GregB

Hi Mahesh Any update on this post from Oct 4 regarding the Songstuff Vocal Coaching Academy ? Greg

Hi "Day". Nicely written ... i.e. a pleasure to read (without necessarily agreeing with ALL the content). The same arguments can also be applied to these Forum pages. If I kick off a Topic discussion, or respond, I can only express my views and/or paraphrase other people's. One gut-level view that I'll take to the grave ... not long to go now ... concerns that last sentence of yours: >>> The audience decides if a work is good, no? No? ... NO!! A generalised audience only determines whether or not a work is POPULAR. Greg - an opinionated Baby Boomer

A long-running investigation by the UK competition watchdog doesn't see any need for change!! https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/nov/29/uk-music-streaming-cma-artists says that the world’s biggest record labels and streaming services are not making excessive profits at the expense of artists struggling to make a living from the digital music revolution. The Competition and Markets Authority said artists’ concerns about low returns were understandable, but intervening in the market would be unlikely to help. The CMA found the streaming boom had benefited music fans, who have seen the cost of paying for services such as Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music fall by a fifth between 2009 and 2021, and can also access songs for free via ad-supported packages. It also said the world’s biggest music businesses – Universal Music, Warner Music and Sony Music, which control about three-quarters of the UK recorded music industry – and the streamers were not “likely to be making significant excess profits that could be shared with creators”. However, the CMA’s final report will disappoint many artists and creators in the music industry who have struggled to make a meaningful income from streaming, claiming they do not get a fair share of revenues from deals, who had been hoping the watchdog would launch a full market investigation off the back of the findings of the study. The CMA said the UK has 39 million monthly listeners to streaming services, who stream 138bn times a year. However, more than 60% of the music streamed is from just 0.4% of artists, with superstars such as Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, Drake and Adele the biggest winners of the digital music era. The study found that average royalty rates in major deals with artists have increased from 19.7% to 23.3% between 2012 and 2021. However, while an artist in the UK can expect to earn about £12,000 from 12 million streams, less than 1% of musicians achieve that level of listening. “Streaming has transformed how music fans access vast catalogues of music, providing a valuable platform artists to reach new listeners quickly, and at a price for consumers that has declined in real terms over the years,” the CMA interim chief executive, Sarah Cardell, said. “We heard from many artists and songwriters across the UK about how they struggle to make a decent living from these services,” Cardell added. “These are understandable concerns, but our findings show that these are not the result of ineffective competition. Intervention by the CMA would not release more money into the system that would help artists or songwriters.” The CMA was asked to launch the study after a scathing report by a cross-party committee of MPs last year called for a “complete reset” of a streaming model it believed only benefited big labels and superstar acts. “The CMA report held no real surprises,” said Tom Gray of the band Gomez, who is the founder of the campaign group Broken Record. “‘Not our problem’ would be a good description. They kick the problem of creator earnings back to the government in the knowledge that it is a sincerely hot potato. “Streaming payment rates have been falling in real terms for over a decade. Streaming is replacing radio as well. So, inevitably songwriters and performers will ultimately lose the significant income they receive from broadcast. This just points us back to the government which needs to update the copyright structure and creator rights.”

@john recently posted about "ALT - ish" music ... which got me thinking, yet again, about the great unsolved mystery of music genres. In my teens, there were about 10 'genres' that covered everything one was ever likely to hear on the radio. When I submitted my first songs to competitions in the early 2000's, the commonest comment I received was one of "wrong genre". Even today, on forms (e.g. like CD-Baby, when having to categorise a new release), I often don't even SEE a category that best fits. So today I Google'd "music genres list" and, guess what, no-one agrees. For your edification and delight, here are some of the lists ... useful in that they at least proffer some examples!! 1. CHOSIC https://www.chosic.com/list-of-music-genres/ Each category is accompanied by a Spotify Playlist. • Pop • Dance / EDM (Electronic Dance Music) • Hip-hop and Rap • R&B • Latin • Rock • Metal • Country • Folk / Acoustic • Classical • Jazz • Blues • Easy Listening • New Age • World / Traditional Folk When expanded, the above list shows almost 500 sub-genres!! 2. MUSIC GROTTO https://www.musicgrotto.com/music-genres/ List 75 main genres. with one audio example of each. 3. Music Industry How To https://www.musicindustryhowto.com/music-genres/ 67 Main Music Styles, each one with: • one music example, and • several major artists ---------- This is merely to highlight the lack of logic regarding 'genre', and thus trying to write to a genre 'formula' ... no one agrees on the formula! I've always preferred just using the term 'music' and then, and only if required for clarification, 'sounds like' a particular artist/song. Feel free to weigh in but I don't have the knowledge or conviction to respond. Greg

