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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

The Webcam & The Album...

A WEBCAM! Went through the owner’s manual for my daughter’s old digital camera (same make as mine, but a newer model), and it said the thing can function as a webcam. Apparently mine can, too—it’s got the same ports (no owner’s manual, though). It’s supposed to be hooked up to AC power when you’re webcamming, but that’s apparently not essential; the owner’s manual says that’s just to prevent the batteries wearing down. (It does go through batteries rather fast.) I do have an AC adapter with

roxhythe

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The Writer's Blog

More Updates...

A nice compliment, that sort of indicates how the world is put together these days. I saw somebody complimenting a guy’s song, saying “that sounds like a Joe Wrabek tune”—as if everybody ought to know what that is. The guy who said it was in England, and the guy he was saying it about was in Canada. The world has become a very strange place… There’s tentative sentiment on the part of the band for including Tarra Young’s “You’ll Make a Real Good Angel” (lyrics by her, music by me) on the

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The Writer's Blog

Southern Oregon Songwriters Assn. Thoughts...

Sunday, Jan. 24, is the annual meeting of the Southern Oregon Songwriters Assn., in Talent (appropriately), just south of Phoenix. I’d really like to go. It is going to have to depend on the weather, which is chancy this time of year—and I’m driving an old truck, with no snow tires (don’t need ‘em on the semi-tropical Oregon Coast), and driving at night—and I can’t get an online weather forecast longer than two weeks out. SOSA has some problems: a relatively static membership (not many

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FinnArild's Blog

Fixing Kupu in deliverance configuration

I am running some websites, which is helping to pay for the rent of the dedicated server I am running this website on. The system I am running is Plone, and I have been asked by people in the Plone community to blog about the solutions I frequently find. For my newest customer, Ignarbakke (Not quite finished, so disregard the shabby design) - I have for the first time set up a deliverance solution. Deliverance is a brilliantly smart concept, both separating design from logic and giving you

FinnArild

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The Writer's Blog

The Kaddish For Dick Ackerman...

I wanted a kaddish in memory of Dick Ackerman, our blues harp player, who died December 29 (his 80th birthday). The kaddish is an old Jewish tradition that, while I’m not Jewish, I’ve always liked. It’s called the “song for the dead,” but it’s not FOR the dead, precisely—the dead are either in a better place or otherwise don’t care—but rather for the living, for those left behind. The idea, as I understand it, is that a person lives on in the ways they have touched other people’s lives, and t

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The Writer's Blog

New Year's Eve...

Got to watch another band perform on New Year’s Eve. True, I’d rather have been playing on stage, but this was a good opportunity to observe the competition at work (over a decent shrimp dinner)—and these guys are getting paying gigs, and we’re not. I really should do more of this competition-assessing (though my fingers get itchy watching someone else play). 6-piece (I guess) band—lead and rhythm guitars, bass, drums, sound guy (I want one of those) and lighting guy. I don’t know if the

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The Writer's Blog

New Year's Eve...

Got to watch another band perform on New Year’s Eve. True, I’d rather have been playing on stage, but this was a good opportunity to observe the competition at work (over a decent shrimp dinner)—and these guys are getting paying gigs, and we’re not. I really should do more of this competition-assessing (though my fingers get itchy watching someone else play). 6-piece (I guess) band—lead and rhythm guitars, bass, drums, sound guy (I want one of those) and lighting guy. I don’t know if the

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Songstuff Stuff

Band Promo Videos

Over the last year there has been a big increase in the number of bands creating promo videos, and not just gig footage. At Songstuff we try to help artists develop and hopefully improve the standard of the songs that they produce. If you are making or planning to make a band promo video then you'll find the Cutting Room a useful resource. Post up your video links and get constructive criticism from fellow musicians and video creators: http://forums.songstuff.com/forum/86-the-cutting-

Songstuff

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The Writer's Blog

Schedule & Co-Writes...

One of the folks who’d reviewed this year’s Christmas song, “Song for Polly and Glyn (A Man for Christmas),” told me he’d listened, and re-listened, thinking “There has to be a dead reindeer in here somewhere.” I think I just got given the lead-in for next year’s Christmas song. Thank you. Spec’d out a recording schedule with John; tentatively, we’ll do the scratch tracks for the album Jan. 23 & 24, with me (guitar and vocal), him (bass), and Chris (drums). John says his portable rec

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Songstuff Stuff

When (And How) To Sing Your Own Songs

We are not always the best singer for our own songs. If we are going to sing it we may not always sing it in the best way. This is a great little article, by Cheryl Hodge, if you have written a song and you are planning on singing it yourself. When (and How) To Sing Your Own Songs

Songstuff

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The Writer's Blog

Recording Thoughts...

