This post I want to share with you a cool pedal. I stumbled on this pedal on ebay late one night, took a chance and wound up loving it. I even bought an extra one as a back up because I like it that much. The Moen UL-VB Jimi Zero Vibe comes in at a modest 50-60 dollars depending on where you purchase; not a lot to spend for a pedal not much bigger than a phase 90 that has some pretty authentic sounding rotary speaker/vibe and chorus sounds.

This true bypass pedal, built in a solid metal enclosure has a push button that allows you to toggle between the Vibe and Chorus settings. The usual rate and depth control are present with the bright red LED flashing at the chosen rate. Of note is the Bias control knob with allows you adjust the overall EQ of the vibe pedal, shaping tones either fat or thin according to your needs. I have often wished that some of my other vibe pedals have even a minimum degree of tone control in addition to the common volume control that comes with the more expensive models.

The top 1/4 inch inputs and power connection make for economical use of pedal board real estate. The fact that the pedal can run on a 9v battery is also a plus for the non-pedalboard/wall wart gigs.

So how does this pedal sound? I did a lot of A/B ing with all 4 of my other vibe pedals, one of which is considered the gold standard of this type of effect. I was able to dial in some very similar tones from the Moen in both the vibe and chorus settings. In a couple of cases, the bias control gave the Moen the edge! I will say that for the price, I think my Moen represents one of the best values in a pedal for  fat, quality vibe/chorus sounds. It has quickly become a staple on my pedaltrain mini.

Here is a quick demo of the Moen Vibe in action:

This post I want to share with you a cool pedal. I stumbled on this pedal on ebay late one night, took a chance and wound up loving it. I even bought an extra one as a back up because I like it that much. The Moen UL-VB Jimi Zero Vibe comes in at a modest 50-60 dollars depending on where you purchase; not a lot to spend for a pedal not much bigger than a phase 90 that has some pretty authentic sounding rotary speaker/vibe and chorus sounds.

This true bypass pedal, built in a solid metal enclosure has a push button that allows you to toggle between the Vibe and Chorus settings. The usual rate and depth control are present with the bright red LED flashing at the chosen rate. Of note is the Bias control knob with allows you adjust the overall EQ of the vibe pedal, shaping tones either fat or thin according to your needs. I have often wished that some of my other vibe pedals have even a minimum degree of tone control in addition to the common volume control that comes with the more expensive models.

The top 1/4 inch inputs and power connection make for economical use of pedal board real estate. The fact that the pedal can run on a 9v battery is also a plus for the non-pedalboard/wall wart gigs.

So how does this pedal sound? I did a lot of A/B ing with all 4 of my other vibe pedals, one of which is considered the gold standard of this type of effect. I was able to dial in some very similar tones from the Moen in both the vibe and chorus settings. In a couple of cases, the bias control gave the Moen the edge! I will say that for the price, I think my Moen represents one of the best values in a pedal for  fat, quality vibe/chorus sounds. It has quickly become a staple on my pedaltrain mini.

Here is a quick demo of the Moen Vibe in action:

If you are writing for jazz swing, there is an easy way to get the eighth notes to swing, or be interpreted in a triplet feel.

Check out the way that a typical jazz swing pattern is written for drums:

The is the way it is interpreted in jazz:

Both Finale and Sibelius can make this interpretation provided the correct setting is used.

Finale:  Swing Playback

There are a couple of ways to get swing playback in Finale. The first is to choose the Human Playback option Swing. From the MIDI/Audio menu choose Human PlayBack and then choose “Jazz.”

The other way to set the style is to use the Expression tool and choose Tempo Text. The advantage of doing it this way is you can change the style during the piece. In other words, say the piece starts with swing eighth notes but then changes later in the tune to even eighths. Using Expressions, you can change the style as needed. Here is how it works:

1. Choose the Expression Tool.
2. Select Tempo Marks
3. Make a selection from the menu or create your own. To create your own, click “Create Tempo Mark.”
4. This marking will then effect the playback style. You can then insert a new Tempo mark later in the piece.

Sibelius:  Swing Playback

The steps for adjusting the swing style in Sibelius is very similar to the option described, above in Finale.

1. Press Esc. to clear the cursor of any previous selection
2. Choose Text > Styles > Tempo.

3. Click the mouse in the bar where you want the marking to appear.

4.  Right-click the mouse and choose one of the jazz options, or type the word “Swing.”  You can then insert a new Tempo mark later in the piece.

Michael Moyes is a Senior Student Advisor at Berkleemusic.com. He finished his studies at Baylor University, where he studied Piano Performance and Business. Michael has performed Piano as a soloist, in combos, and accompanied by full Orchestra. He holds Master Certificate in Arranging and Orchestration from Berkleemusic. He also teaches bluegrass banjo in the Boston area. You can hear some of Michael’s music on the Berklee Music Network and on Soundcloud.

Weird question, right? I only ask because I was recently in Helsinki, Finland meeting with other Music educators from around the world and well, this discussion kept popping up. Many of us were talking about how to prepare students who want to make their entire income strictly from Music. Chair of Professional Music Kenn Brass recently told me that only 7% of US residents make all of their dough from musical ventures. Berklee grads do a bit better than average but still come in at around 30%. 100% of your income means enough to cover, rent, food, transportation, your vintage vinyl collection, and if you have anything left over, new gear! Bill and Theo Huxtable illustrate this more elegantly than I can…

Are you going to make enough for ALL THAT by playing in a wedding band, having a youtube clip go viral, performing on live TV, and then touring the world???

Errr, I guess it’s possible, but not very likely. Musicians (including Karmin) have to gig and gig and gig and be open minded for opportunities that may be outside their wheelhouse. I used to play a lot of wedding ceremonies; easy street for a classical pianist: Pachelbel’s Canon, Trumpet Voluntary, a couple Chopin Preludes, etc. What happens if a jazzy cocktail hour gig comes up? A high school Broadway production? A Nickleback fan club sing-along? Should I adapt to different styles I may not like to make a living OR should I say “I am a wedding pianist, that is what I do and I should be paid handsomely for dedicating my life to the continuation of this valuable art”.

I had never thought about playing gigs as ‘selling out’ but that may be because I am a product of my capitalistic society. People I met from Norway, Russia, and other countries felt very differently about the music profession. If Robert Schumann spent his 31 short years playing chamber music would we know his name today? Would music composition or performance have advanced as it has if Chopin didn’t dedicate all of his time and energy to composing painstakingly complex Etudes, Preludes, and Ballades? I don’t know. Should a government support its talented musicians financially so that they can put all of their passion and effort into creating incredible music? Perhaps they will create the next Beethoven or Beatles or Adele and bring pride to their country. There could be thousands of musicians who have what it takes to change the world so why are they using their energy to paint houses so they can pay their rent? These discussions and questions always funneled into differences between capitalism and socialism.

I guess I see their point and I think they see mine as well. I think the next Mozart or Rolling Stones or Justin Bieber will surface regardless of whether they are paid through government commissions or by rising to the top while gigging and making ends meet. We all have to live within the scope of our own realities. That being said, if some powerful government entity is reading this and wants to pay me a salary to dedicate my life to creating music, please post in the comments section and we will hash out the details.

-Michael

Berkleemusic’s next term begins on January 14th, 2013.

Find out more at berkleemusic.com or contact a Student Advisor:

1-866-BERKLEE (USA) | +1 617 747 2146 (Intl) | advisors@berkleemusic.com

There’s no accounting for taste.  Or is there?

I recently embarked on what is probably a fool’s errand.  I thought I’d try to make a list of characteristics found in all the great orchestral music that I love.  The tricky part is…  I love a lot of orchestral music, from past classics like the Beethoven symphonies to recent compositions like the Rouse flute concerto.  Across that spectrum there are drastic differences in style, harmony, and compositional technique.  Yet, I thoroughly enjoy all of that music, so it would seem there has to be common characteristics that generate its appeal.

Below, I have included a list of the concepts I came up with.  Each characteristic is something I have observed across all the music I love—from Bach to Rouse.  I have divided these observations into two categories:  General Characteristics and Specific Compositional Techniques.  The general characteristics are big-picture ideas, concepts that could equally apply to other art forms.  The specific compositional techniques are ideas specific to orchestral music composition that promote one of the general characteristics.

Feel free to comment and tell me what you think…

General Characteristics

-       Forward Momentum

Great music has a clear sense of forward momentum.  It has a beginning, middle, end—and a clear sense of forward direction connecting those points.

-       Pacing

Great music progresses from beginning to end with a certain pacing.  The music dwells in each emotional stage long enough that the listener can fully experience that moment, but moves on to the next idea before boring the listener.

-       Maximized Variety Within a Defined Scope

This is a balance between two extremes. Great music has a lot of variety, evolving in tone color, themes, and so on.  Yet, great music is also limited in scope, being viewed as an outflow from a particular idea or viewpoint.

I believe Barber’s Adagio for Strings effectively demonstrates this concept.  It is extremely focused in mood and style.  Yet within that scope, it maximizes variety—utilizing extremes in dynamics, passing the melody around all sections, and incorporating a variety of compositional structures including simple melody/harmony passages, complex counterpoint, and homophonic chord progressions.  So the music is focused in terms of scope, but maximizes variety within that scope.

-       Completion

Great music has a clear sense of completion at the end.  It does not stop arbitrarily, but does so because it has reached the end of a logical journey.

-       Emotionally and Intellectually Identifiable

In great music, the average audience member can “follow along”, so to speak.  The audience can feel the emotions intended by the composer and musicians.  And the audience can follow the musical ideas intellectually at least minimally, even when they move around the orchestra in a complex manner.

Specific Compositional Techniques

-       Incorporate the full range from simplicity and complexity.

Example: The Rite of Spring contains some of the most complex music ever written.  Yet the first idea is a lone bassoon solo.  The “Augurs of Spring” begins as a rhythmic pattern in homophonic strings.  “Spring Rounds” begins with a simple, low register accompaniment pattern.

The inclusion of simple music, complex music, and everything in between creates variety in the music and can generate forward momentum in the form.

-       Use of complex structures to create tension and simple structures to create resolution.

Examples:  The fugue.  Fugues are extremely complex.  But—they begin extremely simply, as a solo melodic statement.  They also end simply, with all voices collapsing to a clear cadence.  In the middle, they gradually increase in complexity from one voice to two, three, and four voices.

In this case, the incremental complexity creates forward momentum throughout the piece, and the collapse to simplicity at the end creates resolution and completion.

Works using other forms can similarly apply this concept.

In the case of Barber’s Adagio for Strings, the beginning is an extremely simple melody/harmony structure.  The climax is a simple homophonic chord progression.  The build between the two uses more complex counterpoint.  In this case, simple structures are used as introductions, climaxes and codas—where resolution is desired.  Complex structures are used during builds and contractions—when tension is desired.

Using this guideline promotes forward momentum throughout the form and generates a sense of completion upon the conclusion.

-       Use of Dynamic Extremes

One of the greatest strengths of the orchestra is its potential variety in dynamics—from the softest tam-tam strike to a full tutti.  Great orchestral music makes use of those extremes, creating variety and interest.

-       Variety of Tone Color

One of the greatest strengths of the orchestra is its potential variety in tone color.  Great orchestral music passes the material all around the orchestra, maximizing variety of tone color.

-       Reuse of Material Throughout the Form

Nearly all great music has ideas that recur at different points in the form.  This helps define the music in terms of scope and often makes the form more identifiable to the listener.  It can also create completion at the finish upon the reprisal of an idea.

-       Reuse with Variation

The great composers rarely repeated a musical passage verbatim.  Rather, when reprising an idea, they created a related but new variation.  This approach creates variety in the music without changing scope.

-       Logical long-term harmonic movement

Long-term harmonic movement typically refers to the key movement within a piece.  Most commonly, this means establishing tonic as a home key, moving away from it, and returning to it at the end.  When used effectively, long-term harmonic movement creates forward direction during the piece and completion at the conclusion.

Examples:  Sonata form.  In the exposition section of sonata form, the first theme is stated in the home key and the second theme is most commonly stated in the dominant.  The development section moves far and wide, often arriving on the dominant seventh of the home key at the end of the section.  The recapitulation then states both themes in the home key.  This creates a logical direction in the form…  Establish tonic, move away from it via the dominant, and then return to tonic.

This form creates forward momentum in the music as we move away from tonic and long for its return.  It also creates a sense of completion upon the triumphant return to tonic.

A more recent example is the Trombone Concerto by Rouse, which is cast across three movements.  The first movement establishes G as tonic and ultimately modulates to E.  The second movement revolves around C#.  The third movement begins in Bb and then resolves down to G.

This form gives the piece a logical direction and forward momentum as we progress downward in minor thirds.  In addition, a clear sense of completion is generated at the end upon the final arrival back to G.  The piece does not just end arbitrarily; it ends because we’ve completed a logical journey back to the home key of G.

-       Unity in the harmonic language across melody, harmony and key movement.

In the previous example, Rouse’s Trombone Concerto uses a key movement based upon minor thirds.  In addition, the melodic motifs emphasize minor thirds throughout the piece.  This is an example of a link between short melodic motifs and long-term key movement.

Classical music typically uses diatonic relationships in the melody, harmony, and key movement.  Modern music typically uses more dissonant intervals, but uses those relationships across the melody, harmony and key movement.

In all of these cases, a uniform approach to harmony, melody and key movement gives the piece a uniform sound and helps to define the scope of the work.

-       All characteristics of the music, including harmony, counterpoint, melodic phrasing, and orchestration, are coordinated to create a single emotional response.

