john

Awesome. Father in law’s 90th celebration with in-laws over from Australia. Sunny weather in a massive barn conversion 200 yards from a castle.

Hey Gang New Music Friday #32 It’s TIME to hit us with your latest groovy vibes. wOOt!. Post up your current music projects. Anything from whistling a tune, a 1+1, beat boxing, through to a full arrangement and production. Ok, “tum-tee-tum” might be a bit too vague! Otherwise, be as experimental as you want. Still hoping I will get a chance to post up another of my 1 take songs I recorded on my phone. Probably tomorrow now! Post up your tracks! Charge! Cheers John

Hey New Music Friday #31 Ok cool cats and cooler than cool cats... time to hit us with your slammin' new grooves baby. No jive ass happenings here man. Strictly out of sight new tunes sizzlin' hot to scorch your mind or chill vibes to soothe your soul, baby. Y'dig me? Post up your current music projects. Anything from whistling a tune, a 1+1, beat boxing, through to a full arrangement and production. Ok, “tum-tee-tum” might be a bit too vague! Otherwise, be as experimental as you want. Still hoping I will get a chance to post up another of my 1 take songs I recorded on my phone a lil bit later. Post up your tracks! Charge! Cheers John

@Gtar Pkr & @RESROCKS please vote too Thanks in advance! @RESROCKS one can but dweam. Dweam, dweam, dweam....

You are very welcome!

Hi Shawn I liked the guitar particularly. Great to hear a new blues recording getting released! Cheers John

Nice one Rene. I haven’t listened to that song in an age! Good album too.

This is exactly the kind of proportionate response I was hoping for! Lol

if it wasn’t serious it would be funny. A sad reflection on the modern industry.

Hi Gang I am happy to hear about variations on the below, or indeed completely different ideas. Whatever your plans and aspirations I would love to hear them! For the purposes of discussion: Big Time Famous - A few may have lofty goals of music success, aims of stardom and massive incomes Career - Some might plan more easily achievable goals of earning a living Build Listeners - Many want to grow a listener base without earning money at all Make Recordings Available - Some are just happy to be recording songs and letting people hear recordings Play Live Only - Some just want to write and perform their songs live Just Write - Some have no ambition for their music beyond the writing of their songs. Ghost writer - a hidden writer, writing for other people Session musician - Paid or unpaid jobbing musician I appreciate some lyricists may first want to find a collaborator, but then what? Where do you fall on this spectrum? I also repeated the question to present realistically what you want and ideally. In other words, what you would be content with and think is achievable versus what you REALLY dream about. Cheers John

Hey New Music Friday #30 Let me hear a “Whooooooaaaaaaaaaa!” Post up your current music projects. Anything from whistling a tune, a 1+1, beat boxing, through to a full arrangement and production. Ok, “tum-tee-tum” might be a bit too vague! Otherwise, be as experimental as you want. Hopefully I will post up another of my 1 take songs I recorded on my phone a bit later. Post up your tracks! Ready, steady go! Cheers John

Hey Reginald! It’s good to meet you. Welcome to Songstuff. Dive in, ask questions and offer opinions, have a good time while you learn.

Good to see you back here, and back making music!

@Reginald Bigsby a great breakdown. I appreciate you exploring what success meant and the relevance of stats.

Hey Steve I liked the beach sea link, the circular nose to tail of the piece. A couple of questions and suggestions… You chose stills for the cutaway cross fades, like the horse was there a reason for choosing still over footage? I felt the imagery could have interacted with the text some more. For example, moving from beach and sea to sun dappled trees etc. and then still returning to the sea. Something that reflected sleep more. The black screen brought with it that sleep context and it made me think of a few things. For example: Sunlight shining through our eyelids and blurred, multicoloured spill from the environment we can be in. Eyes flickering open and shut. The hood of retreating and encroaching darkness as we draw back eyelids more slowly. The almost bokeh of light as our life’s open just a crack and light tumbles in. Perhaps playing with some of the above in the middle might connect the footage and the text in a more meaningful way. As it stands, just now, there is that disconnect in the middle that allows the mind to wander. Another nice touch, might be to introduce occasional whispered/softly spoken words from your narrative, as accents/emphasis. Just a thought Otherwise I liked what you created. Are you discovering any new perspectives on your music as a result of creating film to go with poem and music? For example, bleeding in environment sounds, or even spoken words into the stand alone audio. I ask because I found it strengthened my visualisation. The narrative of song story lines had me thinking much more visually right back at the stage of writing my music. I was anticipating the video scenes when I was writing, much, much more than I had before I started creating videos. As a creator we have so much more control when we present the visual, melodic, rhythmic and lyrical narratives. So much more potential power in what we deliver. I hope you are enjoying this new personal challenge? Cheers John

Genre convergence is a big issue. The more you conform to genre rules in melody, rhythm, instrumentation and language, the more likely there is to be collisions. There are, of course, rules for resolving matches. That includes guidelines that try to take account of accidental influence. Still there is enough room to drive a fleet of buses through copyright rulings. Subjective doesn’t quite describe it. Still, as @MikeRobinson points out, the fact that you can protect collections of works under a single filing cost, it’s a small price to pay to ensure you have your options open. Also worthy of a mention, is the protection it gives you for someone getting you to take down your own song. ie another artist copies your song and then sues you after they do a catalog search in the library of Congress and realise that you never filed your songs! That would have to chaff lol

Hi! Good to meet you and welcome to Songstuff! It should be a lot of fun to explore the world of music creation again. Enjoy the journey!

True, copyright exists from the moment the work is created. You will have to register, however, if you wish to bring a lawsuit for infringement in the USA. If you don’t register, suing isn’t an option. You cannot defend your copyright. Some choose to register their works because they want the facts of their copyright to be a matter of public record, complete with a certificate of registration. Importantly, registered works may be eligible for statutory damages and attorney's fees in successful litigation. Also, your PRO and/or Musician’s Union often provide access to legal advice and coverage/help towards legal fees. If at some later point you are signed, you may also find your publisher will actively defend your copyright… but that only happens if your work is registered. Other parties may also consider backing legal defence of copyright, including no win no fee lawyers. Registration must occur within five years of publication for it to be considered prima facie evidence in a law court. As for sending a copy of your own work to yourself, sometimes called “poor man’s copyright.”, there is no provision in copyright law for this. It is not a substitute for registration. I am not a lawyer, but I do like options. I am not keen on losing those options unnecessarily.

Which, as far as I know, does not include registration of your work in America… if you don’t do this, protection of your works, and more particularly compensation, in the USA is much more limited.