Hi John I was intrigued and hugely amused by your -"-ish" descriptor. In my teens, there were (in retrospect) about 10 'genres' that covered Folk, Pop, Rock, Prog Rock, R&B, Soul, Country, Jazz, Show/Musical, broad Latin, broad World, Comedy. I reckon these days, there's more than 100 genres ... let alone the infinite "-ish" ones When I started writing songs, approx Year 2000, I submitted to a few contests and inevitably was told I had chosen the wrong category!! Do you know of existing resources from which one can create a list ... along with INDUSTRY-AGREED EXPLANATIONS in plain language and each perhaps with a core example? If none exists, perhaps this is a project for the Membership to develop one? Greg

Touché! 😄 ... though game-play microtransactions are probably worth more than $0.001 per music stream? Yes. I could punch holes in some of his arguments, and he is a professional doom-sayer about music, but I still found the overall thesis to be interesting/enlightening. Greg

PS. How many hats do you HAVE? 🤣

Probably because the reverb doesn't match ... is surprisingly 'bigger' ... than video's intimate room setting. But beyond that, the SOUND is great 👍 (but a personal opinion only).

Hi Tony. ANYTHING that gets your mojo working is a 'good thing'. For me, writing/recording music that I can be proud of is challenge enough, and I don't care how long it takes. And I can't imagine asking friends and family to listen to TWELVE albums, let alone listen to them myself! Greg

Didn't know whether to click the link in case it was fake news!! 😄 But it was a solid performance as always, and that live sound you get is just terrific 👍 Cheers, Greg

I know that I've bombarded John with "great ideas" to help advance the SOngstuff cause, but it's too easy to be influenced by one's own mindset and therefore incorrectly second-guess what others actually WANT, so ... 1) Perhaps a series of anonymous POLLS would help to independently identify the hive mind? 2) I believe the KEY ISSUE is the general lack of participation. A specific Poll on this might help reveal the reasons. (Are the majority of members shy, disinterested, or is the website interface an issue?) 3) A simple and generalised "this is what Songstuff is about" was done six months ago ... it's only had 67 views!! (Perhaps link to this when there are no paid advert blocks in use?) 4) Sometimes one has to accept that things are what they are. Songstuff is active. Sure, a few members are far more active than others, but this is true of every club/organisation I've even been part of. Greg

No-one has all the data. No-one has all the answers. I just like debates where the speakers put their views on the line, clearly and calmly, for others to consider and, as you have, argue against. The topic itself has no direct relevance for me. I don't perform in public. I don't sell songs. I have no urge to make money from my songs/recordings. But I have been interested in Ted Gioia's views as they are a niche reflection on how technology is fundamentally changing culture and social values ... usually because a) no one can foresee the impact of these new 'services', and b) the uptake cycle is so rapid. Greg

Sorry to hear that Mahesh. It's very dispiriting when a) a complete b*stard messes with your stuff for absolutely no reason, and b) you have to expend considerable time and energy rebuilding. We all get caught up with maintaining presence in the virtual world, but it's all an illusion ready to disintegrate. I hope you can avoid becoming too disillusioned, angry and frustrated. You can still go out with your acoustic guitar, put your heart and soul into playing/singing your songs, and entertain others. Best wishes, Greg

Pro Tools INTRO was released just a few weeks ago. It's FREE on both Mac/Windows. It hopefully provides me and my closest musical collaborator the way to finally seamlessly exchange recording sessions. Pro Tools INTRO gives 8 Audio, 8 Instrument and 8 MIDI tracks, the XPAND instrument library, 35 stock plugins (including EQ, Compression, Verb and Delay) and allows all my current and future AAX plugins. This setup would have been sufficient to complete ALL my 50+ past releases. I met Martin, a local musician, in 2013 and we subsequently enjoyed coffee, chatting about music and playing acoustic guitars in my kitchen. One day in late 2014, the musical taps mysteriously turned themselves on and we soon had an album's worth of material. Neither of us wished to spend money in a commercial studio on a 'hobby' (as both of us are married) or submit to the control of others. So I dusted off Pro Tools + MBox 2 which had been lurking unused on my Windows laptop for six years and committed to the learning curve. Fortunately YouTube tutorials were then kicking into gear. The 1500pp Manual was also very useful. The very first track we recorded at my place was "Scent of Summer", Martin's first ever song. And it was this song's Session Folder that I chose for testing interoperability between our computers. But first, I had to ensure it would still open and WORK on my laptop. YES IT DID ... seven years after creation! One minor/free plugin was missing, as well as Izotope 5 (as I'm now up to v.9). To my amazement, it sounded great despite my being, in 2014, a complete klutz at recording, mixing, mastering. There was no gain staging and both EQ and compression were 'achieved' by blindly fiddling with knobs ... I really didn't have a clue what I was doing!! Here are the session details plus the release/music video that Martin did (under duress). The elements were: Drums (audio clips found on the net) my MIDI Bass (XPand library) Martin's 6-string acoustic DI Martin's 6-string acoustic DI - lead Martin's lead vocal Martin's lead vocal doubled Martins vocal - processed callback my harmony 1 my harmony 2 my 12-string DI my MIDI Piano (XPand library) Has anyone else ever gone back to their first-ever session and retrieved full functional control of all plugins/automation etc.? Can anyone beat a gap of SEVEN years? Greg

