How we get the $$ to buy our gear, underwear, and lunch

Compare notes on how to get the most from Scope devices, etc.

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kensuguro
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Post by kensuguro »

Those of you who've seen other posts concerning actually making a living from you music, there obviously seems to be great curiosity as to how to get started with a commercial musical career, get some dough, and finally to start feeding yourself with it.

Tell, ya the truth, I don't think I'm all that successful, and I'm not that far down the road just yet. But the best I can do is to share my experiences as to how I got deals, how I got to know the people, etc.. My career ain't too long so there should be enough room to start from the beginning. So here it goes.

For me, there's always 2 roads of musical possibilities. One in Taiwan, and the other is in Japan. (I moved from Taiwan to Japan) The one in Taiwan started earlier so I'll start with that one.

There was this artist management agent.. she was a friend of my dad's best friend. (yeah, talk about people connections) When I was a freshmen in college, I was back in Taiwan for a vacation, and the agent just happened to be at a get together thing. So my dad pulls out a tape full of my songs, and starts playing it very loud. (everyone was drunk) The agent was very pleased, and dragged me up to her office, and sets up appointments for me to meet with a bunch of Taiwanese producers. Everybody was pleased.. pleased that a college student could do so much. But only so much. The material was good for my age, but not good enough. So no definite talks at the time. The agent tells me to keep sending her demo material, and she'll see what she can do because she was pretty determined that I had something in me. (talent?) During this time, the most important thing that I learned was that this business is full of spontaneous oppurtunities. You mean people you don't know, and they don't know you. No body knows what to expect, so it's always good to be prepared. ALWAYS have your best demo material ready, and be ready to give them away.

Actually, now that I look back to those days, my material wasn't good enough.. and there was another thing.. my mentality as an artist wasn't developed enough. It was something I did for fun.. speed didn't matter, format didn't matter (like A B chorus), I didn't have much knowlege about mixing.. And most important of all, most of my material didn't have any vocal, and since I hadn't worked with vocals before, my melodies weren't very voice orientated. So after my encounter with this agent, I started doing lots of singing, joining acapella, listening to lots of vocal meterial, learning how to mix, etc. etc. This probably was the beginning of my musical career.

Well, that was that.. in Taiwan. Back in Japan, in college, I started acapella, met new people there.. most importantly, met many vocalists there. Many of them were really good. Some of them were considering going pro. (tho even with my ears, I could tell there was no way) So I spent lots of time helping them make their demos.. I became famous as the "demo" guy. I worked for free. It was obvious I was learning new things. Working with different vocalists helped me understand just how these people like to work. Working with many different singing styles helped me learn to mic many different people, mix their voices. So I kept working for free. It was kind of ridiculous to be charging when niether the singer nor the composer had professional abilities. Anyway, so I had a rush of vocalists coming to my house to do recordings. Then, one day, this girl comes over and she's just got it. She's got the voice. I immediately knew and started working seriously with this person. Though I didn't mension it to the other vocalists, I spent more time on her, than on anyone else. Tune after tune, I began to learn her voice, just like I'd learn how to play in instrument, and the quality just kept on rising. I started to learn what kind of melodies she liked, and she started learning just how songs were made.. it was a good process.

The commercial jump came when we had a couple of high quality tunes that we knew, would beat all the other demos. There was another composer friend of mine, who was only a beginner, that wanted our help.. this guy had connections. He knew poeple.. knew what to do. He's just that sort of guy. So there it was, a team of me, the beginner composer, and the girl. Sometimes we 3 worked together, sometimes him and her worked together, but most of the times, me and her worked together. We kept on cranking out tunes and the beginner friend sent out the demos. To where I don't know.. I didn't really care because I wasn't really interested in working in Japan anyway. (because I had the Taiwan talks) But I just went ahead to see where this would go.