Example:  The development section in sonata form.  The central function of the development section is to create tension, which is ultimately resolved by the recapitulation.  In the development section, the melodic material becomes more fragmented.  The counterpoint becomes more complex.  The key centers change more frequently and venture far from tonic.  The harmonies are often more dissonant.  Assuming it’s an orchestrated piece, the tone colors shift more frequently and the instrumentation often grows.  All of these characteristics are coordinated to increase tension and build momentum.

The recapitulation section ultimately resolves that tension.  The melodic material is more connected, typically in 8- and 16-bar phrases.  The counterpoint is often simpler, using simpler melody/accompaniment structures.  The key no longer changes, remaining in tonic.  The harmonies are typically more consonant.  In the case of an orchestrated piece, the tone colors are more continuous with fewer shifts.  All of these characteristics create resolution.

When all the characteristics of the music are aimed at producing a single result, it maximizes the emotional impact of the music.

-       Harmonic structures are chosen based on emotional impact.

This is a tough one that nearly every composer struggles with.  Personally, I love music that uses all sorts of different harmonic languages.  For music about love, triads and tonal harmonies are extremely effective (such as those in Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet).  For music about terror, clusters and dissonant harmonies are extremely effective (such as those in Penderecki’s De Natura Sonoris No. 2).

For my part, I most enjoy music that uses whatever harmonic language best conveys the emotion at hand.  For love and joy, tonal consonance.  For fear and terror, atonal dissonance.  Making harmonic decisions based on the emotional reactions of the listener maximizes the emotional impact of the music.

-       Tangible melodic material at times, not at others.*

For me, this one comes with an asterisk.  There is some music out there that has virtually no melodic content, yet it remains extremely effective emotionally.  In general, this tends to be music that elicits the darker emotions in life—fear, suspense, depression, solitude, etc.  Ligeti’s Lontano comes to mind as an example.  In addition, while some pieces have clear melodic statements at some points, they have other passages that have no melodic content or extremely fragmented melodic content.  Introductions often set up a harmonic and rhythmic foundation for a melody that comes later, and virtually any piece in sonata form has clear melodies in the exposition section and significant fragmentation in the development section.  For all of these reasons, seeking a clear melodic line at all times is an ideal that is very confining for any composer.

That said, some emotions seem to demand clear and tangible melodic material.  Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet would not be an effective expression of love without its famous melody.  Additionally, for the average listener, interest in the music will wane if the music goes on for an extended period without a tangible melodic statement.  Certainly, an hour-long symphony without a clear melodic idea would not be terribly popular.  Stated most simply, using clear melodic content adds to the emotional and intellectual tangibility of the music.

When we consider long-form works that are generally accepted as great, a trend does emerge.  At times, they have a clear and tangible melody.  At other times, they do not.  The passages lacking clear melodies vary wildly in structure, from simple harmonic introductions to complex textural chaos.  Notably, this observation is an extension of a previous note—that great works incorporate a range of compositional structures from simple to complex—and applies that concept specifically to the issue of melody.

For artists struggling to make a living in the digital age, a strong merch strategy can be the difference between living life as a starving artist and making a comfortable living.

Yet compared to the recording, publishing and ticketing businesses—which have felt the full effect of technology and the Internet— the merch business today is mostly stuck in the analog 70s. If we are looking to make money in the music industry of the future, why focus our energies on debating the intricacies of Spotify payments or whether licensing terms stifle innovation. Instead let’s examine an area ripe for disruption and revenue expansion.

A Highly Fragmented Environment

Indeed merch seems to be a highly fragmented business ripe for consolidation and transformation. To illustrate, let’s look at some research conducted by a company I work with— Merchluv. We looked at the August 2012 Big Champagne charts and came up with a list of  100 top artists and analyzed their merch availability:

- The 100 artists on the list used 44 different merch vendors (how’s THAT for fragmentation?).

- 75% of artists sold merchandise on their website, Facebook page or through an official supplier.  A surprising 25% of the top selling artists in August did not sell any merch AT ALL.

- 18 artists were “self” merchandisers, meaning they used Topspin, Paypal, Amazon, or a 3rd party services or ran their own commerce site/shopping cart.

- The remaining 57 artists were served by 26 different merch suppliers.

That means to sell merch for the top 100 artists in August you need to make nearly 44 deals with merch suppliers. Clearly a consolidation of merch vendors could help to rationalize the market. Where is the Amazon of music merchandising?

Merch is an Insulated Service

The merch business is largely disconnected from the real heat in the music market today, namely the explosion in digital music services. For example: 45 BILLION songs are streamed or viewed every month, yet there is NO MERCH being sold against this engagement. And that number is just going to BLOW UP to hundreds of billions of streams per month in the next few years.

Imagine if streaming services allowed fans to browse and buy an artist’s merchandise from the same page where they  are streaming their album or buying their tickets? There is a complete disconnect between where most music is discovered today, and the $2.2 billion in annual merch revenue.  The vast majority of merch is sold at the venerable merch table at any given concert. Why not make the effort to expand that experience into the digital realm? An alignment of merch distribution with the direction that the overall music market is headed would serve artists and merch companies extremely well, and potentially unlock a flood of new revenue.

Merch is Analog

Most artists sell 85% or more of their merch directly at live shows at the merch table. As effective as they are, merch tables can stand to be improved on in the digital age.  For example:

- Fans have to know where the merch booth is.

- Why stand in line when you can order from your seat?

- What if the merch guys don’t have your size or color preference at the table?

- When you buy merch at a show you have to hold it and take it home. Do you want it delivered instead?

- What if you want a bundle of something physical and something digital.  Is this easy to buy?

- How about something personalized for you, or something bigger than you can carry home?

There hasn’t been much innovation at the merch table at all, except for perhaps using Square readers to process credit cards. I wonder if the major merch vendors of today are going to be blindsided by technology and the changing habits of music consumers in much the same way that the record labels were hit.  Merch is extremely difficult to digitize.  But the sales of merch are not.

Tons of artists have web stores attached to their web sites and Facebook pages.  Companies like Reverbnation and Bandcamp can help independent artists manage their merch on their web stores and spread the merch offer out via social media to numerous outlets.  There are many businesses such as Bandmerch and Cinderblock, JSR and Bubbleup addressing this niche, providing fulfillment, webstores, warehousing and shipping services.

But the problem with this approach is that fans need to navigate to an artist’s web site and find the merch for sale and be ready to buy.  Today only 15% of merch is sold online.  New companies like Merchluv, which I am an investor in are about to blaze new trails in digital merchandising. The reason to do this? Grow overall revenue.

The large merchandising companies are very aware of the opportunities of snaring a hot band and bringing their merch to market effectively.  The holy grail of this is the long-term sales possible from mega-popular bands over time.  Anyone want to guess how many Dark Side of the Moon T-shirts have been sold?  Companies like Old Glory have been licensing artist merchandise for decades.

Now we can argue whether there will ever be another blockbuster band like Pink Floyd or the Rolling Stones or Metallica – but if there is going to be significant revenue in the music market of the future, merchandise is going to be a huge contributor.  Merchandise might possibly become the single largest revenue generator for artists of the future. You have to think big here and broader to see what I am talking about.

When artists today are being pulled in various directions to run their businesses, create, act, teach, write and express themselves and interact with their audience, what could be better for supporting a career than a good merch strategy?  Think about the merchandising empires built by Jimmy Buffett, Jay-Z, Puffy, 50 Cent, the Grateful Dead.  The merch is the tail wagging the dog and it has made these artists a fortune.

For musicians in the digital age, revenue needs to come from something than other the recording itself.  To some extent this has always been true, but never more so than today.

Creative Explosion

My friend Todd Siegel and partner in Merchluv tells me that these days creating innovative merch and finding things that resonate with your audience is easier than ever, and many clever artists are using fan sourcing and crowd sourcing options like Talent House and Creative Allies to design merch with their fans.  Once you have a design, you can use sites like Zazzle to test ideas for new products without investing in inventory up front.

Bands like Insane Clown Possee (ICP) have created a cult-like brand through the use of iconic imagery and building a strong following by involving their fans.  The Misfits have sold more merch than music because of that iconic skull that people buy because the merch itself is cool and fashonable.

And talk about branding, take a look at what Deadmau5 is doing with the goofy mouse head. This guy has merch everywhere and may just overtake Mickey Mouse in brand awareness across teenagers.  Even if you have never heard him perform, you know who he is.

Beats by Dr. Dre is another example of merch that has gone over the top and transcended the music entirely to become a lifestyle product that in some respects is becoming a big part of the music industry.  This in only a matter of a few years.

The brainchild of artist/producer Dr. Dre and Interscope Chairman Jimmy Iovine, Beats is bringing high-quality audio to fans through their headphones, sound systems, and now the recently acquired MOG digital music service. Dre has taken a brand established as a recording artist and is in the process of turning it into the music industry of the future, through a grand merchandising strategy.

Conclusion

In the face of declining recorded music sales, many of us are looking hard at the opportunities for generating money in music today. Most of the investment from VCs, Angel investors or Private Equity in music has been in streaming music, discovery, ticketing, crowd funding and artist services. Businesses like Pandora, Spotify, Beats, Ticketfly, Soundcloud, Songkick and Indiegogo all have received significant investments in recent years.

There are two ways that bands have always made money. One is by performing and the other is by selling merchandise. Both are tried and true methods, difficult to download or duplicate, and solid and reliable opportunities.

Why have hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital been poured into online music services in the face of severely declining recorded revenue, when one of the most profitable parts of the music business—namely merch—been largely ignored by investors? Wouldn’t it make more sense try to increase sales of an already healthy and expanding market segment, ripe for disruption?

Finale users: have you ever opened a file created on a previous version of Finale and  some of the options in various menus are missing? For example, the items that typically appear in the Expression Tool or the Staff Tool?  The main reason this occurs is when you open a file saved by a previous version of Finale, the Libraries that were used in that version are loaded.  The way to work around this is to import a library into the current version of Finale you are using.

What’s a Finale Library?

Finale’s libraries contain reusable sets of elements such as expression markings, chord symbols, percussion maps, staff styls and lots more.  When you install Finale the common libraries  install into a folder with your Finale folder on your hard drive.

There are a lot of libraries that Finale uses. To get an idea of the various categories, open any file in Finale and choose
File > Save Library. You will see the following dialog box that gives you the option to save a library.

Libraries make it possible for you to customize one or more of the libraries in pieces you are working with. For example, if you create a custom shape and want to use it in future Finale files, you could save the library and then open or re-load the library into other documents saving you the time of re-creating the shape every time you use Finale.

Missing Libraries

A common occurrence is when you open a Finale file that was created with a previous version of the program and some of the contextual menus have missing items.  When I open a file from an older version of Finale and I find that the libraries are not up to date, here is how to remedy the problem:

1. With the older file opened in your newer version of Finale, choose File > Load Library.

2. Finale will go directly to the Libraries folder on your hard drive that was created when you installed Finale for the first time. You can then select one of the libraries that are listed. The basic library to load which includes all of the libraries that are installed with your version of Finale is on of the main fonts.

3. If you want to get all of the libraries installed into the existing program, choose File > Load Library. Then choose the Library Font you are using such as Maestro, Jazz or Handwritten default font that are listed in Finale 2012.

After loading the default font library into the document you have opened, you will now see the options in contextual menus that you are accustomed to. For example, here is the listing of Staff Styles in a file before and after the library was loaded:

Staff Styles available in the original 2003 Finale File:

Staff Styles available after loading the library in Finale 2012:

After importing the font Library in Finale 2012, when I selected the Staff Tool and right-clicked the options in the current version of the program appears:

Summary

If you open a file from an older version of Finale and you want to recapture the libraries, with the file open, choose File > Load Library and select one of the default fonts that most fits your example.

Gotta love it.

James Taylor is suing Warner Bros over digital royalties seeking $2m in compensatory damages from his former label for past MP3 sales.

The Guardian reports that singer-songwriter James Taylor has filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against his former label, Warner Bros, claiming they have underpaid millions in royalties on downloads of his songs. As in similar cases brought by Eminem and the Temptations, the principal issue is the royalty rate for downloads or ringtones among artists who signed record contracts prior to the advent of digital music sales.

I reported on this situation in the Huffington Post here a while ago with Musicians may be owed billions in unpaid digital music royalties.

All of this stems from a landmark ruling in 2010, when a company representing Eminem’s publishing rights won a case against Aftermath Records. The label was ordered to pay royalties on downloads and ringtones according to the rate for licensing, not sales. Since then, a wide range of acts have pursued their labels for compensation.

Lots more to come.  The leveling of the playing field.

In my last couple of posts, I’ve been focusing on the topic of realizing and reading chord symbols in Finale and Sibelius. In this post, I’ll share another program that I find very useful for reading chord symbols from MIDI and audio files (MP3, WAV, AIF).

I’ve been using Band-in-a-Box since my Apple II days! That’s more than 25 years ago!  The program has continued to progress over the years. I use it quite a lot to create rhythm section tracks for practice and to import into my Finale and Sibelius scores.

Band-in-a-Box is available from www.pgmusic.com. They don’t provide a demo that you can download, but you can view a host of videos on their site. The program is reasonably priced so it can purchased for under $200. After you purchase and install Band-in-a-Box, there are two ways that you can have the program guess chord symbols:  From MIDI files and MP3 files.

Reading Chords from MIDI Files

Create a MIDI file from other music software or download a MIDI file from the Internet. I Googled “Jazz MIDI Files” and found a host of hits including The Jazz Page. When you find a file you want to download, right-click the mouse on the link and save it to your hard drive.