I came across a 2-part talk by Ted Gioia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NT-fbu4b40&t=235s . This was from 2015 but all remains relevant. Ted Gioia has been mentioned a previous Forum posts . I found this talk provided new perspectives. I particularly liked his assessment of music as 'content' and 'art vs. entertainment'. If interested, I've transcribed it to text (see below) via an online service. Some minor edits were made to make sense of mumbled or repeated words and strange AI punctuations. I've only reviewed it once, so apologies if it doesn't read smoothly. Cheers, Greg Transcript Good morning. I'd like to talk about the state of the music world, to look at what's happening now in music and try to anticipate what might happen over the next 5 – 10 – 15 years, and focus on the challenges and obstacles and what we might do to overcome them. I believe that the music world is in something of a state of crisis. And we're facing challenges fundamentally different than we have in the past. My views are controversial … at least in the eyes of some people affiliated with music as an economic enterprise. Some of these global entertainment companies, a lot of them, are unhappy with what I have to say. NPR Station devoted a whole show to my views on music, but they did not invite me to the debate. I'm talking about music in very general terms. It's not like I'm attacking Justin Bieber or One Direction. If I did that, I would expect the angry mobs to be pounding on my door. I write and use very general terms from first principles and drawing on empirical evidence. And what do I see? Even the people who disagree can see there's a Crisis in music. Even people that are involved in these big entertainment corporations. Of course they. Measured in terms of dollars and cents, they can see that sales have been declining. For 5, 10, 15 years album sales and music sales have been declining. And if this trend continues. They will be in bad shape. The music moguls will have to redo the corporate jet, to stop having lavish parties in Las Vegas and Hollywood, which would be a great tragedy. But even more acutely, the musicians feel this crisis. The musicians for this crisis most of all, especially musicians who are trying to start out their career. Opportunities that previously existed for them have disappeared, and it's harder than ever before to make a living as a musician. How to measure this decline? Go back to the 1930s in the United States when there were 10’s of thousands of places every night where you could go to hear live music. Ballrooms for dancing. Nightclubs. For listening. And most of those have disappeared. In the old days these ballrooms would employ large bands. 10-15 musicians would be working. In my estimate, the number of musicians performing live in front of an audience each evening has declined about 90% since the 1930s. And that's extraordinary, because the US economy has grown enormously since then. Spending on entertainment has grown, the population has grown, yet the opportunities for musicians have declined. And we've seen an acceleration of this in the last few years. And probably the best way of measuring this is just listening to how people talk. Listen to how musicians talk these days. When people get together, it's human nature, we want to brag about our successes, our achievements. But when you listen to musicians now, they tend to brag about their YouTube views. “I got 5,000 YouTube views”, and the friend will say, “wow, that's nothing I got 10,000”. But how sad is that? Because YouTube viewers by definition are the people that refuse to pay for your music. If someone was buying your music they wouldn't go to YouTube to hear it. Would businesses like 7/11 be bragging about shoplifting? Would they say no one is buying our product, but look at them stealing it. We definitely gotta be doing something right, our shopping numbers are up this year. This is the current state of music where the musicians are in a race to see who can give away the most free stuff the fastest. And we're told that the winner is the person that gives away everything. And so this is the economic crisis in music. But there's another group of people who view it differently. They see the crisis in technological terms. They say that the crisis is fundamentally one created by these technologies like file sharing. And downloading and streaming. And tolerance of piracy. And they will tell you that everything would be great, we could solve it, if the Internet would just go away. Without the Internet, life would be great again. No one will be stealing music. We wouldn't have these lousy streaming sites that are paying us nothing. But this solution could never happen. At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, factories were seen to be taking jobs away. The Luddites decided they would destroy the factories, like the first hackers. The Luddites failed because you can't turn back the clock. Once the new technology has come you can't get rid of it. And so the people out there, they say it's a technological crisis, but they're really struggling. What's the solution? Now there's a third group of people and they believe the crisis in music is actually an artistic crisis. An aesthetic crisis as part of a larger cultural crisis. And they say you cannot look at what's happening in music in isolation. You need to see what's happening in our whole culture. I have a lot of people in my family involved in the arts. I have an older brother who's a poet. My wife is a dancer and a modern dance choreographer. These folks have it a lot worse than musicians, a lot worse. And if you don't believe me, here's an experiment. At random and ask people this question. Tell me the name of a single living poet? Name of a single modern dance choreographer, an orchestra conductor, a building architect. People don't know any of these things. And you can't blame them. We live in a media culture where these whole sectors of our culture our marginalized. Foundational parts of our culture, architecture, poetry, dance. They're marginalised and have disappeared from view. People can tell you the names of Beyoncé or Kanye