john

I had to remove the tracking link as it is a dodgy tracking link site. That aside the destination site, I've seen and heard it all before, and it sure makes a great sounding marketing campaign to help promote a fledgling music website. Songstuff has been working quietly in the background supporting artists for 13 years online, educating and giving artists and writers the knowledge and skills and contacts etc to help musicians remake the music industry. Because a site like that just isn't going to do it. Sorry. No one site is. The music industry is constantly in flux just now. Just how musicians make their income widely varies. What I would be interested in is, just how do you think the music industry is treating musicians and artists unfairly? Streaming payouts? Sorry that's NOT the music industry doing that. Streaming prices arrived at what they are because profiteering websites (ie napster on downloads and then the biggest streamer... YouTube as it was at the time) refused to pay broadcast fees. Piracy pundits got behind this based on some of the biggest misinformation and lies out there as a way to help justify what they were doing. Musician and songwriter's rights societies tried to take a stand but: YouTube cut off entire countries (for example the UK) from videos and blamed rights societies for being big and bad. Articles all about just how unfair it was that they be asked to pay the amount they were soared to the top of Google search results while an all out campaign against rights societies ensued. Search results pro-musician dropped off the bottom of the results. Did I mention that this was not long after Google bought YouTube? This was not about free music for punters. It was about website profit being put ahead of musicians and songwriters. Google didn't care, they make their money from advertising and selling market intelligence. It was about Google making money being more important than musicians making a living, Same goes for spotify and all the others. The big lie was that musicians and writers etc. were all like the big labels, making money hand over fist while streaming sites were on the side of the listener. All that the free music protest did was kill small genres (anything smaller than pop basically), killed off indie musicians from making a living from their music in any of the traditional ways. What happened was that instead of the money going to those who make and create the music, it went to marketers and profiteers and pirates (thieves) who were more interested in their own poxy undeserved "fame". As a result there has been a huge migration away from full-time in the once music industry. Many less mainstream genres are entirely part-timer/hobbyists now. Many once top end pros are now working in other industries. To change this means changing public perception, about re-educating them where the value lies, and as long as site like Google control media delivery and search engines in such a dominant way that isn't going to happen. Google - Ethics - Crap. A few years ago large news and media organisations weren't allowed in many countries because it allows them to manipulate markets, manipulate news etc. and gain a hugely unfair advantage. Google is that but much, much, much worse. They are just as arrogant and aggressive as Microsoft were once reputed to be. As an aside, Microsoft were slapped on the wrists several times a few years ago for taking info they shouldn't off customer's computers without permission to use it for their own commercial advantage. They were well known for sharp practice and for unfair business practices. Now of course they are trying to market themselves as having customer security as a core value as they champion browsers that have an opt out for websites gathering usage stats. Of course the same does not apply to the browsers and browser tools they own. Sound familiar? Yep, smoke and mirrors, marketing trash and market manipulation via dodgy business practices. Google is no different. A huge con and you, me and just about everyone else pay the price of their profits. if the piracy jerks really want to change things, really want people to be treated fairly, then they should turn their talents and attentions to Microsoft, Google, Facebook etc. Not that they care what I say, any of them. Okay, okay I'll get off my soapbox.I've made enough enemies! lol Puting all that behind us is now the name of the game. that means really understanding the mindset of your fans and working out just how you can ever be a full-time musician again is the ongoing challenge. Just how can you make money from your music? More on that another time.

Hi lil jim, welcome to Songstuff

Hi Gang Born with a high degree of accuracy in pitch perception I can accept, but you cannot be born with a knowledge of note names or keys. There are two aspects here for me: Relative pitch perception you can be naturally good at, but naturally good or not it can be greatly improved with training. Absolute pitch perception requires excellent pitch perception skills, accurate memory of pitch which in turn needs experience of that pitch, and to recall pitch based on a name requires knowledge too. In other words to be born with this is impossible. Both relative and absolute pitch perception is further complicated (and needs more training to master) by the introduction of harmony. Recognizing pitch is one thing, retaining it is very different. That is why exercises focus on different pitches spaced in time, and in different pitches contained within a chord. When you get really good you can go further with training on relative and absolute pitch perception by going beyond the semi-tone increments of pitch as we geberally understand them. This is an exercise for example that those who play string instruments get more practice at as their instrument does it naturally (think of tuning). With an oscillator you can go even further again by working with exact pitch increments down to differences of 1Hz - though realistically I doubt someone could spot a 1Hz difference when up in the KHz range! Similarly with singing an absolute pitch you need absolute pitch perception PLUS experience of accurate pitch recreation using a mechanical system that takes practice to master... that of singing firstly accurate in terms of relative pitch and then as you develop absolute pitch perception you parallel that with mastering pitch control with your voice. Yet again it's not something you can be born with, but it is something that you can be fast and naturally good at learning. For myself, my relative pitch perception is excellent and my absolute pitch perception is very good. When I am practiced at singing (ie singing a lot) I am pretty good at recreating absolute pitch. But I don't view it as perfect pitch, despite the fact that I've pretty well had these skills/abilities since I was 4 years old at least (before that I wasn't tested for absolute/perfect pitch as it was then called). Just as a light aside, years ago I was in the studio with a bunch of musicians recording some tracks. During the break the keyboard player farted, low and rumbling, loud and about 1 second long. Almost instantly I said "oo just sharp of C# 2 below middle C. That's nasty." Everyone laughed. Someone choked on a bite of their lunch. A minute later the bass player, James called out that I was bang on with the pitch (luckily he had a 5 string bass to hand to check!) and more laughing ensued as they digested the fact that I had correctly called the pitch of someone's fart. Not a fantastic skill, I grant you, but mildly entertaining at parties. lol

Welcome to Songstuff Josh. Enjoy your journey as a songwriter!

hi and welcome to Songstuff Tracey

Hi Tina In the UK there is no central government based copyright registration, copyright is established by publication The U.S. does have a central copyright registration system. Though you're based in the U.K. if your work is going to be made available over the internet, then it will be available in the U.S., so it is a good idea to register your songs with the U.S. Copyright Office anyway so that they are suitably protected in what is fundamentally the largest English speaking internet market place. I would avoid using commercial registration services. Register your works online with the U.S. Copyright Office (it is quick, easy, and cheaper than using snail mail). http://www.copyright.gov http://www.copyright.gov/eco/ I hope this helps. Cheers John

Simply put, yes, you would almost certainly be breaching copyright: definitely if you are copying tracks and distributing them. In that case you would be breaching the mechanical copyright of the recording In the case of the chords and lyrics, technically that is breaching copyright of the publisher, however most allow what is known as "fair use" which educational use is usually considered. So it's a technical breach but one that generally they allow teachers to use material for teaching purposes. In terms of lending the original CDs etc that is perfectly allowed. Technically making copies of tracks in any form is a breach, even when making mix cds of tracks you like for your own enjoyment. If you can be bothered looking for the official versions on official band channels on YouTube and then just provide a bunch of links in an email. Just a thought.