Lazz

Hey!! How come the automatic censor on the board allows me to use the word "bollocks", yet I can't get away with saying the inoffensive "sw*nky"? What does it do to "Scunthorpe"?

Welcome to the music business. Allow me to butt-in. Remember that you are allowed (and expected) to question and negotiate. So well done for being able to read. (And no humour intended.) An independent record label has expressed interest in my music. What do you mean exactly ? a) Do they want to record music that you have written ? Do they want to release tracks that you have recorded ? If they want to record music that you have written, then they can’t go anywhere or do anything without paying statutory mechanicals. And quite naturally they would own their own masters. Too right they would. But you still own the music. So they have to pay you for each pressing according to track length – exactly as the other ‘indie’ labels you dealt with should have done unless.you foolishly somehow allowed them to get away with something less. If they want to release tracks that you have already recorded then it all turns on different principles because you would be supplying them with masters so they can do their marketing and distribution stuff with ‘em. That means that you are the clear and unquestionable owner of the masters and you should then be licensing specific rights of use to the company. What you want in that case is a licensing agreement. And what you definitely do need is a lawyer. However broke you are, you can’t afford NOT to have one. Many guys in my personal experience would be willing to cut you a deal on their services in the hope of getting repeat business when you are making serious coin. Swings and roundabouts. Try and find one right now. perpetual ownership …. anyone ever heard of this? Of course. That’s what they all want: rights for everything, forever, for everywhere. Even ‘worldwide’ is now a little antiquated – in light of future extra-terrestral potential, many will now instead specify ‘the universe’– just in case some schmuck on a space station downloads your shit to an intergalactic iPod. This is perfectly normal industry practice. … an "advance" which is 100% recoupable from the royalties. In other words ….. Is this correct? This is correct – and also perfectly normal practice. How else do you think record companies operate ? Indemnification … … is also normal: the company is just covering its ass in case of legal action. And why not ? You would be doing the same unless you suffered a severe attack of stupid. Unless you are indeed the very type of plagiaristic rip-off merchant they sensibly wish to protect themselves from, you have nothing to be scared of. At least they are not demanding you have expensive insurance coverage for any such liabilities. Seeing that the royalty is 50/50 of net receipts – that makes it all the more likely and reasonable that what you should really be looking at is a licensing/distribution agreement for a fixed term with options based on performance and explicit rights reversion. The company is looking to get the most they can (hopefully everything) but fully expecting you to come back with just this sort of alternative. Reserves & Promo Reserves held against returns is perfectly normal and reasonable. But exactly what are ‘reasonable’ reserves ? Get them to specify a percentage – maybe 25% - that sounds reasonable to me. You also need reserves to be liquidated over a specified period. Promotional copies/useage should also be specified – just as it is perfectly ‘reasonable’ for them not to be required to pay you on promo copies – it is perfectly ‘reasonable’ for you to need to know what promotion and where and when and how. Net Profits How long is a piece of string ? At 50/50 it’s not so bad because expenses in effect get borne 50/50 also – fair enough. But you have to watch the accounting closely. “all costs associated with such distribution” sounds eminently fair and reasonable – but should it include sw*nky offices, sexy secretaries, and company limousines ? … maybe not unless they are reciprocally copping to 50% of your rent and phone bill. i. all copyright payments and other per unit payments associated with the distribution of Records; Expecting you to pay yourself for your own copyright is completely out of order. Strike that out. ii. all manufacturing costs, including preparation of all artwork and packaging and promotional materials Bit of a piss-off. Makes one wonder exactly what it is they do for and with their 50% share. But again, this is perfectly normal practice. iii the Advance again – normal and fair enough. It is, after all, an advance against royalties. iv. all amounts expended by Company pursuant to Company’s recording, producing, publicizing, promoting, marketing, selling, licensing, leasing, distributing or other exploitation of the Record. If you are indeed supplying masters under license, then they have nothing to pay for in terms of recording and production – so there is no need for any reference to same – so strike it out. Publicizing, promoting, marketing, selling, SUB-licensing, leasing, distributing and other exploitation, on the other hand, is EXACTLY what their bit of the gig is all about. That is what they do. If you are supplying the masters, and ultimately being charged for manufacture and packaging, just what the f*ck do you need them for in the first place if it isn’t for exactly those services. And hence your important question – the very proof of puddingness: How can I be assured that my record will be promoted and pushed aggressively? You can’t. It’s what everyone wants, but there is absolutely no guarantee. How do I write such a clause in the contract? Apart from the usual regular ‘best endeavours’ bollocks (pretty meaningless in effect because it is without teeth), I figure the best you can do is agree some reasonable performance goals upon which the ‘term’ of the agreement and any options to renew are contingent. Looking at things from the company’s position – they are the guys paying manufacture etcetera up front to get the recording effectively into the market place – so they are taking a big chance with an unknown and gambling that they can sell enough units to cover their investment. So that’s why they want the most they can get. Understandable. And if they do a good job, then they deserve it. But if they can’t do that inside a fixed term, they have no hope of achieving much more over an infinite period. And that’s why they should be reasonably well disposed towards the persuasiveness of the points above. Now – what do they have to say about digital rights? Or about publishing? If they are talking just bricks and mortar retail – especially in the current climate – and you can get ‘em to re-write in terms of licensing/distribution as above – then maybe you could do a lot worse than pocket the advance, work closely with them to exploit the product they have as much as possible, and still be free to piggy-back your own digital and publishing. Looking at my meter – that’s worth about $300. Thank you. Good luck. I can only comment on the bits you've shared with us - but I'll certainly take a look at the entirety if you want to send along a copy. On second thoughts - send me a copy and your 'phone number - I get free calls, and being able to talk you through the clauses and their implications is going to be a lot less strenuous and demanding than writing a commentary. If you want to pay me and the deal goes through - I'll do it for points. I am real easy to get along with. With respect to John's useful pointers - I have a couple of comments: "Record companies main income is mechanical royalties, i.e. from the sale of CDs" Wrong - mechanicals are fees paid to the composer/copyright-holder for recording/reproduction. The record company pays mechanicals "they consider net profit to be 100% of monies earned in the USA. What happens to royalties earned from the broader "worldwide" rights?" The wording they use is one hundred percent (100%) of all nonrefundable monies actually earned and received by Company in the United States The company, evidently, lives in the US - the important bit is "actually earned and received". All they are saying is that they aren't going to pay you out on income until they have received it - from wherever in the world. It makes a lot of sense. "I know of a UK artist ..... he had to sell his house to payback the recoupable" Advances are recoupable against royalties and that's it. It means you may end up never actually receiving any royalties and owing them money theoretically on paper. But I know of no example where an artist has sacrificed personal property due to recoupables. Sorry, John - sounds like bollocks to me - maybe an urban myth. Would also be illegal.