West, but can’t name a single living jazz saxophonist, or living classical composer. So there are huge areas in our culture that have disappeared in this massive dumbing down, and there are folks would believe that the crisis in music is really just one symptom of this broader cultural crisis. OK, so we have 3 diagnoses about the music crisis: economic, technological, and artistic/cultural. Now what I'd like to do is to look at each of these individually. I believe there's a mismatch between what people say, and what's really happening. If music was a patient going to the doctor, it could complain about being misdiagnosed. So let's start with the economic challenge. What is the economic challenge facing music? And I think in its simplest form you can say it's as follows … it is small. People won't pay for music anymore. In fact, some people refuse on principle to pay for music. I was talking to some high school students recently and I asked them if they ever think about buying music or subscribing to a streaming site? Heaven forbid buying a physical album! And they say “Why would I buy a record when every song I want is on YouTube”. PS. Any of you know what percent of the content on YouTube is up there illegally? YouTube doesn't want you to know, but the answer is … half. People have studied this. Half the material up there on YouTube is up illegally. So there's a whole moral and ethical issue. But there's this issue of people not wanting to pay for music. Can I hear people say this following statement all the time … “Content wants to be free”. “In the Internet age, Content wants to be free.” And so let's look at this question … does content ant to be free? First of all, I find this word “content” a little bit of an irritant. I don't know what you think, but I wen I hear this word content, I just don't like it. Two years ago. I took my family on vacation to Rome and got a personal tour of the Sistine Chapel. Did the tour guide say “Look at the content”? And there’s more content over there Michelangelo. It would be ridiculous because these are great towering works of human achievement. Referring to them as content is insulting, it implies they are generic, more or less interchangeable, you could take something else and put it on. You can put cartoons. They will be the same thing. That's not true, we know. That's not true. So whenever you hear anyone refer to music or any artistic creation as content you should be suspicious. These are people from Silicon Valley, NOT people who are involved in creating. But let's look at the rest of that statement. The statement is content wants to be free. Well, if you look at the music industry, you might think so. People are giving it away. People are told by their record label “you gotta give it away for the exposure”. But as soon as you look at the world on a broader framework, you see that content does NOT want to be free. You’ve got to pay to get content on HBO. And it's got millions and millions of people paying every month and the number goes up every year. I pay for content every month on Netflix. A lot of people do. Netflix is one of the fastest growing businesses in the world. Does the NFL give content away for free? You try buying a ticket. I subscribe to the NBA League Pass that gives me access to all I can watch … 12 different NBA games every night. That every year the Bills comes and I look at them. Outrageous, but I pay. Because it is good content. Are video games free? You know how big the video game business is now? It's $80 billion. The largest music company in the world, Universal Music, is $6 billion. So these video game companies are not giving it away for free. So we've got to look into this. Some content is free. Other content people pay for. So what are people willing to pay for? Let's look at HBO. HBO is a great example because if. HBO operates in the TV industry where everybody else is giving it away for free. TV came out in the 1950s. You bought the TV, the content was free. HBO charges top dollar and everybody wanted to pay. What is HBO doing but the music industry isn't? Let's look at three things HBO does. We should learn from first of all, HBO is committed to talent and they will pay top dollar for the best talent in the world. HBO wanted to get Martin Scorsese. To do a TV show. Martin Scorsese doesn't do TV shows. He may be the best movie director in the world. He's got Academy Awards. Best Picture, Best Director. He's a legend. HBO said we will commit $18 million Dollars just to do the pilot episode of Boardwalk Empire if you will come on board. He agreed they got Martin Scorsese. When they did True Detective, they hired Matthew McConaughey who had just won the Best Actor Oscar. For the writers they will hire Pulitzer Prize winning novelists to write TV treatments e.g. Jonathan Franzen, Michael Shaman. HBO believes fundamentally they will pay whatever it takes to get the very best talent. What is network TV doing? They're doing the exact opposite. Reality TV. And the premise of reality TV is you don't even need an actor. You can just tape off the street. I can grab you. Would you like to be on TV? And so you couldn't have a sharper contrast. You have HBO who will pay whatever it takes to get the best talent. And you've got the network saying anybody could be a star. Now I ask you: “which model is the music industry following”? … the entertainment corporations. Here's a test. What's the best music school in the world? It's probably Juilliard. Go to Juilliard and ask the people running up which music companies came to recruit talent this year. Did Universal? Did Warner Music? Of course not. For people running these label, nothing would be more ridiculous in their mind than to try to find the best musicians in the world. The most successful musician in America in 1937 was Benny Goodman. In his spare time he played Mozart clarinet concertos. in an orchestra. He hired Aaron Copland to write a piece for him. He hired Bela Bartok to write a piece for him. So there was a day that, even in commercial popular music, people with extraordinary talents rose to the top. Unfortunately, though, we've got to a position now where the music