There are 2 great sources of help built right into the program Live. This video will show you where they are.

Help in live

The info menu has been getting more useful in recent upgrades, now you can add your own custom info text for clips, tracks, chains, and device presets. Just right click and choose Edit info Text. It is great for jotting down important production notes.Much of the Live library content includes helpful notes on how to use the presets, so open the info view once in a while, you just may learn something.

The built in lessons are excellent and will get you going with all the main features of the program. If you don’t have any lessons, then you need to download them from the ableton site. Either download the whole live program or look for the lessons livepack.

Also included in your computer is the Live manual as a pdf, it is well put together and a pretty easy read.

Online, check out the official Ableton youtube channel and support at Ableton.com.

Make music, have fun,

L-Don

I created the song L-DonBlog0ne on a Wednesday.  I gave myself 2 rules when I start out creating the piece:

Must be done by the time I go to bed.
Must use only things in the Live library.

I broke the second rule, but only a little.

Here is the mp3:

L-DonBlogOne audio

Over the next couple weeks I will be breaking down my compositional process, the techniques used to create each of the elements, and how I went about performing and mixing the piece. You are free to download it, the best way to learn is to explore and experiment.

I had a blast creating this piece.  I used keymappping, follow actions, multiband compressors, sidechaining, and a vocoder. I recorded the basic bassline and groove,  then created a series of variations. I improvised brass licks to separate clips to be launched at will. The piece was played into the arrange view as one improvisation, using only keymappings. Then the mixing and sweetening, and finally the strange vocal at the beginning, I got caught up in the moment and couldn’t help myself!

L-DonBlog0ne is my gift to you. It is yours to do whatever you like with and I am providing  a live pack of the project, You will need Live 8 suite to open it.

L-DonBlogOneALP

I’ll see you next time to break down the bass part in L-DonBlog0ne and talk a little about the famous TB-303.

Make music.  Have fun.
-L-Don

Hello and welcome,

For the last 6 years I have been rebuilding an old farmhouse, tearing out plaster and putting up sheetrock, cutting out rotted sills and putting in pressure treated lumber. One of the most important lessons I have learned from the process; Use the right tool for the job. Don’t hammer a screw.  For me, Live is the creative music tool.

The process of creation is personal, different for everybody. Even so, for most composers performing an instrument is an important part of their creation process. From the beginning Live has been a performance tool, an instrument. Because it is an instrument, Live makes an excellent compositional tool.

There are, of course, differences. My bass is always ready for me to play, but I have to build a live set before I can perform it. Live can be configured in an uncountable number of ways, my bass always has 4 strings.  The infinite variability of the program is its strength, but it can be overwhelming. Creation is easier within limits, and Live offers too many options to consider them all at once.

I think the most important thing about an instrument is that it is immediate. When I pluck a string I hear the sound with no discernable delay. Mapping is the process of taking a real world knob, fader, button, or key, and controlling something in the program. It brings immediacy to the computer.  Over the next couple weeks we will be looking at how to make an instrument out of a computer. After that, who knows. A delay is typical, but controlling the delay time and feedback with two knobs is just outside of ordinary, and very fun. Creation is easier when you’re smiling.

On occasion, software can be a source of inspiration. This blog is about creativity and creative exploration.  It is about creating situations that promote the happy accident, serendipity. It is about the creative process.

Make music. Have fun.
-L-Don

As some of you likely know, I love orchestral music. For me personally, this manifests itself in several ways…

First, I love going to orchestral concerts. Hearing the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Disney Hall, the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Symphony Hall, and so on.

Second, my personal music collection is packed with orchestral recordings. I’d say 75% of my personal music collection is orchestral recordings, either concert or film music.

Third, I analyze every orchestral score that I can get my hands on. Not to be overdramatic, but everything that humans know about writing for orchestra can be found in the repertoire of orchestral scores. On its own, each individual score is a window into the mind of a particular composer. Taken as a whole, the full collection of orchestral scores represents the complete body of human knowledge regarding orchestral composition.

While we can no longer study with the likes of Beethoven, Mahler, Tchaikovsky or Stravinsky or chat with them over coffee, we can study their scores. Their scores are a detailed documentation of their knowledge, talent and emotional perspective…and these guys were really, really good.

Fourth, I personally strive to incorporate the orchestra in my studio and recordings. This can entail recording large ensembles, overdubbing single instrumentalists, incorporating samples or a mixture of all of the above. Certainly, such possibilities have expanded and evolved significantly in recent years…and are likely to continue doing so into the future.

In this blog, I primarily plan to explore points three and four above – score analysis and orchestral music production. In some posts, I will look at a basic musical idea followed by the fully orchestrated passage and discuss how the composer got from A to B. In others, I will take a look at a computer file or a specific technical challenge and discuss ways to improve the sound.

I hope that you will find each informative and that you’ll be able to improve the quality of both your ideas and your recordings.

As I look back through my life as an electric guitarist I see many milestones and turning points. It seems that my musical journey of discovery has taken me to many new and exciting places. I have been lucky to meet, perform, study and confer with many great guitarists (and am honored to say some of them are my colleagues on the faculty here at Berklee College of Music…)

Through my travels through the diverse landscape of the all-strings-electric gene pool, there has been one common constant:
the phenomenon of the universal quest what we call for good electric guitar tone.

I have shared the same tone-centric conversations  with beginners, pros and even members of the general audience who are not even guitarists. Regardless of  your level of musicianship, no-one can deny that we are all peers on this amazing journey of tonal discovery. When it comes to tone, anyone who plays electric guitar is your friend, advisor, mentor, therapist, guiding light.

I remember in my teens I started out with a solid state electric guitar amp and a Fender Mustang later to be upgraded to a Gibson Marauder. The MXR Phase 90 was a heavenly essential and always traveled in the original box. That was it for a rig and accessories for quite a few years. I eventually upgraded to two amps, adding the mighty Fender Twin…and an assortment of pedals between them…some stereo and some just, well, pretty looking. Guitar tonal life was simple (read: ignorant) and therefore relatively blissful. Turning up louder or adding “more” seemed to be the solution for lack of clarity issues.

One eye-opener was transcribing the solos of my idols. Even if I could accomplish the melodic sequence in precise detail, after long, I was convinced I would never be able to bring across the sonic emotion of the solo without somehow cracking the tonal combination. The next step was, of course, to acquire gear identical to the artist in question. That, of course never worked. We all played through relatively similar amplification back then, Fender, Acoustic, Ampeg. There were not many choices. But somehow everyone’s tone was recognizably different even if we played the same model, one serial number apart. Those who were lucky enough to purchase an amp previously owned by (blank) still could not crack the code.

Flash forward to current times. By today’s electric guitar standards, the 70’s were simple. 2009: with so many guitarists playing through so many of the same amps today, using the same boutique pedals, with the same true bypass switching, attached with the same high quality lifetime patch cables with the same noise free power supplies, one might ask “why is there even something called a Quest for Tone?” The acronym G.A.S stands for Gear Acquisition Syndrome. This affectionate moniker might be thus described: The final piece of gear preventing us from attaining our tonal creative zenith of expression must be acquired at all costs!

Guitarists have the highest rate of transmission of this syndrome. All it takes it exposure to a good concert featuring a guitarist who sounds good. If you have read this far, you know the rest of the story and the bills that come at the end of the month as a result.

So I will share some of my thoughts on this quest for tone. I think, in the process of writing this, I might even find enlightenment.  I also promise I will not say “It is all in the fingers”…but…you might.

In my online course Funk and R&B Guitar, we explore the concept of tone. One revealing experiment that we demonstrate in the course is the topic of “attack” which I will touch on in an upcoming post. If you take away the first second of the attack of a note played on any instrument, it is often very difficult to determine what that instrument is and certainly impossible to identify who played it.

So we might conclude that good guitar tone is defined less by the sustain of the note, than it is by the attack. We have all heard our favorite guitarists at some point playing through amplification that might not be part of their usual set-up. However, even blindfolded, we would still determine their signature style, not just by the sequence of notes played but (even after one or two notes) by their tone (or maybe “attack”?). So in this blog we will try to explore some of these tonal mysteries. I think we might find that part of the mystery of the science of the “signature sound” comes from the fact that there are many different ways of attack to get a guitar string vibrating, and they all sound completely different. Then there is the infinite number of combinations of these attack devices that becomes what is defined as a signature sound. Then, of course there is the amp..then the guitar, then the pickups, then the pedals…then the room…etc etc. I will share my thoughts on all of these areas with the hope of providing some insight or inspiration.

I will be posting links to interesting videos with each post. Stuff I find enlightening or inspiring with respect to the ongoing discussion.

Here is the VIDEO OF THE WEEK:

Here is a link to an amazing performance by Robben Ford back when he was in the Yellowjackets. The solo is over the Monmouth College Fight Song. Robben is one the most tasteful users of tonal expression. His tone has certainly evolved through the years, even if one thing remained constant; his use of Alexander Dumble’s Overdrive Special Amplifiers. We will also explore some of this “Dumble” phenomenon that has spawned a huge industry of clone amps and pedals (fueled of course by the Quest for Tone).

