MikeRobinson
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Posts posted by MikeRobinson
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Within two hours of buying my iPhone (uhh, an iPhone-5 that cost me all of $125 ... "sorry, Tim-C!") I'd layered-together a couple of simple "loops" in Logic Pro X and thereby arrived at a sound which I knew would be found on nobody else's phone. (Which has since proved to be very convenient, because it means that I can ignore every "stock" sound I hear. No, it isn't great, but it's different, and so far I've never yet bothered to change it.)
I have since experimented with a few more sounds ... "what's the worst sound ... maybe the most absurd or ridiculous sound ... to 'wake you up in the morning,'" which you would never want to actually hear, had you not invented it? Oh, it's fun. ... "all bets are off, anyway, at much-too-early in the morning" ... 😃
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Faced with the exact same conundrum .. and, with money to spend .. I didn't buy anything. I downloaded a copy of open-source MuseScore and since have never looked back. With money in my pocket I had intended to compare it with both Sibelius and Finale ... and I never got that far.
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9 hours ago, songbird52 said:
I was talking about how to assess our own songs, before anyone else hears them. That has to be the first step.
But that can also very easily be "where a good song dies." When you work on a piece of music for a long time, you don't really hear it anymore. You need to let other, trusted people hear it – fairly early on. You're too close to it, yourself.
But also – keep drafts. Don't actually throw that song (file) away. Shove it into a "dust-bin" folder that you never empty. If you revise a song, make it "revision #2" but don't delete "revision #1." (Most DAWs support this idea directly.) Perhaps "that idea that didn't pan out" is another song. "That lick that didn't belong in this song" is the next number-one hit.
And as I've said elsewhere – keep that tape-machine running all the time.
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Honestly, I think it's a matter of practice. A keyboard is a very different beast from a string or wind instrument, but I like it because "every note is just right there." Just point your fingers at it and push down. That always made intuitive sense to me.
Furthermore, since a DAW is a musical word-processor, you don't even have to be terribly good at playing, to produce some extremely good results. (Yani candidly admitted during a show that, when he first got started, he couldn't play his own songs on the piano. He recorded first the left hand, then the right.)
As for me, I also make heavy use of music-scoring software – specifically, MuseScore, which is free, open-source, and extremely powerful. I write scored parts that I can't begin to play, but the computer can. Which means that I can imagine them, write them, then hear them being played perfectly. (Even by MuseScore itself, which embeds the Audacity synthesizer.)
Personally, I really like the way that the computer enables you to easily "grow beyond your music lessons."
To me, that's what a digital computer is for.
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Offhand, I would suggest that: even though a good "concept album" often feels intensely personal, it is really always "just about the concept."
To that end – really – "it is really a piece of musical theater."
Whether or not the theater-piece has a particular protagonist or antagonist ("Tommy" ... "Alice Cooper®") ... it nonetheless has a single sustaining concept that is "theatric." And, as such, it must sustain the audience's attention at least through an entire "act."
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Yes, Driftwood, and I fully agree with you. "Say what you came here to say, and then, please, shut up." ... 😃 ...
I say – if you can manage to condense "your profound thought" into fewer words and still make it "bridge the cognitive distance" ... woo hoo!!
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I just want a song to say something creative and in a creative way – no matter how many minutes it takes to do so. But, most of all, I want to hear variety. I expect to hear a song-structure that I recognize, but I never want to just hear repetition of the same thing. So, when I am composing something, and I hear for myself that I am repeating myself – to repeat, that I am repeatedly repeating myself repetitiously
– I take one of those phrases and "jig it up" somehow,. Do something different.
Usually, the song winds up being somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 minutes. I haven't written my Bohemian Rhapsody yet . . .
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On 12/18/2018 at 2:48 PM, john said:
It used to be if not specifically registered there were pretty major limitations on protections and specifically the amount and type of compensation you could claim. I had thought Donald Trumps new bill about copyright had changed registration to a requirement if you wanted to be able to have any protection at all
The US Copyright law has changed very substantially in recent months, and I have not kept up with it. But – since the United States has copyright registration, and since it can be done on-line for a pittance and takes effect immediately, you would frankly be stupid not to register your works. Take all of the songs on the latest EP that you've been working on, and register all of them "in one swell foop" for a one-time fee of $35. Copyright protection instantaneously persists, severally, on every work in that so-called "collection," and it has become a matter of public record that anyone can verify (on-line).