I downloaded the All the Things You Are file from this site. The next step is to have Band-in-a-Box read the chords for you.

1. Launch Band-in-a-Box

2. Choose File > Import Chords from MIDI File

3. Click the Open (Change) Button in the Chord Wizard window.

4. Navigate to the file you want to import. Then in a few seconds the chords will be imported into Band-in-a-Box.

You can play the file, adjust any chords manually, transpose the chords and print a lead sheet all from Band-in-a-Box. And you can export the notation in MIDI format and import it back into your notation software such as Finale and Sibelius.

Reading Chords from MP3 Audio Files

The same process can be done with MP3 files. You can go to your iTunes library and import any tune so long as it is in audio format.

1. In Band-in-a-Box, choose Windows > Run Audio Chord Wizard (Stand Alone)

2. In the Audio Chord Wizard app, choose File > Open Audio File.

3. I opened the first 30 seconds of Herbie Hancock’s Dolphin Dance.

4. The chords from the MP3 file were read into the Audio Chord Wizard. The results were pretty good:

Original Lead Sheet from the Real Book:

The chords as analyzed from the Audio Chord Wizard:

You’ll notice that the Chord Wizard did a pretty good job of analyzing what was played in the audio file. You can also display the note view of the notes the program interpreted. This  can be helpful when transcribing more than a couple of chords per bar and when importing classical music.

To send the interpreted chords to Band-in-a-Box, simply click the button at the top of the window. Once in Band-in-a-Box, the chords can be manipulated, transposed and printed as a lead sheet.

I have found that using this tool, I can get a look inside the notes being played and often speed up the process of guessing chord changes. It is also a great tool for creating practice files for tunes that you want to learn.

Finale does have some of the Band-in-a-Box auto harmonizing features. Check out my blog post on how to use the Band-in-a-Box auto harmonizing plugin.

New students are starting classes on the Berklee campus this week, and then a bit later in September, we’ll be starting a new Berkleemusic semester online. Whether beginning a degree, a certificate, or an à la carte course, this educational effort is “a temporary endeavor that ultimately ends in a planned result.” In other words, education is a kind of “project.” This is good, because there are so many well-researched tools and concepts that have been defined over many years regarding how to bring projects to successful conclusions, and so too can it be with your musical studies. Essentially, the overall process of project management is:

1. Clarify the vision of what the project outcome should be.
2. Figure out what work needs to be done in order to bring that work to a successful conclusion.
3. Do that necessary work, monitoring progress constantly to make sure that all is proceeding according to plan.
4. When it’s done, make sure that the result is positioned for its highest potential impact.

Typically, students take a reactive approach to education, rather than a strategic one. They get assigned work, they do it, and then they go off and chill out, somewhere. People develop these passive habits for becoming educated very early on, perhaps starting in nursery school. More often than not, we grow to think of education as an arena in which we don’t have the power to be proactive, and the end result of the effort isn’t at the forefront of a student’s concern until towards the very end. As children, we are shepherded to school, and the curriculum is far beyond our control. The subject matter and culture is not of our own choosing. Grade-school education is something that is done to us, which we must endure, and our choices for managing the process are limited. Work gets doled out, and students must address what comes before them, in a survivalist mindset.

As adult learners, though, this theoretically changes, in many respects. There is no longer a legal requirement that students must attend class. Yet, old habits die hard. It is easiest to continue with college-level musical studies in much the same way as we dealt with what came before it: as an inconvenience (or, perhaps, an indulgence) that must be squeezed into life somehow. Courses present work. There are grades. Students witness lectures, study for tests, do projects, and then are assessed on their performance. It most frequently remains a reactive process, as they get ushered through the system. At the end, they either get a diploma (listed with or without honors) or they drop out.

A great difference now, though, is that college experiences affect our professional lives in ways that grade school experiences do not. College-level accomplishments are prominent on résumés, for all of our lives, and particularly in music education, our mastery of the skills we learn are what makes us hirable. And after this stage of education concludes, most people try to monetize their academic experience. That’s the ultimate purpose, or vision—a credential that can be monetized, due to the level of experience and aptitude it reveals.

I would urge all students to look at their tenure in this light, immediately upon embarking on taking any course of study—and if not at the beginning, then as soon as possible along the way. Rather than just plowing through, trying to make it through the classes that come before you, consider what your ultimate project goals are, in this journey, and continually track your progress on completing those objectives. Probably, your overall objectives of post-secondary education are (or should be):

1. Learn the material.
2. Get credentials for your résumé.
3. Network with others in your field.

These three are the objectives of your educational project. Like any project, it is essential to keep the objectives in mind, monitoring your progress on them constantly.

Learning the material is the most obvious objective. Teachers present lectures and assign research (reading, listening, etc.), and then tests, projects, and audition results reveal whether you’ve learned the material or not. These monitoring mechanisms are clearly built into the student experience.

Although grades perhaps seem like overly simplistic measures of a student’s competency, they can have important repercussions later on, such as when applying for graduate programs or scholarships. Keep this in mind when doing special projects or assignments. Students often become distracted by “expressing themselves,” rather than doing the assigned work. In the grand scheme of things, expressing yourself is important; making an assignment relevant to your personal interest can make the content real for you, and thus help you to learn it. However, doing this should also be tempered with the over-arching directive to demonstrate mastery over the technical material being taught. Now and then, students hand in projects to me that are lovely, as art, but don’t demonstrate mastery of the material in the curriculum. For example, I give an assignment where my Music Notation with Finale students must create lead sheets. Occasionally, someone will hand in an multi-instrument arrangement instead, without any chord symbols or a single lead line. This is an indication that they are confused about their objectives. “Expressing yourself” might be a critical life objective, but likely, it is beyond a core and essential objective of many courses. In other words, it might be wise to simplify your artistic aspirations regarding an assignment, and stick to its stated requirements. Do that arrangement you’re burning to do as a personal project, on your own time. (And many teachers will give you feedback on that too, just for the fun of it, if their bandwidth permits.) Focus on demonstrating mastery of the prescribed material, as your primary work.

Getting credentials for your résumé is another over-arching goal, but besides a good GPA, it is typically less actively/strategically pursued and controlled by the student. How would you like your education credential to read on your résumé? The school’s name and year is a start, but what else about your experience can you describe that stands out? Will you graduate with honors or win any awards? Will you participate in extra-curricular activities that will spark the imagination of someone who might hire you? Will you take the initiative on something that is likely to foreshadow potential for future professional accomplishment? Will you have meaningful professional experience (such as playing gigs, rather than flipping burgers), in addition to being a student? Students frequently participate in such things for the fun of it, or on a whim, but they can actually have far-reaching use beyond simply filling empty time.

Similar to the résumé credential is the recommendation letter, and a good one can easily be worth many thousands of dollars, in your career. Likely, at some point, you will need a recommendation letter from a teacher (or several teachers), whether it is for a job, a new degree program, a scholarship, a grant, or some other future prospect. While you are still pursuing your studies, can you identify teachers who might be influential in the future, regarding this function? How will you be able to impress them regarding your unique abilities? Hint: Try mastering the prescribed coursework, producing exceptional quality assignments (submitted on time), asking good questions, and being kind and helpful to your classmates. Without these in evidence, writing the recommendation will be a stretch. You’re asking the teacher to stake his or her reputation on you, stating that you are a reflection of the teacher’s own values and judgment, so consider how you will make your case clear.

Networking with peers, as well as teachers, is another great benefit of education. Academia is a rare circumstance where people who share essential values and worldview come together in a non-competitive, non-commercial environment. At the time, college socializing seems more like fun human interaction than professional networking, but decades after your classes conclude, you are likely to find that your college chums may make your professional life easier and lead to opportunity—more so than friends from grade school, because more professional focus is shared. Socializing is therefore a dimension of experience that I recommend all students pursue deliberately and methodically—online or on campus. It is among the most important dimensions of your time, and the shared experience of your alma mater will always give you something to talk about with fellow alumni.

So, jam with other musicians, play on their albums, help engineer their recordings, or just have coffee. If you find yourself traveling to a city where one of your online classmates resides, try to meet for lunch or a walk by the river. Can you make one meaningful new connection every week? Keep track. And don’t exclusively hang with the obvious superstars. People commonly have epiphanies that allow them to leapfrog to a much higher degree of competency later on, and during college days, such transformations might yet be several years off. During this brief period while you’re all in the same boat, general human bonding matters more, and this is one of the rare, easy times to connect with people and trade favors. These connections can help you forever after. Today’s entertaining cafeteria companion might well become tomorrow’s critical mutual acquaintance or most cost-effective project resource.

Like any project, consider what your ultimate goals are, in your education, and how you will accomplish them. Reflect on these objectives at least weekly, say every Friday morning. Track your progress, and correct the course, as necessary—whether this requires more time practicing solfege, more time finding a meaningful internship, or more time jamming with new friends. As is usually the case, being strategic rather than reactive will bring your project to a better conclusion, and your education is among the most important projects you will ever undertake.

Michael Moyes is a Senior Student Advisor at Berkleemusic.com. He finished his studies at Baylor University, where he studied Piano Performance and Business. Michael has performed Piano as a soloist, in combos, and accompanied by full Orchestra. He holds Master Certificate in Arranging and Orchestration from Berkleemusic. He also teaches bluegrass banjo in the Boston area. You can hear some of Michael’s music on the Berklee Music Network and on Soundcloud.

For the purposes of this blog, lets imagine that I am taking the role of the renowned psychiatrist Dr. Leo Marvin and you are my ambitious patient, Bob Wiley.

If you don’t know these characters, do yourself a favor by finding a VCR (the preferred way to watch a classic of this magnitude) and pop in “What About Bob?”.  Now Bob Wiley has just about every possible phobia known to man. Despite Bob’s difficulties, he makes an astounding transformation from a man who fears anything and everything to a capable, and valued member of society.

It is surprisingly common for students to call me and tell me they are going to quit their jobs, study Music Business full time and then become an A&R, a highly competitive job that requires extensive experience in the music industry. In short, quitting your job for a risk this big is not a good idea. I am in no way saying that people with such lofty goals are in the same category as Bob Wiley, but I often find myself giving advice that I learned from his psychiatrist, the great Dr. Leo Marvin. Baby Steps….

Student: “I have 3 kids and a mortgage and I work in the legal field. I don’t like my job so I am going to quit and start a record label.”

Michael: Baby Steps…

Student: “I write songs using a computer program. I am thinking about dropping out of college to move to LA and give Film Scoring a shot”

Michael: Baby Steps…

The “Baby Steps” idea definitely comes into play when you are interested in getting into the music industry (in any capacity). The talents who are discovered performing on YouTube and rocket straight to the Ellen Show are few and far between. It is ok to take your time and develop a foundation that you can build your future career on.

Step one: Come up with Measurable and Attainable Goals

It is fine to have a stretch goal like “I want to make music my primary means of survival”. The chances of this becoming a reality increases greatly if you have the foresight to break it down and get specific. For example, in 2011 I was studying Orchestration and I gave myself the goal of writing 10 new songs in one calendar year. The purpose was twofold: Get familiar with the regular writing demands required to do this professionally and to further develop my craft and portfolio. The exercise was challenging and contributed greatly to my goal AND I didn’t have to bet the farm to meet it.

Another exercise works for performers and teachers. Set a goal like the following “I want to make $500 this year from gigging/teaching banjo lessons/doing studio work/anything else related to music.” This will teach you how to manage your opportunities and how to follow-up! If you have convinced someone to study music with you and they have taken $100 worth of lessons and suddenly dropped off of the face of the earth, you need to make sure you nurture the relationship so that they come back and of course, tell their friends. Baby Steps…

Step two: Be Persistent

So, you have been baby stepping along and things are going great! Lets say you have a ton of music produced and you want to get some of that sweet, sweet royalty money. You have heard that Music Libraries and Sound Catalogs are a good way to get your foot in the door so you send some demos out and wait…and wait…and continue to wait.

You will keep on waiting unless you are persistent and leave no stone unturned. Call, email, and even show up at every music library you can find and be prepared to tell them why they should listen to your tracks. Have everything labeled and neatly organized to make it as easy as possible for them to hear your work. Just because you get one person to listen to your stuff does not give you an excuse to stop calling more libraries.

Step three: Never leave an opportunity on the table

I have tried my hand at transforming nonsensical synth midi recordings into orchestral scores so that an ambitious hobbyist could hear his creations performed by a studio orchestra. One time I had a gig transcribing extremely complicated Liberace piano solo’s from old video clips for a client who was dead set on reviving the old tunes. I even had the opportunity to score music for a group involved in supervised (yet illegal) intravenous drug use (that was a wild one). Sure, I made money in some of these cases. Others were utter financial failures. What gained in every instance was experience, and just as importantly, a reputation. Now if a transcription/film scoring/weird orchestration gig comes up I have demo’s to show them AND I have references. Be creative and realize that getting out of your comfort zone can lead to a breakthrough!

Working with music is extremely rewarding. Even if it takes you longer than you want to reach your financial goals, enjoy the ride. We are performers, producers, orchestrators, songwriters, artist managers, and more. It is amazing that people are willing to pay us to do something so fun! Take baby steps and you can make a transformation…just like Bob.

-Michael

Berkleemusic’s next term begins on September 24th, 2012.

