Sep 26 2008
After 17 years and some-odd months, my career at Nortel is over. Okay, it was probably over several years ago but I kept trying to find that “spot” where I fit and could make a difference and get rewarded for it. It hasn’t been the place to have that happen for me, too many criteria I don’t fit in and the place has been going downhill for a long long time.
Sep 03 2008
I joined Taxi in early January 2008. I was pretty sure I wasn’t ready, but at some point you have to go with what you have and get to the show! There’s a lot of piece parts that go into all this, from production to songwriting to the various performances, to matching the song to the listing. Everything has to be just right. I started out by trying some of the songs that already existed, basically to see where I was at and how far I had to go. The critiques came back (along with the songs!) and showed I had a lot of work to do…but also seemed to indicate I could get there. They gave me things to target, and though a bit cryptic at first (just like the listings) I learned to dissect and read them and get some pretty good insight on what to work on. And oddly they seemed to think my vocals and musicianship were good.
Aug 24 2008
It’s Sunday night in Gatorland, and I’m in the studio working on some old songs. My wife asked me yesterday why I keep rehashing old ones instead of doing new ones…I guess perception is the reality! Personally I’d much rather be writing and recording some new tunes (okay, I snuck in a new acoustic instrumental to get a fix).
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Here’s the scoop. There’s a lot of new songs still in my head, and a fair number that have been born into the world in some form. I’m working on my songwriting using Taxi as my main guide right now, and as the listings and critiques go, so goes me! Taxi is certainly not the only way to get your tunes into the marketplace, but Taxi has more opportunities for me than I can handle at this time. Every 2 weeks I pour through the listings, categorize the listings I’d like to go after, and prioritize them. Most of them never get a submission, due to time contstraints of the ol’ day job and the ol’ night/weekend job here at Gator-Studios.com. As time goes on, hopefully my catalog of songs will get bigger and I’ll be able to submit and write more.
Aug 03 2008
About a year ago, I was sitting in RDU Airport before a flight, thinking about what it would take to make money at music, specifically songwriting. I could see the boat sailing on the career I was in, and I wondered a bit about the “other” path I could have chosen way back when.
From most accounts, if you have potential it’s gonna take about 5 years to build up enough songs, deals, and placements to start seeing any money. There I sat, 40 years old thinking “it would be great to actually be getting somewhere when I’m 45″ and so right then and there I pulled out a notebook and started jotting down a business plan of sorts. The first thing to tackle was all the things holding me back from starting, so I made a list. It turned out not to have much on it! Item one, potential…I’d have to go on with it to find out. Item 2, workflow…how to crank a song out in a lot less than a few months, more like a few weeks, then down to a few days. Workflow turned out to have lots of interesting twists, of which I’ll leave for another blog. But I spent 4 months studying it, just to get to t=0 at the beginning of 2008.
Here’s the plan I set out for myself, now for all the world to see:
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