CJ Vanston is one of the most gifted and diversified musicians I have met in my Hollywood decades.  He’s a composer, keyboardist, bandleader, engineer, producer, and he also knows where to find the best restaurants.

This year, Spinal Tap re-recorded their entire first album, This Is Spinal Tap, with additional new songs and a DVD, at The Village in Los Angeles, with Vanston producing and ace engineer Ed Cherney recording what must be one of the most anticipated juggernauts of comedy music mayhem ever conceived!  Back From the Dead is coming out June 16, 2009.

*************************

Pictured (L-R) are CJ Vanston, David St. Hubbins, Nigel Tufnel, and Derek Smalls.

********************
BONZAI: What do you do for Spinal Tap?
VANSTON: I have multiple functions with Tap, ranging from being their producer, keyboard player, musical director, photographer and archivist, etc. I also find Chinese restaurants in each city that still use MSG. Hard to find these days, but the boys love their MSG.

**********************
BONZAI: How do you get that huge Spinal Tap sound?
VANSTON: Well, we cut everything to 2-inch analog at +9. Which is fine. But the trick is this: engineer Ed Cherney and I transfer everything to ProTools and back to get that modern, hashy sound that the kids are used to with their MP3s and such.  Most of the old guys are out of touch with the quality of recorded music these days and make the mistake of making things too warm and rich. We live in a harsh world these days, and I believe the sound of the band should reflect that.

*************************

Much more of this interview, as well as a chat with the members of Tap will appear in the June issue of Mix magazine.  We’ll also have a short filmed interview with Vanston and the Tap.  Stay tuned for details.

You can enjoy another excerpt from the interview at   www.MrBonzai.com

When Guitar Player magazine needed new lessons for their readers, they turned to Berkleemusic’s Thaddeus Hogarth, author and instructor of Funk and R&B Guitar.

Check out Thaddeus’ first lesson, “Expanded Harmony in Pentatonics,” from the July issue of Guitar Player, on newstands now.

Download Thaddeus’ lesson here.

It’s an old argument:

Do lyrics matter?

Of course, producers, beat-makers, composers, and illiterate A&R weasels (there are more than a few) are lined up on one side, arguing that music is all about the groove, the feel, or the melody, and that nobody really pays any attention to the lyrics. On the other side, there are the lyricists, quietly muttering "Yea well, tell that to Bob Dylan" under their breath.

Sometimes it’s hard to know the truth. Certainly, there are plenty of tracks that succeed more on the basis of the drum pattern than the rhyme scheme, and instances where the melody is a lot deeper emotionally than anything in the verses of the lyric. But when you’re in a publishing or an A&R position, you usually find yourself paying more attention to the lyric than anything else, when it comes to deciding whether or not a song is special enough to stand out.

Here’s my theory:

Lyrics matter if you make them matter. I think a listener decides within the first few lines of the song, and then reconsiders about three lines into the chorus, whether this is a lyric to which it’s worth paying attention. If you grab the listener with the first few lines of the verse, or if you hit him or her with a brilliant concept in the hook line of the chorus, then the listener will stick with you and try to follow the story in the song. Conversely, if you open with a trite predictable line, and the chorus does nothing to grab attention lyrically, then the listener will conclude that this lyric is not important, and will focus attention on something else– the melody, the rhythm, the production gimmicks, or the prospect of a quick ending to the song.

Without question, the importance of lyrics rests somewhat on the genre– rock and singer/songwriter audiences (and critics) attach a great deal of importance to lyrics, but also tolerate a lot of ambiguity; dance audiences don’t care much, and demand something that is at least somewhat congruous with the activity of dancing and sweating and generally going off your head. Country music is extremely lyric-centered, as is hip-hop, while teen pop tends to be focused on the melody. Sometimes, the worst thing you can do is misread your audience, and try to inject lyrical messages or sophistication where it doesn’t belong, or offer up simplicity and directness, when the crowd is waiting for something clever and profound.

The key point is that lyrics don’t have to insightful, brilliant, poetic or even wildly clever in order to be effective. But THEY DO MATTER, more than most listeners even know. The crucial functions of lyrics are to (a)grab attention (b) provide a catchy or memorable “concept” for the song (c) define the “persona” or “point of view” of the artist singing the lyric (d) establish a comfort zone for the listener, by giving them something that they can relate to, in a language they understand. If a lyric does that, a lyric can make a song a hit– even if it’s not going to win any awards for poetry or perceptive insights. Look at “My Life Would Suck Without You”, “I Kissed A Girl”, “Lips of an Angel”, “I Love College” or “Birthday Sex”. There is nothing musically that sets those songs far apart from the competition. Those songs succeed largely because the lyrics perfectly perform all four functions.

Interestingly, lyrics are also becoming a big business. For the first time, the music industry is actually cracking down on illegal lyric sites on the internet, in an effort to drive fans to the legitimate sites, which do pay royalties for the right to reprint. More importantly, lyrics are being reprinted in books, greeting cards, board games and even clothing. A recent Billboard article featured a new apparel company, Lyric Culture, that sells everything from floor-length dresses emblazoned with lyrics from John Lennon's "Give Peace A Chance" to tank tops with Madonna's "Material Girl" in hot pink lettering. The company has licensing deals with all of the major publishers. Writers and publishers are paid a royalty based on the wholesale price for each item. This kind of deal, or a one-time upfront fee for smaller ventures, is relatively typical of most products that use lyrical reprints.

If publishers could all get together and offer one piece of advice to songwriters, I’m quite sure that the most likely instruction would be this:

Don’t “settle” when it comes to lyrics.

Don’t decide to go with a typical or predictable title, a ho-hum concept, an idea that doesn’t add anything to the persona of the artist, or language that doesn’t ring true to the audience for whom you’re writing, just because “it sings well” or “it feels right” or “nobody pays attention to the words, anyway”. Lyrics matter if you make them matter. And if you make them matter enough, people will not only pay attention– they’ll pay money, to have them printed on the internet, or in a coffee-table book, or in a greeting card, or on the back of their jeans.

Bruce Houghton posted a positive view about the music business at Midemnet that I think paints a realistic picture about our short-term future. Its a good read and uplifting.

It’s like chocolate-covered pretzels. While I wouldn’t consider myself a chocoholic, I like a good Ghirardelli chocolate bar every now and then, and I can’t resist those little chocolate mint candies that the Campfire Girls sell. In the same way, if you put a bowl of pretzels in front of me while I’m watching a game on TV, I won’t make a big fuss over it. Still, don’t expect there to be many left when you come back a few minutes later. It’s the idea of putting the two together. Chocolate-covered pretzels? I just never quite understood it.

I’ve always felt rather the same way about musical theater. Love straight theater– I’ve done some acting, and have even written several plays that have been done in New York. At the same time, I’ve spent my life working with music. But I’ll admit it– I never cared much for putting the two together. “Guys and Dolls”, “West Side Story”, and “Anything Goes”– those I can’t resist. But the whole concept of people bursting into song in mid-conversation? It just didn’t work for me. We all have our blind spots.

However… my eyes opened recently. In fact, they opened very, very wide when I read the recent news that Imagem Music, a relatively new publishing venture backed by a massive Dutch pension fund, had just purchased the rights to the Rodgers and Hammerstein catalog, as well as the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization, which represents works by some of the greatest names in musical theater history (as if Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein weren’t enough) including Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Kurt Weill and Andrew Lloyd Webber. The price tag? No one is saying for sure, but the estimates are between $225 and 250 million dollars. And you thought Broadway tickets were expensive.

In fact, I’m starting to readjust my point of view about musical theater. Days after the news of the R&H catalog sale broke, I had several other deals cross my desk based on musical theater projects, and I started to notice: compared to the pop music business, musical theater (Broadway) looks relatively healthy. Of course, it’s true that the Broadway audience can be quite conservative in its tastes and a bit older and less dynamic than the Williamsburg hipster crowd. And the odds of success on Broadway are daunting, even for the most proven creative team (witness “Young Frankenstein”).

Nevertheless, dynamic new musicals like “Spring Awakening” (by my good friend Steven Sater!) or “title of show” (shout out to Jeff Bowen & Hunter Bell, and Comden & Green!) have helped to open up new audiences and turn back the graying of the theater crowd, while revivals of things like “Hair” and “West Side Story” have shown how timeless the great musical theater pieces really are. At the same time, musical theater programs are booming on college campuses around the country, ensuring a whole new audience in upcoming generations. Things like “High School Musical” don’t hurt either– spinning off stage shows, soundtracks, summer camps, and merchandise galore.

