I received an email earlier in the week from Garageband.com, saying they were shutting down after 10 years.  I haven’t been on there in at least 2 or 3 years, but it got me to thinking back about that time and what I got out of the experience.

Back 5 years ago or so, I got back into songwriting.  I didn’t intend to, but one thing led to another and I got excited about it again.  Songwriting is pretty much like anything else in life…if you want to get really good you need practice, good guidance and honest feedback to continually improve.  I could get feedback on the Riffcaster site, MySpace and others, but they usually consisted of “nice tune, man” which is good for the ego but not exactly critical feedback.  Given a lot of people don’t deal well with critical feedback, I understand why!

What if you could get real feedback though, from people you didn’t know?  Who had no worry of keeping you from showing up at their door with a shotgun after a bad review?  Who didn’t know your name or anything about you when they first heard your song?  That was Garageband.com, and it was cool.  The way it worked was you had to give 10 pairs of reviews to get a free review of your song.  As a reviewer you heard 2 songs, rated each, and picked the one you liked best.  You’d never heard these before, so it was a true first-impression.

If your song was good it moved up the charts.  If it wasn’t, it wasn’t.  It was a great feedback mechanism mostly, though always subject to the flakiness of musicians.  You know, the kind who believe they have the best stuff ever, and want to get to a review of their songs…so they quickly buzz through their reviews giving low marks to everybody in the guise that their songs are the best ever and will fly up the charts and they will be discovered because of that and get signed to a deal and fly around the country in private jets with hot tubs in them and…you know the type-they think that is called marketing lol

I don’t know how much of that nonsense went on overall, by my own experience I’d say about 20-30% of the time.  That’s too much for any serious use, but from a pure feedback perspective that other 70% was helpful in understanding how you were coming along.  At the end of the day, musicians have at least as high a percentage as any other group of folks at trying to climb over other people in their quest.  Some days I wonder if it’s worse in music, and I’m not talking about those “evil” record labels either…but let’s not go there

In 2008 I moved on to Taxi’s paid service which is a lot more helpful if you are seriously trying to get beyond good and into the professional level.  But Garageband.com was cool and a great experience for me in it’s own right, and it was free if you did your 10 reviews–or you could pay to get a song in the review cycle–but you know musicians–they don’t like to pay for anything .  Heck, maybe that’s why Garageband.com has come to an end?

And the Taxi listing read:

EASY LISTENING POP COVER SONGS AND INSTRUMENTAL TRACKS of HITS from the ‘ 70s and ’80s, a la Rick Astley, The Carpenters, Helen Reddy, etc., are needed by the President and CEO of a new publishing company to supply music for Film and TV placements, Video Games, Toy products, Hallmark music cards and more! This gentleman was the head of the library division of a Major music publisher and is now branching out on his own, so you are definitely in good hands. He is specifically looking for new arrangements and NOT copies or sound-alikes. He suggested picking a particular artist or band and then combining it with other artist/band styles, therefore making it somewhat familiar to the ear while creating a new and unique sound. He also said if the original was sung by a male, try it with a female lead or try something like taking a song with full instrumentation and doing it acoustic. Overall, you have the liberty to make a new arrangement and to make it interesting, just keep the original song recognizable. The one thing he was adamant about is making sure that you DO NOT ALTER THE LYRICS in any way. Some suggested songs to cover are “Together Forever” by Rick Astley to “Top of the World” by The Carpenters and “I Am Woman” by Helen Reddy. They are open to hearing other songs but really want to hear these ones as well. Please don’t send in covers of anything too obscure, it should definitely be a “popular” song that was on the charts. Vocal and instrumental presentation must be top-notch! Broadcast quality needed (excellent sounding home demos are okay). Please submit one to three songs and/or instrumentals online or per CD. All submissions will be screened on a YES/NO BASIS ONLY – NO CRITIQUES FROM TAXI – and must be received no later than Wednesday, August 5, 2009.