As I've said, you have just made the legal assertion – on penalty of perjury – that, "these are mine." Anyone that you then license them to can always use that registration-number to cover their legal ass. If there's a countering claim, it will be settled by the courts. There are just too many works out there, today, for anyone to be able to check it themselves, but your copyright claim is legally binding and objectively verifiable. They can rightly claim "innocent infringement," having provably done their "due diligence," and put the blame squarely back on you.
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As I (re-)watched the documentary, It Might Get Loud, I was once again confronted by ... a reel-to-reel tape recorder.
Notably, Jack Black switched on his tape-unit before he started fooling around with a wire and a Coke bottle ... and it did not escape my attention that the resulting sound was dutifully listed among the copyright-credits in the finished film.
Before I seriously embark upon a new day's work, or perhaps at the end of the day, I often find myself "doodling at the keyboard," and I have learned to "first, mash the Record button on Logic Pro X." Whether "anything actually comes of it," or not.
Likewise – when "an idea wanders through my head" – I reach for my iPhone and its Voice Memo application.
Well, I guess that I have enough of those "voice memos" and "Logic Pro projects" to keep my creative juices going for a very long time. But I have this to say about almost every single one of them: (a) I do not remember them, and (b) each one was somehow performed with a passion(!) that I now strive to capture. "It could have been gone forever – but, it wasn't."
I guess that musical ideas are somewhat like butterflies: "grab 'em out of the air, right now, and stick 'em to the board."
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Strictly speaking, John, you can claim copyright in the US without having registered it – but it's frankly stupid not to, especially since you can register as many songs as you want, online, for a mere $35.00 total.
As I've said, US companies probably won't talk to you unless you can give them your US copyright registration number (and they will check it), because this greatly reduces their liability exposure. You made a legally-binding claim that the material was yours, and, "at exactly such-and-such time we performed 'due diligence' to verify the claim." If you lied, that's your prison-sentence not theirs. To them, it's very much like checking the title on a car that you want to sell to them.
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Quite frankly, given that "jayleemusic" so far has posted exactly one "curiously vaporous" post to this fairly out-of-the-way section of this forum, I would initially presume that "s/he is actually nothing more than a bot."
After all – do actual people ... actually speak ... in this oddly-stulted way ... in actual life ... or is this merely Eliza?
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One bit of advice concerning labels – "don't sell your rights, license them." Be sure that you own and have registered the copyright and that you "grant the label the exclusive right to <X>," provided that they continue to actively market and promote it. (If they stop doing this, the contract should end and with it your license grant.)
Determine amongst yourselves what the profit shares shall be, and commit this at least to a notarized letter kept by both of you. Do this before you begin to negotiate with labels regarding the materials. You will win respect by being professional enough to have "dotted your i's and crossed your t's." And you'll avoid a lot of heartache. ("Just remember what happened to Pink Floyd ...")
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Whereas, I believe that KISS® has all songs written-by and owned-by the corporation.
Perhaps the two of you should sit down for a little while with an intellectual-property lawyer who has experience in this kind of creative contract. What does (s)he suggest?
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Well, one of the most-iconic "unsettling" scores ever written, I think, was for the movie Psycho. (See https://www.allmusic.com/composition/psycho-film-score-mc0002363304.)
The music so far has an obviously "human heart-beat" feel and the phrase goes up in a repeated loop which therefore builds tension without releasing it. My ear almost hears another phrase trying to come in right now at 0:06-07. I would have the existing loop serve as a continuum while other orchestral and synth parts come in and begin to build discordantly-yet-harmoniously under it. Then, about 1:00 in, ratchet that loop up a notch or three.
Never underestimate the power of a bongo drummer playing fast – sweeping the audience forward into whatever-it-is whether they want to go there or not.
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Well, this kind of track is rather offensive to me, so you need to point out more clearly just what I am supposed to be listening for.