Find out more at berkleemusic.com or contact a Student Advisor:

1-866-BERKLEE (USA) | +1 617 747 2146 (Intl) | advisors@berkleemusic.com

You might know Rachael Yamagata as a performer who’s toured with The Swell Season, Sara Bareilles, Adam Cohen, and opened for David Gray solo at Madison Square Garden.  You might also know her as a songwriter whose collaborated with Jason Mraz, Mandy Moore, Dan Wilson, Katherine McPhee, and sang on recordings by Rhett Miller, Bright Eyes, Dave Matthews, Ray LaMontagne and Ryan Adams.  Rachael has put out three full length records both on and off major labels, and this past summer she enrolled in Berkleemusic’s Online Music Marketing with Topspin course. Berkleemusic’s fall 2012 term begins on September 24th.

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Mike King:  We’re ten weeks into the online course. What has your experience been like so far?

Rachael Yamagata: It’s been so good – I feel like if I had been this engaged in college I would have done much better!  I’m super into it. There’s a bunch of people in the class that are coming from a tech background, and a variety of other musicians in there that provide great perspectives on marketing. It makes the weekly live discussions so interesting, and the material the students are posting is great.  I’m all about it.

Before I took the class, I was trying to educate myself by watching YouTube videos of different online music marketing conferences.  This course is a great master class overview on exactly what I was searching for, and it’s all super fascinating to me.  I’ve had such a roller coaster ride in industry, and there have been times where I have been completely unaware of all of the new technologies or campaign ideas or where the money is going, and not really knowing the ins and outs or whys as much as I should have. I think a lot of artists are encouraged to not worry about it; they are encouraged to keep the creative and business side of the music business separate. I love the idea of looking at music as a purely creative endeavor, but I’ve had enough years in the business to know that it has ultimately been a disservice to me to not understand how the marketing and business works.  It really changes fundamental business decisions. Having a team is great, but building up your own education is only going to help you.

MK: How did you find out about the course?

RY: My friend Kevin Salem. He’s my mentor and producer, and he’s been involved in music for 30 years. He’s seen me since the birth of career, and witnessed my experiences on two major labels to becoming independent. He’s seen all the transitions of my career, from playing for five people to playing for 1000 people.

He’s a DIY sort of guy when it comes to the business of music, and he was talking about Topspin as a great way to engage with fans, and was talking about the whole DTF idea, all terms I was sort of aware of, but because he suggested it I paid attention.  I researched what Topspin was, and who uses it, and came upon the class in my research.

I released an indie record last year, my first one working as my own label.  My team for that round was guided by management, MRI Distribution and RED.  They did a fabulous job, but to extend my experience for future releases, particularly with DTF, I wanted to learn how Topspin could help. The technology associated with Topspin can be overwhelming at first, and I was concerned about whether or not I was qualified to even take the Topspin course. I have a great philosophical background and I have a lot of experience, but I was frightened of the tech part. So I reached out to the student advisors at Berkleemusic, and ultimately just took a chance, and I’m so glad I did. If I hadn’t enrolled, I’d probably still be sitting here fishing for tips on the Internet. It’s so much more of a class than I thought it would be.

MK: How so?

RY: First, it’s a great overview of the industry in general.  The course bridges terms on the technology side, on the marketing side, and on the direct to fan side.  It really brings it all together.  Each lesson is totally focused on a particular area of marketing or business.  For example – we have discussions on areas outside of DTF marketing, like third party online retail, and we talk about things like the pros and cons of Spotify. The focus areas are things all artists should think about. You also get the ability to have educated dialogue with your classmates and your instructor about the things that affect all artists. There are so many tools now to help expand your fan base. It’s huge

Every label, or manager, or advisor, in whatever way, they all have their own system for working.  There is the old school way, and then there are the new Amanda Palmers of the world.  There are varied options for moving forward in your career. This is an objective course, and it shows you how things are changing, and why some things have failed. It also shows you the potential options for the future, and let’s you decide what is best for your own career.  The course does not have you adapt to a particular ‘one size fits all’ philosophy, as that is out dated. I find it all very empowering.

I’m working on my Spinshop online store right now, and I’m excited to have an outlet for creative releases that go beyond just the record download.  With a new knowledge of things like data tracking, merch margins, and specifics about my fan base, I can create bundles of offerings that I think will be more in tune with what my fans are craving from me.  To be able to turn my website into a supportive business platform in this way will offer more funding for things like touring and future releases.  Also, compiling things like geographical data on my fan base allows me to get a better handle on places I should be touring that I may have missed.  Again, the bird’s eye overview on your fan reach that you start to get by taking this course allows you to coordinate all sorts of campaign ideas with each other.  You learn how to see what’s working and what isn’t, and get the tools to make smarter decisions all around.

MK: Can you talk about your instructor, Chandler Coyle?

RY: Chandler is so knowledgeable about technology, and how you can use technology to work for you to do something.  Also, his overview on the broader campaign concepts is awesome.  His insights on the assignments are super thorough, and he’s always making suggestions about things I may have missed. He does a great job of adding daily updates, and because of the articles that he is posting, I am now following some really fascinating tech folks.  Coming from a place where music technology has scared me, it’s great.  I am so interested in it now.  He’s really good in showing you how technology is used effectively in the music business, and he does a great job of bringing it all forward. I think he’s been supportive of me too because I have been so engaged in the course.  He’s always willing to expand on things.

Chandler provides a constant influx of great ideas, and I think it’s really good to have somebody acting as a moderator in the course. Having someone to tie these things together is invaluable.  He’s great at bringing ideas down to earth.

MK: Can you give me a quick example of something that’s changed for you since you took the course?

RY: Sure.  There was a morning a couple weeks back where I wanted to create an email for media widget.  I’ve never pictured myself sitting back making widgets, but I built one pretty quickly, and I was able to get 100 new fans in an hour, on a Saturday.  I couldn’t believe that I had just made something like that, and received that kind of response.  The direct gratification is so important for an artist like me. I’ve always had webmasters, and I would have to wait two days to upload something.  To be able to pull something off on my own is awesome.  In the future, I can assign this sort of thing to someone else, if I want, but now I know the specifics about how it all works, and what can be done.

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Grizzly Bear was blowing up my Twitter feed this weekend after asking the question: what’s up with Spotify’s payment model?  It’s not an uncommon question lately, likely due to the fact that no one can seem to pinpoint how exactly the service pays artists.  Grizzly Bear themselves claim to get about $.001 per stream, David Harrell from Digital Audio Insider averages closer to $.004 per stream over the past three years, and this infographic, which circulated widely a while back, indicates that artists on a label are paid $.00029 per stream.  So, what’s the deal?

The confusion is warranted – the interactive streaming payment model that Spotify, Rdio, MOG and Rhapsody use is less transparent than the permanent digital download model that iTunes employs, for example. The payments are variable, and payments are made to labels who distribute to their artists directly, which further obfuscates the process.  That being said, the subscription based interactive streaming model will likely continue to play a growing part in the future of music consumption.  As the most recent 2011 RIAA Year-End Shipment Statistics outline, subscription services were up 18.9% in volume from 2010, and up 13.5% in revenue. Small numbers compared with CD and permanent digital download (MP3) revenue and units shipped, but impressive when you consider that one of the major interactive streaming companies, Spotify, has only been active in the US since July of 2011. As we move towards a world where interactively streaming music will be one of the many growing options that consumers will choose to listen to music, it makes sense to understand how the financial process behind subscription interactive streaming works.

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I’ve known D.A. Wallach for several years, after first interviewing him for my Online Music Marketing with Topspin course.  In addition to being the lead vocalist and songwriter in Chester French, D.A. works with Spotify as their “Artist in Residence.”   Below is a transcript of a conversation I had with D.A. about Spotify’s payment process.

Mike King: I feel like there’s a disconnect between artists and Spotify in regards to the mechanics behind Spotify’s payments.  There’s a lot of discussion about the deals that Spotify has with the major labels, and how the payments to indie artists vs. the payments to major labels is lopsided. Is there any difference between the payments Spotify makes to the majors, and the payments Spotify makes to indie labels or indie artist services like TuneCore or Cd Baby?

D.A. Wallach: We treat payments to indies and major labels the same way.  Let’s take a step back first and talk about some of the basics with the service.  We make money in two ways.  We make money through advertising to free users, who have access to Spotify only on computer.  The service is interrupted by ads, and the functionality is a lot like YouTube.  There is no mobile option for free ad-supported users, either.  Second, we generate revenue from selling subscriptions.  In the U.S., a subscription is $120 a year.  In the U.K. it is ₤120 a year, and in the E.U, it is €120 a year.

We aggregate all of this revenue from these two streams, and distribute back 70% in royalties based on a pro rata share in accordance with the popularity of a piece of music.  For example, if one of your songs has been streamed 1% of the total number of streams in a month, you will get 1% of the 70% of royalties we pay out to rights holders.  We pay this out to whomever owns the music.  If you are going through TuneCore, we’ll pay them directly, and because TuneCore takes no percentage on the revenue, whatever we pay TuneCore on behalf of the artist goes directly to the artist.  If you are signed to a label, we’ll pay the label, who is then responsible for paying the artist based on the contract the label has with the artist.

MK: Can you talk a little bit more about the revenue split between publishers and master rights holders?  How is the 70% of revenue you pay out split between publishing and the master side?

D.A.: With the publishing side, it’s a bit of a complicated formula. The rates are statutory, and have been negotiated with the PROs.  [NOTE: A good starting point to understanding how the interactive streaming services pay publishing royalties is this article from The Future of Music Coalition. Boiled down to basics, interactive streaming services pay a mechanical royalty rate of 10.5% on the revenue they generate, MINUS any amounts for performance royalties. In other words, services like Rhapsody and Spotify are subject to both a mechanical and performance royalty, but the entire compensation for songwriters and publishers from any limited download or interactive streaming site is "capped" at 10.5% of the site's revenue.]  In the U.S., we use Harry Fox as our service provider, and they do the distribution to the publishers.

MK: So there are no differences between what you pay a major label and what you pay an indie label?

D.A.: We have thousands of deals with all sorts of entities including distributors like the Orchard and TuneCore, the majors like UMG, and thousands of other independents.  The basic principle of the deals and the rough numbers are within a small margin in all of these deals. At the end of the day, the indie artist is not at a disadvantage compared to a major label artist, and we feel that all artists are being compensated fairly.

MK: Why do you think that there is so much confusion about how Spotify pays artists, and a general concern from artists about the payments they are seeing?

D.A.: I think there are three answers to this question.  First, we’re not a big company.  We have four million subscribers, and 15 million active users at the moment.  These are satisfying numbers but they are not staggering numbers.  We’ve paid out a good amount in royalties so far, close to $200 million dollars.  I think that people are comparing what we are doing to iTunes, which is not a legitimate comparison.  iTunes is orders of magnitude larger than we are.  People are expecting to see iTunes numbers, but we’re not there yet.  The second answer is that people need to transition from unit-based thinking to consumption-based thinking in terms of royalties.  We feel the metric of success should be based on how many people are listening to your music over a period of years, as opposed to looking at how many units are shipping in one week.  People are used to seeing big numbers from a unit-based model, but that’s really front loading what is happening. Comparing iTunes sales with Spotify payments over a two month period of time is not a great way to look at things.  What we are trying to create is a system in which you earn royalties forever for good music, and the time horizon is simply different than what folks are familiar with now. One can actually think about a download sale as a down payment on all future listening that a fan will do. If you took the effective per play rate that I’ve paid for every time I’ve listened to my Dark Side of The Moon CD, it would be trivial compared to what I’d have generated if I’d done all that listening on Spotify. The third answer is that it’s a confusing model since it is unfamiliar.  There is no fixed play rate, and as we grow, our royalty base constantly expands, driving higher and higher royalty payments. There is also confusion that arises from the fact that we pay royalties (just like iTunes, by the way) to whomever owns the music. In the case of a band on a label, the label generally mediates the accounting of those royalties. My band was on UMG, and when I look at my statement, as one example, it’s confusing. I personally hope that the conversations about Spotify royalties actually lead to efforts at increasing transparency in the entire digital music system. We’re very proud of the hundreds of millions in royalties that we’ve been able to pay out to the creative community, and we want the flows of revenue to be clear to artists.

MK: So to reiterate, as Spotify grows, the pool of revenue will increase, and the royalty rate will increase for rights holders.

D.A.: Yes, the larger Spotify gets, the larger the royalty rates should be. The royalty rates we’ve paid out have been growing at an exponential rate, and we expect this to continue.  If we can get to the scale of Netflix – which has 20 million subscribers – we estimate we’d be paying out to artists what iTunes is paying out on a year to year basis. This is a simple calculation based on the average download consumer spending $60 a year with iTunes, and the average premium subscriber paying $120 a year with Spotify.

MK: Do you think that Spotify is cannibalizing other revenue streams, such a downloads or physical sales?

D.A.: In no market where we exist has there been any data illustrating a downturn in physical or digital sales.  Many labels view us as an extra check, as a purely additive income stream, and I think this is an accurate way to think about what we are doing.  Our main demographic is 18-29 year olds, and in many ways, this is a generation who has never paid anything for music.  They grew up with P2P services, and most of these folks are paying for music for the first time in their lives.  It’s found money for artists and rights holders. On an individual artist level, we’re paying out royalties of $200-300 thousand dollars a month for some of the biggest acts.  The bottom line for us is that we have paid out nearly $200 million in royalties and we feel we are making a real contribution back to the music business. Not all artists are earning big checks, but this reflects a small user base and their relative level of popularity. It is also true that if not a lot of people buy your album on Amazon or iTunes, you won’t be seeing massive payments, either. That being said, we are a newcomer to the market, we’re making huge strides, and it will only get better.

