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Lazz
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Posts posted by Lazz
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I'm still uncertain whether this is a good thing or a bad thing.
In many ways, despite being in a Spotify-free territory, I viewed their model as a glimpse of a future where downloads go the way of the CD - but now I am not so sure I like the way they operate: remember that Swedish superstar,Magnus Uggla complained that after six months he'd only earned "what a mediocre busker could earn in a day", and that after their artists had been streamed over 55,000 times Norwegian label Junior Racing had earned a staggering $3.00 in payments - yes, that's right, THREE BUCKS !!
From an artist point of view (perhaps especially for the indie sector) there seems to be something a little smelly about Spotify.
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Where in the Web are sites where music buyers go to find copyrighted music, offered for sale by their owners e.g. in lead-sheet form...?
Depends whose stuff you're interested in.
Artists individually and regularly make lead-sheets available for download direct from their own web-sites.
I just snaffled a couple from John Scofield and from Antonio Carlos Jobim that way.
Then there are on-line retailers like http://www.musicdispatch.com/ or, as his holiness intimated above, publisher sites like http://www.halleonard.com/?pro=608, where you can check out their stock somewhat and they will mail stuff out
I think googlage should kick back a lot of similar likelihoods.
Where do you place your product?
Being myself at some distance from the technological cutting edge - all I possess is a Facebook page where people can at least listen to what we've got.
Then, if anyone wants a lead-sheet, all they need to do is ask, and we send them a PDF.
They don't actually buy it - but we actively seek interest from a small field of people who are likely to be recording and performing, so mechanicals and performance royalties are what we're after.
Eventually I'll get back round to having a dedicated site again to help with the job.
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Well, we still need the performing rights organizations to look after that part of process -- BMI, ASCAP, SESAC, and whoever else is out there providing the same service.
And so we're pretty much full circle back to where we started with the linked article.
PRS-MCPS is the UK performing rights organisation, while GEMA does the job in Germany and KODA in Denmark.
For CDs, the songwriters royalty is known as ‘mechanicals’ and has to be dealt with upfront before you can manufacture the product.
(Unless you are one of the controlling ‘big-boys’ who are allowed to pay mechanicals only on units sold – or if you own your own pressing plant and can get away with cheating on form filing)
For non-physical product like MP3s in the digital universe, accounting and control becomes murkier and more open to abuse – especially where business models like the flat-fee subscription for unlimited downloads (TDC’s ‘all-you-can-eat’ set-up, for instance) aren’t ready to pay anything until they are convinced they can turn a profit – which makes a lot of sense from their point of view, but gives the song creators short shrift.
The delivery or streaming models like YouTube and Spotify – which make more or less broadcast use of music – argue for some exemption because of their strategic promotional and marketing role (which the big labels are keen on supporting) and hence prefer an overall blanket annual lump sum – of which the labels are claiming the lion’s share, leaving even less for songwriters and their publishers.
And that’s where the argument is – as reported in the linked article.
The collection agencies wish for an arrangement which is arguably fairer - something more reasonably and practically related to revenue and growth – while the businesses naturally want to muscle them into getting as little as possible.
In the UK last year, the big stand-off was between YouTube and PRS. During this scrap, the majors (who all have vested interests in YouTube, remember) pulled highly popular stuff from YouTube because of the lack of an agreement between these parties and in doing so successfully painted PRS as the bad guy, the party-pooper out to spoil the fun of everyone in the YouTube generation. (Gee – even here at Songstuff – a site ostensibly about songwriting – there was strong anti-PRS sentiment.) PRS caved-in as a result and accepted a secret lump-sum deal.
Both KODA and GEMA, however, are standing their ground.
They want an equitable arrangement unfettered by non-disclosure agreements.
As a songwriter, I support them in this.
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Hello blu,
I guess the garden must belong to you, but are the graduations yours or those of your children?
they are spending less time searching and more time promoting a much smaller pool of musical "product".
If it’s safe to presume that ‘they’ refers to ‘labels’, it has been a truth for a long time that they don’t ‘search’ at all much anymore. Traditional mythical A&R is long gone. They largely favour introductions through networks of established industry contacts. And their sales resources get slung behind whatever project shows signs of creating a return. The mud-pie process still rules: i.e. a handful of projects are slung against the wall and whichever achieves the greatest adherence gets more of the push than the others. Way back when I was once trying to deal with Island, for example, I witnessed how, when there was a release by a top band of the time called ‘Frankie Goes To Hollywood’, everything else on their desk just fell by the wayside and was ignored to death.