The background sounds to me like a high string-pad with a lot of reverb kicked in.
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The biggest thing to realize about songwriting – about any form of "creative writing" (especially one that is then linked to the rigors of technical production ...) – is that it is never as easy as it seems, because the audience never sees the process. Well done, it seems like magic. No one sees the drafts, the crumpled pieces of paper, the rhymes that didn't work, or the songs that didn't sell [yet]. No one sees the decision-making. (Why, it doesn't appear that there is even a decision there to be made.) And, I think, to the artist/artisan, that's a terrific compliment.
As for me, I've found an understanding of theory, of music-scoring and all of that, to be tremendously useful. I work out my songs first using a fantastic open-source(!) music scoring tool called MuseScore. I've relied on theory to help me work out of a tight spot, or to inject some unexpected freshness into a song that was getting itself into a rut. But these are only "tools and techniques." In the end, every songwriter begins with ... silence. The musical equivalent of a blank piece of paper.
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"Tap, tap, tap ... dude, I'm groovin'!"
You seriously want me to believe that you've sat ten years on this? Quite frankly, I don't believe you.
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I make music because I can't stop – and, I don't want to stop.
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Virtually everything was condemned as "technology" at one time or another, including the piano and especially the player piano ... until some innovative composer created music by manually punching holes in rolls of paper, enabling him to realize "piano music" that could not be played by people. (The very first "sequencer?")
Technology, though, is simply the makings of the instrument. It's what you do with it that makes music.
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I'm excited by the breadth and variety of music that is actually out there. Also, I'm finding that internet radio, and venerable sites like macjams.com, are where I wind up with most of the music that actually powers me through the day. Most of the artists are folks I've never heard of.
What I'm waiting for is the return of the classic "dee-jay" – the curator of his collection who could pick and play whatever he wanted. You tuned in late at night not just to listen to music, but to listen to "Wolfman Jack."
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When I watched musicians on documentaries like the excellent It Might Get Loud, I noticed that the musicians reflexively turned on a tape-recorder. Sometimes it was reel-to-reel(!), sometimes a phone, but when they sat down to "just noodle around," they always turned on the tape and left it running.
I think that there are definitely two parts to songwriting: "inspiration, and perspiration." 😀 But, I'm actually serious. First you have to get the idea, and somehow stick a pin through that pretty little butterfly and attach it to a board. Then, you have to develop it into a song, or part of one.
And that process might go through any number of "drafts," all of which you should keep, even if at the moment you're persuaded that they're just garbage (and even if they actually are). You're exploring your way to a final musical treatment of the material, and you might well come up with more than one.
No matter what it is that I'm creating, one thing that is always beside me is a loose-leaf notebook and a set of number-two pencils. I keep a diary of sorts. I was going to say "I don't trust my memory," but I've forgotten where I intended to go with that. 😉
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There are only a very few things that my iPhone-recorder has taught me:
- Keep it by your bed, and try not to wake your wife up when you hum into it. (Oops... she knows. Of course she does.)
- When you subsequently try to use that voice-recording to create a new song, "your work is only just beginning." (Unfortunately, the process of creating a song from an inspiration ... is work.)
- ... expect to find that this "new song" actually draws from several voice-recordings, sometimes far-distant.
- ... but if you instead went back to sleep, certain that you would still remember that song in the morning ... heh: "you snooze, you lose!"
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YouTube and other sites are by now very attentive to copyright concerns and remove materials every day. But, you know, people have been making and passing-around copies to their friends ever since the cassette days. (Savvy bands such as the Grateful Dead openly encouraged this, knowing that it was the very best form of marketing.) Now that "a song" is "a moderately-sized digital file," you simply cannot prevent that file from being "shared."
However, I don't feel that this has caused people to suddenly forget the fundamental importance of buying copies of the things that they love. I think that people still understand how the world of commerce works. "That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it." 😀
One of the most incredible benefits of this new technology is that it has reduced the "cost of goods sold" to ... zero. You can now sell your wares anywhere in the world, and the customer(!) receives the product instantly, and you get paid within 48 hours. No one schlepped multi-pound boxes of LP's. Mastering and production costs are drastically less. Product feedback is instantaneous. You can now hear music that you would never get to hear because it never would have been economically viable to furnish it to you. And, I submit, you are happy to pay the artists in question.