In 2008, I had the rare privilege of watching producer Phil Ramone up close, running a recording session—rare especially because he hates when extraneous people such as myself hang around the control room, like slugs on a tomato. The session was at Avatar Studios, one of the world’s best recording studios in New York, with an A-list session musicians, Elliot Scheiner behind the desk, an on-hand arranger, gear techs, and others—perhaps fifteen people in the studio, all together. This was a high level production, and I can only imagine the project’s cost per diem. Maybe $60,000 per day? Double that? I don’t know, something big. Too big to allow for distractions.

Time was money, as they say. Yet, Phil set an easygoing, professional, fun, and focused tone for the session, and watching his insights into how to improve the performance was incredibly inspiring, to me. My most memorable moment, though, was when Phil decided that a song needed a vocal harmony part. One of the world’s great session arrangers was sitting just a few feet away from him, but Phil cheerfully grabbed a sheet of manuscript paper, and simply wrote out what he wanted, while everyone else waited. It took him several minutes.

From a project management theory perspective, a purist might argue that Phil should have had his excellent arranger write the part instead. But I would classify that as a sophomoric suggestion. Composing what he knew would be the most effective line was what was best for the project, at that moment. Grabbing the pen was the simplest and most pragmatic solution, even though it perhaps blurred the lines between project management and specialist. But Mr. Ramone has enough Grammy awards that those of us theorizing about how to achieve success should examine what he does as a model for how great work really gets accomplished, rather than measure his every action against some laboratory standard regarding how managers must spend their time.

In much of the literature, project managers are told to focus only on planning work, analyzing and managing progress, and facilitating productive communication throughout the project team. That’s the project management role, in its pure form. The vision for the project comes from someone else, and the actual creation of content is executed by specialists. For example, a producer such as Phil Ramone (i.e., project manager) will be hired to work with an artist or a label executive (i.e., a visionary) to guide/clarify/implement the vision, and then various engineers, performers, arrangers, and such will create the recording according to spec, of which the producer is the guardian. That way, during project execution, the producer can focus on coordinating logistics and resources to make sure that the project’s vision gets actualized according to the agreed scope.

That’s the theory, and that’s what’s considered best practice. If a project manager starts to get seduced towards wandering too far into the details, their focus on the big picture can be compromised, their stature as leader is said to be potentially diminished, and there is the danger that they will lose sight of the overall project vision. Conventional wisdom says that this increases overall project risk. That’s a major reason why artists do well to partner with producers. It keeps logistics in the hands of someone who has emotional distance from the content, so that they can keep the trains running on time.

On the ground, though, things are rarely this simple, and there are also risks when project managers become too detached from the details.  And it’s an easy excuse, for executives to dodge responsibility for disasters by claiming that their role requires detachment. “Passing the buck” is one way to phrase it. Contemporary music history books have endless anecdotes about clueless suits steering artists in inappropriate directions.

The ability to delegate depends a lot on available resources, as well as circumstances, and this “pure” model of project manager is perhaps more effective in larger organizations where increased staff on hand gives freedom for everyone to be a specialist. But in music, particularly on artist-produced projects, the roles between project manager, visionary, and worker bee are frequently best intertwined. Music is an art of cross-pollination by multiple creative spirits, and producers sometimes have clearer visions of the projects than do the performing artists. That’s our reality, and we can embrace it without guilt, because examples of this model’s success are legion, where success can come from either abandoning ego and collaborating, or from embracing ego and pushing forward. Flexibility to entertain either approach—to accept inspiration where we find it—seems to be the necessary paradox of the music project manager’s mindset.

To maintain focus on the big picture during any digressions down rabbit holes, it’s just important for us project managers to be self-reflective that our own time is a limited resource, and it should be managed as such. If the PM wants to do detailed work, they must also step back, consider how much time they are spending on that compared to other required tasks, and confirm that all can still remain on track.

I would argue that project outcome is more important than maintaining purity of role, particularly in the case of someone in a more managerial role taking care of the business of a more content-creation role. While you probably don’t want a session drummer to take the initiative to, say, redo the singer’s mic placement uninvited, any producer would do well to have a detailed enough understanding of audio engineering to have a meaningful conversation with whoever is actually running the board. While project management is a specialized skill, it is helpful in our business for the PM to have a diverse, applicable skill set, in order to be able to put out fires (or write the occasional background vocal line) with the greatest efficiency.

Micro-management is to be avoided, obviously, but too much golf also increases project risk. Sometimes, project managers need to roll up their sleeves and address details, in order to keep things moving, and having a project manager capable of nuts-and-bolts problem-solving brings a kind of resilience to a project, as well as the ability to take advantage of serendipitous opportunity. The deep dive just needs to be done with our eyes wide open, regarding how that diversion affects the big picture: the timeline, the budget, the quality, the team morale. In the end, what the project needs is an over-arching consideration of what the situation demands, rather than how neatly tasks are accomplished in accordance with theories of best practice.

So each month we talk about cool stuff, gadgets, pedals, amps, guitars. This post I am addressing an often overlooked aspect of the big picture: The Guitar Cable. I get many queries about my choice of cable, not just from the guitar to the amp, but for the signal path in between pedals especially when permanently hooked up on a pedalboard.

My choice for for very long time has been George L’s. For many reasons, these make sense for me. In terms of durability and longevity, I have some George L cables that are older than many of my students!!

George L ‘s cables are solder-free do-it-yourself, very high quality, lo capacitance, anti-stat, co-ax cabling. They come in two thicknesses (.155 and .225) and  in spite of what seems like a relatively small diameter compared to other manufacturers, rank as one of the best I have ever played. I have done much in the way of A/B ing with other, higher priced cabling. George L’s hold up and, in most cases, surpass the quality of the others.

The cable comes either pre-made as a guitar cable with 1/4″ plugs on both ends, often including a protective sleeve, or in bulk which allows you to create your own custom lengths.  Plugs average around 5-7 bucks a piece (depending on your source) and the cable, anywhere from $1.50-$2.25 a foot. Making a George L cable  is a simple task and really only require’s a little care when assembling to ensure years of trouble-free operation:

1) Cut the length of desired cable, make sure the ends are clean-cut, with no wire hairs hanging or sticking out.

2) Choose a plug, whether strat style extended length plug with grip area:

or smaller style plug, great for Gibson-style guitars or pro-audio:

or corner style plug, convenient for pedalboard use:

3) The plugs have a screw on the side (in previous pictures) which you tighten after fully and firmly inserting the cable. The corner plugs have what amounts to a gripped, threaded “plug” which closes the back of the plug while completing all of the connections. No solder at all required!

4) Add protective sleeve (NB: pull this onto your guitar cables before assembling the plug and tightening the screws. With the corner plugs you can pull on the sleeve afterwards because they have a split to allow for this after the cable has been secured)

A good value for folks who need to custom wire up a pedalboard is the George L Effects Cable Kit (around 70 bucks give or take)  which usually comes as a package with 10 corner plugs and about 10 feet of cable. The low profile of the corner plugs make it an excellent choice for best use of pedalboard real estate. Just install pedals on your board, cut the desired lengths, connect and you are ready to go to the gig!

The obvious advantage to using this product is that in the (in my case) unlikely event that you have some kind of short happening at the plug, you simply snip the end off, make sure it is flat and clean as before, and then assemble/secure the plug again! And then you are once again ready to rock. It takes all of one minute! I can honestly say that I have fewer problems with this connecting system than I have had with traditional soldered guitar cables.

When I first started using George L’s, I remember there were only limited options, compared to now, when you can choose different thicknesses of cable, different materials for plugs (nickel, brass, even gold!) and different colors for the cable. For more information check out the George L’s website. There are many other related products and accessories that you might find useful in the signal path of your Quest for Good Guitar Tone!

Here is a video tutorial I found on youtube where someone is actually showing you how to make a George L cable:

When you type in chord symbols in Sibelius 7 and earlier versions, they do not play back by default.  However, you can use a plug-in to realize the chords for playback and printing.

For example, let’s take the lead sheet of the folk song Scarborough Fair.  The melody and chords have been entered. When you press play in Sibelius 7 and earlier versions, only the melody plays back.

Here is the audio playback of the above file: Scarborough Fair melody

Realizing Chord Text in Sibelius

If you want to realize chords for playback, follow these steps. The plug-in will create new staves and use the existing chords to create the staff. The new staff will then playback.

1. Select some or all of the file.  Since there are several options for realizing chord symbols, you could use one style for the beginning of the piece and then another for the next section.
2. Sibelius 7 choose  Text > Plug-ins > Plug-ins > Chord Symbols >  Realize Chord Symbols.
   Sibelius 6 choose Plug-ins > Chord Symbols >  Realize Chord Symbols

Make some choices from the Plug-in window. I usually go with one chord per chord symbol for just a basic playback.

Here is what the plug-in produced:

Playback:  Scarborough Fair2

Other Plug-in Instruments and Styles

You can experiment with other options such as changing the instrument to piano and/or changing how the realized chord symbols behave:  Chord every beat, Chords follow score rhythm, 8th note Alberti and others.

Hiding the Created Staves using “Focus on Staves”

After you have realized the chord symbols, you can also hide the staves created by the plug-in so they are not seen on the monitor or printed out.  Here is how it works:

1. Select just the staves in the score that you want to display and/or print. Click in one staff and use CTRL (Command on Mac) to click in the other staves. Include everything you want to display except the realized chord staff that Sibelius created.
2. Sibelius 7:  Layout > Hiding Staves >Focus on Staves.
   Sibelius 6: View > Focus on Staves or click the staff icon on the toolbar.

TIP: Sometimes when you add plug-ins in Sibelius if there has been layout formatting, the staves will over lap. To remove the formatting:
Sibelius 6 & 7:  Choose Layout > Format > Unlock Format

Annie Sklar is a Student Advisor at Berkleemusic.com. She finished her studies at Berklee College of Music, where she studied Jazz Composition and Tenor Saxophone. Annie has worked and played with jazz greats such as Maria Schneider, Rufus Reid, and Herb Pomeroy. You can hear some of her music on the Berklee Music Network.

Dance is a four-letter word in jazz. The days of swing being the go-to dance floor soundtrack have long since past, and the jazz community gazes back on that era with the fondness for the quaint and the outdated usually reserved for doddering elders. Jazz has evolved into one of the highest forms of art music that humans can conjure up. At some point, the jazz listener evolved into a creature made entirely of ears, and maybe a tapping toe. There is a definite tendency in jazz to eschew music that does not live up to high intellectual standards (if you say that isn’t true, then you might be an offender), and an even greater impulse to dismiss entirely anything that features a pulsing groove specifically for the purposes of dancing. But wait! Are we jazzers missing out on a basic human experience – dancing?

There’s a lot of bad dance music out there. The explosion of technology available to “producers” (however Mom’s basement bound they may be) has made the creation of electronic music very easy. And good lord do hacks and jokers take advantage of that. Even well produced top 40 pop music is generally so musically egregious that stumbling upon it on the radio triggers my “ekldik!” reflex (ah Yiddish, the language of lovers- words that sound exactly like what they mean). But there is dance music out there that is creative, unexpected, and fun. A good DJ playing great, well-produced tracks can provide a mind-body-spirit lift of the highest order. Who cares if the track stays on the I chord the whole time? Appreciate the forward motion of the beat and the non-complexity of the harmony. As a jazz writer, I get my fill of reharmonization and multi-tonic systems. I often find myself appreciating dance styles for their lack of chords, traded instead for atmospheric harmonic structures. As long as the groove is hot and the DJ doesn’t try to mix in a track that’s a half step off-that makes me want to throw theory books towards the booth.

No, I’m not saying (and never would) that dance music could ever hope to even approach jazz, or classical, or any other art music in creativity, emotion, or intellectual pursuit. But I would argue that it doesn’t have to. And to shake a proverbial finger at those who might dismiss it for being aesthetically shallow, when was the last time YOU danced in public? Because that is the basic function of dance genres – party music! Music that exudes such energy that anyone within earshot can’t help but move. And nothing gets a crowd moving like a moving crowd.

And now to jump into a topic that I admittedly know next to nothing about- evolutionary biology! Why do we have such a primal urge to shake it when we hear an awesome drumbeat or bass line? Why did our propensity for what we call music evolve in the first place? And did dance come first, or the music that we dance to? Completely un-scientific Googling indicates that no one has any definite answers. There has been some research (you’re not really expecting me to footnote, right? You don’t want to read ‘em and I’m definitely too lazy to write ‘em. No need to get heavy. Let’s move on) that indicates that musical productivity mirrors reproductive activity in the life cycles of humans. Darwin believed that musical ability (like singing) might be a “sexually selected” (woo woo!) trait to aid in courtship, like a peacock’s tail. So maybe that’s part of it. But there’s another hypothesis out there, proposing that music evolved as a way to bind social groups together. I can dig that, can’t you? The original purpose of dancing could be related to reproduction; showing off for the opposite sex through movement is a technique that is employed throughout the animal kingdom-check out THESE FLY MOVES. But consider also the early human tribe preparing for battle with their rivals from the other side of the watering hole. I see fire and drums and music making and dancing and general revelry. This type of behavior is hypothesized to be able to bring the group to an altered, trance-like state of mind. Individuals would be more in line with the cause, even to the extent that pain and fear would take a back seat. A good old-fashioned team building exercise! We can still experience a little piece of this most primal exercise when we dance in a crowd. You get caught up, get a little wild, and have a great time. Dancing makes your body feel good and connects you emotionally with those around you. After a particularly epic build in a track, the adrenaline rush when it drops flows through the whole crowd at the same time. Not too often do we get that kind of shared elemental human experience in a positive context (such moments are generally reserved for moments of terror, like rapidly descending airplanes). We should enjoy it before we evolve it away!