industry is more in this ‘reality TV’ mode. What else does HBO do? The next thing you notice about HBO is they target grown-ups, not youngsters. TV historically has targeted 14-year olds. If you sit in the meeting room at NBC and they're planning a new show they ask whether a 14 year old would ike this show? HBOl doesn't want 14 year olds. In fact, they've got adult content warnings on half their shows. They target everything at grownups. But this sort of makes sense. The adult has the money. If you're running an entertainment business, how much money does a 14-year olds have? So HBO believes going after adults. Is the music industry targeting grownups or 14 year olds? It is in ‘reality TV mode. The first thing HBO does, and this is important to know, HBO believes in complexity. Their shows are complex. Much more so than the network shows, I don't know. Malcolm Gladwell recently said something about TV … in the old days, I'd be watching a TV show, some detective/medical shows. I would go out and make a sandwich, get something to drink, I'd make a phone call. I'd come back 20 minutes later. I still understood everything in the show. Because these shows are so formulaic that they're so predictable. Even though I had missed 20 minutes. I understood everything. That's not true anymore. I watch these shows on HBO. I'm watching True Detective. I missed five minutes and I don't know what's going on. I gotta find someone to tell me what I missed. It's unbelievable how complex TV has gotten nowadays. And HBO has pushed that. Yet that violates everything you are told in the entertainment industry. You're told you gotta make it Dumber. HBO says we're gonna do the exact opposite we're going to make it very complex. HBO content doesn't want to be free. Stupid dumbed-down content targeted at 14 year olds HAS to be free. But if you give somebody something made by the very best talent, that's sophisticated, the highest quality, we pay top dollar. It is amazing that radio promoted One Direction but never called them great musicians. So we’ve unlocked the truth. We’re told that content wants to be free. But content does not want to be free. Good content will thrive. Let's look at the next thing, the Technological crisis. People saying it’s just technology killing the music business. If it wasn't for the web, everything would be great. But you know the music industry has always hated technology. They hated records when records were invented, there's. A famous instance in 1915. Freddie Kepler could have made the first Jazz record. He turned it down because he said I'm not dumb enough to make a record. People would steal my stuff if I made a record. They wouldn't come and hear me play. So the musicians hated records. They hated Radio when it came out. Songwriters like Irving Berlin and George Gershwin hated to hear their songs on the radio. They wanted people to pay for their songs, or maybe it. Musicians hated cassettes when it came out. The music industry really hated the Internet, but they did nothing. They just let it take off on its own. With the end result that they handed all the distribution power to the tech companies. In the old days everybody involved in selling music had a vested interest in the success of music. From the musician to the label, the record distributor, even the record retailer like Tower Records. And they lived or died by whether people wanted to buy music. Nowadays you know the biggest music company in the world is Apple, and Apple doesn't need to make money music. Apple wants to sell devices. They would give away their music for free If they could. The music industry is controlled by Amazon, Google, Apple, Spotify. These are all technology companies. There's been a huge power shift from Hollywood to Silicon Valley. The music industry no longer controls their own fate and so you have people controlling the technology who don't give a hoot about music. They don't understand music so. A record could be called great contemporary works for clarinet and I go to Spotify which won’t tell me the name of a single composer. So once again. You gotta cut through the noise. People say tech has destroyed music. No, it's not tech. It's the kind of technology and it's the dumbing down technologies, the descaling technologies like auto tune. Some technologies empowered people. The piano was a new expressive tool. That could do things never done before. Other skills are discovered by technology. For example in foods when they invented frozen foods, when they invented canned foods. When they invented microwave meals, it was a de-skilling breakthrough, and the food didn't taste as good. But anybody could do it. This is what's happening with music technology now. Like auto tune. The most emblematic technology music today is Guitar Hero which allows you to pretend you're playing the guitar even if you don't know how. So it's not that technology has killed music. It's the kind of technologies. Let me go on to the third area, the most important of all. The people who see the crisis and music primarily as artistic, as aesthetic, as cultural. Not long ago. I wrote an article called “The State Of Jazz Singing Today”. I spent three months on this article and I listened to every recording of a jazz singer I could find. I've listened to the major stars. I've listened to the new stars. I listened to self-produced stuff by people that produce their own records. I listened to music by people that didn't even have a recording contract. I learned many interesting things, but the most interesting I'm going to share with you. I learned how you can get a recording contract as a jazz singer with a major Label in the year 2015. This is useful information. You've got to be drop dead gorgeous. You've got to look like you just came off the cover of Vogue magazine, or GQ , and walked into the studio. Do you need to know how to sing? It would sort of help. But I I found all these amazing singers who don't get the time of day in the music industry. But if they look like a fashion model, different rules applied. Now, how sad is that? No Aretha Franklin wouldn't get a record contract nowadays. Janis Joplin wouldn't get a record