It's ok now - I got through. A neat tool alright - shame it's so limited. It says on one page "Need to play a GMaj9 but don't know how?" yet it doesn't seem to offer the freedom to add such alterations or extensions to any of the voicings. They all seem just simple triadic forms of either majoe or minor. Neither does there seem a chance of modulating to new tonal area - cos you just can't change keys within a piece. Band-In-A-Box is so much more usefully complete. Anybody here mess around with it ?

I've been trying to look at this for days now and keep getting a 'gateway time-out'. Anyone know what's going on ?

A clear vision of how your song will be before you start writing? Yes How far into the process would you say you are before have a clear vision? To greater or lesser extents, I need that vision in order to get properly started. A clear vision for either lyric, or music, but not both? Depends on which way my collaborator and I develop the project. Sometimes he presents me with music first, and that helps define the vision and the map for me to write words. Sometimes I present a completed lyric to my collaborator, and that gives him a vision and a goal. Sometimes we work together and grow an idea more organically. But for both of us there has to be a target before we set off on the journey - what I called a 'design brief' elsewhere on this site a while back. How do you develop the vision into the final song? Organically? Planning and structure? Accident? Planning and structure work for us. Organic growth happens within that container. We don't seem to have any accidents that I can think of. In the way back when past, whenever I had tried writing on my own, the process seemed full of accidents. Many calling for serious treatment. No more. I think that's a good thing. Just recently, I have been working on a couple of 'contrafacts' - songs built upon the familiar harmonic structures of extant standard material. There is quite a tradition of this compositional behaviour, instrumentally, especially in the jazz world. There are a load of different blues melodies, for instance, based on the same familar blues changes, another bunch based on the harmonic structure of the Gershwins' 'I Got Rhythm', and many original Charlie Parker be-bop classics built from the popular songs of the day. And I am finding it a fun produtive exercise to play along with the concept lyrically. One of the two examples I have been working on is built upon 'My Funny Valentine' and the other is 'All The Things You Are'. Both are part of every jazz player's repertoire so everyone knows how they work already and can make a decent fist of what puports to be a new tune straight out of the block. But the copyright is yours and not devolved to the composer of the source. So you can see why it's a popular practice. Maybe only musos and other attentive listeners would sense what was going on - you would have to 'know' the changes of the source in order to spot the underlying defining structure - and it's genarally not meant to be noticed overtly anyway - but I am sure it's recognisable to anybody when pointed out. So the big fun for me lies in playing the same game of referencing that same original source material through the new lyric. The vision then is that alongside the new verbal motive they are listening to, anybody who perceived and understood the source harmony would then be able to recognise relationships between my new words and the primary song source, too. Totally unnecessary clever-clever po-mo pretentious bollocks but cool when somebody picks up on it like an inside joke...... as long as it stands independently as a song as well, of course. Any road up.... Pat Coleman’s contrafact for ‘My Funny Valentine” is entitled “Re-Write” – ‘cos that’s what it is, innit, right? (I am pretty certain Steve has a copy of this tune on a CD I sent him. If I am correct, then I’d be curious to know whether he spotted the Valentine roots or not.) So now I have two guiding principles to steer by and towards: one is to make some kind of sense out of ‘re-write’ as a song-title, while the other is to honour the sentiment of the original source. The contrafact for ‘All The Things You Are’ is called ‘Thing’ – so I am having fun making a similar kind of respectful nod in the direction of Oscar Hammerstein while getting to use some unknown monster “Thing” as the central metaphor for a huge great love. That’s the vision thing, anyway. And I grow each set of words through the plan and the structure. While this may seem a strange and perhaps perverse way of working, maybe too much conscious ‘mechanism’ for some to contemplate, but I don’t feel I have a lot of time to waste hanging around