We should all get to experience the benefits of music absorbed through primal functions like dancing. Art music is wonderful and perhaps the finest form of human creative expression. Everyone should at least try to listen and understand the exceptional and uniquely human ability to manipulate pitch, tone, and rhythm to create a thing that exists only for itself. That may be the zenith of human evolution-art for the sake of art. But it is valuable to sometimes experience music at a more primitive level. And dance music is perfect for that! You don’t have to think, you don’t have to analyze-you just get to enjoy it for what it is; a vehicle for movement. You don’t necessarily have to rave out with neon and glow sticks to get it. Enjoy the basic properties of the music: the drums, bass, builds and drops, and appreciate the simple modality. And be careful who you lay your jazz snobbery on, because you never know if that chick grooving out next to you has a degree in Jazz Composition. And if she does, she may just be able to justify why dance music deserves our love, too.

-Annie

Berkleemusic’s next term begins on September 24th, 2012.

Find out more at berkleemusic.com or contact a Student Advisor:

1-866-BERKLEE (USA) | +1 617 747 2146 (Intl) | advisors@berkleemusic.com

Doug Orey is a Student Advisor at Berkleemusic.com. He graduated from the Berklee College of Music in 2009 where he earned a degree in Music Business and Management. He is currently an avid gigging musician heavily involved in the Boston rock scene. He is the lead singer/rhythm guitarist and main songwriter for The Field Effect (www.thefieldeffectmusic.com/). He enjoys pizza and also has a beard.

So you have the line-up. You have the name. You have the songs. You’ve practiced until your fingers hurt and your lungs are empty. You’ve even picked those killer new shoes. You’re ready to take the stage and unleash your sonic awesomeness live upon the masses. So how do you get that first show?

When you have a brand new band booking those first few shows can be the hardest part. No one has heard of you so why should they book you at their venue? Johnny Slick says you can play his bar on Wednesday night at 6pm if you pay him $100 and guarantee you can bring at least 20 people willing to pay a $15 cover! As enticing as this deal sounds…don’t take it. I’ve heard a few different folks say you should expect to pay venue managers or promoters to play early on in your young band’s career. I’m here to tell you that you should NEVER pay to play. So here are a few tips, from my own experience, to help you nail down that first show.

Go to other shows. There is no doubt in my mind that there are other bands where you are. Get out there and go meet them. Become friends with them, especially bands that play music similar to your band. Don’t be afraid to talk to them about your project and what you’re hoping to do. Build up a solid rapport with the other bands on the scene and express your interest in opening one of their shows. We’re all in this together and every band remembers what it was like to book their first show.

Open mics are your friend. While not my favorite thing in the world, I acknowledge they can be a lot of fun. One thing about open mics that tends to be true nearly everywhere you go is they are run by fellow musicians from the local music scene. I just mentioned going to shows and meeting other bands…this gives folks from those bands an opportunity to hear some of your songs. If they like what they hear, you just upped your chances of landing an opening slot. Not to mention you might be able to earn a few fans!

Start small, be realistic and be honest. Everyone wants to play on a Friday or Saturday night to a packed house. The chances of this happening your first time out are going to be slim to none. If you’re e-mailing venues in town looking to book a show, start small. They are bound to ask what you think your draw is. If you think you can only get 10 friends out to the gig…tell them 10. Clubs talk to each other. If you tell one club that you can bring 100 people out and only 13 people show up they aren’t going to be happy. Start small, build your fan base and keep your reputation high.

If you want to be part of your local scene it’s important to immerse yourself in it. Be social and be sure to show your support for the other bands. We’re all in this together and want to help each other out the best we can.

Doug

www.thefieldeffectmusic.com
@thefieldeffect

Check out our Online Music Marketing course if you are interested in leveraging all of your digital marketing efforts.

Berkleemusic’s next term begins on September 24th, 2012.

Find out more at berkleemusic.com or contact a Student Advisor:

1-866-BERKLEE (USA) | +1 617 747 2146 (Intl) | advisors@berkleemusic.com

Today, my desk was on the brink of avalanche. As is often the case when I’m being buried by paper, the song “In a hole” went through my head, which goes, “I’m in a hole, and I’m digging it deeper, I don’t know how I’m gonna get out….” It’s by Joe Flood, and I heard it performed by Ron Sunshine and Full Swing at a wedding many years ago. It’s stayed with me all this time, even though I haven’t heard it since. Funny, how a good song can do that.

Something else that stayed with me, from that wedding, was that it rained cats and dogs, and there was a power failure, just as the band was heating up. It was an afternoon affair, so lighting wasn’t a major problem, but the band’s PA system obviously went dead, and that would have put a lesser band out of business. (Fire engines came, for some reason, but that’s another story.)

But when the lights went out, without missing a beat, Ron Sunshine and Full Swing launched into an unplugged set, with songs that included clapping parts as accompaniments, and it sounded so good, it would have fit right in with their usual set. It didn’t come across at all as a consolation prize. They grooved just as hard as they did with electricity, and as is often the case in rainy weddings, the party grew more intimate and more unified, as we huddled together, away from the elements. The energy didn’t dip a kilowatt.

Ron Sunshine and his band’s response to the circumstance struck me as an incredible display of professionalism and risk readiness. Frankly, despite what could have been a disaster, it was among the most fun weddings ever—and I’m not saying “frankly” just because it was my friend Frank who got married that day. The band gets much of the credit for that.

My question, then, is this: Are you ready, if the power goes out?

Considering a risk analysis chart like this might help you with some risk planning, so that you too can launch heroic recoveries. Formal risk planning can (and sometimes should) become a much more complex endeavor (a full time job, in some organizations), but this is a good place to start. The idea here is that you list generic dimensions of your project in each row, and then consider various internal and external ways that issues could potentially become manifest, in each box.

Take the first row, “People,” for example. Say your project is an outdoor wedding in a tent. The “internal/people” are in your project team, such as your band. External people are the client, the partiers, the caterer, and so on. What risks are associated with each? Well, the band might not show up. They might not rehearse enough. They might play too loudly. They might forget their gear. The partiers might not like your music, or they might be drunk and rowdy, or they might insist on running up to the bandstand, grabbing the mic, and singing along. The party planner might be really mean and try to stick your band in a crowded corner.

Imagining potentially problematic circumstances beforehand and planning mitigation strategies, should they come about, will help you respond to more issues that actually arise. Do you have backup musicians to call, in the case of emergencies? What’s your policy for drunken reveler singalongs? Is everyone ready for an unplugged set? Can you discuss setup requirements in advance of the event? For each reasonably likely circumstance, write out your backup plan.

When you’ve exhausted “People,” do the same for Gear/Facilities, and other items on the list, and then arrive at possibilities like “the power goes out.” Add your own rows to customize the chart to your circumstance.

Going through this exercise (preferably, doing it as a project team) and charting your contingencies can make you more resilient, and if major circumstances do come about, hopefully the resulting stories will have happy endings.

In my last blog, I posed a question about marketing new concert music and solicited comments.  This blog reviews that question and aggregates the comments, with a few ideas of my own added.

For reference, the original blog is here:  http://bennewhouse.berkleemusicblogs.com/2012/06/22/marketing-new-concert-music/

The Question

The classics in concert music have been virally marketed for 200 years or so.  We all know about Beethoven and Mahler from books, teachers, movies, and so on.  That raises the profile of the music and helps sell tickets to concerts that program the music.

Other programming options for orchestral concert music, such as film music, have the backing of large marketing campaigns in other genres.  In other words, we all know about “The Lord of the Rings”, so when that music appears on a concert program, the previous marketing campaign by the film studio helps to sell tickets to the concert.

In general, new concert music by living composers does not have these benefits, lacking the 200-year history of a Beethoven symphony and the multi-million dollar marketing campaign of a major film studio.

Given that new concert music faces an inherent marketing disadvantage when compared to other programming possibilities, what can be done to overcome this disadvantage?

Many comments, thoughts and suggestions were posted in response.  Here are those thoughts aggregated, with a few of my own added:

Composers and Sweat Marketing

Composers should take an active approach to marketing themselves and their music.  In some cases, the composer can do such marketing entirely on their own.  In other cases, such marketing can be done in conjunction with a local orchestra, who would similarly benefit from the efforts.

I like to call this “sweat marketing”, borrowing from the business term “sweat equity”.  In business, “sweat equity” is an ownership stake in a company earned by putting in time and effort (rather than a financial investment).  Here, “sweat marketing” is the time and effort a composer puts into marketing his or her own music.

Some possibilities when getting involved with your local orchestra…

-  Pre-concert lectures.

-  Q&A or Meet the Composer sessions with the audience or orchestra donors.

-  Community outreach of any form, such as composition lessons with interested audience members.

Activities such as this can be a win-win situation.  They are a legitimate service to the community and your local orchestra, and they benefit the composer by raising the profile of that composer within the local community.  When a composer is not unknown, but rather “the guy who gave that riveting lecture on Mahler 5″, that can help to overcome the marketing disadvantages associated with new music.

Some online efforts a composer can engage in:

-  Create a website.  This can offer the world biographical information about the composer, text descriptions of the music written, audio samples of the music, and more.

-  Nurture social media communities.  Many folks simply prefer communicating via Facebook, Linkedin, etc.  If you don’t have a presence on those sites, then you don’t have access to those communities.

-  Offer a range of products, ranging from free to expensive material.  Recordings of your music, “Inside Look” interviews, notated scores, videos/animations with the music as the score, and so on.

Many readers commented with ideas along these lines.

“If we treat it like a product launch, we would immediately take a different approach,” noted Linda Dallimore.  “For example, explaining the concept of the piece, ensuring it gets reviewed and endorsed, making a blog or website about it, publicizing it on Facebook & Twitter, etc.”

Linda has clearly embraced the concept of sweat marketing.

“I’m writing a symphony about South America now,” she commented.  “And I realize once I’ve finished it that I’ll need to push it out there and market it creatively to attract an audience. So, I could do interviews on the inspiration and ideas behind it, potentially link up with a travel agency or related industry who also wants to promote South America, make a blog on South America and have snippets of the music embedded in it, invite classical music reviewers to listen to it live, post part of it on Facebook and invite friends to the concert, etc.”

Many commenters suggested the idea of using email and MP3s to promote a concert.

“Those who subscribe via email to a symphony could be sent a sample video or audio; give away a free mp3 of a new piece of music that is going to be played at the symphony,” noted Allison Huntley.

Another concept introduced in the comments was the idea of creating and nurturing a permission-based list of fans.  In essence, these are fans who have opted to receive content from a composer or orchestra.  Permission can be granted by joining a mailing list on a composer’s website or by becoming “Friends” in social networking environments such as Facebook.

“I think that one thing all musicians/composers need to do is to create and nurture their permission based list of fans,” commented Mike K.  “It’s important to think about creative ways to acquire contact info across all verticals, including email, social, physical addresses and more. Once you have this contact, the way in which you communicate is important, and providing engaging content (such as an inside look into what a composer/musician does) is important. I think targeting any marketing to super niche outlets makes sense too. Once you have a base of folks you can communicate with, you are adding value to the relationship, and you have a rhythm down with your communication, I think at that point it makes sense to monetize.”

Notably, the typical orchestral concert audience does skew a bit older, so their is a benefit to acquiring contact information that includes physical addresses.  This was noted by others as well.

“There are also probably a lot of older people that don’t have an email address and only get updates from a symphony via mail,” noted Allison Huntley.

“Borrow” from other Marketing Efforts

Several comments noted that we could benefit from the marketing advantages of the classics by programming new music and the classics in the same concert.

“People are attracted to classic composers or film music because that is what they know…  We can leverage that rather than fight it,” commented Anna.  “I think you can leverage this simply by including the classics as part of the concert. Do a mixture of classic and new.”

I certainly have attended many concerts that pair a short new work by a living composer with a longer work from the established repertoire.  In such situations, the marketing efforts typically focus on the established and well-known piece, but the new work still gets to be performed and heard.

Notably, this approach of “borrowed marketing” could extend to the concept of the music itself.  One example is the “Metropolis Symphony” by Michael Daugherty, which is a five-movement symphony based on the Superman Comics.  Another example is the “Titanic Symphony” by Richard Kastle, which is a four-movement symphony based on the story of the Titanic.

For these works, the underlying creative premise is the same as the underlying premise for a well-known film or story.  As such, the music tangentially benefits from the marketing campaigns of those projects.

Packaging of Concerts

Several ideas were proposed for packaging concerts.  In essence, this means promoting a concert as a “New Music” concert, “Living Composers” concert, “Local Composers” concert, or some other theme.

“Locally, one could coordinate with the local or regional symphony to have a concert series featuring local composers,” commented John.

Creating a theme can also be a way to connect a living composer with a classically known composer.  For instance, an orchestra in Pennsylvania could create a theme of “Pennsylvania Classical Music” to link a living composer from Pennsylvania to a well-known composer from the past (such as Samuel Barber).

For each of these possibilities, a composer or orchestra must assess whether the “theme” of the concert is a benefit or a hindrance.  It may be that a “New Music” concert simply won’t sell well in a particular community.

“A few weeks ago I was advertising a new modern music concert and found that as soon as you say ‘new’ or ‘modern’ that you get an instant response of NO from the general public,” commented Matthew Petrie.  “I have, however, found it does depend on where you live and if you have been brought up to newer music…  One long term way to try and help promote new music for the future could be to introduce this music to kids at a younger age.”