contract nowadays. Ella Fitzgerald wouldn't. Marilyn Monroe would be a jazz singer. There's something fundamentally wrong with that, and I think it gets to the heart of the issue. The heart of the issue is, for many of the people in the music industry, they really wish they were in a different business. They wish they were really in the fashion industry. Or they wish they were in the advertising industry, these people on ‘Mad Men’ boozing it up and smoking cigarettes. Or they wish that they were in the movie industry. If you look at these entertainment companies, they’re all spending money on movies now. In their heart of hearts, they do not believe anymore in the redemptive power of music. They don't believe in the enchantment of music. They remind me of the priests in Ancient Rome your ancient Rome who had their Gods, Jupiter, Juno, etc.. And eventually people stop believing in the gods. And that's when Christianity came in. Because people didn't believe in the old gods anymore. And there were these priests who would do the rituals and sacrifices but, in their hearts, they did not believe. They did not believe and I feel there are too many people in the Entertainment industry now who do not believe in the redemptive power of music. And so they're looking for fashion models. Or they're looking for movies. Not everybody. Look at the ECM label. It's run solely on musical standards and sells a lot of records. Look at the Nonesuch label. It's run solely on musical standards and is very successful. There's about 10 or 15 Labels now that understand how important music is, but it's not the major corporations. They’re selling this frozen food. There's going to be change. Just like people wanting real food. It's not going to be the major labels, because they don't understand this change. This change is going to come from smaller labels because people still need music. People hunger for music. Now, I want to talk about one thing that people push back on me. They say, Ted, you talk about Art and you talk about Entertainment, but aren't they really the same thing? I mean, one person likes Justin Bieber, someone else likes Mozart. Who are you to say that one is better. That one is art and the other is entertainment. So let's ask ourselves this question. This is a very important question. Is there really no difference between art and entertainment? Are they really pretty much the same thing? I don't think so. Let me just me start by looking at “what is entertainment?”. The job of the entertainer is to find out what the audience wants. And give them exactly that. For example, the biggest thing in movies next year is going to be the new Star Wars movie. What is the value proposition? What's the selling pitch? You remember those six other Star Wars films you saw? We're going to give you another. One that's exactly like it. Same characters, the same actors. They're a little older. We're going to give you the same thing again. You know all those Spiderman movies you saw. The next one is going to be exactly like that. This is what entertainment is, is it not? You find out what the audience wants and you give it to them over and over again. But Art doesn't work like that. When you deal with a work of art, YOU must adjust TO the work of art. Try reading Herman Melville's Moby Dick. He's not going to give you exactly what you want. You must adapt to what he's giving you. You want to wrestle with those Michelangelo paintings in the Sistine Chapel. You’ve got to broaden your mind. Michelangelo is not going to give you what you're expecting. That's the nature of art. Art challenges you. Art forces you to go where it is. Art forces you out of your comfort zone. Art forces you to mature as a person and to consider things you haven't considered before. Isn't that true? Anyone who tried to read James Joyce's Ulysses. Anyone ever read a really difficult book, and afterwards you said, boy, I had to wrestle with that, but I'm more of a person now because I did that. So there couldn't be anything more different than entertainment or art. Of those experiences, which is more valuable. I'm going to give you exactly what you saw/heard before … again? Or I'm going to challenge you. I'm going to broaden you. I'm going to get you to think of things you've never thought of before. You know the answer. To that, the. Artistic experience is much more important than the entertainment experience. And the people who have that artistic experience are intensely loyal to it. Because you can go back to a great work of art again and again. And that's why the entertainment industry now complains that there's some musical acts whose first album sells, but the second one doesn't. And they said we don't have any staying power with these bands. But if you look at the really artistic artists, like Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Bach or whatever, the really sophisticated artistic experience maintains loyalty over a period of decades. Let me sum up and say what you find is when you look at the other crises it always comes back to the artistic one. When going to economics, we found that HBO could make money by making it sophisticated with artistic talent. When we looked at technology, we found that not that technology is bad, but these dumbing down technologies are bad. So you can't escape the fundamental crisis in music is an aesthetic and cultural one and it is in our power to change that. We can change that. Stand up for art. We live in a world dominated by entertainment companies and they have lots of money. And the media wants entertainment, and there's not much space for art anymore. But each of us needs to nurture that. We need to be advocates for it. We need to stand up for it and if that means being controversial … we should all be a little controversial. There is a crisis of music, but it is solvable. There are people out there that have already solved it, ensured that content does not want to be free. That people will pay for the right kind of artistic experience. So I embrace this aesthetic view of our destiny and I urge you to do so too. I urge you be outrageous, be controversial yourselves, and be artistic. Thank you.

