” sash, and got my picture taken; that’s enough accomplishment for one day. I will not be starring in “The Beauty Queen of Leenane”—they decided on the younger guy—and I am not bothered; it means I don’t have to change the date of the Sept. 25 “Joe Concert.” T

roxhythe

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The Writer's Blog

Updates...

Second time, now, that “the Pigfish song” has been requested in our acoustic jam session at the tavern. This time, “the band” was just Doc on blues harp, Terry on fiddle, and me as the only guitar, but the song still came out okay—and I noticed people listened. I have a feeling the song’s going to get requested more—and people may end up knowing the name Southern Pigfish without having any idea the band doesn’t exist. I’d like that. I may not get picked for the play I auditioned for—I’

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John Moxey's Blog

With A Little Help From My Friends...

Awaken has been out there for some time, I know, but it is new toanyone who hasn't heard it... which is more or less the entire world!For years I haven't pushed my own music at all (neglected almostcompletely) and as a result few people have heard any. There have been,and still are, reasons that I haven't produced much in the way ofrecordings over the last few years. I'm hoping to change that over thecoming months (with a little help from my friends... ). The first step is to try and gathe

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The Writer's Blog

"pig Wars" Post-Mortem...

The Great Intergalactic Puppet Show (G.I.P.S.) production of “Pig Wars” is now history. It was a brief performance—6-1/2 minutes, according to the videotape. Small but appreciative crowds—but larger, I heard, than for the rest of the events in Bay City’s “Party for the Park,” because we marketed and they didn’t. Post-mortem (one should always do post-mortems on performances, even if it’s a puppet show): The stage needs to be higher; you could see the puppeteers’ heads from the audience

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The Writer's Blog

Doing A Duo (Maybe)...

Roland is interested in doing a duo. He is, I think, more confident than I about our ability to make money doing this, but I agree that the two of us sound way better together than we do separately. We’ll (tentatively) get together at his place Saturday night and discuss what to play, and maybe record a couple of things. It sounds like he’s got more sophisticated recording equipment than I do (plus he doesn’t labor under the difficulty of being mostly tone-deaf). I want as quickly as p

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The Writer's Blog

The Thirsty Lion Pub (Again)...

Ah, things begin to move… I got myself invited back to the THIRSTY LION PUB in downtown Portland, TUESDAY, 29 JUNE. I’ll be part of their “Portland Songwriter Showcase,” which will have three other performers besides me and host Kory Quinn (who’s pinch-hitting for regular host Eric John Kaiser). The host usually kicks it off at 8:30 p.m., with the other performers starting at 9 p.m. I don’t know if I’ll be on first—I have been the last two times, because Eric knows I’ve come from furthest aw

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The Writer's Blog

Football, And Writers, And Socks (Oh My?)...

Had people from Gearhart (40 miles away) come to hear the Friday Night Group; they said they’d read about it in the paper. The only mention “in the paper” I know of has been by me, in my column. Maybe that means people—from out of town?—are reading it. I continue to have each week’s column plotted out in advance, and hope I can continue to do so; if I can write the column in the time it takes to type it, it’s almost a productive use of my time (and the only part of my newspaper work that is).

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The Writer's Blog

One Of Those Modest Proposals...

One of the writers’ groups I subscribe to got a solicitation recently from someone looking for investors for his album. Difficult to tell whether it was spam or not—the fellow has yet to respond to any messages, and he did get a lot of caustic comments about “selling sand to the Sahara” (since a lot of those writers are working on albums of their own). Still, it’s an idea worth exploring—not for his album, of course, but for mine. Investing per se, where people contribute money toward the

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The Writer's Blog

"monet-Ization" (&c.)...

Sent off a column to Lorelei Loveridge for Performing Songwriters United Worldwide. “Monetization” was supposed to be the subject—and I couldn’t resist bringing up Claude Monet. (Yes, the impressionist painter.) He ended up being surprisingly apt: his paintings are thousands of little dots that seen from a distance, turn into landscapes. The “Monet-ization” lesson: Look at things differently. A comparison is possible between the dinosaurs that control the music industry and us small-sca

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The Writer's Blog

Upcoming...

The Rockaway Beach Rocktoberfest will be in September (Sept. 18 & 19) this year; thankfully, they are still calling it Rocktoberfest—I am not sure there are any things they could call it with “September” in it that would be pronounceable. Mike Simpson and The Exiles’ Tim Croman are doing the booking. They are insistent on keeping the promise made last year that if the Rocktoberfest happened again, the musicians would get paid; they’re asking $75 per musician (which is reasonable—it’s just

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Songstuff Stuff

Harmonizing The Major Scale - New Article

Many chord progressions in popular music are based around a formula whose basis can be found in the Harmonized Major Scale. Of course there are exceptions to the rule but generally if you become familiar with how to Harmonize the Major Scale you can use this to good effect in the basis of your playing. Harmonizing The Major Scale We're building a refernece library of Bass Guitar articles covering all stages from beginner to advanced. To help Graeme hone his articles for your need

Songstuff

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The Writer's Blog

The "song For Charity"...