After around 2 months of waiting, we scored one agency that specialized in composers. Some agencies specialize in vocalists.. but this one specialized in composers. We met up with the A&R, she was very pleased with our tunes, surprised at the quality digital home studios could produce. (this was back in the days with Yamaha DSP Factory) Things were sounding nice.

At the same time, the beginner composwer friend sent a demo (most likely with my material), without telling us and got another deal with an aspiring male vocalist to help make his tunes. This male vocalist was already contracted to a semi-major label, but was just lacking the hit to bring him out into the mainstream. The beginner friend got the deal.. but it was obvious he didn't have the skill to meet the needs.. of course, he comes to me and asks for help. I say sure and the project starts. But as soon as the project starts, something smells wierd.. I realize that the beginner friend had become the producer, and I'd become his engineer, that actually does all the job.. he sits back, blabbers some what not that sounds musician like, and the male vocalist goes "wow, I don't understand but if you say so" and I have to figure something out to cut out of the strange situation. It was totally messed up. I was completely getting used. Strange things like this happen.. it's a slight difference of within the power structure inside the creative environment that messes things up. Anyway, I did one song for them.. and that was IT. I quit but sort of giving vague replies to questions like "when do you want to do OUR next song".. It's strange.. when we're together, the beginner composer friend says it's a group project. When it comes to rights, the male vocalist is the composer(melody), the beginner friend's the arranger, and I'm either the mixer, or just nobody that doesn't get paid. Well, anyway, the tune got finished, and is played at Kanebo (cosmetic company) commercials.. and I didn't get one red cent, or even any creative rights. Through experiences like this, you learn to be aggressive when it comes to rights.. and be careful about just who it is that you call friends. It's horrible. Money brings out the worst in some people.. I really hate it.

So the mood between the trio becomes somewhat dim.. I don't want to complain out loud.. and the beginner composer friend isn't too proud of it either.. and the girl vocalist has heard everything from me so she doesn't feel safe working with the beginner friend.. The trio sort of died away naturally and we were back to where we began.. just me and the girl vocalist. The first deal we got with the composer agency sort of died out too because we cut contacts with the beginner friend.

Ya see.. It's soo much about your personality.. I could feel it when I was working with the beginner friend.. we spent 7-8 hours straight together making tracks and recording vocals.. and near the end, you can see the greed in his eyes and he can see the disrespect in my eyes. It's about people. It's about your personality. You work with people so tightly that they'll see everything in you. So keep that in mind when you meet your A&R. Good A&Rs look for these qualities. Bad A&Rs look for instant hits.

Ohhhh my hands.. I'm tired. Actually, I think I'll take a break right here and see if anyone is curious to find out about the rest. The story has gone up to my senior year in college, which is about 1 year ago. So there's still 1 year of events that I haven't written about.

Well, there's a lot of details I left out.. and I tried not to use any names so sorry if it's confusing. So maybe there's something you can learn from this?? dunno.. but hope it's been of some help. Tell me if you want to hear the rest and I'll find time to type some more. ugghh, this is SERIOUS typing.. haven't typed this much since 7th grade computer class! Oh well, hope you enjoyed reading. :smile:
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Gordon Gekko
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Post by Gordon Gekko »

that's a sad story.. but very interesting nonetheless. it's the kind of story that I'm sure a lot of us have been living. It is important to establish what legal format will prevail (in the event of a commercial success) between parties before anything gets done when you work with others on a project. It's not too artistic but once that gets out of the way then you are free to unleash your creativity. And if the members cannot even reach that type of agreement at the time well at least you know that something wrong was deemed to happen.

so what have you been doing last year?
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Post by algorhythm »

I would like to hear one of the tracks with this girl!
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Post by eliam »

Maybe the teaching behind this story is about being aware that this destructive vibe always seeks to interfere with people's plans unless they stand guard to protect the constructive aspects of their activities...