Hi Bob. You are most welcome to join the Music Video CLUB to share your experiences ...

Hey Inder. GREAT vocal texture and range 👍 Also well done on the videos 👍 I applaud anyone with the b*lls to be front and centre in their own video. A great benefit is you don't have the hassle of arranging/managing other people! Questions: Did you perform all the music? Did you do the filming/editing? Note - I'd love to read of your creative process for these videos. There is a music video CLUB if you'd care to join us ...

A spot-on comment but, from what I've heard, "simply" doesn't apply. I thought there were astounding coincidences and confluences between people, ideas, tech, creativity, times, places, etc. that led up to and surrounded each of the featured songs.

Hi I've just watched two music documentaries which revealed things I never knew. 1. "JOSE FELICIANO - Behind This Guitar" Just after breaking big with "Light My Fire", he was invited in 1968 to sing the National Anthem (Star-Spangled Banner) at the start of the U.S. Baseball World Series. He was the first to NOT sing it straight/traditional, instead putting a personal spin on the song, giving it a slower tempo and latino feel, almost like a folk anthem. He was booed by the crowd and a controversy raged which did lasting damage to his career and led him to leave the USA for a while. However, all singers have since put their personal stamp on it the anthem. His first wife suddenly changed her first name from Hilda to Janna and signed many documents as "J.Feliciano" without his knowledge! Wow. 2. "Nothing Compares" (a bio about Sinéad O'Connor) She had an extremely troubled and harshly Catholic childhood with an abusive mother (e.g. locking her out of the house in the garden for a week when she was eight). In her mid teens he was sent to a place for troubled girls ... run by nuns of course! ... which was adjacent to a Magdalene Laundry which still housed many older women who had been through hell there when young. (If interested, listen to Joni Mitchell's "The Magdalene Laundries" ... it'll rip your heart out.) Not surprisingly, Sinéad was an angry young woman seeking justice (albeit but with an angelic face/voice). Shortly after "Nothing Compares 2 U" made it big, she read that the then current Pope Benedict (Raztinger) had actively suppressed news of proven child sexual offences by the clergy and she decided on a brave act. Aged 26, on the SNL live show, she sang Bob Marley's “War” a capella and, after delivering the song’s final message, raised a photograph of Pope John Paul II (the same photo her mother always had above her bed) to the camera and, staring straight down the barrel of the live camera, tore it up. “Fight the real enemy,” O’Connor urged and walked offstage. Her career died that night. She became a muslim in 2018 and sings/performs to small crowds. Recommendation A great podcast that I follow is "A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs". It is less about each Title song and much more about the amazing web of swirling circumstances, music and personalities that led to that song. Chock full of well-researched information and it's only up to Ep 152! Cheers, Greg

One thing I’ve just done to amuse myself is to get my first-ever tattoo. I've NEVER been into them before but I was often struck by the many tattoos I saw e.g. waiting in shop queues, whether scribbles, names, icons, great artwork, complete sleeves etc., and I wondered ... IF I ever had a tattoo, what would it be? Well, here it is, my 2020 album. Solo writing/performing, 30 tracks, home produced, my logo design. All something of which I’m especially proud and should remain so until I die. And if I shake my flab, it looks like real steam (no, it doesn’t, haha). My immediate family was horrified ... especially after decades of me deriding tattoos! But, in the end, it may spark a curious “hey, what is THAT tattoo about?” from people associated with the ambulance, mortuary and crematorium ... possibly three more listens! And people say I’m hopeless at marketing! Pffft! 😊 Has anyone else here on Songstuff sunk to my level of self-aggrandisement, or simply shown their love of music via body art? Greg