The truth is, there’s a lot of money in musical theater, and much of it is safe from all of the file-swapping and pirating issues that plague other elements of the music industry. Unfortunately, it’s not always easy to understand how publishing works when it comes to Broadway musicals. In fact, I’m still kind of figuring it out myself. It means re-learning some of what you may have known about publishing in the past, because the rights involved are slightly different than those in the pop music industry. Fundamentally, there are four primary rights involved in a musical theater piece– these are foundations of your income as a composer, or the publisher of a composer (or lyricist):

Grand Rights: These are the rights that apply to a whole musical theater play, in its entirety. “The Sound of Music”, “Oklahoma” or “South Pacific” (that Rodgers and Hammerstein had some pretty big hits in their day), when performed as an entire stage play with the full collection of songs, requires permission from the entity that controls the “grand rights”– and that permission is granted on the basis of a share in the weekly box office income. While the percentage can vary, generally around 6% percent of the box office receipts goes to the songwriters. For a hit Broadway show, that could be somewhere between $500,000 and a million dollars a year. These “grand” rights are usually not directly controlled by the songwriters, but rather by the production company that funded and therefore “owns” the show. In order to perform any dramatic version of any play or musical, the theater company, whether it’s a high school or a Broadway producer, must obtain permission from the owners of the grand rights (and must pay the owners an upfront fee or percentage of the box office).

Dramatic Rights: While the “grand” rights apply to the entire show, the “dramatic” rights apply to an individual song, used in a theatrical production. In other words, if you sing “My Favorite Things” within a production of “The Sound of Music”, the use is covered by the “grand” rights. On the other hand, if you sing “My Favorite Things” as part of a theatrical production that is NOT “The Sound of Music” but say, a tribute to Rodgers and Hammerstein, then the use is covered by the “dramatic” rights. These are the rights to use an individual song in a new musical theater production (for which the song was not originally composed). Unlike the “grand rights”, the “dramatic rights” are controlled by the songwriters and /or their publishers, rather than the producer of the original musical show. To use a song in a revue, or in a show that is not the one for which the song was originally written, the producers of the new show must obtain a license for the “dramatic” use, which like sync licenses, is negotiated on a case by case basis, depending on the prominence of the song, its’ use in the show, and the potential audience for the show.

Performance Rights: While the “grand” and “dramatic” rights provide the basis to perform the songs in the show, the performance rights organizations continue to collect payments anytime songs from the show are used on television, on the radio, in piano bars (imagine what “Memory” from “Cats” has done in that venue), or in concert halls.

Mechanical Rights: These are the rights with which you are probably familiar, as they are traditionally the most important rights for publishers on the pop music side of the business. In the theater world, mechanical rights don’t have much significance initially, as the first ‘cast album’ recording is usually part of the “grand” rights, and doesn’t fall under the usual .091 cents per song mechanical royalty rate. On the other hand, if a song from the musical is re-recorded and released by a pop star, or as part of a collection of songs, then it would require a mechanical license and would earn the standard royalty.

If you’re wondering how all that adds up, try this math: Variety magazine estimated the cash flow of the Rodgers and Hammerstein catalog and the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization at $17 million per year. That’s some serious “Dough-Re-Mi”. More impressively, it’s been doing that (or better) for a long, long time. For example, “South Pacific” dates all the way back to 1949, and just received a new hit revival in 2008. The great works of musical theater are unquestionably some of the most enduring American entertainment ever created. They’re simply part of our national culture.

I remember the first time someone convinced me to try a chocolate-covered pretzel. It wasn’t nearly as strange as I expected. In fact, after a couple of them, I began to see how the saltiness of the pretzel kind of enhanced the sweetness of the chocolate. Maybe it’s like that with musical theater. I always thought that the music got in the way of the dramatic moments in a play. Two lovers are about to embrace… and suddenly there’s a cast of thousands onstage and everyone is singing and tap dancing. Or I felt that the drama got in the way of the music, with all kind of wordy exposition set to rhymes, then crammed into the verse of a song that seemed to never reach the chorus.

But then every now and then you have those moments, “Some Enchanted Evening” or “Someday” or “On the Street Where You Live”, where the two elements come together, and you have to admit that neither dialog nor music alone could have gotten you to that particular emotional place. When it all comes together, you start to understand the excitement that kept Rodgers and Hammerstein or Cole Porter writing show after show.

So if you’ve got show tunes in you, it might not be a bad time to start developing a musical theater project. Don’t think it will be easy–ask Paul Simon about the challenges of mounting a Broadway show. Having had the great opportunity to work with lyricists like Stephen Sater and Don Black, I’ve seen the long road involved in getting a production from a read-through to a workshop to a staging to a regional debut to an off-Bway theater to the Great White Way, and the frustrations that are inevitable parts of the “committee” approach to theatrical productions. (For more info, check out “Title of Show”).

But in case you haven’t heard, live performance is now the best bet in the entertainment biz– you can’t download it, or share it, or copy it. So eight sold-out shows a week at $100 a seat looks pretty good these days, especially if, like Rodgers and Hammerstein, you can keep on doing that for six or seven decades. No wonder they call ‘em “grand” rights. Just thinking about it almost makes you want to burst into song…

Greetings from Hollywood, Entertainment Capital of the World.  I actually live right under the HOLLYWOOD sign, which used to read: HOLLYWOODLAND, before the “LAND” fell down after repeated earthquakes.  It is the world’s first themed residential community and believe me, this city really rocks.  This week I’d like you to check out this BonzFire film we shot for you students in the virtual Berkleemusic classrooms.  Music was composed and recorded by one of your fellow students.  Everybody loves a winner…

Robin Goodchild, a Commercial Music Production graduate of England’s University of Manchester, and apprentice audio engineer at Ocean Way recording studios in Hollywood, recently completed his first online course with Berkleemusic, Music Theory 101.

“I was surprised at how much I learned—by the end of the course my confidence had grown immensely,” Robin says. “Music Theory crops up in everything that I do, and if I had known about this course a few years ago I think I would be a lot further along by now.”

Hollywood’s famed Ocean Way houses some of the best sounding large live rooms ever built. Constructed in 1958, the studios have been the site of an astonishing number of classic hit records which have sold in excess of a billion copies worldwide.

To view the film, click HERE.

More from Gerd Leonhard as he once again attempts to predict the future. While many people scoff at those who try and look ahead and light the paths for the rest of us, Gerd is actually quite good at it. Here is a glimpse into his mind and some trends he suggests for the rest of the decade.

1 — We will soon see the emergence of many different kinds of iPhone-influenced Netbook-like devices; some will be Apple-made but most will not. These devices may be 2-3 times the size of an iPhone and will connect to the Internet in every conceivable way, i.e. 3G/4G, LTE, Wimax, Wifi etc. They will be touchscreen, zoom-interface enabled, cloud-computing, speech-controlled, location-aware, mobile-money equipped, socially hyper-networked, always-everywhere-on, HD-camera equipped and possibly project images and audio or even support basic holography.

In addition to the high-end, fully-loaded and perhaps still rather expensive versions that many of us in the so-called developed countries will gobble up, low cost and more basic editions for the developing markets will be sold in the 100s of millions (think India, China, Indonesia…). These smart gadgets will have very low energy consumption and therefore extremely long battery life, may even sport basic solar-power options, and may ultimately cost less than 30 USD, or even be ‘free’ (why bother to sell the box if you can make a lot more $ with selling services…. Nokia?).

It is these mass-market yet very smart and networked devices, together with cheap or free wireless broadband that will really revolutionize reading, newspapers, books and education; not to mention our music, TV and film consumption habits. Content commerce will be completely redefined as a consequence. As BTO told us a loooong time ago: “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet”

2 — Very cheap or free wireless broadband - at fairly high speeds, i.e. at least 2MB / sec - will be available in most places, particularly in the booming new economies of Asia, India, Russia and South-America, and a bit later, in Africa. Funded by the likes of Google and by the future ‘telemedia’ conglomerates, governments, cities and states, wireless broadband will probably reach 3-4 out of 5 people on the globe within 5-8 years. User-generated & derived content (UGDC for those of you that must have an acronym ;), virtual co-production, mobile editing and instant network sharing will explode by a factor of 1000, making control of distribution a very distant concept of the past. UGC or UGDC may make up to 50% of the global content consumption by 2015. Consumers will be (co)-creators, marketers, sellers and buyers, and come in a hundred variations, from totally passive to totally active. Then, indeed, filtering, culling and curation will be the key to success.

3 — Collective blanket licenses that legalize and unlock legitimate access to basic content services via any digital network will emerge, and are likely to take over as the primary way of content consumption, around the world (but in Asia, first). Just like water or electricity which is readily available when moving into a new home, the basic access to content will be bundled into access to digital networks, i.e. via ISPs, operators, telecoms, portals etc. This shift is starting with music (as already done by TDC in Denmark, and Google in China), and will be quickly followed by films, TV, books and newspapers. Access may often - but in local variations - ‘feel like free’ to the user but will in fact generate 10s of Billions of $$ via blanket licensing fees (yes… those pools of money), next-generation advertising and branding, data-mining & sharing, up-selling, re-packaging and many other new generatives. This topic will, btw, be the gist of my RSA presentation tomorrow - if you can’t be there in person, you may want to listen to the live audio, via this link.

I think that governments around the world will call for and / or support the implementation of collective content licenses that wil finally legalize content usage on the Internet, similar to how governments pushed for the radio and broadcasting licenses approx. 100 years ago. Whether these blanket licenses will be voluntary or compulsory remains to be seen - in any case the only alternative is to perpetuate a severely dysfunctional telemedia ecosystem that criminalizes almost all users and stifles innovation while generating virtually zero new revenues for the creators.