for ‘inspiration’ to strike so why not get some song-writing exercise one way or another. This game vision offers some damn good challenges, gives me a lot of a laughs, and uses up a buckets of sweat and determination that I hope never show in the final result. I am still having fun working towards pulling-off the perfect ‘Thing’ lyrics, but Joe Coughlin debuts ‘Re-Write’ (and a couple of others) in a few days at one of the local west coast jazz festivals. RE-WRITE Coleman-Lazzerini © 2007 Funny how you always make me happy deep inside I love to have your laughter lift my day Far beyond a painter or a poet if they tried To catch the way you look or what you say They’d have - for heaven-sakes, dear - To re-write all of Shakespeare And re-make all the movies ever known Fundamental element unchangeable and fine With a sunny smile to drive my clouds away Become a re-write for a new life of our own

Lovely.

Crikey John, that is so true.... ! Even though I have always loved to sing, I absolutely hated my voice. Back from when I first started to perform in public (mid '70s), despite the fact that others professed to like it, I was deeply unhappy with my sound. Imagine having to live with that - having people tell me I was good, or alright, but on the inside violently disagreeing with their tastes and perceptions because I knew I was crap. And intensely disliking my performances. Nevertheless, with surprising support and encouragement (that I also felt undeserved) from those I admired, I persevered. One personal mentor once offered up the enigmatic observation that "style is limitations of technique" and I pondered it for several years before finally figuring out what he was talking about. Eventually, maybe as recent as a decade or so ago, I began to fully embrace my own technical limitations and own an authentic style that I feel is uniquely my own - even though it may still fall far short of all the wonderful singers I wished I was able to emulate. Now I am much more pragmatically content about things like that and have learned to love my voice however poorly it still objectively compares to my personal mythical standards The perfect irony, of course, is that back then when I thought I was plagiaristic, unoriginal, derivative and fake, I had gigs and an audience. Nowadays, I can't even get arrested. Serves me right. Ha - bloody ha. Should have started sooner.

Hi Kate. Everybody is right . Copyright is automatic in law as soon as you create something. You make it: you own it. As long as it’s original. You are no longer strictly required to put © Kate 2007, but it is still recommended – at least it still lets people know that you know a little something about what’s going on. But if this ownership of your own work is ever challenged or pirated, then it can become something which you might be required to prove – prove that it’s yours, I mean, rather than somebody else’s. If a court has to make a decision about this, they will only do their normal regular dependable job and consider the evidence put in front of them. Even registered mail. But most people prefer to get their work registered somewhere more official. And the US Copyright Office is pretty much as official as you can get for a US song-writer. Despite registration, however, if someone has a case to bring, then the courts will still examine it on its own merits. But it takes money to fight in court, remember. If it ever gets down to that, and if you have a winnable case, you can always find a music lawyer to do battle on a contingency basis. That means if you lose you won’t have to pay – but if you win you would have to split whatever you get. So there has to be money somewhere in the equation to give the expense a reason to argue. Look at the recent case over “A Whiter Shade Of Pale”, for example. And you can bet your bum that song had been registered for a long time already. The court was still able to make up its own mind about ownership, however. But very expensively. Let’s hope it never happens to you. Why not join SOCAN – the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada ? They have an office in Dartmouth - 45 Alderney Drive, Ste. 802, Queen Square Dartmouth, NS B2Y 2N6 Phone: (902) 464-7000 Toll-free: 1-800-70 SOCAN (that's 1-800-707-6226) They have a MySpace site It’s a performance rights organisation for music creators and publishers, and you can join as a composer, songwriter or lyricist if you are a Canadian with musical work that has been published or recorded or performed in public. They collect royalties on behalf of members and can help with all your copyright questions. If you apply on-line, it’s free. If you do it by by mail it costs a one-time $25 loonies.