As I understand it, the way John wants to record the songs on the album is to (1) record a “scratch track” of himself (bass), Chris (drums), and me (rhythm guitar and vocal), then (2) record on separate tracks each of us playing (and in my case, also singing) to the scratch track, then (3) add lead instruments, and (4) mix the tracks, using his fancy computer program—and eliminating the scratch track in the process. I don’t know for sure if this is how it’s done in commercial studios, but

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The Writer's Blog

Update (And Video Thoughts)...

Christmas is over, and it was nice. Time to get back to normal—if I had any idea what “normal” is. (I probably have to take the Bill Clinton route, and define “normal.” What do I want it to be?) In two weeks—Friday, 8 January—is my appointment to meet the band in Astoria (60 miles away) I’d applied to play rhythm guitar with. New band, no gigs yet; from my end, it’s just an opportunity to do Something Completely Different. The bandleader wants to do covers, old rock ‘n’ roll with some

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The Writer's Blog

The 2010 Worklist...

It was 20 December last year that I published the Worklist; here, a year later, I can say I have accomplished rather little. Except making lists, of course—I am good at lists. Here’s the 2010 Worklist: FIGURE OUT HOW TO MAKE A LIVING OFF THIS STUFF. Not just the music, but the related things I do or can do, too—writing, publishing, graphic design, &c. I’ve been told I’m already a household word in the area where I live—but I’m not one people spend money on yet. FINISH THE JOE A

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How i see it

Oh The Weather Outside Is Frightfull................

Is it me ?………………..Is it age ?……………….What is going on ? There are strange forces around & strange things going on and I want answers NOW!　I know it may appear to be an angry rant but it is more of a fear-filled ramble You see things are disappearing in my house firstly went my ears (my name for my hands free kit ) Then went the charger for my phone In addition, today I notice that the master recording of nobody makes me feel like you do has miraculously gone There could be sev

musicthom

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The Writer's Blog

Christmas Concert Post-Mortem...

The Christmas concert was good. We actually filled most of the chairs in the hall (briefly), and raised a lot of food for the Food Pantry—some cash money, too. Both Doc (blues harp) and Mike (lead guitar) said they want to do it again—and I told them both that could probably be arranged. Roughly half the people who came were folks I didn’t know, which means they either saw the ads, heard the radio interviews, or heard about the concert from other people. I hope we made some fans. And th

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The Writer's Blog

Christmas Potluck Post-Mortem...

General judgment of the folks who put on the City-Port Christmas Potluck is they liked everything exactly the way it was, and they’d like to do it again next year. Including having us (John on bass, me on guitar, Bruce on keyboard, and city councilmember Terry Kandle on fiddle—drummer Chris was sick) play music. I would make a few changes with respect to the music. First, we need more practice, of course; we really needed to play together more than once before we went on stage. Second, we

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FinnArild's Blog

Getting there!

So - things have been very, very busy - and a lot of it not concerning my next release: Testament, so I have regrettably not written much in this blog this year. But - now we are getting to an end with both the redecoration and tracking Testament. My wife was graceful enough to let me finish the home studio room first, so that is up now - if not quite there yet. I have also been in studio and done all the vocals for Testament, so all that remains now is some background vocals, some guitars

FinnArild

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The Writer's Blog

Two Days Till The Christmas Show...

Almost time to publish the 2010 Worklist; I’ll hold off one or two more issues of the blog, though, and let the Christmas concert get out of the way. Updates, first. The “I see dead things” sweatshirt came out good—I only had to re-print the design four times to get that right, but it ironed on the sweatshirt just fine. I can wear it Saturday night at the Christmas show—if I dare. Lorelei, Polly, Beth and Joanne got their Joe Songbook packages; I have some more to make, but I need more l

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The Writer's Blog

More Practice...

Practice with “Deathgrass” Saturday, and with what I think of as “Bruce’s band” (that’s Chris, John, and me, plus Bruce on keyboard) Sunday. As this is written, there are two days until we (Bruce’s band) perform at the City-Port Christmas potluck, four days till the second radio interview promoting the “Deathgrass” Christmas Show, and five days until the Show. Suddenly, time is flyin’ way too fast. For the Christmas show, “Deathgrass” is ready. We went through the second half of the setl

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Songstuff Stuff

Cheryl Hodge Joins Songstuff As A Writer

Please welcome professional singer, vocal coach and singing teacher Cheryl Hodge to Songstuff! Cheryl will be writing regularly for the vocals section of our site, and taking part in the vocals board discussions. Cheryl has been teacher to many students; including pop icons Grammy winner Paula Cole, Juno winner Frazee Ford, and Canadian Idol finalist, Alyssa Klazek. She graduated from and taught at Berklee College of Music (voice faculty for 8 years), and for the last 18 years she has

Songstuff

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