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First of all, catch it! The very first moment a song wanders through your head, grope for your cell-phone and click "Voice Memo" (or whatever your brand of cell-phone calls it ...). Hum, whistle, do what have you ... all while smiling pleasantly at those around you who might otherwise wonder what the hell you are doing, and as your spouse rolls his/her eyes knowingly. But, whatever you do, catch it. Now. (Then, make sure to back up your phone to your computer, and to back up your computer to an external drive!) Add whatever comments come to you at that moment to the same recording.
Next, extract both parts and, separately, context. The "parts" are the literal melody and the rhythm (possibly basic chords) which immediately surrounds it; the "context" is everything else. Thus, the "parts" can be reduced to a "lead sheet," while "everything else" is what attracted your mind's ear to it in the first place. Usually, this "context" will be "something familiar," such as a general style of music (or "trope") that you like, with general characteristics – beats, chords, and the like – that are more-or-less endemic to it. Thus, you have a foundation to work on, simply by calling-back to what you can see from other musical works that you already know.
Now, to move forward . . .
Let your initial inspiration ... inspire. Press the "Record" button and just improvise, for about twenty or thirty minutes. Play your original capture over and over, and freely play against it. Don't hit the "Stop" button, and don't throw anything away. If you "fulb" a line (nad yuo wlil ...) just keep going.
Play through that "inspiration tape" and mark out the best bits. They could be anywhere. Now, using your DAW of choice, start re-arranging them. Don't bother now to try to fix up any "glitches" that you hear. (That comes later.) Separately save each-and-every "re-arrangement" that sounds vaguely promising ... save them forever!
Now ... "pick one."
To carry-forward any inspiration into a (potential!) new recording, begin to re-consider the musical style which originally inspired you – "hip-hop," "dubstep," "Neil Diamond," or "Mozart." 😀 Whatever it may be, it is a possible "surroundings." Thus, a reasonable place to begin. Even if you start with "the Peanuts Extreme" ([Lucy to Schroeder] "Did you know that Beethoven now comes in spray cans?"), any starting-place is a good place to start.
Next ... "take one, take two, take 643 ..." Starting with your favorite "spray can" added to your re-arranged melody, start improvising, and once again save everything. Your ear will tell you what "sounds right" and what doesn't. Your ear will also suggest ideas that may or may not – at that moment – pan out. But, the combination will probably begin to converge upon a goal. (Keep every single one of the "also-rans!" You might use them later!)
– – –> "Now, Seriously, It's Really Up To You!" There is a very large "creative space" lurking right about here, right about now, in which you should feel absolutely free to do absolutely anything you want. (Just do not throw away anything, no matter how wretched you might think it is. Instead, "save it and try again. And again. And again.") "Say, that sounds good, but what if we try this ...?" Go for it. Save it.
"Try to wind up with a demo." This is simply a recording that expresses your idea in a fashion that points forward to a possible future product. Perfecting that demo is an entirely different thing, best left for another day. What? You say that you wound up with more than one demo? Cool ...if you're ready, let's hear 'em! 😀
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Please remember that "creativity" is a process that doesn't have "a definite conclusion." The process of taking "a creative result" to (say ...) "a marble statue," while utterly necessary in the fulfillment of the goal of providing art museums with product for display (and art students for very-boring lectures), is a separate process. So please don't judge "your creativity" by any marble statue that you might happen to meet!
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To me, that's what a digital computer is for.
– I take one of those phrases and "jig it up" somehow,. Do something different.
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Who's Online 2 Members, 0 Anonymous, 135 Guests (See full list)
Concerns about PRO registration
in Music Industry
Posted
Well, there are several different PROs out there – in various countries – and I'm not familiar with "Twitch." But I would suggest that you probably should direct your question to the specific PRO(s) that you are interested in.
Generally speaking, when you sign with a PRO, you don't (actually, can't ...) " 'personally' give them permission." The PRO handles the licensing for you, and you don't make exceptions to their rules.