So you’re right: they focus on a small pool.
But they always have – their priorities are strictly governed by numbers.
You’re right, too, about the sheer volume of music. The availability and distribution of bedroom technologies means that these days anyone can produce music product – so everyone does, pretty much, to the extent that regular distributors and retailers, predominantly now turned to dust, instead of looking at 300 releases per week, were having to deal with 3,000. The numbers today must be even greater. I’ve lost count.
But whether this then makes the terrain “less cost-effective for the music marketers and distributor” turns out to be quite a moot point.
Chris Anderson’s theory of the Long Tail, for example, an established article of faith amongst the techno-savants, claims that our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of 'hits' and that the future of e-business is selling less of more – because the digital world makes it cost-effective to do so.
However - Will Page, Chief Economist for the UK’s royalty collections agency the MCPS-PRS Alliance, together with colleague Gary Eggleton and MBlox founder Andrew Bud, from an analysis of real digital music sales data gathered over 12 months from a catalogue of 13m songs, discovered that 85% of the albums available on-line still failed to sell one single copy and that approximately 80% of sales revenue came from just 52,000 tracks – the ‘hits’ which power the industry – a mere 0.4% of the total number of tracks available.
So the marketing, promotion and distribution resources, following our established business mud-pie principles, quite naturally retains its sensibly narrow focus on those few bits of stuff that are generating good numbers and kicking back profits.
But how does that effect whether payment is made for use of a songwriter’s work?
To be continued….
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there have been many collaborators (Oscar and Hammerstein, et al) where ..............
That's unintentionally very funny, Mike.
Like saying "Paul and McCartney".
Oscar Hammerstein was a lyricist - and a damn great one - also mentor and de facto foster father to Steve Sondheim.
He is a good case in point, though:
Jerome Kern was an early composer-collaborator of his who would hand Oscar finished and complete pieces in which would not allow a single note to be changed. Although many of their songs justifiably became part of the 'Great American Songbook' and were (and still are) constantly re-interpreted as 'standards', he absolutely detested any and all changes to what he had originally scored. A real stickler and task-master with whom Oscar nonetheless thrived on a rigorous music-first basis.
Their first project was "Showboat" - which, despite few if any here being at all interested in the form, was a revolutionary landmark of musical theatre.
Later on, when Lorenz Hart become too messed up to function, Oscar would replace him as partner of composer Richard Rodgers. Rodgers was much more flexible and accommodating than Kern and, to Oscar's surprise, expected the lyrics to come first.
Oscar learned rigour and discipline from Kern.
He also learned about the essential musicality in language and structure which equipped him to provide such eminently productive libretti for Rodgers.
The first Rodgers & Hammerstein collaboration was "Oklahoma" - another significant milestone in musical theatre.
Oscar is well worth taking a good look at.
"Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II" is essential reading - borrow it from the library.
His introduction to the book, 'Notes on Lyrics', is acknowledged as a classic text - make yourself a photocopy to keep.
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George Carlin and Bill Hicks............
Different gig to that of a singer, John.
Heckling is part of their gig.
Different for a singer.
I remember being heckled once by a guy at a club - very uncomfortable and embarrassing - no idea what to do.
Some time later at the theatre, I serendipitously discovered the man on-stage as an actor.
Still nursing a grievance, I stood up and gave it to him good.
Quid pro quo.
Still very uncomfortable and embarrassing - ruined the show for everybody else.
There has to be a better way - more dignified and gracious.
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although I was only speaking of the so-called "major players" like Sony, EMI, Warner, and Universal.
AHA !!
This seems to confirm my early suspicion that you failed to read or comprehend the story.
This is NOT about a "largely a catfight between equally greedy entities".
This is about songwriters' struggle with the dominant forces.
So I believe you misread the real roll-call of combatants and chose instead to go with the play-book of myth.
You are right that the 'majors' dominate the music marketplace. It's the nature of their enterprise. Their wider networks of corporate relationships involve them in an enormous bunch of other stuff as well which is worthwhile if not essential to be aware of. The structure and imperatives of international monopoly capitalism have quite naturally driven them to assume an interest in the new-media delivery systems. From their point of view, you know it makes sense, it adds up. So there is no real scrap between the majors and speculative technical innovations like Spotify or MOG or TDC or YouTube. The majors are comfy corporate bedfellows with each of them.
It is the associations representing songwriters which have been engaging with the pressures from these combined forces.
That's where the fight is.
Much more David and Goliath than "equally greedy entities", I think.