4 — Fuel-cells and other next-generation mobile energy sources are a certainty. A serious increase in mobile device power (and therefore, its use) will be achieved by employing next-generation technologies such as fuel cells that could provide for up to 500x the usage time that we have today. This is likely to become a reality in 3-5 years and will revolutionize how we use - and how much we rely on - our mobile devices, especially in countries where there the fixed-line power infrastructure is much less developed or non-existent.

5 — Completely targeted and personalized advertising, delivered largely on totally customized mobile computing & communication devices, will turn the the $ 1 Trillion USD advertising and marketing services economy upside down. Behavioral targeting and user-controlled advertising will, of course, become an even hotter potato and a much discussed challenge, but the good old deal of ‘I give you attention & personal data and you give me value e.g. content’ will be even more pronounced on the Net. In fact, advertising as we knew it is already more or less outmoded and will, during the next 2-3 years, be completely reinvented. Privacy and Trust are the #1 issues here.

The implication is that if your data (within your specific sets of permissions and opt-ins) is used to bring you perfectly synchronized advertising, than advertising really becomes more like content, too. Watch this play out in the mobile advertising space, starting this year, and quite possible boost the global value of advertising-content by more than 100% by 2015. Google will be the main driver here, plus Facebook, Nokia and yes… Twitter (soon to be = Google).

6 — We will witness the more or less complete decline of most forms of physical media within 7-10 years. The very definition - and thus the core economic business models - of newspapers, magazines, CDs, DVDs and books will be completely re-written, and new forms of content packaging will rapidly emerge. We can already see a preview of how this may work in the current mobile applications boom: content as part of software packages; paying for the packaging, the curation, the bundling, the personalization - not just for the zeros and ones that are ‘the copy’. This trend is important not just because it will reflect the users’ (or better… followers’) new consumption habits but also because because of the increasing need to save energy and material costs - and moving from content products to content services will certainly go a long way in this regard. The total decline of printing in people’s homes, and for personal use, will commence, as well.

7 — Paying for privacy will become a distinct option. Today we pay to go online and connect; in the future we may end up paying for the luxury to go offline, disconnect, enjoy the quiet, and give our brain some rest. Maybe if we don’t want to share our click-trails and usage data, we will be able to make cash payments instead - and the more you pay, the more private you can be..?

8 — Travel 2.0: alternatives to ‘actually going there’ will explode: immersive, 3D video, virtual rooms, holography. This is a key development that will nurture new forms of entrepreneurship, education and group working.

Read more from Gerd Leonhard here.

At first glance, the density of a notation page immediately impresses a reader about how difficult the music will be to play. Lots of ink close together is intimidating. Neatly spread out and easy-to-read notation seems more accessible. This relationship, though, is often actually at odds with the reality of the music’s difficulty. Simple music might be presented in ways that make it seem more difficult than it really is.

Which example strikes you as easier to read?

Example 1. Do This

Example 2. Don’t Do This!

At first glance, I would bet that example 1 looks easier to you. You might notice that example 2 is actually the same notes, but at double the rhythmic duration. The other differences are due to layout choices.

Here are ten tips for making your notation easier to read.

1. Omit redundant and unnecessary notation. Most of the time, you only need elements such as repeat ending brackets, measure numbers, and style/tempo indications set one time, above the top staff of a multi-instrument score. Default placement in some software is often on every staff, but this makes the page cluttered. Hide whatever isn’t necessary. Above, note that I moved the instrument names to the page header, from the default, which is in the left margin. Sure, at the left makes sense for large-ensemble scores, but when it is obvious who is playing what, you can get away with putting instrument names in the header.

2. Make sure that no notation elements touch each other. When two notation elements collide, both become illegible. It’s better not to have them there at all. Everything needs white space surrounding it. Keep a bit of space between lyric verses—half the font height, or so. Raise your repeat endings to fit chord symbols. Make sure that measure numbers aren’t touching slurs, chord symbols, clefs, and such. Similarly, make sure that there is no confusion with similar symbols such as numerals on fingerings, measure numbers, and tuplets.

3. Consider your rhythmic subdivisions and your time signature. If you are using lots of 16th notes or 32nd notes and no whole notes, you might be able to make the score more legible by doubling all the durations and then doubling the tempo. This reduces the amount of beaming, which can make the notation much friendlier. Sometimes, it really makes more sense to use 12/8 instead of 4/4 with a lot of triplets. Even 3/4 might be a better option than either of these, in some cases.

4. Reduce the general notation size. This proportionally makes the staves, notes, expressions, and so on all a bit smaller, while retaining the system margins, and thus increases white space surrounding all notation elements. In Finale, one way to do this is via Page Layout > Page Size.

5. Adjust spacing between staves and systems. This is especially important when you have elements such as lyrics, chord symbols, and repeat endings. Look for dead space on the page, and expand into it. Ideally, you should have a distance of about two staves between staves, sometimes more. Sometimes, you need to take space from between the systems and give it to the staves, or vice versa.

6. Adjust the number of measures per system. If there are lyrics and sixteenth notes, you might even have just two bars per line. Reducing this from the default can help a lot.

7. Choose clean and simple fonts. The Jazz font family and others that imitate handwritten notation are ultimately more cluttered than simpler, more classic fonts, such as Maestro. Save the handwriting ones for doing notation designs on coffee mugs and T-shirts, where the goal is to be cute rather than legible.

8. Omit corners. Angles catch the eye and thus increase clutter. You can often remove them, such as by removing the left-hand hook from a first ending bracket, or omitting boxes around measure numbers.

9. Align objects neatly. Indenting the top system margin, as in example 2, unnecessarily adds to the complexity of the page; it introduces an angle by having that system uneven with the others. Confirm that text elements are aligned neatly, logically positioned at margins or some other anchor, rather than floating freely in space, such as the composer name in example 2. Keep measure numbers at the same height. If they are slightly off alignment, or unnecessarily encroaching into another notation element’s rightful space, it is like introducing additional angles onto the page.

10. After you’ve done the preceding steps, you can fine tune with some of the notation spacing tools, such as the various utilities, the Measure tool’s beat adjustment boxes, and last resort, the Special Tools.

Generally, consider whether each notation element or design decision is really necessary, and then yank it or simplify it if it isn’t.

The goal of notation is always legibility for your reader. They will feel more comfortable with your scores if you try to make them as clear as possible, and ultimately, this can lead to better performances of your music.

Kevin Kelly has written extensively on the need to create value around digital copies in order to create the revenue opportunities that are falling away every day for digital media. Here is an excerpt from his great essay “Better Than Free”.

Eight Generatives Better Than Free

Immediacy – Sooner or later you can find a free copy of whatever you want, but getting a copy delivered to your inbox the moment it is released — or even better, produced — by its creators is a generative asset. Many people go to movie theaters to see films on the opening night, where they will pay a hefty price to see a film that later will be available for free, or almost free, via rental or download. Hardcover books command a premium for their immediacy, disguised as a harder cover. First in line often commands an extra price for the same good. As a sellable quality, immediacy has many levels, including access to beta versions. Fans are brought into the generative process itself. Beta versions are often de-valued because they are incomplete, but they also possess generative qualities that can be sold. Immediacy is a relative term, which is why it is generative. It has to fit with the product and the audience. A blog has a different sense of time than a movie, or a car. But immediacy can be found in any media.

Personalization — A generic version of a concert recording may be free, but if you want a copy that has been tweaked to sound perfect in your particular living room — as if it were preformed in your room — you may be willing to pay a lot. The free copy of a book can be custom edited by the publishers to reflect your own previous reading background. A free movie you buy may be cut to reflect the rating you desire (no violence, dirty language okay). Aspirin is free, but aspirin tailored to your DNA is very expensive. As many have noted, personalization requires an ongoing conversation between the creator and consumer, artist and fan, producer and user. It is deeply generative because it is iterative and time consuming. You can’t copy the personalization that a relationship represents. Marketers call that “stickiness” because it means both sides of the relationship are stuck (invested) in this generative asset, and will be reluctant to switch and start over.

Interpretation — As the old joke goes: software, free. The manual, $10,000. But it’s no joke. A couple of high profile companies, like Red Hat, Apache, and others make their living doing exactly that. They provide paid support for free software. The copy of code, being mere bits, is free — and becomes valuable to you only through the support and guidance. I suspect a lot of genetic information will go this route. Right now getting your copy of your DNA is very expensive, but soon it won’t be. In fact, soon pharmaceutical companies will PAY you to get your genes sequence. So the copy of your sequence will be free, but the interpretation of what it means, what you can do about it, and how to use it — the manual for your genes so to speak — will be expensive.