Why did I not just bounce right past it?  I don’t do Easy Listening, I don’t even know if I could tell you who Easy Listening from the 70′s was.  The Carpenters?  Helen Reddy, for crying out loud!  But then there’s my wife.  Somewhere between knowing every 80′s hair band and metal song in the US, Canada and Western Europe she has some fondness for the cheese of the 70′s, a la Easy Listening.  So I pasted this one into an email and asked her if she wanted to work on a listing.  I figured like usual she’d get excited, never do anything with it, and at least I’d be continuing the effort in getting her involved.  Instead she actually went and did some looking and came back with a song from England Dan and John Ford Coley.  WTF?

I went off and listened to this particular tune and decided it probably fit the listing fine.  I’ve never done a new arrangement to an old tune, though I don’t think they want anything too radical here.  I guess it’s more like doing a backing track with some poetic license, which shouldn’t take too long.  The hardest part will be getting some different sounding vocals to the song out of her, but I think she gets what the listing expects.

So, I sat down and figured out how to play said song, laid out a scratch track with some acoustic, bass and a basic drum and my scratch vocal to give an idea of some different things that can happen.  If we get it done it may not get through the gauntlet, there’s no critique on this one, but every one that gets sent back is one more out of the way on the path to success!  I’ll post it if/when we get it done…we have about 9 days which could be easy to get done or impossible depending on what life throws our way.

And that’s what we’re doing in the studio this week!

—————————————

Follow up:  We actually got it done, just in the nick of time.  Yes, reality tried like heck to squash another song effort, but we just went balls to the walls and made something happen.  Crazy, I know!

Get your polyester suits on and think way back…

http://gator-studios.com/gatormusic/Kerry/rlysyt.mp3

Sonoma Wire Works has had FourTrack out for a while, but I’m just getting around to iPhoning myself so I’ll give a review of it!  First off, FourTrack is a four-track.  What the heck is a four-track?  Let’s look at some brief history.

Back in “the day” (as in way back in the early 1960′s and before), recording was a little bit different than today.  Good studios had things like record-cutting lathes, driven by a falling weight.  Gravity was much better at keeping time than motors of the day.  In these olden times, you didn’t mix tracks, you mixed people.  You moved the people around to balance the sound into the mic.  I guess if you told them to move closer in certain sections, they were the original automated faders!  They played live, it cut the wax, and if the take was good it was done.

I’ll skip the Les Paul part (you should read up on the man, we wouldn’t be here in recording without him), but the jist is it was figured out how to record more than 1 track at a time, with tape.  It cost a bunch of money, but it was doable so over time studios with a bunch of money started putting them in.  Let’s keep the cliff notes version going…in 1967 the Beatles released “Sgt. Pepper’s” which was recorded on…a four track.

Now let’s be honest with ourselves.  Abbey Road Studios has unique acoustics, and the very best equipment money can buy.  A large selection of the best mic’s, preamps, compressors etc. were at their disposal.  But all crammed down into 4 tracks of tape.  So while the iPhone mic is not exactly a Neumann, for $10 you’re at least mixing and making decisions like the Beatles!  Even better, you don’t have to limit yourself to 4 tracks at the end of the day.

The final piece of history is mine.  In the late 80s we borrowed a 4 track to record our band demo.  We couldn’t afford one, but it was the holy grail at the time for a band.  And we had what turned out to be a hell of an engineer make our tracks sing!  In 1992 I finally saved up enough for my own 4 track.  I also had a MIDI interface and a Roland D-110 to trigger drums off SMPTE code striped on the 4 track.  That plus the computer, was probably around $3K.  Ten bucks, plus being able to use Instant Drummers in RiffWorks would have been simply too hard to comprehend even in 1992!