Alone Together - by Howard Deitz & Arthur Schwartz

Here's some more old geezers.... Make yourself comfortable now, this might take up half an hour, but I think you may find the pleasure worthwhile. It's a few guitar treats. First up is Brasilian player Genil Castro. Here’s a quick harmony lesson that’s pretty neat and I hope could be useful. And here he is playing a tune - " Good, huh? His use and choices of harmonics is just lovely. There is plenty more cool video on his MySpace page Like a bunch of other great players, Castro’s main influence and inspiration for this kind of wizardry in technique was the late Lenny Breau, who Chet Atkins called “the greatest guitarist who ever walked the face of the earth”, and who was murdered in LA in 1984. Right now I’m reading the guy’s biography. Many friends of mine had associations with him, and I’ve even found myself personally involved with a couple of the women in his life, but I never got to meet him or know him other than through performances and recordings and stories and legends. So it’s good to be getting a more coherent picture of his life This is what I turned up on YouTube. First there is film of Lenny playing J S Bach’s Bourée – with some passing commentary from Don Francks and Pat Metheny – which illustrates that level of harmonic mastery those other greats like Castro, George Benson, Pat Martino et al all learned from. Then there’s this interesting film record of one of his masterclass presentations at some later time approaching the end of his career. However down and messed-up he may have been, the word is that he was always willing to share freely whatever he learned. One lucky passing dude even got a private lesson of more than an hour from him at an accidental bus-stop meeting. Apparently, Lenny missed his bus. Willingly. Here, he plays a seven-string: And here he is talking more about what he’s doing and demonstrating a flamenco intro to ' You can see how much he enjoys sharing what he knows. That’s Chat Atkins talking near the end. Earlier on in his life, young and handsome, here he is cooking away in a trio setting and then a quintet with Gigi Gryce. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=limCRMZD1Ec. What a fabulous musician. Hope you like it.

You mean that's not him in the video ? Hang about - if only I can remember where I put my glasses - I'll look again.

Stone me rigid ! So is this one: The Zimmers

OK - this isn't a music video - but I like it - and it is relevant.