This what I term "the treason beast" and it literally wrecks whole nations if given the power... Anyway, at some point we loose our naiveté and hold our ground in front of these devilish influences constantly trying to reach us through every weaknesses (our own or those of people close to us). I often met situations where I had to learn to dismiss discord and the people serving as its channel. I can say that now I'm comfortable with confronting on the spot the slightest agressivity or ingratitude coming to me, whatever the closeness of the people who send it forth, and this is the greatest protection from destructive forces. When someone does not do me justice, I plainly state what I think and I firmly insist to be respected, and if I can't I quit the relation in a way or another, peacefully, of course!

I had to learn this the hard way too, but now I stand guard over my world and try to keep it in order, even if betrayal seems to be unavoidable, unfortunately!

Ken- please go on with your story if you want.
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kensuguro
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Post by kensuguro »

Well, I thought I learned my lesson.. but I made the same mistake later on...

Anyway, by this time, we were getting ready to graduate. Everyone was trying to get them credits or starting to hunt for jobs. It was a hectic year. And at the graduation party, we did a big liveand all was peacefull.

After I graduated, one of my younger friends (a year younger than me) asked me to help in his movie project. He's a coold dude so I'll just use his name, Taku. Taku is also a beginner remixer who I've spent lots of time teaching from the very first step. So I generally take very good care of him. He's got this commercial movie project going, sponsored by a big coporate, lots of money involved. Anyway, the pay seemed high enough to be able to make some sort of a living so I got involved as a composer, mixer, and the mic man. It was the first time I worked seriously with Taku, and though the general level of the production wasn't very high, we had a good team relationship, and it was very cool.

During the movie perioud, I went to Finland for a vacation (you can tell I had good money flow) to meet with a friend of mine. And as soon as I get there, it ends up to be that there is a big theater show comming up and I was to compose a tune for his 14 minte (yikes!) solo! All I had was an MD player, Acid, and a few direcX plugins. Anyway, I spend about 1 week on the tune, and it was done. The theatre was a success, had media coverage all the way to Sweden, and we were sort of content. Few of the Finnish producers were interested to hear my material and I left them some demos.. The talks are still developing to this day. Anyway, that was my Finland vacation.

The Movie project lasted for about a year. Very busy, very tiring, good hard labor. With the final production being the Samurai tune (you can check that out in music forum) the project ended because Taku had to do entrance exams for his master's degree. (This was last september)

Now, during this "movie" year, I had totally cut contacts with our beginner composer friend, but around the master's exam season, he calls me and starts asking me all sorts o questions.. and I was sort of disgusted.. So disgusted that I thought I might as well just go with the flow and let the heavens take care of the rest.. anyway, it turns out that he's got no idea about what to write for his research intent.. and I end up giving him a full research outline. And of course he makes it into the master's course. By this time, I was reaaaaally sure I was never going to talk to this guy.. I guess he sort of knew too. Well, I'm just glad I didn't snap, but instead, did something good as a farewell.

After the master's thing, developments had dropped a bit.. I had nothing to do, but to stay at home, and compose. A very good way to keep myself concentrated, but also a very boring, monotonous life. This was when I spent alot of time experimenting with Pulsar synths I think.. and started seriously mixing on the Pulsar. I guess this low actitivy period was just the perfect time to make these workflow changes. This was around.. let's see, December last year.

During december I also had talks about the department store thing (you can find this in music forum too) where I was supposed to compose some tunes for in-office playing. Anyway, this deal came from my mom's friend, who is also a friend of mine. She's friends with the owner of the department store chain and thought it'll be good for me to have this sort of "music outside the music industry" experience. Well, I dunno. The people at the department store management knew so little about music (worse than the worse A&Rs) it was very hard to work with these people. I had first set of demos, all finished, in final form. They didn't like it.. but were really unclear as to what kind of changes they wanted. So I did another set.. just quick "whatever" set of tunes so they could compare and choose. Well, strangely enough, they chose the worse set of tunes.. Oh well, what can I say. The problem is though, is that I am still waiting for them to pay me. It's been around 4 months already and I haven't heard a word. Well, it was only 3 so-so tunes so I wouldn't mind but I'm just suprised that such a big company (the department store chain is pretty big in Japan) would be so loose on such things.