Authenticity — You might be able to grab a key software application for free, but even if you don’t need a manual, you might like to be sure it is bug free, reliable, and warranted. You’ll pay for authenticity. There are nearly an infinite number of variations of the Grateful Dead jams around; buying an authentic version from the band itself will ensure you get the one you wanted. Or that it was indeed actually performed by the Dead. Artists have dealt with this problem for a long time. Graphic reproductions such as photographs and lithographs often come with the artist’s stamp of authenticity — a signature — to raise the price of the copy. Digital watermarks and other signature technology will not work as copy-protection schemes (copies are super-conducting liquids, remember?) but they can serve up the generative quality of authenticity for those who care.

Accessibility — Ownership often sucks. You have to keep your things tidy, up-to-date, and in the case of digital material, backed up. And in this mobile world, you have to carry it along with you. Many people, me included, will be happy to have others tend our “possessions” by subscribing to them. We’ll pay Acme Digital Warehouse to serve us any musical tune in the world, when and where we want it, as well as any movie, photo (ours or other photographers). Ditto for books and blogs. Acme backs everything up, pays the creators, and delivers us our desires. We can sip it from our phones, PDAs, laptops, big screens from where-ever. The fact that most of this material will be available free, if we want to tend it, back it up, keep adding to it, and organize it, will be less and less appealing as time goes on.

Embodiment — At its core the digital copy is without a body. You can take a free copy of a work and throw it on a screen. But perhaps you’d like to see it in hi-res on a huge screen? Maybe in 3D? PDFs are fine, but sometimes it is delicious to have the same words printed on bright white cottony paper, bound in leather. Feels so good. What about dwelling in your favorite (free) game with 35 others in the same room? There is no end to greater embodiment. Sure, the hi-res of today — which may draw ticket holders to a big theater — may migrate to your home theater tomorrow, but there will always be new insanely great display technology that consumers won’t have. Laser projection, holographic display, the holodeck itself! And nothing gets embodied as much as music in a live performance, with real bodies. The music is free; the bodily performance expensive. This formula is quickly becoming a common one for not only musicians, but even authors. The book is free; the bodily talk is expensive.

Patronage — It is my belief that audiences WANT to pay creators. Fans like to reward artists, musicians, authors and the like with the tokens of their appreciation, because it allows them to connect. But they will only pay if it is very easy to do, a reasonable amount, and they feel certain the money will directly benefit the creators. Radiohead’s recent high-profile experiment in letting fans pay them whatever they wished for a free copy is an excellent illustration of the power of patronage. The elusive, intangible connection that flows between appreciative fans and the artist is worth something. In Radiohead’s case it was about $5 per download. There are many other examples of the audience paying simply because it feels good.

Findability — Where as the previous generative qualities reside within creative digital works, findability is an asset that occurs at a higher level in the aggregate of many works. A zero price does not help direct attention to a work, and in fact may sometimes hinder it. But no matter what its price, a work has no value unless it is seen; unfound masterpieces are worthless. When there are millions of books, millions of songs, millions of films, millions of applications, millions of everything requesting our attention — and most of it free — being found is valuable.

The giant aggregators such as Amazon and Netflix make their living in part by helping the audience find works they love. They bring out the good news of the “long tail” phenomenon, which we all know, connects niche audiences with niche productions. But sadly, the long tail is only good news for the giant aggregators, and larger mid-level aggregators such as publishers, studios, and labels. The “long tail” is only lukewarm news to creators themselves. But since findability can really only happen at the systems level, creators need aggregators. This is why publishers, studios, and labels (PSL)will never disappear. They are not needed for distribution of the copies (the internet machine does that). Rather the PSL are needed for the distribution of the users’ attention back to the works. From an ocean of possibilities the PSL find, nurture and refine the work of creators that they believe fans will connect with. Other intermediates such as critics and reviewers also channel attention. Fans rely on this multi-level apparatus of findability to discover the works of worth out of the zillions produced. There is money to be made (indirectly for the creatives) by finding talent. For many years the paper publication TV Guide made more money than all of the 3 major TV networks it “guided” combined. The magazine guided and pointed viewers to the good stuff on the tube that week. Stuff, it is worth noting, that was free to the viewers. There is little doubt that besides the mega-aggregators, in the world of the free many PDLs will make money selling findability — in addition to the other generative qualities.

These eight qualities require a new skill set. Success in the free-copy world is not derived from the skills of distribution since the Great Copy Machine in the Sky takes care of that. Nor are legal skills surrounding Intellectual Property and Copyright very useful anymore. Nor are the skills of hoarding and scarcity. Rather, these new eight generatives demand an understanding of how abundance breeds a sharing mindset, how generosity is a business model, how vital it has become to cultivate and nurture qualities that can’t be replicated with a click of the mouse.

In short, the money in this networked economy does not follow the path of the copies. Rather it follows the path of attention, and attention has its own circuits.

Read more from Kevin Kelly here.

Another post from my co-author Gerd Leonhard.

“What are the new, web-native, social & inter-connected business models that will power the future of content creators and their industries?

In 2008, the disruptive force of the Internet finally hit home, and - as is usually the case - it all came much later than we had estimated but the disruption was also much bigger than expected. A quick look at some trends in this context:

* Newspaper revenues are seriously down (25% in some cases); and magazines and other print media are severely challenged, as well
* Digital music revenues are still going up, overall, but very very very far from enough to stop the free-fall of the recorded music industry, in general (approx 20%, globally, would be my estimate for 2008) *pennies for $$, see below
* DVD sales are declining, worldwide, prices are falling, too - and this will only accelerate next year
* Online video views and audiences are up a lot - but so far pretty much everybody has trouble making any real money with online video

“My hunch is that the Internet may well - and soon - bring us an utterly scary reduction of traditional content models that is somewhere in the neighborhood of 1:5, i.e. if you keep relying on the old ‘disconnected’ content revenues models you may eventually see only 1/5th of the financial returns that you had before. This could vary by industry, location and context, of course, but I would dare say that if you stick to your old models the future will be bleak, either way - and this goes for the actual creators but even much more so for the businesses that are build around them.

To me, the bottom line is that most of what used to work just fine in a disconnected world of ‘totally segregated consumers and producers’ will simply not work in the future.

This is why I think 2009 will be year of:

* Totally exploding consumer / user / fan / listener / viewer empowerment (yes, you ain’t seen nothing yet - wait until 2 Billion + people are wirelessly connected via increasingly smart and easy-to-use mobile devices)
* Re-inventing content commerce (such as: charge for access… not just units, bundle content into access, freemium etc)
* Re-evaluating copyright as that sacrosanct, sole, principal, or even main driver of revenue - the solution for what I like to call ‘digital payment-refusal’ aka piracy is not a technological issue but a business problem
* Re-inventing advertising (since new kinds of advertising will no doubt be one of the future drivers of content commerce, as well)
* Getting the telecoms and network operators aboard - for they can’t make it work without content, either!

I do have a hunch that this old Chinese proverb holds a part of the solution: “Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand.”

Read the whole thing from Gerd Leonhard here.

Here is an excellent post by Gerd Leonhard that is well worth repeating.

“We are indeed heading into a future of Attention Revenues exceeding Copy Revenues - and I am talking within 3-4 years here, and probably much sooner in Asia where ’selling copies’ has never been the #1 money maker for content creators.

A Future where all kinds of attention-based revenues (i.e. not just advertising-as-we-knew-it but revenue sharing of flat-rate offerings, next-generation ‘2.0′ advertising, up-stream selling and marketing, sponsorships and branding, linking and referring, etc) will very likely surpass copy & unit-sales revenues. A Future where many content creators of all kinds, in all locations, and within all levels of accomplishment will make more money based on what their brand stands for, based on their fans aka users having real, meaningful experiences with or through them, and based on who pays attention to them, when and where.

Selling enough copies of one’s work (whether physical or digital, whether books, songs, movies, software or games) to make this the sole pillar of one’s livelihood has in reality always been reserved to those very few creators that are at the top of the heap (i.e. not in the so-called longtail or even the body). And of course, being hit-driven, the companies that have marketed those that can sell millions of copies globally are the ones who will have the most to lose in the short term and during this paradigm switch-over - Hollywood’s latest disaster movies are not going to be themost-watched movies in India, China and Brazil in the future, anymore.

In our immediate future as content creators and companies that serve them, it’s all about gathering and converting Attention - at least until the world is so well-served with feels-like-free content in return for attention that physical copies become desirable again (and they will).

Most musicians and songwriters will make more money with performance-related activities (i.e. concerts, web-casts, life-streams, on-demand and regular Radio, TV, synchronization, sound branding, music in public spaces, etc) then with selling copies of songs or albums. In fact, in less than 3-4 years it probably won’t matter anymore whether it’s deemed a copy or a stream since all content will be available in the network cloud, anyway, and it will be Access that counts, not if it’s a copy or copy - at least if you’re not a recording industry lawyer. We are already seeing this trend if we look at the steadily increasing revenues of public performance organizations (such as ASCAP, BMI, BUMA etc) while observing the rest of the recorded industry’s unit-selling revenues (and so-called mechanical revenues) heading for the vaporizer.

