Songs, Yarns, Videos and Recipes about Music Production
From the ASCAP site:
Centering around 10 core principles, the rights listed include, “We have the right to be compensated for the use of our creative works, and share in the revenues that they generate” and “We have the right to license our works and control the ways in which they are used.”
Sorry for the lack of posts; –I’m in the middle of moving my parents to a new home that’s 3 doors down from mine. It’s a bit crazy this week, but hopefully this will decrease the time spent driving to their house twice a day to give them their medicine and check on supplies, housekeeping, etc… If I get a chance, I’ll post pics of their new home. A big thanks goes out to my students, Bill, Tom, and Nathan, for all their help in fence building, painting, and moving furniture.
Last December I recorded a solo chamber work for bassoon and piano in my office/studio with one of my former students as a personal favor for composer Carl Paul Vollrath. The acoustic piano I have there needed a tune, so I played the digital keyboard instead. The track was shipped off to MMC Records and I was very honored when they decided to include it on a sampler of new music by classical composers. The track is available via:
http://www.emusic.com/album/Various-Artists-Musicscapes-Vol-1-MP3-Download/11206480.html or
http://www.mtraks.com/artist/various_artists/release/84202-musicscapes_vol_1
I’m also finishing up the liner notes for Dr. Vollrath’s upcoming release featuring Richard Stoltzman on clarinet. Scheduled for release next month, the project consists of 2 CDs of clarinet music (recorded by Bob Lord at MMC). If you’ve ever written liner notes for your own music, you can imagine how tough it is to summarize someone else’s music. What I ended up doing was writing a layman’s analysis of the character and form of the pieces. It’s descriptive enough to encourage folks to listen (and hopefully buy the printed music).
It’s really tough being a classical composer in this age; ensembles generally are very conservative with their programming choices and if you noticed the program the New York Philharmonic took to North Korea, you’ll see what I mean. Dr. Vollrath retired from teaching recently and is devoting all the time and resources he has to these recording projects.
Think about this for a moment. Would you pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to see some of your life’s work recorded? This situation is absolutely amazing to me! Carl gives away many of his compositions to performers in hopes of having them performed; unfortunately, few are. It’s not a quality issue, it’s a glass ceiling that classical composers have to find a way to break through.
It works out great for the labels; think of them as the audio equivalent of a “vanity press” (those publishers who will publish a certain number of copies of your book for a fee). But for Dr. Vollrath, these compositions are his “children” and no price is too great in order to see them come of age. He has already released a 2 cd album of piano music and one cd of chamber music for trumpet and horn. I won’t begin to speculate how much these projects cost.
I’ve known many musicians who would play anywhere simply for the joy of sharing their music (gratis). Classical composers are ’up the creek without a paddle’ because they cannot realize their works without the cooperation of other like-minded performers. Either you get really good at writing grants for arts enrichment, playing political games and courting rich patrons or you do what Carl is doing; –focus on the music and do the best that he can. You’ve got to admire someone who has spent a lifetime of disciplined composition for the sheer love of the art, perhaps never knowing when or if the notes on the page will ever be heard. Putting your soul down on manuscript paper because this music that no one else hears is welling up inside you and has to be released. That’s creating art for art’s sake.
For you budding guitar players out there, check out Jack Pribek’s post on harmonic cross-relationships, soloing and stress relief:
“You’ve got to be in to go out and you’ve got to be out to go in”
Protooler did a nice “Preview Review” on Digidesign’s Transfuser. Be sure to read it BEFORE you try the preview!!!
WiretotheEar satisfies those low bass cravings with a great little post about
Finally, things can get a little weird for 3 crazy musicians on the road. (Source -J Coulton) Take a bit of portable technology and some downtime and you end up with this:
Piracy Czar? Are you kidding me? I thought we already had one of those…
According to the 2008 press release archive on the RIAA.org site, the following universities have been targeted for pre-litigation settlement letters.
January 10th: (18 universities)
Arizona State University (33 pre-litigation settlement letters), Bowdoin College (11), California State University, Monterey Bay (25), College of William and Mary (15), Duke University (16), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (19), Mount Holyoke College (15), Rhode Island College (22), Saint Mary’s College of Minnesota (13), Stanford University (15), Texas Christian University (14), University of California, Berkeley (26), University of California, Los Angeles (26), University of Connecticut (25), University of Iowa (24), University of Nebraska-Lincoln (22), University of Texas at Austin (50), and Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University (36).
February 21st: (12 universities)
Boston University (35 pre-litigation settlement letters), Columbia University (50), Drexel University (33), Indiana University (40), North Carolina State University (35), Ohio State University (30), Purdue University (28), Tufts University (20), University of Maine System (32), University of New Hampshire (32), University of Southern California (50), and the University of Virginia (16).