Yikes.. Anyway, this is all I can write for now. We're finally into Jan 2002 I think. Well, gotta go.
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Post by paulrmartin »

There are so many horror stories that can be told but I won't tell mine here...

I have learned to listen to my instincts when dealing with potential clients. I look at their body language a lot, I listen to the way they talk (trying to discern whether they have dillusions of grandeur or if their project just doesn't make sense).

This might sound funny but I have this little nerve in my neck that "twitches" when the situation that presents itself to me is BAD(!). I listen to that twitch and it has saved me countless times from potential professional disaster.

I am quite certain most of you have that "Sixth Sense"-type thing in all of you. So listen to your own personal "twitches", but make sure it's your "Sixth-Sense" twitch and not just lack of confidence in yourself.

Like eliam says so well, Be at Peace!

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I think I may get the hang of this after all!

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: paulrmartin on 2002-04-15 11:26 ]</font>
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Post by Neutron »

Thats you bull5hit detector. many people have them, it may prevent you from watching tv :smile:
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kensuguro
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Post by kensuguro »

hehehe, you're right defex.. TV will twitch me so bad, I'd be crooked by the time I finish watching a show. :lol:

But yeah, there's that, "hmm, what the hell is going on" type of feel that I get.. but most of the time I'm too patient and generous. Qualities I really have to be careful when money is involved.
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Post by paulrmartin »

Ken wrote: "but most of the time I'm too patient and generous..."

That's on thing I forgot to mention:

LEARN TO SAY NO! :grin:

and to feel good about it too.
Are we listening?..
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Post by garyb »

it's all something to do.............
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Post by eliam »

In the beginning, it might seem frightening to hold our ground and, if need be, slam the door in the face of adversity! But like Saint-Germain says so well "when discord knocks at the door, simply tell it "I'm in conference!"
It might seem simplistic, but its all-powerful when it comes to avoid problems... And God knows they run rampant these days!
This is my advice to be successful in whatever constructive activity you start: learn to keep discord out of your world, no matter how firm you must be, and these obscure energies will go hunt elsewhere because they know who's the boss of your world! And they know they haven't a chance to create chaos anymore!
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Post by orbita »

Quick question for you guys, If you send a CD/tape to an A+R guy at a record label for consideration, do you handicap it/mark it someway so that they dont get a perfect copy.

If you provide them with a copy good enough for mastering isnt it possible they could use it and claim it as their own?

Whats the best way of handling situations like this?

Especially in regard ken's story above about not being paid, how do you prove that a song is yours? Is original midi arrangement+sounds an acceptable way of proving ownership?
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Post by caleb »

Hey Kensuguro, I would love having a mentor like you. You sound really generous with your time and knowledge.
Caleb

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kensuguro
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Post by kensuguro »

orbita, I've asked myself the same question many times before. It depends who it is that you're sending the demo to. There are elements that a tune needs in order to make it out there.
OK from a&r
Artist name
OK from publishers
Anyway, in easy terms, these are the things to think about.

If it's someone who has creative rights AND publishing resources, let's say, like a producer with his own label, then there is a risk of him taking your work. But that's if you don't know the guy at all. People are inclined not to do these sorts of things, but it's happened before. This is because the producer already has an artist's name, he's the a&r, and he's the publisher. So as soon as he agrees to snap that song, the rest is in one go.

If it's an a&r at a record company, a bit less to worry about. the "OK from a&r" part will be easy, and since a&r people have connections with publishers, "OK from publishers" is a bit (just a bit) easier to get. But then, it'll lack an artist's name. A&Rs can't grab a song and paste an artist's name on it. They don't have that power. So it's a bit safer. But you never know, the A&R could possibly hand the material to a producer with his own label and then, you're back to the first case. But by then, things are totally out of your control so there's not much you can do. hehe, the industry isn't full of hoodlums, you shouldn't worry too much. In fact, it's full of diligent, wonderful people.