Of course, most book authors (and there are increasingly many - with an estimated 3000 new books published per day) already know that the real money in writing books is not in selling them. Instead - just like with free / open-source software creators - it’s in the increased reputation, in the bolstered credibility, in the enhanced public perception where the income is: book authors get hired to speak, ask to sit on boards of companies, join academic organizations, advise governments, provide input on film and TV productions, and so on. While nothing new, this is a nice example for the rising importance of the Attention Economy: a lot more people can now become their own publishers and can have a go at becoming Author-Brands; the gates are now wide open to either prove yourself or be demolished by your peers (yes… it does work both ways).

The likes of Twitter, Friendfeed, Google, Amazon and Youtube have now given all of us a fairly reliable way of checking what a writer’s reputation and buzz is - and faking it will become nearly impossible to do. The reality is, of course, that 99% of book authors have nowhere to go but up: their revenues from unit sales never did amount to a meaningful income, anyway, so if Attention Revenues are the way forward… it’s all up from here.

Film-makers and TV/Video producers have a lot to gain from this switch to attention-based revenues, as well, even though high production costs will be initially hard to justify for small, niche audience productions - as many web-based TV startups have found out, there is no real money in the long-tail TV/video market yet; mostly because only 3% of the world is on broadband at this time, and those that are are paying too much for it (imho). But let’s keep in mind that public performance (i.e. showings) of motion pictures, TV shows and videos have always generated a very large part of the cash that came in: box office revenues are, after all, nothing but performance i.e. converted attention-based revenues — selling the experience not the copy. And as this won’t change in the future, the movie industry still has a real leg up on the music business.

So let’s take a look how creators (and even their representatives) can turn attention into real cash:

* Public Performance (whether in person or through an increasing choice of media)
* Contributions to other productions (contract work, licenses, remixes etc)
* Endorsements by sponsors and brands (that’s pretty much how the music industry in China does it)
* Referring, linking and connecting to others (generating affiliate and referral fees)
* Lending Credibility and adding value by their participation (events, campaigns etc)
* Generating an increasing number of new up-stream revenues - once you have attention there are many ways to upsell your users to the next level of engagement!

Read the whole post from Gerd Leonhard here.

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that one of the principle difficulties in songwriting is the isolation that comes along with the gig– and a number of people weighed in on the blog to second that emotion. It’s just too easy to hole up in your studio and shut out the rest of the world. Of course, the danger is that it’s the rest of the world, those people outside of your own four walls, who you’re hoping will actually buy your music. Once in a while, it helps to know what they think.

The truth is, it’s not just the physical isolation that takes its toll on songwriters. It’s the mental isolation: the difficulty of ever being able to step outside of yourself and hear your music as it sounds to others. As I point out again and again in my book on music publishing, Making Music Make Money, one of the most important functions a publisher plays for a songwriter is to be the sounding board that provides an alternate perspective to a writer’s new work. The job of a music publisher is not unlike that of an editor to an author. Any writer needs a certain amount of feedback in order to reach his or her potential.

But what if you are your own publisher? How do you bring a new set of ears to a song that you’ve just spent a week writing and recording and listening to over and over again? That’s trickier, and admittedly, it’s never quite as effective as getting an outsider’s view. But sometimes it helps to have a framework for listening– a way to force yourself to observe the big picture that matters to a casual listener or an industry A&R person, rather than the fine details that become the focus when you’re writing and producing. For this, I offer one suggestion– try this one out on your latest masterpiece. Admittedly, you might not agree with all of my suggestions or standards. But if you’re in the music business and listen to demos everyday, you start to develop a pretty clear picture of what’s important in a song and where most songs tend to go wrong. With allowances then for a certain subjectivity and gut instinct that is part of the process, I offer you:

The Song Quality Checklist

(This should be fun, huh?)

1. Does the title sound like a “hit”?

Real “hit” songs have hit titles—interesting, provocative, funny, and unique. “Genie In A Bottle”, “U + Ur Hand”, “Pass The Courvoisier”, “Sk8r Boy” – these titles stand out.

2. Is there a concept for the song?

Most songs miss the mark because the core idea of the song is simply not very compelling. “I Kissed A Girl” is an idea for a song. So is “If I Were a Boy”. Too many songs are not really about anything, or at least not anything very interesting.

3. Is the lyric effective? Appropriate? Convincing? Singable? Cliché free?

Do the lyrics of a pop song really matter? Yes! The words have to sing comfortably. They have to say something that a singer would want to express. Most importantly, they have to say it in a way that hasn’t been said a thousand times before. Stock rhymes like “fire” and “desire” or trite, predictable metaphors drive A&R people nuts.

4. Is the song structured correctly? Is there a natural build and release within the song structure?

There are endless ways to structure a song, but only about three that actually work. Song structure works on basic principles: use the best parts more than once, don’t take too long to get to the best parts, and have at least one section that comes as a bit of a surprise.

5. Does the arrangement serve the song? Does it enhance the song?

On almost any classic record of any style, there is some sort of instrumental hook built into the arrangement of the song—the bass line in “Billie Jean”, the string lines of “Yesterday”, or the guitar riff of “Johnny B. Goode”. If you can’t find the instrumental hook in your song, then the song isn’t done.

6. Is the tempo right? Does the song drag?

You never really understand the importance of getting the tempo right until you play your song in front of someone. Suddenly, everything seems to be in slow motion. The best advice is to push the tempo up to the breaking point and then pull back just slightly from that.

7. Is the production of the demo “dynamic” and “in your face”?

The impact of music is not just emotional or intellectual. It’s also physical. If you don’t know what I mean, crank a little Nine Inch Nails on your stereo. Drums and bass should be a physical force that literally pushes the music along. Don’t be timid. Try to blow those weasels out of their chairs.

8. Does the demo fit clearly into one specific genre? Is that the appropriate genre for the song?

If you want to place your song, you have to figure out where it could fit in the giant puzzle of the music industry—and then make sure that it fits there. What type of artist would sing the lyric? How young or old would the artist need to be? What rhythmic feel works for the melody? Everything else can be adjusted to make sure the song is appropriate for a specific genre.

9. Does the song have the potential for mass appeal? Is it the right size?

Too many songwriters create lovely little songs: a melancholy little lyric, with a tiny, subtle hook buried at the end of each little chorus, with a lot of little chords and a melody in a little six or seven note range. Pop hits tend to be BIG, GRANDIOSE ANTHEMS TO BE PLAYED IN BIG ARENAS FOR BIG CROWDS. That’s why they’re big hits.

Challenging, eh? As I said, it’s never easy to be objective about your own work, and even with an outline like the one above, the tendency to minimize your song’s weaknesses (they all have ‘em) or, for many of the less-confident, to obsess over supposed flaws is tough to overcome. Of course, the easiest solution is to try things out on an audience. It’s amazing how clear things can become as soon as your song gets that first public airing.

Unfortunately, many songwriters find themselves living in places where an audience is not easy to find, especially an audience that would be the right one for that particular style of song. Or a songwriter may not be a performer, and may not have access to someone who could perform the song for him or her. So here’s one more solution–one that just became available, and that you might find it worthwhile to check out:

Alien Music Demo Submission

Alien Demo Critique is a new service offered by my buddy
Danny Zook

at Alien Music. Danny is an industry veteran– he’s the General Manager of Cee-Lo Green’s Radiculture Records and God Given Music Publishing and the President of Alien Music Services, which clears samples and handles publishing and administration on a wide variety of releases. Danny has worked with artists and producers ranging from Dallas Austin to Jasper Cameron to new Nashville act, Bombshel. Even better, he’s also a musician and songwriter. Danny unveiled his new service, Alien Demo Critique, at SXSW this year. If you’re looking for an outside opinion on your music, I can’t think of a more valuable or informed opinion than Danny’s. Give it a try…

This guy is always so over the top, but he delivers the message.

“What happens when the labels stop paying an advance?

You know that’s gonna happen. With such limited revenue from recorded music, no one’s going to pay you a fortune to make it. There’s no incentive. Live Nation might pay you a fortune to TOUR, but who, in their right mind, is going to pay you a few hundred k when the only thing selling is singles? Hell, not one album released this year has yet gone PLATINUM! Do you expect Universal to be ponying up millions of dollars in the future?

Don’t be surprised if the major labels morph into management companies. In a way, they already have. That’s what a 360 deal is. That’s what the manager has ALWAYS had, a share in all revenue streams. You only get paid if there’s success. Are the majors going to follow this paradigm?

Of course, there could be a bidding war, generating large advances, but Live Nation/Ticketmaster is always going to win that one. Until the majors merge with a touring company, they’re fucked, they just don’t have enough to offer, their costs are too high, their margins too thin. If I were a major, I’d be calling Jerry and Arny, maybe even Seth right now. After calling Phil Anschutz, of course. In order to survive, labels have to play in the touring arena.

But the foregoing is all about money. Don’t you realize that’s what the album was about, money? That’s how you got paid, by delivering an album. Of course the public didn’t know this, but this was the game for eons. Sure, the Beatles made a STATEMENT with “Sgt. Pepper”, but Capitol was more interested in the revenue. Selling 33’s was much more profitable than selling 45’s. And the high-priced/low royalty CD was even more of a moneymaker than the LP record. That’s how we got here. Pure greed, not artistry.