I am, I think, relatively satisfied with “Song for Charity (and Faith, and Hope).” It was a fairly rushed job, to get it out of my head, but I have to approach these things professionally under any conditions. So the lyrics were as well polished as possible, and sung to myself for two or three days while the song was developing, and not written down until close to the end (by then, I had everything almost memorized). Brief peer review, because I was in a hurry; after I’d gotten comments from

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The Writer's Blog

Two Songs In One Day?

Glyn and Sherri’s “One Lonely Night Closer to Gone” is done. I’m actually pretty happy with the way it turned out—but I still shouldn’t be the one singing it, not with a line like “How far gone do I have to be/Before you know you were my man?” Unless I want to add it to the “play this in gay bars” list. I could have fun with having a whole set’s worth of songs about wanting guys, and missing guys, and breaking up with guys—all sung by me… And I believe I know a gay bar in Portland that still

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The Writer's Blog

About The Blog (Because Someone Asked)...

I was asked whether I blog. Well, I have a blog. Is it a noun or a verb? Or both? A “nerb,” perhaps? Language has gotten funky in the digital-and-text-messaging age, and I do worry about it; the Romans felt the decline in Latin grammar (beginning around 100 A.D.) was a signal of the death of civilization (and they were right—it happened just 400 years later). I began “The Writer’s Blog” 3-1/2 years ago, I think, after teaching a seminar on songwriting at the “Moograss” Bluegrass Festiv

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The Real Life of Isis

Smooth, Smooth...

I have got this mad idea - and it's probably been attempted before. Mixing pop lyrics with rock music. If by now you're scrolling madly trying to get away from this mad blog, think about this: "The plasticy catchy lyrics would be a perfect complement to the powerful beat of rock n roll!" I actually never recognised this in a song before, and naive as I am, was also wondering if anyone who wasted their time reading this blog might have heard a song like this. On another note, Telephone music v

Isis

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The Writer's Blog

Things That Don't Exist...

I got invited by a comedian I know to a reading of a book called “The Fake War.” The reading will be fake, too—it’s not actually going to take place. (I’m not sure whether the book really exists, either. Like the war it supposedly describes, it, too, may be fake.) So of course I agreed to “attend.” I don’t have to travel anywhere. Wherewith, an idea. Sometime this fall—fingers crossed and hands folded—the Southern Pigfish album will be released. And the band, as an increasing number o

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The Real Life of Isis

Infatuated

What is it with me and talking? I feel like I have too much to say to people. I could go on for hours about anything, even if that subject was "Hi, how are you?". I feel like I should shut up sometimes, but I really can't. There are those times it gets away from you. even saying "I'm going to shut the hell up now" is a whole extra sentences, and particularly after you're feeling like you've dominated a conversation, this is also something you don't feel like saying. Talking about you then shutti

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Songstuff Stuff

Crash Cymbal Drills For Skills

In this the 3rd part of a 3 part tutorial on crash cymbals, Crash Cymbal Drills For Skills introduces 2 exercise to hone your crash cymbal skills. The lesson is presented in a mix of text and video. Crash Cymbal Drills For Skills You can catch up on the previous parts easily by visiting the following links: The Fundamentals Of Cymbal Crashes Crash Cymbal Skills

Songstuff

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Dahlnotes

I Forgot About My Blog

Wow! That was weird. Just...healing & being, really. Making stitches one at a time, whether sewing or knitting. No machines. Praying. Using a lot of vegetation from the gardens, whether herbs for tea or cooking, lettuces, cut flowers. The fruit is doing great. I felt I was pushing a river or two and decided to stop. 15 minutes later I get a call that everyone's set to rehearse and a 6th guy to sit in. Good vibe there, we'll see. Suddenly we have a gig as well, and all thi

Donna

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The Writer's Blog

A Surprise (&c.)...

A surprise—I’ve actually had a song written about me! It’s by Katherine Fear, one of the Coventry songwriters over in England, and it’s called “Everybody Wants to Meet Joe.” The link (on the Coventry group’s Soundclick site) is http://www.soundclick.com/share?songid=9172949. They say when one of them makes it big in the music business, they’re all going to come to the U.S. and visit me. That’s sweet. I’d really like to go to England and visit them. And I could almost afford it—but I’d be a

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Industry News

Ascap Report Shows That Growth Continues

ASCAP has just released their 2009 financial results showing continuing growth for the performing rights organization. In 2009 ASCAP reports that it collected more than $995 million, an almost $50 million increase from the $946.7 million collected in 2008. Their foreign revenue grew to nearly $302 million. ASCAP made royalty payments to their 380,000-plus members during 2009 totalling more than $863 million, a significant increase than the $818.9 million distributed to members during 2008.

Songstuff

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Songstuff Stuff

Music Business Articles

We have an large and growing collection of music business articles and interviews. A useful reference and learning tool full of enlightening tips, observations and anecdotes. Music Business Articles NJXD5KCY2679

Songstuff

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