Was there something I wrote that suggested my advocacy for that idea?Yes - if I may - perhaps the general nuance of tone which appeared to uncritically reiterate the essence of ideological mantras re the internet as saviour delivered with the swagger of 'serve-you right' insouciance like this:
All we have to do is come down off of our unrealistic expectations of overnight success and multi-million dollar contracts, work on our craft, bypass the giant, monopolistic record companies and calmly push our little boats into the great and diverse musical streams of the Internet. We’ll find our audience without all this…this other stuff. And if we happen to find out that we can’t support ourselves that way, then it’s time re-assess our career options, you know? Take up brick-laying, or veterinary medicine, or making kites for kids…I think you express yourself very ably - but what you had to say wasn't really much anything to do with the issues in the story to which I linked.
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Hello, "Lazz"...
Well, you got me squinting on that one! I'm not sure I understand your reply. Come again, would you?
bluage
Don't worry about it, blu.
No big deal at all.
I do completely understand you had no intent for insult - honestly I do - but in my flippant style rendered ambiguous by my rejection of the 'orrible emoticon, as John quickly spotted, I chose to take it personally purely for effect and provocation.
By posting the link I was just passing along some news about the battles over royalty.
My hope in responding to your opinion of it was to suggest with levity dry as martini that the story could more properly be seen as about us little guys getting shafted by the heroic innovations of new media in which the monopoly of big guys already maintains a vested pecuniary interest such that whichever way the juice ends up getting squeezed the flow will stay largely unidirectional. And their current business model only works most effectively with the lowest of usage royalties - i.e. by giving us little guys at the end of the line even less.
Our influence on these outcomes – other than through representations from stakeholders ‘professional organizations – is pretty much zilch/zip/nada. Me and others like me, we have little realistic choice other than play these cards as they are being dealt and try to read the game ahead as best we can. So I have to tell you, as long as it helps raise a smile, about this wild Charles Bronson fantasy which my tiny mind conjures more and more whenever I'm handed yet more unctuous platitudes from the book of nouveau-teknik doctrines that John encapsulated so perfectly as ""this is the way it is, get used to it". This movie sees me screaming "F*ck you!" at the offenders while rendering the hardest kick I can possibly muster to their tenderest most personal parts so that I can finally stand over them gloating with my reflection of their own mantra: "This is the way it is, punk. Get used to it".
On the one hand there are self-serving myths about how the music world turns.
On the other hand there are front-line realities.
But do either of them make me greedy ?
Moi ?
I mean, here I am doing my thing to high standards and fighting to get paid my due like loads of others in the same soggy boat. And we're all bailing out like crazy and trying to paddle out of the way while the good ship force majeure steams full speed ahead down upon us. Bound to sink us for sure.
Come down off my unrealistic expectations of overnight success and multi-million dollar contracts ?
Good grief man, these ideas are part of the aforementioned mythic perspective only, not the reality.
Thank you for the sincere suggestion, but I can assure you that all who stand toiling honestly in amongst the actual arts landscape have long had our eyes wide open.
Time to re-assess my career options ?
Thanks again - but I already hold down two other gigs right now.
(Funnily enough, both of those jobs also involve occasionally being patronised - wouldn't you just know it ?)
Hope that helps both to contextualise my one-liner and also explain how, if a person really wanted to, it wouldn’t be too hard to construe aspects of your position as an ill-informed affront.
Just sayin’…. as the kids today regularly offer as talismanic all-purpose excuse - we are all ordinary regular Songstuff mates here, so I don't actually necessarily fully subscribe to that pont of view.
Yours in sincere good humour,
Lazz.
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tiresome capitalistic conundrum, and largely a catfight between equally greedy entities.
Either you are mistaking me for someone else or it's about time I began to feel insulted.
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Please list YOUR top 5 songwriting resource sites below!
songwriting.songstuff.com(ok, I might be biased
)This is a real tough one, John.
I'm stumped.
I remember scouring the internet a few years back for sites to do with songwriting and coming away pretty damn disappointed with most everything that most everyone else seemed to be cock-a-hoop about in the usual self-aggrandising claims and styles these sites appear to share. Obviously, I have my own personal preferences and bias in abundance, but that's basically how I ended up finding a comfortable home here at Songstuff where the culture and ethos are, in comparison, positive, open, supportive and generally free of problematic and misleading nonsense.