If you want to record a full-length statement, be my guest. I see nothing wrong with that. But are you really interested in laying down ten tracks on wax if you’re not going to trigger a payment?

Please don’t be blinded by history. If your goal is to make money, and seemingly everybody e-mailing me is focused on bucks, how are you going to make money in the future? I’ll tell you. The public is your bank. And people don’t pay solely for recorded music, they may not pay for recorded music at all. How are you going to get paid?

By building an audience.

An album’s worth of material usually does not build an audience. A TRACK builds an audience. If you’re a career artist, people will want more tracks. But only if they’re good.

So the focus is no longer on cutting ten songs, but cutting GOOD songs! There’s an unlimited audience for GREAT songs. Still, how do you nurture your audience?

Playing every night in a single town is not going to build heat. You’ve got to go away for a while to increase demand. But you can’t go away for TOO LONG or you’ll be forgotten. Same deal with music. How do you deliver enough to keep people interested, but not too much to overload them?

DON’T tell me how much you love albums. That’s like labels saying no one will ever download music from the Internet. The album is history, you just don’t know it yet. STATEMENTS are not history, but are you really making a statement?

Innovate in the new sphere.

If U2 weren’t getting paid by Universal upon delivery of an album, they’d be better off releasing tracks in fits and starts. You get continuous publicity. AND, the way they just did it didn’t work, the album’s sales are small. Imagine going on Letterman EVERY MONTH, not for a week straight. BUILDING, instead of blowing your wad.

Imagine rewarding a fan who buys all ten tracks over the course of months. Maybe buying all ten delivers a code that allows you to purchase guaranteed good seats at the pre-sale. Maybe there’s a quiz regarding the content that allows people to qualify.

Maybe when you do that commercial endorsement, the reward is someone can go to the company’s Website and download YOUR NEW SONG! The insta-collection of ten tracks is no longer the starting point, rather you dole out your tracks in drips and drabs, making each release a minor marketing event, that keeps people interested, that keeps them going to the show.

If you’re a star, maybe you announce that you’re going to play the new track at the top of every show. And maybe then not again for a YEAR! So you’ve got to download to be familiar, and come if you want to hear it live. Don’t you see? Giving up the album delivers FREEDOM!

No one says a fan can’t create a playlist of ten tracks that he plays ad infinitum. Maybe the fan creates the album, and posts it to your Website, delineating why he picked this running order, imploring you to play these tracks in this order live. Hell, if the album were such a defined success, how come almost no act plays their latest opus straight through at a gig? BECAUSE ALMOST NO ONE CARES!

People don’t know the music. They want to hear some old stuff too. Just like you do when you make an iTunes playlist. You mix it up. Why shouldn’t the artist mix it up?

As for Record Store Day… How laughable is that. If you’re salivating over this, you’re living in 1990, and hoping we go back to 1970. Record stores are dead. As dead as your Apple II. Some will survive, as dealers in antiquities and tchotchkes, but essentially everyone will buy online.

Point being, how can you lambaste Doug Morris for missing the digital revolution when you too are stuck in the past?

People only want to hear good music. On demand. This has decimated radio. But the album went first. We’re just feeling the full effect now. And it’s only going to get worse.

Newspapers saw a crisis coming. But they figured it was always in the future. That crisis is now. Newspapers will probably not survive. I get three a day. But I know the paradigm is history. I lament the loss, but look forward to the future, wherein more people report upon more stories in a constant 24 hour news cycle.

You too should look to the future. Not one in which you deliver product to get paid by a middleman, but one in which you and your handlers are all in it together, and you build an audience fan by fan, which lasts. Toyotas were a joke in 1970. Now GM is a joke. Toyota built its brand based on reliability, word of which was spread slowly from mouth to mouth. Toyota took decades to surpass GM as the largest automobile company in the world, but GM will never regain the crown.

So don’t tell me about ancient paradigms. Please look to the future. It’s coming. It’s about great. Fans want more music by the acts they adore. Release all the live stuff, all the alternative versions. They don’t taint the original, they allow fans to burrow deeper, the revealing of all your warts burnishes your image!

We live in an information society. That’s what your fans want, information. They don’t want a CD dropped every few years with canned hype, they want continuous info. Don’t get locked into the album syndrome. You’re missing the future.”

- From The Lefsetz Letter

By Dave Kusek

I actually think the possibilities of making a living in art today are as good, or perhaps better, than ever before primarily because of the communication tools that we have online and the ability to develop relationships with the audience. I think the juice is in the do-it-yourself area of a sole-proprietor musician or a band or a writer on their own or with a publishing company, trying to figure out how they can penetrate the market, make a living, and break through the noise without all the traditional trappings, because all of that is pretty much gone for most people. The opportunity is really in the redefinition of how you go to market with music on a much smaller scale and develop a user base. That’s really where the action is.

From the recorded music side, the reality of the past 50 or 70 years is that a few percent of the people involved in recording ever made any real money off the records. Just a few percent! And if you made any money at all, it was through your songwriting or your touring or your merchandise, or something else that you came up with to provide you with a living. So on one hand, things are not all that different than they’ve ever been, in that you’re not going to make a ton of money making recordings and you never were. The reality is nobody is going to take care of you—you have to do it yourself or you have to form a small team around you to help.

We’ve just begun to scratch the surface of live, interactive experiences enabled by communications technologies—the smart phone, the internet, the broadband connections that we have—where you can create musical experiences between you and a relatively small group of people. Everyone is saying that the concert can’t be digitized, so at the moment that remains a reasonable way for people to make a living where the majority of your income comes from touring. And if you think about interactive experiences that can be created—virtual living room tours, behind the scenes events, having people participate in writing parties or creating music on the fly to suit the audience that you happen to be connected to—I think there are a number of wildcards in there where people have begun to experiment with mapping the live experience onto a communications network. There’s a long way to go there and there’s a lot of opportunity, especially as you see the iPhone and the Google phone and some of the devices from Nokia and others that are giving you video-enabled computers connected to the internet in the palm of your hand. That allows for the distribution of content at a very high level and interaction with your audience that you really never had before, on that one-to-one level or one-to-a-few level. And by making it mobile, you’re getting away from your fan having to be sitting at a desk in front of a computer. As people begin to write for that platform and that potential, I think we’ll see a lot of innovation.

And you can monetize that. I think people will pay for access to artists that they enjoy, and they will help support artists that they respect if they know that most, if not all, of the money is going directly to the artist rather than to the combine. If you have 5,000 fans willing to pay $20 a year for access to your music and the ability to participate and interact with you, there’s a nice pool of money for you to make a living off of. If that blows up to 100,000 people, you’ve got tremendous potential there.

What is your definition of success? That definition tends to be all over the place, but what do you need to sustain yourself in order to focus on your art fulltime? Can you live on $60,000 or $80,000 or $100,000? Probably. Can you make that kind of income writing music, performing regionally, licensing your music into various outlets? Yes, you can. If you focus on creating a career at that level, it’s entirely possible and many people are doing it using the tools that we have today. Instead of chasing the brass ring, you’re just basically trying to be a middle class artist making a middle class income. If you’re realistic about your expectations, you can make a living and spend most of your time focused on your art, whether it’s writing or performing or recording or drawing or painting of photography. It’s certainly possible—way more possible than being famous was ever going to be. You need to think through that because it’s really probably the only opportunity that most people are going to have in this environment—keep reasonable expectations and build up a little business around yourself that’s not grand scale but human scale.

One of the things that I think is holding a lot of this back is it’s very difficult to license music for global consumption. You’ve got to figure out who the rights holders are at every country, there’s often a publishing side and a recorded master side, there may be multiple writers, and the control that has dominated the industry for so long is holding us back. I think it’s something that people need to pay attention to: How can copyright law better serve artists in the digital age and what the digital age will bring?

The record companies have felt the pain of the changes in the marketplace ahead of the publishers. And you can see that the record companies are beginning to change their approach and they’re more willing to experiment because their revenue is down 50% and they’re absolutely scared to death. The publishers are following behind that curve and in my opinion are the larger road block in making deals than the record companies are. So having publishers look at their record company friends and what they’ve gone through and avoiding that is really key to remaining relevant.

With all of these interaction opportunities and non-traditional distribution opportunities, if we had better licensing, easier licensing, more transparent licensing, a more global approach, potentially everyone could make more money. If we stick to the laws the way they are and the sort of country-by-country rights, people who are in that camp will have a disadvantage against new artists who decide to open up their rights with a Creative Commons approach or perhaps another blanket licensing approach. If it becomes easier to license new music from new composers than it is the old composers, guess who’s going to win?

This interview with Dave Kusek originally appeared in New Music Box.

Here is a rather lengthy presentation on Trent Reznor and NIN and how they represent the future of music from TechDirt’s Mike Masnick. This case study outlines the experiments and business models being explored by this forward thinking artist.

Leadership Music Digital Summit 2009 - Mike Masnick keynote address, 3/25/09 from Leadership Music Digital Summit on Vimeo.

Also here is a demo of the iPhone App that NIN has planned that Apple rejected today because it streams a song with profanity in it. Really Apple, get a life. This guy is one of the biggest innovators in music today and your process for getting Applications developed and approved for the iPhone need VAST improvement.

