And before I get too lazy, I'll finish up on the story.
After the department stuff.. I wasn't too happy with the results.. no not at ALL! Anyway, I helped out my pupil composer guy with a big academic presentation/party/experiment thing.. Well, actually it was something sponsored by NTT, a communications co. in Japan (like AT&T) and my college was helping with the technical aspects of the event. This event was to be an experiment, so it was ok for it not to be perfect..
Anyway, this was when I had to do a bunch of house tunes.. I spent 2 weeks doing 80 minutes worth of tunes (talk about speed!) collaborating like a mad man so I could control my workload. So the tunes were finished.. at the last second. I rushed the CD to the event space, and the event started. And collapsed half way through.
Something went wrong with the management side and the time schedule got totally messed up.. things that weren't even on the schedule started to happen and half way through the event, my music, or actually my live performance, had to stop. So the music stops, and the MC starts apologizing.. and kept apologizing and explaining why everything went wrong for 30 minutes!! Well, the situation was totally out of hand and I snapped, packed up my gear, and left.
It's tough.. out of the music industry, composers are teeny tiny building blocks that are at the bottom end of the power structure.. There are so many things the management can do wrong that ruins your work.. I really hate that.. Anyhow, this was an unlucky case, and I got so mad, I wrote mail saying I didn't want to have anything to do with them ever again. (because after the "experiment" phase, they were going to have a "real" phase) Or actually, since my pupil composer guy was the coordinator for the "real" phase also, I did end up giving him about 8 tunes as a present to ease off his workload.
If you can remember, I had gone to Finland for a hiphop event in the prior year.. well, I'm going again this year and the preparation started in January, after the above event. It's a fun project.. we're supposed to have been international guests but the management side missed duedates to get a sponsor for use so we're not sure about budget.. still, the project sounds whacky and we went ahead to start preparing for it. I say we because it's a team of dancers and me.
But the problem is that the dancers aren't really used to being.. well, innovative.. They're hiphop dancers, and well, I was one too so I know a little, that it's alot about form, flow.. soul.. groove.. and a whole bunch of abstract words that describe.. I dunno, whatever it is at the moment that they want to describe I guess. Well, it was the first process to start categorizing things is a more logical way, so they can be used creatively..
And we're also spending a lot of time studying.. putting things into our heads, to theoretically create something, and then experiment it.. a sort of a scientific approach that's like engineering. It seems to work for my music, so I thought why not share it with dancing people and see if it works for them. So I spend a lot of times directing their practice and teaching them about what I know about cognitive science, music (important!), and so on..
What's hard is that the hip hop people are so inclined to think knowledge would interfere with their creativity.. that everything comes from the body.. And I'm persistantly telling them that it's still important to understand the basic process of "creating" something, err. A few philosophical approaches and then I have someone getting upset because they can't understand a word I'm saying. It's hard..
Also, this year's been a traveling year for me.. as you may recall from my occasional absence from PlanetZ. I've been to Taiwan a lot.. which was really lucky because I got to see the agent (at the very start of the story) again. And this time, I was smart enought to have my demo material with me. The last time she heard my demo was around 4 years ago.. and boy have I grown since. She was very pleased with my new demo, and this time, she was seriously pleased in a commercial sense. I met a producer (that owns a label) and he was pleased.. or just like, shocked.. simply because the Taiwanese market isn't as developed as the world standard.. or from PlanetZ standards.. waaaay far behind.
Well, this meeting seemed to have caused some good vibes and now I'm getting a couple of talks from the agent.. one is the dolphin show thing.. which you may or may not have heard from the music forum. And the other one is to produce a female vocalist starting next year, in Taiwan. Then, using that experience as my initial starting point, head on into the Shanghai market where I'm pretty free to do anything since the market is so primitive, it can develop in any direction. Or so the agent says. Anyway, the demo material seems to have got her really excited.
So that brings the story to present day. I just did 3 demo tunes for the dolphin show, and they're going to be presented to the "big boss" tomorrow in Nanjing, China. I'm really excited too because if I get this deal, I'd be able to work for the biggest theme park in China, and as a child, I always wanted to do tunes for Disneyland. Well, not quite Disneyland, but getting close. And I want some new gear anyway.
As you can see.. the agent and I keep in close touch. And I've learned a lot from her. She tought me that if you have talent, if you have the "star" as she says, everything else will come naturally. There's not much you can to do strategically get it. Well, true up to a degree I guess. But I still think you gotta try super hard to get your material out there and use it to make connections. Usually, it's not how good the material is, but how much conversation you can get out of it with the producer or whatnot. I just approach these producers as a fellow musician, having the same headaches, same joys.. and then all of a sudden we're sharing info and little tricks. It simply becomes fun to be talking to the person. Nobody likes an over ambitious novice, I hate them too. So I just relax, think if this chance goes, I'll just get another one in the future. Anyway, I don't talk business right away. It's a good idea to save your sales "pitch" for later.
yikes, the last paragraph is a total mess.. Oh well, so that's it for the story. Phew.. that was long.
