Don't Blame Your Gear. Get A New Excuse!

I must confess, I'm a bit of gear junkie. I love gadgets… old and new.

I've had studio gear since I was a kid. I've had large mixing boards, keyboards, guitars, outboard gear… you name it, plug ins of all kinds and tons of real synths.

That's why this event was such a shock to me.

I saw a listing on one of those music submission sites.  A publisher was looking for an uptempo pop tune. I had an existing tune I thought might work, except the tune was a slow acoustic type neo folk song. 

I figured I could to revamp the whole thing. I quickly created a mock-up in Apple Garage Band with fake guitars, loops and soft synths. I sped up the tempo and added a current sounding pop beat. I ended up changing the key too. Changing the key and tempo meant that I had to digitally alter the vocal. To me, it sounded a little weird, but it was ok for reference.

My plan was to have my guitar player redo the fake guitar tracks and get the singer to come back and redo the track, but time was running out on the listing. I submitted the track as is, with a note explaining that it was a demo.

You can imagine my surprise, when I got an email back saying it was perfect AS IS.

I wrote back saying I would be happy to fix the vocal and replace the guitar. The publisher wrote back asking why I would change anything. He said the vocal sounded current and guitar playing was great.

LESSON #1: Don't talk down your work or make excuses ever. Apparently, whatever I had capture inadvertently was magic. The odd vocal and the fake guitar sounded completely intentional… like cool effects.The song sounded current and unique.

LESSON #2 It's not the gear. Although I have some fantastic equipment, I didn't use any of it. I did the whole thing on a lap top in garage band… recorded, mixed, mastered. That's the version they took.

BOTTOM LINE: No more excuses. If you have the talent and drive you can do it with the gear you have. Now, Go MAKE MAGIC!

Sean Carbone is Los Angeles based composer and educator.

Get your music career on track here: www.howtobeasuccessfulworkingmusician.com

Are You Tired of People Wanting To Use Your Music For Free?

Great letter written to a company who wanted to use the artist's music for free.

Amidst the ongoing discussions about the value of music, British alt/rock/tronica artist Whitey has had enough of being asked to donate his music for free to large companies who, by rights, can and should be paying him. After receiving one such email from a company called Betty TV, Whitey, aka NJ White, wrote this caustic response:

I am sick to death of your hollow schtick, of the inevitable line “unfortunately there’s no budget for music”, as if some fixed Law Of The Universe handed you down a sad but immutable financial verdict preventing you from budgeting to pay for music. Your company set out the budget. so you have chosen to allocate no money for music. I get begging letters like this every week - from a booming, allfuent global media industry.

Why is this? Let’s look at who we both are.

I am a professional musician, who lives from his music. It took me half a lifetime to learn the skills, years to claw my way up the structure, to the point where a stranger like you will write to me. This music is my hard earned property. I've licensed music to some of the biggest shows, brands, games and TV production companies on Earth; form Breaking Bad to the Sopranos, from Coca Cola to Visa, HBO to Rockstar Games.

Ask yourself - would you approach a Creative or a Director with a resume like that - and in one flippant sentence ask them to work for nothing? Of course not. Because your industry has a precedent of paying these people, of valuing their work.

Or would you walk into someone’s home, eat from their bowl, and walk out smiling, saying “So sorry, I’ve no budget for food”? Of course you would not. Because, culturally, we classify that as theft.

Yet the culturally ingrained disdain for the musician that riddles your profession, leads you to fleece the music angle whenever possible. You will without question pay everyone connected to a shoot - from the caterer to the grip to the extra- even the cleaner who mopped your set and scrubbed the toilets after the shoot will get paid. The musician? Give him nothing.

Now let's look at you. A quick glance at your website reveals a variety of well known, internationally syndicated reality programmes, You are a successful, financially solvent and globally recognised company with a string of hit shows. Working on multiple series in close co-operation with Channel 4, from a West London office, with a string of awards under your belt. You have real money, to pretend otherwise is an insult.

Yet you send me this shabby request - give me your property for free… Just give us what you own, we want it.

The answer is a resounding, and permanent NO.

I will now post this on my sites, forward this to several key online music sources and blogs, encourage people to re-blog this. I want to see a public discussion begin about this kind of industry abuse of musicians… this was one email too far for me. Enough. I’m sick of you.

FUCK and indeed YES.

You can see the original screen grab of this email on Whitey’s Facebook page. As Whitey is at pains to point out, he has no problem donating his music for free to companies who literally cannot afford to pay him. He told me this via email earlier today:

I don’t want payment for everything. I don’t even care that much about money, I give away my music all the time. You and I live in a society where filesharing is the norm. I’m fine with that.

But i don’t give my music away to large, affluent companies who wish to use it to make themselves more money. Who can afford to pay, but who smell the filesharing buffet and want to grab themselves a free plate. That is a different scenario.

So what do you think? I completely agree, but I’m sure there’s DM readers who don’t. Are artists and musicians simply behind the times to ask that their music be paid for by large companies? What do you think Whitey’s music IS worth?


www.howtobeasuccessfulworkingmusician.com