My usual long and boring preamble being done, let’s look at FourTrack.  First, even though it’s from Sonoma Wire Works (makers of RiffWorks), there are no riffs or bars here.  It’s a linear recording program, just like a 4 track.  The program allows 1 mono track at a time to be recorded, while the other 3 play back.  You can pick a spot in the middle of a song to record on a track (a la punch in) with the time wheel (or whatever it’s called).  Each of the four tracks can be mixed and panned independently.  Just like a 4 track.

Some things to note:

- There is no input level control.  You need to mix like in the old days (move the sound source instead of the fader).  It’s not a big deal, just keep it from going over +0db.  One of the promo vids shows a drummer playing with some version of Hot Sticks to keep the volume down, and putting the iPhone behind pillows.  It worked fine.  Be creative!

- There are no effects in the program.  If we were stuck forever with the iPhone version, that might not make some folks too happy, especially since we’re recording on a little iPhone mic.  I’ll talk both why this is not a big deal, and what you can do if you really want to be crazy and actually record songs intended to be final versions on this thing!

- There is no foldback or monitoring.  In English, you can’t hear what you are recording through the headphones.  We’re all used to this, but it’s not the end of the world.  You can hear what’s playing, just slide the headphones off a bit if you can’t hear what you are recording.  This didn’t turn out to be a big deal.

- It’s been a long time since I used a 4 track recorder.  If this is all you are going to use, there’s things you need to think about before you do them vs. a DAW or RiffWorks.  Like the order you record tracks, which ones get bounced and which you’ll want to be separate at final mix time (like the vocals).  Fortunately you don’t have to think too hard about this if you use a computer to mix in the end.  I’ll explain more!

A real example

Like most dudes I learn best by messing around with something.  So I jumped right in to try and write something quick on the fly and record it.  For me, RiffWorks is the best songwriting tool on the planet.  FourTrack to me is the best “I’m in the car and have this idea” songwriting tool on the planet.  And you can take your stuff right into RiffWorks or any other DAW.  Best of both worlds! (Van Halen, not Hannah Montana lol)

First thing, you want to force quit Safari.  Things got stuck after goofing around just a bit, so I headed over to Sonoma’s site to see what was what.  There’s a lot competing for memory in an iPhone, and at Sonoma’s suggestion,  I force-quit Safari and had no hiccups after that.  Then it’s a matter of arming a track, sliding to record, and recording!

I talked about the old days of SMPTE and outboard MIDI to have a computerized drum or metronome to play to.  FourTrack includes several metronome options, including 3 actual drummers.  You can set the BPM on the metronome.  This is important if you are going to add Instant Drummers or other MIDI drums later.  Since you can’t export the metronome drummer, you’re gonna want to.  So think out the tempo of your song and record to it.

The simplicity of the whole thing made it go very quickly.  Sure I had my usual vast quantity of redoing tracks, but it was no slower than RiffWorks or a DAW.  With the ability to re-record or punch in a section, I was able to think up the lyrics a line at a time without having to redo them all.  I recorded 2 guitar tracks, a bass and a vocal in no time…while writing my short masterpiece in real time.  You are not worrying about effects or inputs (other than keeping the level within reason), so you’re focused on only one thing – playing.

So, with 4 tracks all used up, it was time to “bounce”.  For you young folk, bouncing goes like this.  You mix the tracks you have the best you can, and “record” the mix to 2 tracks for stereo, freeing 2 more tracks up.  For you older folks, yes I know we used to bounce 2 or 3 tracks to one mono one…how did we ever survive? lol  You can bounce to the current song, or to a copy.  I chose to bounce to a copy, i.e. a new song file keeping the original intact.  I like to be safe!

4 track thinking…or not!

With 2 free tracks, I decided to record a backing vocal and a solo.  Once these were complete, it was mix time.   At this point I discovered a problem.  I’ve long since forgotten my 4 track ways in favor of seemingly unlimited tracks in the computer.  My vocals were uneven, but were bounced.  No way to change any levels or re-record now!