Several comments suggested taking advantage of the Internet and other venues to increase audience reach.  Several orchestras have begun initiatives such as webcasting, allowing them to reach audiences beyond the immediate physical area.  The Detroit Symphony Orchestra comes to mind as an orchestra offering free webcasts, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic has been transmitting live performances to movie theaters.

“The real issue is venue,” commented William K.  “The traditional concert hall is increasingly becoming obsolete. Composers need to look at other vehicles: online, video, internet.”

The Music Itself

Many comments were posted regarding the music itself.  These comments all boil down to a basic idea…  Compose music that people want to hear.  There is an implication in these comments that the contemporary music of the 20th century diverged from the taste of the average audience member.

“Forget about trying to sell the avant garde non-tonal music,” noted Dan.

From my personal experience, I would simply say that this is a very complicated topic.  Taste is something that is very personal and opinions vary wildly.  Composers can feel “caught in the middle”, having to balance the opinions of various stakeholders who don’t necessarily agree.

“In my opinion, today’s composers as a whole feel they need to incorporate modern-music techniques or risk being dismissed as trivial or hokey,” commented Jon Monteverde.  “I also think that to a certain extent, pushing emotional buttons in conventional ways has fallen out of favor in the orchestra outside of program music, to decreasing audience popularity.”

For this topic, I do not believe there is one simple answer, as opinions vary wildly from person to person and community to community.  However, I think we can all agree that music that takes into account the desires and expectations of the average audience member is easier to market, and that should please all involved.  For composers and orchestras alike, it’s beneficial to spend time defining the target audience and assessing the taste preferences of that group.

As the saying goes – when life hands you lemons, you make lemonade. And as we face the reality of the digital music business today, many are finding ways to make digital lemonade.  This is the first in a series of posts about creative thinking in music.

In the face of declining recorded music sales, we have to look hard at the opportunities for generating money in music and get creative. Most of the energy today in digital music investment is in streaming music, music discovery, ticketing, crowd funding and artist services. Businesses like Pandora, Spotify, Beats, Ticketfly, Soundcloud, Songkick and Indiegogo have received significant investments in recent years as investors chase profits in the music space.

Artist Income – Virtual Tours

But what about individual artists and musicians themselves? What can they do to increase their opportunities to profit from their art when it is becoming increasingly challenging to make a living as a musician. Live performance and merchandise have long been mainstays of any carefully crafted musical career. How are these revenue streams fairing in the digital economy? Live shows it would seem need to be experienced and therefore are harder to digitize and share, although some are trying to broadcast live events and take them to the digital sphere. Take Stageit and Liveset for example. Artists can broadcast their live shows and reach a global audience while performing in a studio, living room or other venue.

Like a virtual campfire, these technologies let fans and performers join together in virtual circles enjoying the music and getting up close with the artists. It remains to be seen how influential these attempts will be, but I expect that inevitably some form of digital broadcast of live events will take hold and be a profitable source of revenue. Afterall, in theory, this form of live event takes a lot of the cost out of the tour, makes the artist more accessible and is easy to promote using social media and email.

Artist Income – Involve your fans

The musician Beck is planning to release his next album in the form of sheet music and full color artwork. His thinking is that people can participate in the creation and performance of the songs in this truly interactive record release.  I think this is really smart and another feather in the cap of this truly creative artist/producer.  Why not sow the seeds of your music within your fan base, and see what they come up with?  Perhaps Beck’s genre lends itself to this kind of experimentation, but other artists can take a cue from him on a clever way to draw your fans closer to the action.

Beck’s latest album comes in a primative form—twenty songs existing only as individual pieces of sheet music, never before released or recorded. Complete with full color artwork for each song and a lavishly produced hardcover carrying case, Song Reader is an experiment in what an album can be at the end of 2012.  Beck is inviting his fans to record, mix and produce each track in their own way. If you want to hear “Do We? We Do,” or “Don’t Act Like Your Heart Isn’t Hard,” you will need to bring them to life yourself, by playing the music. It will be very interesting to see what the uptake is on this release when it becomes available in December.

There are already postings of these tracks appearing online such as this cover of “Do We, We Do” from Max Miller on Soundcloud.

Digital Sheet Music

The sheet music business is facing challenges like unlicensed tablature, free files and online video instruction that is making this old-school business look for new ways to monetize their songs. Notation sales have fallen off, though not nearly as rapidly as recording revenues. In this post from Create Digital Music, you can see the transformation of the print music business as it goes digital (as it has been doing for some time now). Sites like sheetmusicdirect.com, musicnotes.com and others are pioneering the distribution of digital sheet music.  Sites like lyricstore.com are taking music licensing into an entirely new direction by letting people create custom merchandise from their favorite song lyrics.

There is lots of room for making digital lemonade in the new music economy beyond iTunes, Pandora and Spotify.  In the coming weeks I will post more about online music education and a quiet revolution in music merchandising, both of which we will discover, are hotspots for growth and revenue creation in the fast moving world of digital music.

Leigh McLaren is a Senior Student Advisor at Berkleemusic.com. She has a bachelors in Music Business, and Masters in Higher Education. Leigh is a vocalist, who has concentrated primarily in Jazz and Musical Theater.

Music education is one of the most important forms of education. Which, I suppose, is obvious coming from me because I work at Berklee. However, it is not just me who stresses the importance of educating through music. Music has been known to help heal brain injuries with Therapeutic Music Interventions. Music has given troubled kids an outlet for their boredom, frustration, or even depression in school. It has also even proven to help students do better on their math tests. There are articles upon articles, and tons of research that state how music education is so important, and yet music educators often end up pushed against the wall trying to defend their programs so they do not get cut. People often fail to realize the significance of education through music, and how it can really make an impact.

Eight years ago, I had the opportunity to teach at a music camp in Newton, Massachusetts for 2 months, and that was one of the most amazing summers that I have ever had. Each week there would be a new set of kids who would spend the week learning different aspects of music; theory, history, performance, songwriting, etc. During that week the kids would break into bands, and write a complete song to perform for their parents on Friday. As you can imagine, some songs were better than others, but I have never seen kids ages 9-12 so focused on anything, as they would be when they were working on their song, or with their bands. You would see kids settle disagreements, teach each other different aspects of theory, and collaborate in a way that amazed me. I remember watching some of the performances at the end of the week, and being astounded at the discipline that students showed in a week.

That summer really showed me how important it is that kids, and adults have a musical outlet. To some people it’s playing in a band, to others it’s composing, and to few it’s studying, analyzing and breaking down the works of anyone from Beethoven, to John Cage.

So, as you, a “wanna be” music educator, struggle through that Music Theory 301 course, or that Harmony 2 course, just remember how important that it is to have that education, and be able to pass it along to the generation coming up behind you- or even next to you. Music has the ability to grow, challenge, and even repair the brain like nothing else does, so keep pushing through those courses, and pushing against those who doubt the value of music education.

-Leigh

“In every successful business…there is one budget line that never gets cut. It’s called ‘Product Development’ – and it’s the key to any company’s future growth. Music education is critical to the product development of this nation’s most important resource – our children.”
- John Sykes — President, VH1

Berkleemusic’s next term begins on September 24th, 2012.

Find out more at berkleemusic.com or contact a Student Advisor:

1-866-BERKLEE (USA) | +1 617 747 2146 (Intl) | advisors@berkleemusic.com

Notation software can be a big time saver if you have a file with notation entered and you would like to generate chord symbols above the notes. This post focuses on the options for creating chord symbols from notation in Finale 2012 and Sibelius 7.

Let’s start with a piano piece by Eric Satie, the “Gymnopédie No. 1″ and see how each of the options work.  If you want to play with this in your software, download and import the MIDI file: Gymnopédie no 1.

Finale 2012 – Creating or Realizing Chord Symbols from Notation

There are a couple of options for realizing chord symbols from notation in Finale:  one at a time or by selecting a passage or an entire score.

1. One Chord at a time
- Choose the Chord Tool
- from the Chord menu choose either one-staff, two-staff, or all staff analysis.  In this example, either two staff or all staff analysis will generate good results.
- Click on the top note of the treble staff where you want Finale to guess the chord text. Continue clicking any place where you want a chord added. You can edit the chords as needed

2. An entire passage or piece at once using the Plug-in
- Choose the Selection Tool
- Select the passage where you want chord text added (this can be one or more bars or the entire piece. Include all of the staves you want to analyze using click and shift-click.
- Select Plug-ins > Scoring and Arranging > Chord Analysis

- Make your choices in the Chord Analysis window and chord symbols will be added to the score. You can then edit them with the chord tool and add additional chord symbols as needed.

- Click OK and Finale will add the chord text. It might not always be the way you want it, so you will have to edit the chords using the Chord Tool.

Both of these options have their advantages. After the chords are entered they can be manually edited via the chord tool.

Sibelius 6 & 7 – Creating or Realizing Chord Symbols from Notation

In Sibelius 6 & 7 there is a Realize Chord Symbols option. This can be applied to any selection of notes and it can include multiple staves.

1. Press Esc. so nothing is selected.
2. Use click and shift-click to select a specific passage. You can select a single staff, two staves or many staves.
3. Sibelius 7:  Choose Text > Chord Symbols > Add from Notes.
Sibelius 6: Choose Plug-ins > Chords > Add Chord Symbols

4. Make the selection from the Plug-in window.  You can then edit the chord symbols as needed after they are entered.

5. You can then edit the chord text as needed.

Notation software is all about saving time entering notation. Sometimes, it can speed up the process significantly.

Books about music can be described in roughly a half dozen or so categories. While there’s some crossover between them, thinking about these categories in their “pure” form can be helpful, both for writers honing what they are creating and for teachers/readers in determining what’s the most useful type of book for the current need.

The categories, as I see them:

1. Discursive texts. Discursive text books describe a body of information in depth. They tend to present theories and concepts, point to resources, and sometimes, offer directed assignments and practice opportunities. These books often make good textbooks for courses, sometimes correlating with lectures, in terms of content, and often providing greater depth, offering extended examples of case studies, diagrams, and other supplementary material. Berklee Press books of this type include Music Marketing (by Mike King), Your Singing Voice (by Jeannie Gagné), The Practical Jazz Guitarist (by Mark White), and Understanding Audio (by Dan Thompson).
2. Methods. A method book is generally understood to be a series of structured lessons, calibrated to a curriculum. They are like discursive texts, but rather than exhaustively describing a subject, they give guided instruction, bringing the reader/student from one level of fairly closely defined competency to another. They tend to be more hands-on than discursive texts, and with shorter chunks of information and more opportunities for practice. Whereas a discursive text may expand on a lecture, a method more or less is the lecture, and the exercises or practice examples are more of the focus. There tends to be a consistent, structured teaching approach for each lesson, such as presenting some theory, some practice examples, and then applying it to an etude. Berklee Press methods include A Modern Method for Guitar (by William Leavitt), The Berklee Practice Method: Get Your Band Together (by a large author team of Berklee Faculty members), and Solo Jazz Piano (by Neil Olmstead).
3. Exercise/Etude books. An exercise or etude book has less text than a method and includes technical exercises to help develop specific dimension of skill, such as ability to read rhythms or memorize scales or develop speed throughout an instrument’s range. Exercises tend to be more short, focused drills, whereas etudes are more like practice pieces of actual music that were composed to demonstrate or teach a specific technique or concept. You’d never perform an exercise, but you might perform an etude (particularly by, say, Chopin or Liszt). These books are intended to support studies with a course, private teacher, or another pedagogical object, such as a book or video. Berklee Press exercise books include Drum Studies (by David Vose), Vocal Workouts for the Contemporary Singer (by Anne Peckham; this is a companion to her Contemporary Singer), and Reading Contemporary Electric Bass by Rich Appleman.
4. Songbooks/Scores/Sheet Music. Some publications simply provide the notation for well-known music so that the reader can perform them. Berklee Press tends not to publish many of these in their purest form, as our mission is more to provide instruction. Those that we do publish tend to have technical introductions to each piece of music, with guidance into how to perform them and what to notice about them. They are curated in a way that has pedagogical value, such as building in complexity or exploring different dimensions of some type of performance practice. Some Berklee Press songbooks include Berklee Blues Guitar Songbook (by Mike Williams), Famous Saxophone Solos in R&B/Funk (by Jeff Harrington), and two songbooks supplementing the Modern Method for Guitar: one of rock tunes (curated by Scotty Johnson) and one of jazz tunes (curated by Larry Baione).
5. References. A reference book is arranged like a dictionary or encyclopedia, intended to be used to look up specific information rather than intended to be read cover to cover. Their priority is information arranged for easy access. Berklee Press examples include the Berklee Rock (and Jazz) Guitar Chord Dictionary (by Rick Peckham), and Music Notation (by Mark McGrain).
6. Edu-tainment. Some books are designed more to be interesting reads than actual calculated teaching devices, though they sometimes are useful supplements (often optional) to programs of study. These might include collections of interviews, photographs, or inspiring quotes. Berklee Press books in this category include Music Smarts (by Mr. Bonzai), Masters of Music (by Mark Small and Andrew Taylor), and Mix Masters (by Maureen Droney).
7. Stationery. Some publications are intended as stationery, to be filled in:  blank manuscript paper, notebooks, practice log books, and so on. In the distant past, Berklee Press published some of this, and you might see some of it still kicking around, but we don’t currently have any available. The advent of the personal computer and printer pretty much put the kibosh on this market for us. It’s included here for the sake of completeness.