Like several other members, I have also dipped my toes into the waters of MusesMuse where I found many damn fine people and made fine new friends to fool around and keep in contact with. But I found problems there. Maybe a guy like me is always likely to find problems. In terms of value as an "all round songwriter's resource', one issue for me is the simple narrowness of perspective - the hegemony of narrative-ballad models - maybe not quite at the extent of the overt Nashville orientation to JustPlainFolks and their expected county leanings, but it still pretty much defines the parameters of regular singer-songwriter and folk-rock models. Nothing at all wrong with folk music, mind - I wouldn't be without it - but if songwriting per se is a large house then my personal preference would be not to have all the action happening in just one room where Robin Frederich and AddictedToSngwriting hang out.
That's the reason I like AmericanSongwriter - because Paul Zollo, author of "Songwriters on Songwriting" and the guy behind the site, while working to make sense of where his bread gets buttered, maintains a healthily broad and informed perspective which can accommodate Broadway and Tin Pan Alley as well as the Grand Ol' Opry.
Another general problem I have with sites about song-writing is their heavy lyrical focus - and that's entirely driven by personal bias, too - I am predominantly a lyricist, so I always want to understand and learn more about music simply so I can become a better lyricist - so I'd sooner pay attention to an experienced somebody like Richard Niles who is smart enough not to give too much away for free but holds regular real-deal top-value work-shops on all aspects of getting where you want to go.
Handy on-line resource about the Circle of Fifths is Rand Scullard’s on-line interactive model along with the accompanying User Guide which explains its application.
My other top four personal bed-side songwriting resources are of the printed variety:
Dick Grove's "Arranging Concepts"
David Baker's "Arranging & Composing for the small ensemble"
Jimmy Webb's "Tunesmith"
Gene Lees' "The Modern Rhyming Dictionary"
"The Complete Gilbert Sullivan"
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supposing your first verse of lyrics doesn't have the same measurement as your second verse
As far as I am aware, lyricists don't do that.
If it did happen, I would advise myself to pay better attention.
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What's the protocol?
First step is to say thank you to the ‘guest’ singer.
Then, out of pure self-interest, I would suggest you cool your heels on the rest.
Prime rule in a nasty world is to never give up any potential revenue generating credit if you can get away with it – and, in this case, it’s not at all clear whether there is a need to even consider it.
If it was it a pro-session for a commercial release, any significant contribution from a performer could fall under the concept of ‘neighbouring rights’ – but whether that concept applies to your circumstance depends on what jurisdiction you’re in – it’s only been around for little over a decade and I don’t know for sure whether it has yet become part of practice in the US, for example, but it definitely applies in Europe, in Brasil, and in Canada.
In Canada, protection for performer's performances was first enacted in 1994 and expanded on from September 1, 1997 when performances captured on recordings (and their producers) were provided with a neighbouring right, entitling them to "equitable remuneration" for public performance or broadcast. Before September 1, 1997, only the composer of the music had the right to be paid for those uses.
It’s not the composers themselves who pay this royalty though, that would be the responsibility of those paying for the usage licence – the premises or the radio station, for instance.
So you’re safe there, I think.
Then again, if your record turns out to be a huge success, and the singer is able to argue persuasively that their ‘quite hooky’ contribution played a significant role in its popularity, then a court might be inclined to award them a slice of the composer’s pie – see Mathew Fisher’s claim re “A Whiter Shade Of Pale” before the Court of Appeal and on to the House of Lords. I say ‘if your record turns out to be a huge success’ advisedly because it’s only when the stakes are high – as in Fisher’s situation – that a lawyer would consider it worthwhile booting it all the way to the highest court in the land. Otherwise these scenarios are prohibitively expensive to play out to the bitter end.
So you might perfectly well be safe there, too.
If it was just a regular friendly amateur session to demo the song and the ‘guest’ is a mate who came in to help for the fun of it, these issues weigh less heavily.
And if it does come to a dispute down the road, it sure won’t eat up all your profits or sink a deal.
Very coldly, if the singer doesn’t expect it and hasn’t requested it – don’t make the offer.
It’s business.
Your co-writer needs to know about it and agree.
It’s sensible.
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I found Karakiriad disappointing though I really wanted to like it and preferred 11 Ttacks of Whack
Me too.
Only four or five Kamakiriad tracks made their way onto my iPod.
Morph The Cat disappointed even more.
I really dig the perfect minimalism of Becker's 'Whack' tracks.
Just been listening to some of his new one.
I like the
so far..
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New to me - thought I would share a DVD recommendation:
DONALD FAGEN: CONCEPTS FOR JAZZ/ROCK PIANO (90-minutes)
Playing, writing and arranging - with Warren Bernhardt.