👍 Funny. I too was 'edgy and real' when I was young and fab "all those years ago" Hearing "f*ck" 10 times in a song, and then playing that song repetitively, is for me the aural equivalent to waterboarding. Well, it does MY head in! Smart world play in a song has far greater impact for expressing frustration, anger, angst, etc.. But, hey, people like what they like and no one is right or wrong. It's not a moral issue ... it's a 'taste' thing. Greg

Hi. I've just finished a project (which I'll post once the admin is done). Probably due to the increasing gap between projects as my creativity slows down, and as the prospect of new projects becomes increasingly distant, I've become more aware of the range of emotions I've been experiencing during the process. The early sessions are marked by a sense of adventure and curiosity regarding the many available option and pathways. The early and middle sections are always very industrious and productive ... big thoughts about alternative sounds/approaches, big decisions, big changes of direction, etc.. This construction and moulding is exciting and very rewarding. And then ... ... and then, the finishing line suddenly appears. But like those weird focus-pulling tricks, it keeps on remaining just out of touch due to the constant whack-a-mole of things which pop up on each re-listen. Fix one, another reveals itself, in a seemingly never ending cycle. However, I HAVE learned to trust myself that I WON'T get used to the problems and simply accept them ... if I'm still uneasy after a listen through, then SOMETHING is WRONG and needs fixing. Sometimes I can't even identify it and I have to listen through multiple times, each time focusing on one specific audio element. This repetition and concentration sometimes WITHOUT the reward of satisfaction is really energy-sapping. Perhaps professionals don't make such mistakes at the outset, or have a workflow that identifies such problems BEFORE they get buried in the arrangement/mix. Perhaps they have better ways, experience, and listening skills, to identify problems if they've occurred. Perhaps due to the pressures of clients, time and money, they just have to disguise some problems rather than fix them. I suppose that is the true benefit of being an amateur ... 'unlimited' time and no commercial pressures. So I bounce the track yet again and close the computer and revert to normal life. I listen on headphones/buds/hifi and make written notes which I can apply next time I revisit the DAW. I think this final phase between 'I think it's done' and 'yes, it's definitely done' was about 20 DAW sessions. This last phase causes me a strange 'savouring the moment' of reaching the goal yet tinged with sadness that the project is now winding down and the impending goodbye to a friendship forged in the fires of battle. Each of these final sessions was approx an hour and the list of required fixes progressively got smaller. The last session required just one fix. And then, suddenly, it all seems good. I turn the self-critical dial up to 11 in case I'm fooling myself. From a good opening to a solid close, does it keep my interest all the way through? YES! ... amazing in itself after I've heard it SO MANY TIMES already! True, it is music I LIKE probably because it resonates with the mind and soul from which it arose. But, oh, the sweet relief of knowing I never have to open that damn session file again What of your own mental and emotional journey through a project? Greg

This is an excellent appraisal of where we are now with the "AI" of everything creative ... including music. The presenter provides good logic and examples regarding current AI trajectories. Image services based around AIs have exploded this year alone. It is the result of much research, clever programming, and computing evolutions but, most of all, the gathering and analysis of tens of millions of images and the resulting databases. Just two years ago, the feeling was that quality image creation would only ever be the domain of humans. Hmmm. Some people (mainly in the music industry) feel that music will NEVER succumb. But buckle up! Time, money, algorithms, computer speeds/RAM/storage, global networks, all music digitised and available to hear/analyse. Everything can be solved' eventually. And all eventualities seems to be happening at an increasing pace. Of course, this won't prevent us from doing something we enjoy, like writing and recording music, but tens of thousands of jobs will likely disappear once any Joe Blow can create good sounding music for free simply by typing what he wants and who it should sound like ... and also get multiple 're-writes' each time he presses ENTER. It's only performers, and their human connection with an audience, that computers will not be able to replace. Greg

OUCH!

Hi Shawna and welcome. It's unclear whether you have your own songs of substance or are looking to sing for other people BUT ... as you seem to be asking ... here is "Shadows" (linked below). I always hoped it would be sung by a female but I ended up HAVING to sing it myself as I had no alternatives! If interested, and it is a style and pitch that serves your strengths, please message me direct and I'll send the track 'as released' but with my vocal removed. If we're both on the same page we can discuss/test your recording options for a 'proper' final version. Whether or not you are interested in THIS song, I'd suggest you post something which showcases your voice so that all Members can figure which of their songs might suit your range, style and timbre. Cheers, Greg (Australia)