Important questions, good Colonel. For me, as to the first, one thing I love to do just for sheer unrealistically sensual self-pleasure of the procedure, is write out a lead sheet by hand. Though it may sound wierdly perverted to many, I get deep satisfaction from the mechanical design process. Trying to make it as practical and pretty as possible. Measuring out bar lengths and note placements. Forcing print to be neat and tidy and legible - unlike normal handwriting indecipherable even to myself. Keeping the route-map clear and simple. Marking intro, el Signo, coda, repeats, with extravagant flourishes able to be sight-read by any passing muso at a couple of paces. Then I stick it in the book with the others. From time to time, courtesy of fine friends in preparation for a session perhaps, they make it into software in that format which makes 'em look like they come from one of the 'Real Book' volumes. Otherwise, I just scan the hand-written chart. Whichever - I end up with a *.pdf file of the song. So if anyone should ever want to do the tune, I can send 'em a copy. And all the time I'm adding to this private masturbatory indulgence called the Lazzerini songbook - a total shameless pleasure - I now have no guilty secrets left to share with scandal-sheets for an undisclosed sum. Planning to self-publish a song-collection in handy fake-book format some time in the future. Once the market happens. I also register publishing copyright with my local performing rights society. They don't require the lead-sheet for me to do this, of course. I just like to have one handy. All they want to know is the title and who owns it (the title of the title, I guess). Then it's on to addressing the issues at the next two steps you've got listed. Those lead-sheets only come in handy for those discerning souls wishing to add the songs to their performance repertoire. Presently, there are four artists with my monicker in their gig-pad. Getting name-checked to a hip listening audience is a literary form of viral marketing for me, I think, while also offering the occasional vanity indulgences of puffed pride. A few CD reviews here and there are beginning to mention our names with approval. I like that. In a couple of months, one of these special artistes is set to sing our songs at a most reputable room on the NY circuit. Hopefully, the material will make some useful impact in distant broader significant reaches of the business and we will be noticed a little more. And also hopefully, other artists/performers will gradually start taking a little bit more notice, at least, than before. People need to hear the stuff. The stuff needs to get heard. It’s difficult to do make those things happen – but once it starts rolling, it should get easier. Even those who now have a chart have to have been able to have heard the song in order to decide they want to do it before they get to request the music. So we definitely need a demo as well. How blown-out should it be ? I only think I understand what you mean by ‘blown-out’ – but I’m not really certain for sure. I need a demo to be pretty basic and simple and as good as we can make it. I want the song to stand and communicate. I want the setting to allow play-room for arrangers’ and producers’ imaginations. I want the session performances to be convincing and authentic without being overly professionally intimidating. I want the auditioning listener to be able to believe they can own the material. I have only just started to get the hang of doing this psychological-comfort bollocks and pulling off practical production logistics. But that’s our rough thinking and rationale right now. Our songs all have targets in mind throughout conception and design. Yet even on the odd occasions where I have been able to stick the demo right directly into the sweaty hands of one of the intended recipients, I have been disappointed by the inability to actually ensure they are gonna sit down purposefully ready and willing to properly listen and study the stuff even after they’ve looked me in the eye with a soft and sincere ‘thanks very much’ while pocketing the demo somewhere and probably forgetting about it immediately. Getting it to the right people, getting it heard, getting them to listen seems for me, at my own patient snail slow pace, to be dependent upon graceful persistence and the schmoozy building and development of professional relationships. We are starting to make head-way in this. And, as I have already said, I believe it should get easier once a reputation for a certain style of pro-quality starts rolling along and accumulating more believers with coin at each turn. Needless to say, I have the keys to no city, and I am only such a complete farkin expert in the first place because I am a solid student of failure from a career of direct experience – my measurable income from these most valiant efforts stands at less than fifty bucks so far and, if full accounting for associated expenses are reckoned, they inhabit the wild far reaches of extreme negative quantity. I could always get a proper job. Have two of them already. And if Steve can believe in faeries then we still have a chance at a decent earner one day. At the moment though, as far as making a living, I have no illusions. Things could change. Any minute. I believe. Curious. Right now, I'm working on a latte.

W.S. Gilbert, Johnny Burke, Johnny Mercer, Sammy Cahn, Lorenz Hart, Oscar Hammerstein, Betty Comden, Billy Strayhorn, Stephen Sondheim, Mike Stoller with Jerry Leiber, Gerry Goffin with Carole King, Smokey Robinson, Percy Mayfield, Tim Hardin, John Sebastian, Jimmy Webb, Jake Thackeray, Randy Newman, Van Dyke Parks, Oscar Brown Jr., Hal David, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Dave Frishberg, Andy Partridge, Walter Becker & Donald Fagen, Fran Landesman, Tom PhantomEngineer, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot, Ron Sexsmith, Bob Rylett. I like these guys because they are all incredibly smart and crafty with words and style. There must be loads more.

Look out !! I am in love again. This is a young woman called Hiromi Uehara. She is absolutely killing. Love & Laughter XYZ And in a duet with Chick Corea - Spain What a great time she's having.

None that would be of any immediate benefit. Knowing too much is a severe disadvantage. It would make you give up right at the start Joe has to hoe his own row.

Hey Al - what was the result ?

I am a Canadian member and I have never heard of this lot before. Maybe I should have - but I am naturally suspicious. Smells funny to me.

Face-to-face and 'phone calls. Make friends, make 'em laugh. Keep in touch.

Thanks, John.

Cannot disagree. But my two questions remain: I know what he does with his mouth and his energy. Good job. But apart from exploiting tax-law to his own personal advantage and regularly voicing an essential opinion on how others should be spending on aid, what is it he has done with his own money ? And what is it that he has actually achieved on behalf of the third world ? I mean in concrete objective terms - not p.r. Help me out here.

Well - he speaks well and regularly on issues that need to be nailed to an internationalist agenda. So he's using his status and profile to lend exposure. Well done. But so what ? Just exactly what had he done with his own money ? And exactly what has he acheived on behalf of the third world ? I mean in solid identifiable concrete terms - not just hot air. Somebody tell me.

Never heard of her. You're right - she's great. D'ya think she'd consider bigamy ? But who are "these two" ? I ended up the same place.

Excellent !!