I figured, this is just a test so not a big deal…it was time to get this tune out into the world.  To do that, it’s computer time.  I’m sure there’s somebody out there with no computer and just an iPhone (which would be odd, since you need the computer with iTunes to even activate the thing, but I digress).  For the 99.9% of the rest of us, there’s 2 ways to get the music out of the phone and into the real world.  First is through RiffWorks, either one of the paid versions or T4.  I’m a longtime user of RiffWorks Standard, so I fired it up, hit import, and it gave me the opportunity to import from the iPhone right into RiffWorks.  I picked the song file I wanted, and poof there were 4 tracks now in my SongLayer, still with their panning info.  Cool!

Now that each track was a RiffWorks layer, I could have added compression, eq or whatever to each one.  I chose not to, so I could show what the raw FourTrack song sounded like.  I did add one thing, which was drums.  The metronome drummer is very cool, but doesn’t come along for the ride.  If you have Instant Drummers in RiffWorks, you’re gonna get much better tracks anyway with the variation and intensity.  ”Uh Gator, there’s no drummers for the SongLayer.”  Yeah I know, but if you recorded to a metronome or metronome drummer, you know the BPM.  Simply make some new Riffs at that BPM, pick the drummer settings you want, and throw them up in the song bar for as long as the song is.  Think of the regular riffs now as your drum track.  Mix and match however you want.  Done.

Here’s the raw output of the recordings from the iPhone, on the iPhone’s mic, with Drummerheads “Four On The Floor” direct from RiffWorks.

http://iKeelin.com/music/FourTrack-test-mix.mp3

Abbey Road quality?  Nah.  Does it get the point across?  Sure does!  I’m a big proponent of writing first, then recording.  In other words, get the song worked out first, then focus hard on recording each track.  When they are the best they can be, then set about to working on the mix, the effects etc.  When that’s the best it can be, then worry about mastering.  FourTrack fits right in for me in that respect.

But, not being exactly content, the next night I went back at it.  When syncing to the computer, it gives you an http address for the phone with a specific port, or tells you you can import directly into RiffWorks.  The first time I went right into RiffWorks, so this time I thought I’d check out what happens when I point a web browser at it.  A nice interface came up, complete with both the original and the copied/bounced versions of the songs, and the ability to download each wav file individually.  Nice!  I grabbed the 4 original tracks I had bounced, plus the 2 new ones.  Now I had all 6 tracks!  That got me thinking, if I kept bouncing to a copy, whatever I recorded I could still get at all the original tracks when I got to the computer.  I could bounce 3 times and get 10 tracks.  Or keep going and get more.  This FourTrack is not really a 4 track, it just looks like one!

With all 6 tracks downloaded to the PC, I decided to import them into a traditional DAW program, Mackie Tracktion.  They popped in with no issue, and I grabbed some quick grooves from Toontrack’s EZ Drummer for the drum part.  Since I had all the original tracks, I did some quick work to them.  The bass was problematic, since not only was that little mic not ideal for the task, it also was affected by my room and placement.  Bass and small rooms don’t mix very well, and a mic will pick up the big differences in frequencies.  I threw some heavy compression and EQ at it, and it came in line better.  The vocals got a little eq and some compression to even them out too.  The guitars just got a little reverb thrown at one of them to make it sound a bit bigger.  A little limiting at the end, and a quick effort results in a new track.

http://iKeelin.com/music/whoisgator.mp3

Studio quality?  Maybe not quite my studio quality, but it’s better than some things I’ve worked on in the past.  Not bad though, it stands up fine.  Given no opportunity to work out mic placement, or use of our beloved direct-in boxes like a GuitarPort/TonePort/PodXT etc. here, I’d say this little experiment worked out quite well.

What can be done if you really really really want studio quality out of FourTrack?