On May 6th, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the PRO-IP Act which strengthens laws against illegal downloading, allows for seizure of property involved in the commission of said crime and gives new enforcement measures to investigators. Billboard.biz quoted David Israelite of the Nat’l Music Publishers Assn:
“This bill will go a long way towards making sure law enforcement agencies have what they need to get the job done,”
According to Mark Hefflinger of DMW Daily, the bill also-
The bill, which passed unanimously in the House Judiciary Committee last week, would also establish a White House-level piracy czar — dubbed the Intellectual Property Enforcement Representative — to coordinate law enforcement activities. (emphasis mine)
David Utter at Webpronews succinctly summed up the situation last year when the act was first getting off the ground:
More bureaucracy, another well-connected insider getting a sweet gig to graze at the taxpayer trough (we’re betting whoever gets the new IP Enforcement Representative job will have a big media background), and absolutely no impact on foreign counterfeiting whatsoever appear to be the salient points of PRO IP.
But Heaven help the first college kid busted under PRO IP for MP3 trading. It’s going to be brutal.
Folks, this is a strong piece of legislation that kicks the Intellectual Property Rights game up a notch; –it’s not just national in scope, it defines an international effort to set up rights and enforcement measures. I predict that given the success the music industry has seen so far, within a year we’ll see an astronomical increase in pre-litigation settlement letter mail-outs. And those won’t just be going to college campuses.
Thanks to Coolfer for this tidbit:
In our music industry survey courses we often refer to “Happy Birthday to You” as being copyrighted when speaking about copyright law. Well, guess what? Your teachers could be wrong. According to a paper by Robert Brauneis, the copyright is:
almost certainly no longer under copyright, due to a lack of evidence about who wrote the words; defective copyright notice; and a failure to file a proper renewal application.
Brauneis, Robert, “Copyright and the World’s Most Popular Song” (March 14, 2008). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1111624
Additionally, Robert has a website with evidence pertaining to the “Happy Birthday” song.
Here’s an example of a possible musical source dating back to 1875: A Happy New Year’s Song.
MP3
http://docs.law.gwu.edu/facweb/rbrauneis/happybirthday/scores/A_Happy_New_Year.mp3
PDF Score:
http://docs.law.gwu.edu/facweb/rbrauneis/happybirthday/scores/A_Happy_New_Year.pdf
Excellent work by Mr. Brauneis! I’ll sing at your next birthday!
Now if I can just get all a refund of those royalties and sync license fees I’ve paid over the years…
So the Iron Chefs at Digidesign have been cooking up a new virtual instrument plugin and this one’s gotta be designed either for phlebotomists or the Trance Loop/Electronica crowd. Judging from the samples, you beatmakers out there should be well pleased. I was severely disappointed in the example of an Acoustic Piano sound, but impressed at the ultra-modern beats with extra-wide spatial imaging on everything else they listed. Yea, I’m a plug-in junkie and I’ll be downloading this. It will probably be just like the Eleven Plugin; –I’ll fall in love with it and when it expires it will be about $300 more than I think it’s worth. Heck, I could probably find a real acoustic piano (used) for that…but why expect killer piano sounds from a plugin called “Transfuser.” But enough of my sardonic wit, go check it out for yourself.
One more thing, be sure to ignore any “Transfuser” criticism you might hear from Christian Science or Jehovah’s Witness-affiliated websites.
There’s a new widget in town and it’s above the blogroll on the left. I’ve been checking out ReverbNation.com and finally got something to embed on edublogs.org. I found a few friends there (Lynam, Monte, Jack Pribek and Justin) the rest is a bit random.
If it plays without you activating it, please leave a comment… and I’ll disconnect it.
It seems like everyone is posting scenery pics today; –I’m stuck at work and I’m jealous!
Peace,
-j
I don’t Twitter, but this is still cool. I think I posted a link to it many weeks ago. Unfortunately, edublogs is still keeping me from embedding this widget, so you’ll have to visit the page:
http://www.snoopdogg.com/extras/default.aspx/mid/3872
To try it out, you have to know someone’s twitter name; then click on “shizzle your friends’ tweets”.
For example, - Paul and Storm’s twittername = paulandstorm
Jonathan Coulton’s = jonathancoulton
If you’re a rising star, you should think about Twitter because it’s another “buzzing” line of communication between you and your fans. Widgets posted to your webpage can display “Tweets” and you can keep your fans entertained 24/7. Is it a fad? Probably, but like my old boss used to say: “never be the first to discard the old or the last to pick up the new.”
When you’re building bridges, tools can come in quite handy. And any artist that can sell product AND create the “culture/community” among fans that Snoop (and NIN and Radiohead, etc, etc…) should have an honorary MBA on their wall.
Where do you want to be in 5 years? 10 years? Will you be a one-hit-wonder or a cultural icon?
“–Ay, there’s the rub!
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause.”
I’m still in shock; somehow this loss escaped my attention until I read it in this month’s Music Trades magazine. I’ll think of Bill Ludwig Jr. as the father of the school percussion kit. A heck of a lot of professionals owe a debt of gratitude to those big kits. Back in the 1980s, I was fortunate to be able to meet Mr. Bill Sr., Mr. Bill Jr. and Mr. Bill III when they came to the dealer I was working with for a Selmer-Ludwig promotion. Back then, they were experimenting with “offshore” parts production and had some parts defects. Read the rest of this entry »
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