NIN: Access iPhone app walkthrough with Trent Reznor, Rob Sheridan, and special guest Kevin Rose from Nine Inch Nails on Vimeo.

Set chord symbols inside repeat-ending brackets, not above them:

A good “rule of thumb” is to set notation elements most specific to a note closest to it, and then work going farther and farther outside the note as the elements get more general. So:

• Articulations (accents, stacattos) are note-specific, so they would go inside a slur, which is a phrase-specific marking, and thus more general than notes.

• Phrase markings (slurs) go closer than chord symbols. Chord symbols control harmonic regions, which can be larger than phrases.

• Chord symbols go inside repeat ending brackets, as the brackets control larger song sections.

• The music’s title goes way at the top of the page, farthest away from notes, as it refers to the whole piece.

Sometimes, life gets in the way of living up to these noble ideals. But we do our best.

London-based online student Dave Holland’s song “Worlds Away, Yards Apart” (written for his band, Hiding in Public) has won First Place in the AAA category of the prestigious International Songwriting Competition.

“Most of the songs on our upcoming CD were written during my Specialist Certificate in Songwriting coursework,” says Dave. “My winning song found its lyrical roots in Andrea Stolpe’s Commercial Songwriting Techniques course.”

Taking Second Place in the competition is singer/songwriter Suzanna Choffel, managed by online student Ihor Gowda. Suzanna won for her song “Hey Mister.”

Congratulations to Dave and Suzanna!

Repetition makes the world of commercial music go round. It’s in our lyrics, in our melodies, in our harmonic progressions, the arrangements – every aspect of a song uses repetition to make it memorable. Even song forms utilize repetition on a larger scale of verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge/chorus. So how do we know how much repetition is necessary in getting the audience to remember our song, and how much is just beating a dead horse?

The answer depends a bit, I think, on what we’re trying to accomplish with our songs. We could try to compare the value of repetition in a variety of songs across the board and wind up with very different conclusions on how much is enough. But, for the sake of keeping it simple and straightforward, I’d like to throw some rough guidelines up and leave the exceptions for each person to decide for themselves.

A chorus is where most of the repetition in a song happens. It’s no wonder why. That’s where the main message of the song is delivered, and without that repetition, the listener is at risk of missing it. Many songs use the power positions in a chorus section to provide that repetition of the main message – the title. The power positions are the first line and last line, and sometimes the middle of the chorus too depending on the structure. Sometimes all four lines are used to repeat that one title message, ‘dude looks like a lady.’ But one thing’s for sure, if we don’t set our title message in the power positions in the chorus and we don’t provide repetition, our listener will almost surely miss the main point of the song. And what’s worse, our song will come across unfocused on any particular point. What listener wants to listen to a song in which even the songwriter himself isn’t sure of the message? So repetition in the chorus is highly important, as well as using those power positions to our advantage.

One other area in which we can take advantage of repetition is the prechorus. If I’m writing a fairly wordy tune, which I sometimes do, I find that after a long verse section the listener needs a break. In this case, I try to begin my prechoruses with the same phrase. I may not repeat the prechorus section exactly, though that’s certainly an option, but instead repeat the first few words and let them introduce the new thought. This allows for some consistency in my message, while still enabling further development of the story.

Sometimes we need to identify whether the song we’re writing is going to fly within the commercial market, or whether it’s going to appeal to a more niche-oriented audience. In other words, the songs that immediately capture the attention of our audience within 45 seconds to a minute may be our ‘singles’, while those that require the full attention of the listener to digest may be our ‘album cuts’. I myself have fallen completely in love with songs deep within an obscure artist’s album, just as I have immediately fallen for singles that require only half of my attention to keep me up at night. The singles undoubtedly involve much more repetition, shorter song sections, and perhaps a more universal and simple message. But whether that’s better depends on what the artist is trying to accomplish with those songs.

As a songwriter looking to make a living from my songs, it is pivotally important my listeners (and the industry folks I pitch to) remember my songs after just one listen. And, I need to capture their precious attention within a very short period of time. So for my needs, repetition is critical. Simplicity is also critical. I must think about using the chorus melody as the melodic hook in my intro, keeping the lengths of the verse and prechorus short so that my chorus enters between 40 and 55 seconds, and making sure that the first line of the chorus is hooky and generates plenty of energy to bop the listener’s head all the way through the chorus. I know that the more repetition I use, the fewer new ideas I introduce to my listener, and the more focused my song can become. As songwriters, we have a tendency to write dense lyrics when we’re unsure whether our idea is really coming together. In taking great care to say what we want to say, we ironically dance around it, and what results is an idea that requires too much of the listener’s attention to digest. Try challenging yourself to write a song of short sections, such as a verse of six lines followed by a two-line prechorus and four-line chorus. Or, try a four-line verse followed by a six-line chorus. Try writing a chorus where the title is in the first and third line of four lines. Or, try setting the title in the first, fourth, and seventh lines of a seven-line chorus. You might even challenge yourself to write a four-line verse followed by a four-line chorus in which all four lines repeat the title. See how simple you can get, and see how quickly it forces you to get to the main point. Sometimes by trying to be subtle, we end up vague. And vague has a terrible effect of malaise over audiences everywhere.

Finally, repetition can always be replaced with an original line if you feel you’ve overdone it. Try to imagine yourself listening to your song for the first time. Would you be able to take it all in? Complex isn’t better, just complex. Set your song aside for a month and bring it out again, listening to a demo or a rough work tape. Sometimes distance is just what we need to be able to put ourselves in the shoes of those we hope will live and breathe to the sounds of our heartstrings.

Happy writing –

Andrea Stolpe

Read down to the bottom for the free song.

I haven’t yet had the pleasure of meeting the enigmatic and unpredictable Bob Dylan, but I have met a number of musicians who have worked with him, including drummer Jim Keltner, who once told me, “Everybody’s got a story about Bob and a lot of them are about how cold he is.  I’ve heard people say that they worked for Dylan for 12 hours and he never said a word.  That always makes me laugh, because I’ve been in that situation, too — but I know the other side of him as well.”  Mr. Keltner was the drummer in the quiet supergroup, the  Traveling Wilburys, along with George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty, and Roy Orbison.

I recently spoke with singer/songwriter Mark Turnbull, who is by far the most knowledgeable and insightful Dylan scholar I know.  He told me that none of the many, many reviewers of the new album, Together Through Life, have noticed that it has a connecting conceptual storyline.  “It’s like a film,” Mark told me, “with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Very cinematic.”  The new Rolling Stone has a long and surprising interview with Mr. Dylan.

Here are some Dylan reflections from my new Berklee Press book, MUSIC SMARTS:

Meeting Heroes
“Bob Dylan spoke of the end of idolatry after he met Woodie Guthrie. By meeting them, it makes those artists not only human, but often less than human. You see that all the pieces don’t have to be there. That’s what can make them unique—their limitations.”
—David Was

Play in the Moment
“What I’ve seen as a producer is a small handful of guys like Keith Richards, Willie Nelson, and Bob Dylan, who know how to let go and play in the moment, and not think about it. They lose musical self-consciousness.”
—Don Was

Building the Wilburys
“At night, after we’d finish the sessions on George Harrison’s album, we’d have a drink and say, ‘Wouldn’t it be great to have a group with anybody we want?’ That’s how it really came about. George said, ‘I’ll have Bob Dylan,” and I said, ‘Then I’ll have Roy Orbison.’ We’d both known Tom Petty, and I had been working with him, and Tom seemed the ideal person, and it all fitted together.
—Jeff Lynne

Revelations
The people that really blew my mind—that changed me radically and constantly—were Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the Stones, Van Morrison, and Joni Mitchell—writers who plumbed the depth of their experience and revealed things about all of our lives.
—Jackson Browne

David Bianco recorded and mixed the new album from Bob.   Courtesy of David’s manager, Frank McDonough, here’s a link — listen here to “Beyond Here Lies Nothing.”

If you’d like to find out more about the adventures of Mr. Bonzai, click HERE.

Great collection of characters commenting on free music from Hypebot.

Inspired by the coming release of Chris Andersen's book Free: The Future of a Radical Price, we've been exploring the importance of free music. There is no debating that free is here, but the discussion as to how to use free music, even how to monetize it, has just begun.

Last week's posts sparked a lively debate among readers and in other publications. Ex-Coolfer blogger Glenn Peoples, now at Billboard, wrote an extensive essay "The Free Debate" noting that, "as companies search for new ways to monetize recorded music, expect free music to be a common theme" and went on to quote several of the "Free Thinkers" who graciously wrote essays on Hypebot last week. I'd like to thank each of those contributors and Hypebot's smart and opinionated readers for adding to this important discussion. Take a minute to read any that you missed.

• Kyle Bylin: FREE!: The Kind of Music Nobody Wants To Own
• Virgil Dikerson:"You Can Always Go Back To School"
• Kevin Kelly: "Sell things that can't be copied."
  
• FREE THINKERS - The Industry Talks About Free