From the input side, it appears you can use an iPOD video cable (with the other end being the red, white and yellow composite output).  On the iPhone, the yellow would tie into the mic input (instead of video output of the iPOD).  This would give you some capability for input, though whether it’s normal line level I don’t know.  With that input, you could plug in a mixer, GuitarPort, etc. to get direct and controlled access for the recording input.  A mixer would also give you some ability to monitor directly what you are recording, be they vocals in a mic or a live guitar/bass.  From the output side, you could take the red and white and plug them to a mixer or monitors, giving you a better shot at a good mix than using earbuds or headphones.  It still won’t be Abbey Road, but it should be on par with any other 16bit 44.1KHz mono recording you could do in a computer.  And that’s something Sir George Martin probably would not have been able to conceive of back then!

Overall, FourTrack is really cool.  It’s $10 which is a lot in AppStore terms, but let’s think real world.  $10 for this?  Are you freakin’ kidding me?  Everybody should have a copy.

More info at http://www.sonomawireworks.com/iphone/fourtrack/

Let’s step back in time.  Way back.  Like 1979 back.  I was 12 and had been playing guitar for a year or two, my $35 Acoustic from the MAE store in Ft. Lauderdale.  In 1979 I wrote a song, and played/sang it in music class.  I don’t know what possessed me to do that, but I did…and my friends were amazed at the whole thing.  When I think back, I had a lot of song ideas back then.  I probably was some child prodigy genius to them lol

Alas, it was 1979.  Double-digit inflation 1979.  Stagflation 1979.  Jimmy Carter 1979.  Let’s just say money was tight, and unlike these days people didn’t take any little glimmer of talent in their kids and blow a million bucks trying to make them into the next baseball star or music sensation.  So while I had all these ideas, there wasn’t much I could do with it.  At 13 I “upgraded” to a $50 electric guitar from Sears (with action about as high as a 2 story building), not exactly a shred machine, and after a while I got busy with other things and didn’t do much with it, just messing around from time to time.  I saw some friends going way beyond what I could do so I didn’t see much point then.

I went off to college at 18, and I didn’t take my Sears special with me.  It was embarassing, why bother?  But I met some cool folks in my dorm who played and convinced me to bring that piece of crap up.  I never thought being able to play was a big deal, but to a lot of people it was.  Not that my chops were that great with that beast, but at least I had enough to hang in a jam.  That was my first time actually playing with other people and it was great!  So I started saving my money, and 6 months later with $200 in cash I hauled one of my friends from the dorm to Sabine music to try guitars with me.  It’s hard to try them backwards so I needed a second opinion.  I settled on a Peavey guitar…which ironically I played through an old Gibson amp I had…I was backwards in every sense!

I took that puppy home and swapped the strings to lefty, and man what a change!  I couldn’t reach the upper frets but it played a lot better.  It was fun again.  The next year we got an apartment and would have parties and inevitably somebody would have me pull out the guitar and play while they sang through the stereo.  My first open mic nights!  I had no idea how bad an idea that is.  Guitar was just a thing I did, like skateboarding to class.

In 1989 my life changed forever.  Okay, it changed forever in 1975 when I cut my foot in half in a lawn-mower.  It changed a bit with 3 knee operations, and meningitis in 1988.  1989 was a real life changer though!  For in 1989, I met my future wife and put all these music pieces together.  You see, a friend of a friend had this band, and was looking for a second guitarist.  Oh hell I wasn’t nearly good enough for something like that, I almost didn’t bother.  I asked my roomate (one of my best friends) if he thought I was good enough to do that, expecting him to say “you suck, don’t embarass yourself dude!” and instead I got a very serious “yeah, you’re plenty good enough” which threw me back.  So I tried out with these guys and stuck.  The guitarist told me I needed to go back to Sabine music and get my guitar set up, it would play better.  It did, big time.

We were mainly a cover band, but had a couple originals we played.  Like every cover band, some idiot gets a jones for writing.  That idiot turned out to be me!  I don’t know why, I just had ideas and wanted to work on them.  4 tracks were expensive but I had a cassette deck so I bought another and would record with the bounce between them.  It was tough but for once I was turning my ideas into something I could actually show.  Of course there was no interest from anybody in going down this path, I think it was a little scary for all.  Eagles and Bob Seeger?  No brainer.  Originals?  Man, what if they suck?  Thank goodness money and school got in the way, it was a great excuse for all of us to move on.