Last case, if it's an a&r at an agency (like an artist agency) then you probably have nothing to worry about. It's not in their interest to steal material. It's not the agency's product. You are. So maybe you should be worried about being kidnapped instead. :smile:

The situation might be different in every country, but from what I know about Japanese and Taiwanese music industry, these general guidelines seem to work.

The worst you could do is to be a self represented artist. These guys get devoured.. not necessary your material.. they'll let you in a little, make you do work, and then throw you away. Remember, musicians, composers are an abundance to them. You need some sort of legal protection, and an artist agency will provide you with that. If you have an agency representing you, then your demo's rights are in the agency's hands, and when the rigths are violated, the agency responds. It's much safer this way.

I'm not sure what this "artist agency" is called in other places.. actually, it has no definite name here in Japan even. Sometimes it's called a production, sometimes a studio, sometimes an agency.. whatever it is, it's a place where you're contracted, and then the agency finds jobs for you. The agency is always in between, making sure you're not being messed with.

And about my own material, I tried crippling the demo, but they didn't want that. They wanted the final, final version. Not that they're getting ready to copy my stuff, but it's just natural to want the best material to base judgements upon.

When rights really do become a problem tho, if you're self represented, chances are, you'll never win the case. It doens't really matter if you have the original files or original whatever.. if the association is bigger than you, they win.

So hopefully this all helps. And caleb.. I feel honored with your comment.. but heck, we're always growing, never good enough. I don't think I deserve to be any mentor.. I don't teach, I just share.
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paulrmartin
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Post by paulrmartin »

About protecting your work:
There is a kind of practice here in Canada that consists in mailing yourself your work (whether it be a CD, the scores, your Cubase or Logic project) by registered mail. This envelope is NEVER to be opened unless some kind of misappropriation of your work is going on.

You can also go to a notary a sign a sworn affidavit stating that the work is yours.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: paulrmartin on 2002-04-17 09:43 ]</font>
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Post by at0m »

Yes, good idea. The same's valid in Belgium, I guess it's wide spread. If you can later show in a trial that you have en envelope date from before the time they registered your song, you win :wink:
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Post by RedSun »

Paul, that practice is just an urban legend. It has no actual legal value(in Canada) and will not be recognized in court(mostly because it is extremely easy to fake a sealed envelope or insert things in it after the fact). My GF happen's to be studying in IP law so I asked her to verify that before...

Here, in Canada, IP is under Federal juridiction. The proper way to register your work is clearly defined at the <a href="http://opic.gc.ca/">Canadian Intellectual Property Office</a>.

From what I've read on this site, this is not an obligation, as the rights to your work is automaticly yours by law. Off course, if the rights to a particular piece of music you <b>actualy registered</b> is contested by anyone else, you'll have no problem proving it's yours in court...



RedSun .:.
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kensuguro
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Post by kensuguro »

Well, yeah... registering yourself is always a good idea.. Do people actually go register by themselves? Is that a usual practice in Canada or Belgium?
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paulrmartin
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Post by paulrmartin »

Thanks for pointing the urban legend out, RedSun, and the link too. Mind you, I've never done the registered mail thing but I do know some who have.
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Post by borg »

in belgium there is SABAM, something like the canadian IP office. i think you have to pay an anual membership fee and additional costs for your piece of art you'd like to register. they also handle the royalties... it's something like a publisher, but gouvernmental (so when it comes to paying the artist, you'll have to be patient).
if you want to release an official cd or whatever in belgium, you are obligated to present a paper from SABAM to the pressing company in order to get the copies (at least, that's what i've been told).
as a belgian artist you don't have to go to SABAM. warner chappell will do too of course.

a common practice in the underground scene is to register your work with SABAM, but give up the rights to your music. like this it's cheaper, and the chances of being ripped off are somewhat smaller.
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