Reveals how basic blues roots can be transformed into more complex original compositions. You get the standard 12-Bar Blues first, and then they take it into the compositional process for Steely Dan’s "Chain Lightning", "Peg", "Josie", and Fagen’s "On the Dunes" and "Teahouse on the Tracks" from Kamakiriad. Many great and useful insights that will give new rewards each time it is viewed.
Check some of it out and see what I mean:
And you can find it for around $20.
Hope someone else finds it worthwhile.
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Found this:
Very dramatic.
The originating BASCA (British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors) comment, to which the newspaper article refers, is from their April Briefing here:
http://www.basca.org.uk/news/basca-briefing-april-2010
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One seems ok and the other seems terrible somehow but is the net effect the same?
David Byrne seems to have a slightly similar view of the contradiction that terrestrial radio is seen as promotional when web radio isn't in an article from some years ago - David Byrne journal
Not sure I am following your question Nick.
Can you have anther go ?
Byrne's comments refer to broadcast in the US only - where network radio play has long been regarded as a promotional benefit for artist and label.
Unlike the rest of the world (almost), where other broadcast royalties apply.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/apr/13/spotify-songwriters
"last year it was claimed that over a five-month period, 1m plays of Lady Gaga's hit Poker Face – one of the most popular songs on the site – earned her just $167"
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Wow.
I visualise a minefield of ramifications.
But I can be of no help at all - that kind of specialist jurisdictional expertise is a pretty tall order.
Although if you can find worthwhile answers anywhere on the internet I promise I will eat my computer.
Best I can think of is to identify a couple of folks who have been in the exact same circumstances as you and reach out to them for advice, for guidance, for recommendations on the 'right' attorney for the job..... and watch your back for rustlers.
Good luck.
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But on the good side Christians believe that no matter how much wealth you accumulate or how much power you get everything fades and dies.
Right then.
So what you're saying is that a good old-fashioned jewish atheist like me believes you can take it with you ?
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I get suspicious of ANY agency that claims to be interested in "helping" creative people to advance their careers
Quite right, too.
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an Inter-web subsidiary of American Songwriter magazine, specifically designed for songwriters - and other groups within the songwriting community, like music publishers - to network and collaborate with fellow songwriters
I've been checking out American Songwriter Magazine regularly and quite like it compared to the rest of the field.
One big plus is that Paul Zollo ("Songwriters On Songwriting") is the man responsible.
So I view American Songspace as another sincere attempt to make a contribution.
And that's all I know...
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what you look for or don't look for when giving or receiving a critique, how detailed it should be, how critical it should be, what are the most important things, is it important that you receive or give a pat on the back, how do you deal with the fine line between immediate confidence and the need to learn?
Tough one, guv'.
Sometimes people pass their work through here and it's of a kind where all I want to say is "Yeah!" and give words of support and encouragement.
That can definitely be important - maybe Thomas and Alistair are apposite examples of this - where they are getting out there and doing it - that's the main thing of any importance.
But a 'critique', man - phew ! that's work
So I am trying these days to be more attentive to whether and at what point my butting in on someone else's process stands a chance of offering any value.
Otherwise it's a huge waste of time and energy in both directions.
It's nice to be able to build up some impression of where a person is at in order to figure whether my input might carry relevance.
And to make an assessment of whether their sensitivities are too delicate to hear any gobbetts of Lazz-crap.
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The Music Business Has Changed... Have You?
in Music Industry
Posted
Yup.
That Bronfmann book looks very interesting indeed.
One of the most interesting and provocative things in the interview for me, however, is where the author, Fred Goodman, bemoans how few bands can afford to to make records which "investigate what you can do in a studio", and that "sophisticated" records will likely disappear because of cost:
the fact is, you can’t justify the cost anymore for any band who really wants to look inside its soul and go live with a producer for eight months.
U2 can do it, The Red Hot Chili Peppers and maybe five other bands. I mean, who can do this?
That strikes me as weird and funny.
I mean, who would need to lock themselves up with a producer for eight months ?
Dare I suggest it might be because they actually don't have any first idea what they should be doing ?
(Maybe that's what Goodman truly means with the line "investigate what you can do in a studio" - it's because they already ran out of idea before they started).
I dunno.
I read these things and sometimes feel I come from a different planet.
Grinch grinch grumble grumble.
But maybe the demise of that odd reality could mean that the world of recording will have more functional room again for players who can do the business and be in and out inside 48 hours.
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