Fast forward to 1992.  After a couple very tough years out of school, we finally got far enough over the money hump that I could afford a 4-track.  Sure I was working 2 jobs to get there, but I could now really start writing and recording!  I also bought a MIDI interface and a Roland D-110 which was state of the art or close to it at the time.  I finally got time to record a song I had kind of written around Thanksgiving.  It was simple, a couple guitars and a vocal, but it was real music!  Oh man this is something I could do all the time, I needed to find out how!  But those 2 jobs got in the way and one was starting to become more of a career.  So I put off writing and recording, a little at a time until I figured out I was never going to get to it and sold my 4 track.  I did get to mess around with a friend from time to time in Atlanta at some big studios, so music became an occasional weekend distraction for a few years, but not much more.  I’d write some stuff on the fly and we’d play with the big recording gear.  It was fun.

Let’s skip to 1999.  I moved to Kansas for a high profile job, which left no time for music let alone family.  Lucky for me my wife stuck with me as I rode to the top of the tech bubble in 2000 and down the slide after that.  I had huge success in 2001 despite the crash, only to find my execs decided to ignore me when it came time to take care of the people behind it.  I was madder than at any time in my life but stayed stoic through it all, until I got home one night and had to get it out.  I didn’t feel like drinking, screaming or beating something.  For some reason I was compelled to write a song.  It was the strangest thing, like I was a puppet that had to do this.  I had a nerve issue that made my fret hand feel like it was stuck in a light socket, but something forced me to write this song on the guitar.  So I went down to the basement, found my guitar, and wrote.  When I finished I realized there were a lot of things in life much more important than winning a $1B deal, or getting my just due for it.  It was a wake up call, that one day I’d wake up and it would be too late to do the things I valued.

Fast forward-it took 3 years for things to stabilize and for me to find my way out of that mess!  In 2004 I moved my family back to North Carolina.  Step 1, live where I want to.  Check.  My new boss was a guitar player, and we started having fun conversations about gear and bands.  I wasn’t a gear head and things changed so much since I last cared (that would be 1992 BTW).  I saw this magic bean called a “PODxt” that sounded too good to be true, but the sound samples were amazing.  I picked one up on Ebay in 2005 and was thrown back!  This was the freakin’ sound I had in my head when I was 12!  Damn!!!

When I registered the PODxt they sent an offer for something called “RiffTracker” that you could use to record with.  I checked it out and it looked pretty easy, so I threw the $99 at it.  I decided after all these years of writing songs that I should at least record them, and this would let me do that.  I did a couple goofing around recordings to get the hang of it and it was great.  Before I could get the first song done, work bit me again.  I closed a major deal that had to be delivered by the end of 2005, and unfortunately it highlighted everything that was broken in all our processes.  Things got worse every day, and one day I joked that if it got any worse somebody would write a song about it.  The next day things got worse, and I said I would write a song about it.  Off I went and 2 hours later there was a song about it.  Freaky.  It was a big hit around the office!

February 2006, one weekeind I got some time to record.  I started on the first song I wanted to do and it went great.  The odd thing was I got 3 other ideas recording that song.  The next song I started to work on ended up coming out as a different song idea.  Every time I started to record an old song, a new one came out.  It finally hit me after all these years that this was something I need to do, and it’s been there all along!  At that point I decided I had to see what my potential was to do this “for real”.

Now it’s 3 years later and we’re caught up.  I haven’t come close to recording all the ideas I have, and new ones pop up all the time.  I like to spend hours writing, but life doesn’t give me blocks of time that way.  So I spent a lot of time re-acquainting myself with studio engineering and working projects for others, a lot easier at an hour at a time. 