Many publications straddle multiple categories. I think most books benefit by some kind of hands-on directed practice, and a textual introduction never hurt a practical application of anything. Many books have glossaries of terms, like a mini reference section. The Contemporary Singer (by Anne Peckham) is a discursive text that then also includes a lot of practice exercises, and even some sample songs to learn. DVDs are often hybrids of discursive text and methods, like master classes devoted to very specific subject areas, but with very procedural technical demonstrations that echo the method approach. Berklee Press DVDs include Creative Improvisation for Drum Set (by Yoron Israel), the DVD that supports William Leavitt’s A Modern Method for Guitar Vol. 1 (by Larry Baione), and the DVD supporting Contemporary Piano Technique (by Stephany Tiernan).

So, we’re not sticklers for keeping purity of category, over here. However, it is helpful to understand how a book can/could/should/will be used, in order to optimize it for that purpose.

I’m working with Dave Kusek to update his Future of Music online course. One of the topics that we are covering in the update is effective funding techniques, from traditional options to newer options, such as fan funding using platforms like Kickstarter, PledgeMusic, and others.

We’ve interviewed a crew of new folks for these updates including some of my favorite musicians – Erin McKeown and Rachael Yamagata. I also interviewed Benji Rogers, who is the CEO of PledgeMusic.

Check out part of the interview I did with Benji, where he talks about the shared characteristics of successful campaigns launched on PledgeMusic.

There are two new books for Finale and Sibelius users. The books are specifically written for Sibelius 7 and Finale 2012. If you are looking for some guidance, then these texts may be a help to you. Check out the Amazon Links to see what others are saying about the texts.

Sibelius

The text Sibelius: A Comprehensize Guide to Music Notation, Second Edition I co-authored with Vince Leonard, is in its second edition and is best for Sibelius 6 users.  You can read more about it in my 2011 blog post when the new edition came out in 2011. Amazon usually has the most discounted price.

If you are a Sibelius 7 user,  I recommend Sibelius 7 Music Notation Essentials by James Humberstone.  The book is well organized and also includes links to Media so you can check out videos and demos done by the author. Check out the information and reviews on Amazon. In my online Berkleemusic  course,  Music Notation Using Sibelius, I recommend this book for Sibelius 7 users.

Finale 2012

The Third Edition of  Finale: An Easy Guide to Music Notation that I co-authored with Vince Leonard is now available. It was edited by Jonathan Feist, who is the author and instructor for the Berkleemusic course: Music Notation Using Finale.  The text has been revised and updated to include the new features introduced in Finale through version 2012.  There is a companion website where you can check out one of the chapters of the book and other files to make using the book more efficient www.finalebook.com. Check out the reviews and other information on Amazon.

Sheet music cabinets are about the worst possible way to store sheet music I can imagine. Well, maybe an operating fishtank would be worse, but as paper storage furniture goes, sheet music cabinets are pretty awful. It’s no wonder that pianos wind up piled high with music, method books, and half-eaten lead sheet. Why? Because if we were to return an item back into the music cabinet, it is likely that we would never find it again.

The reason sheet music cabinets are unusable is because drawers only let you see the top document, and even then, only if you pull the drawer all the way out.  Sheet music is typically sold in racks that cover up the bottom two thirds, and so we publishers set the titles high on the page. But that is the opposite of what you want in your drawer, where you can only see the bottom, unless you open it all the way. And to find something lower in the stack, you have to dig. You might have to completely empty the drawer, to find a missing chart. And some of these cabinets have many, many drawers, perhaps in subconscious acknowledgement that they are beginning at a deficit, in terms of organizational design. Really, how the heck are you supposed to find anything in this gorgeous monstrosity?

I disparage music cabinet design with some sadness, because many very beautiful antique sheet music cabinets exist, made in the days when wood was made out of wood, unlike nearly anything being manufactured now. Many lovely pieces date from the early 1900s, when commercial sheet music publishing was booming, and everyone had a piano or organ in their living room. Beautifully crafted music cabinets, made of mahogany or rosewood or cherry, often inlaid  with intricate designs or graced with ornate carvings, fit right into the décor, between the Steinway and the chaise longue. It’s difficult to dislike them.

From a practical standpoint, though, music cabinets are grotesquely less convenient than file cabinets, which only became popular around 1950, when document duplication technology came into more widespread reach, and we all started becoming overrun with paper. By then, though, traditions in large-format sheet music were already entrenched, and musicians’ habits were to store them in their cabinets’ drawers, perhaps where they were more likely to stay flat and not develop the tendency to curl (particularly inconvenient on music stands). The document duplication craze was based on different paper sizes, as were their supporting furnishings, which further discouraged us from adopting the modern conveniences that those in more corporate circles were benefiting from.

Musicians became accustomed to suffering with their inconvenient but beautiful sheet music cabinets—perhaps, a good metaphor for our lives generally. It’s what our teacher used, so by golly, we’ll use one too. But file cabinets are infinitely better at storing documents for later retrieval. Open the drawer and the folder labels all face you. Beethoven sonatas are nicely located under B, and Duke Ellington piano/vocal arrangements are under E (or perhaps by song title, if you like). They are not in, oh, the third or fourth drawer, a third or so of the way down. They are not inside your piano bench (perhaps, a rare item that is even worse at storing sheet music than your music cabinet).

In a file cabinet, all is easily alphabetical.  Vertical files have paper-width drawers that come out towards you.  Lateral files have the papers oriented sideways, which is more efficient in terms of storage, but also sometimes awkward, depending on your room setup. Bookshelves are best for books, because they let you see the titles on the spines. That said, you can also put sheet music books in a file cabinet, spine facing up. It might make the most sense to just do that and keep all your music together. Then, you can keep additional paper along with your books, and if they all look ratty, they are hidden away nicely in a drawer, rather than cluttering up your fancy living room.

Inconveniently, sheet music tends to measure 9 x 12, whereas file cabinets are either designed for letter (8.5 x 11) or legal (8.5 x 14). You might be able to fit it into either sized drawer, though it might be tight, depending on the design.  The interior drawer dimensions aren’t standard, so you have to try it. Maybe it will be high enough.

The big trouble with file cabinets is that they tend to look awful, particularly the ones to be found at the ubiquitous big-box office supply stores. You have to search to find a nice one, and look again to find with quality hardware to make the overladen drawers slide nicely for more than a few months. Someday, when my ship comes in, I’m going to spring for something handmade, by an actual woodworker. Maybe one of these Amish babies. Isn’t this lovely?

Or to dream even higher, I’ll have something custom-built by my favorite furniture maker, The Windsor Chairmaker.

Until then, I have to hope that a really nice old music cabinet doesn’t somehow come my way, and tempt me to bring yet another object into my life that I know, in my heart of hearts, is a bad idea.

I was reviewing this fascinating data from Mary Meeker over the weekend again, and thought I would share it. Meeker, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers describes what she calls “the re-imagination of nearly everything” powered by mobile and social. For example: News outlets are reimagined on Twitter, note-taking is reimagined on Evernote, scrapbooking is reimagined on Pinterest and music purchasing is reimagined as listening.

Meeker also traces out the story of the mismatch between mobile growth and mobile monetization, pulling together numbers and analysis of one of the biggest weaknesses in today’s Internet industry.

And she gives some context to the state of the global economy. Here’s the full slide presentation:

KPCB Internet Trends 2012

Mark Hopkins is a Student Advisor at Berkleemusic.com. He finished his studies at Berklee College of Music, as a Guitarist/Songwriting Major, in 2009. Mark is a regular gigging musician who has toured extensively and released 6 albums in the past 10 years. You can hear some of Mark’s music at www.markhopkinsmusic.com.

Howdy Folks!

As a regular gigging musician I often get flooded with questions from other guitarists about what amps, effects and guitars I use. As an advisor I get into a lot of the same conversations on the phone with other guitarist (mostly about what guitars I recommend they buy) whether they be seasoned professionals, amateurs or hobbyists. My goal in this blog is to inform you of my 22 year guitar hunt, which I hope will help you find your next perfect instrument.

As a kid you don’t know anything about guitars, pickups, amps, effects etc… So you deal with the hand you are dealt – not to mention you have no income as a 7th grader so you don’t get the right to be picky. I had no intentions to learn the guitar and then on my 10th birthday my parents presented me with a red Yamaha electric. It sat in my room for a year staring me down every day saying “learn me you fool” – so finally, a year later, I started private guitar lessons…. I am so glad I did because it has turned into a life long passion. I digress. That guitar had a cool configuration: 2 single coils (1 in the neck the other in the middle position) and a humbucker in the bridge. I liked that guitar because it gave me the best of both worlds (strat/les paul) although I did not know it at the time. I still have it – yet it has not seen any stage time in decades.

Soon after starting lessons I discovered Jimmy Page and was in awe of his sheer rock mystique. I was totally hypnotized by his old flame top Les Paul’s! I intensely lusted after a Les Paul, so I saved up some money from odd jobs and birthdays and bought a Black Les Paul Studio with chrome hardware in 1993! I loved that guitar; it was pure rock n’ roll and I recorded two albums with it. At that point in my career (if you could even call it that cuz I was still in high school) I didn’t appreciate that guitar enough or understand it’s legacy and tonal capabilities, which leads me to events that would follow. While recording the 2nd record I used one of the studio’s Fender Stratocasters on a tune that I thought needed more spank and twang and I fell in love! Up until that point I had never played a Strat and it was like the instrument was made for my hands. Sadly I sold the Les Paul – but gained an American Standard Strat , which has been with me since my early college years.

After the Strat everything snowballed! My obsession with guitars, amps and tone has only become more potent with my maturing career and currently I have guitars for any occasion: 2 Fender Strats, 1 King Bee Telecaster (they rule, it’s my current #1 www.kingbeeguitars.com, 1 Ibanez Hollowbody for the Jazz stuff, 1 Epiphone SG tuned to open E for slide guitar and a Taylor 714 CE for the acoustic gigs. Here’s some pics of my current six strings:

Strat 1

Strat 2

King Bee

Ibanez

Epiphone

Taylor

You might be asking – where is this blog going? Well, I agree with you, but I guess that’s the point. It’s a constant evolution of preferences. Here are a few things I think might prove helpful for those of you on the guitar prowl considering my experience:

1. My first suggestion to any player is this; play 100 guitars before you make a decision. With every guitar I bought, I played countless before I settled on one. As cheesy as it sounds, the guitar will choose you. They are all different so try not to choose one just because you like the color. You will know when the “one” shreds into your life. Make sure the neck feels comfortable and that your arms/wrists don’t feel fatigued or in pain after clanging away for a bit.

2. Don’t feel intimidated when you walk into a guitar shop. Some salesman can be lame and snobby so no matter what guitar you can afford just tell them you will find them if you need help. Take your time and don’t feel rushed – this is an investment and you need to make the decision that is right for you. Oh and it’s okay to leave the shop empty handed.

3. Think about what music you listen to and what type of music you want to play. That will help you choose the right kind of pick up configuration. I am primarily a single coil type dude, but love having a couple other guitars with humbuckers when I need that tone. Keep in mind if you love the feel of a guitar but aren’t blown away by the pickups that you can always swap pickups – that can make all the difference in the world!

4. There are many schools of thought when it comes to finger boards ie Maple vs. Rosewood. Some say Maple is brighter and Rosewood has a warmer/darker sound – honestly I think it just comes down to what feels better to you. There is no reason to get caught up in that debate when purchasing an instrument. I have always preferred rosewood boards to maple because of the way they play, not for how they sound (which is not even that much different if at all). It’s in your hands folks so that’s the best judge as you move from guitar to guitar.

5. Play the guitar through an amp that you think you might be purchasing or already have. That will give you a good indication of how your amp and hands react with the new guitar; which in turn will help make your decision that much easier. If the shop does not carry your particular amplifier – bring yours! It’s your investment, you should be happy with the decision.

I really hope that helps you guys find the axe you’re looking for! As guitarists, we’ll always be buying and selling our instruments.- it’s the nature of the poor musician. I like all of the guitar flavors and hope to explore every option before I leave this earth…it’s just plain fun!

Happy hunting and I hope you find the guitar that melts your face.

Stay Classy Berkleemusic,

Mark

www.markhopkinsmusic.com

Want to take your guitar chops to the next level? Check out our guitar courses and certificates.

Berkleemusic’s next term begins on September 24th, 2012.

Find out more at berkleemusic.com or contact a Student Advisor:

1-866-BERKLEE (USA) | +1 617 747 2146 (Intl) | advisors@berkleemusic.com

Hi everyone,

In an earlier post I illustrated a technique for creating musical source material using your name or some other important words as a source. Today I’d like to take that a step further and show how we can take two 12-note sources (known as “rows”), restrict each row to a specific key and then create some music.

We will now look at how the technique of Diatonic Restriction is used in an actual song. The name of the song is What If, composed by myself. Example
1 below illustrates several things. First of all, it shows us two different rows being used as source material. These 12-note groups of
pitches are labeled Rows 1 and 2, located on lines one and 3. Secondly, we can see that each one of these 12 – note rows has been restricted, in order
of appearance, to two smaller 7 – note rows that conform to the key of Db Major (or Bb Minor). These are located on lines two and four. Finally, the last
line places both restricted groups, in order of appearance, into the key signature of Db Major. In the last line, we can also observe that each 7-note
group is going to be assigned its own function. The newly restricted Row 1 will be used as a source of melody notes for a section of the song.
Conversely, Row 2 will provide the foundation for harmonic motion (where the chord changes will occur) and what the bass note will be.

"What If" Source Material

In my next post I will apply these newly restricted sources to an actual song.

Until then, keep writing!

Jerry