I’ve been a Taxi member for just over a year, although I haven’t recorded anything new in about 6 months.  Taxi has shown me in no uncertain terms where I stand and what I need to work on…and that without working on this I’m going to stay on the “edge” of success forever.  Unfortunately life has it’s own ideas and so I’m slaving away keeping my family well fed instead of working on songwriting-deja vu!  I don’t see any reason to give up though, the time will come I’m sure.  Whatever talent I have, it’s still in there and just needs that extra bit of work.

And now to summarize:

- The guitarist was a guy named Ed.  Ed ended up owning a very successful studio for several years achieving lots of hits for his clients.  I recently hooked back up with him, and it amazes the crap out of me when he sends his mixes for me to check.  I guess I spent too much time getting up on studio engineering.  Good to have Ed back, btw.

- The guitar set up was done by a guy named Charlie.  Charlie used to play in Blackfoot.  Still the best setup I’ve ever seen.  I flipped it back over for my son, and even right handed it’s still the best I’ve ever seen, and it’s 20 years later.

- Remember 1979, because that’s what they’ll be comparing the economy too in about 18 months.  Barack Obama will replace Jimmy Carter in sentences.  But I’ll set my kids up with good guitars and instruction regardless!

- In 1989 I met my future bride.  She was the singer of the band I joined.  We were married 16 years ago today, and I owe it all to that guitar and Paul McCartney songbook I got in 1979.  Happy Anniversary Kerry!

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.

I finally figured out that honesty and integrity were not traits that were good for the company, they were traits that compelled me to leave.  By leaving I can’t be messed with, overworked, underpaid, or generally screwed any more, at least by them.  They can help others where they refused to help me (only because I’ve been totally honest), but that’s not hurtful to me anymore…it’s irrelevant.  It hurts my family but we know how to survive and we’ll be better for it.  I do keep a list in the back of my head though, and kharma is a bitch…but today is officially “moving on” day so let’s have a beer and be happy!

All this crap, added with the current economy and market situation have really been eating at my creative brainpower.  Today was like an unleashing of creativity around songwriting and I’m hopeful the new gig will give me some time and energy to work at it.  One of the things I’m really excited about, I had a friend come over and lay drums for me on a song with his MIDI kit.  I’ve been trying to make this happen for about 3 years now and we finally got something done…I think it adds a great dimension to what I’ve been doing and hopefully he’s got some good ideas in him that will help me get further down the path.  Heck I might just take him with me!

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.

One song in particular, “Tried So Hard” seemed to be pretty close and lined up well with some of the Modern Rock/Alternative listings.  I took the clues from the critiques and embarked on my first ever rewrite, which seemed really strange.  I didn’t disagree with what they said, but had no clue how to go about it.  So I took my best shot at it, and son-of-a-gun, it made it through!

There’s always more I can do (and I might tweak a couple things here and there) but it’s time to put this one on the shelf and keep submitting until it finds a home.  It’s also time to move on and write some new songs to pitch!  I’ve learned so much in the last 8 months, and things seem to be starting to come together.  At some point I hope I can consistently crank out songs with all the pieces…production, arrangement, performance, etc. the first time, instead of the second or third.  But if it takes a rewrite to make it through, well then that’s what I’ll do!

Hey maybe this is the peak, don’t know.  I need to go chase the next forward to find out!

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).
http://gator-studios.com/gatormusic/Gator/E-D_phone_home.mp3

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.

Earlier in the year I submitted a few of my existing tunes to Taxi listings that had critiques.  They were pretty consistent in the places my songs needed work, but implied some of them were pretty close to getting over the bar.  They were also “on-target” for the listings I submitted for, giving me pretty good data points on where these ones fit.  Some new listings have come up that are similar, and I’ve been prioritizing these re-writes over new songs to both see if my re-writes work and ultimately to get them over the hump.

It sure feels sometimes like I’m going around in a circle, and those who are watching probably wonder (like my wife) why I seem to be living in the past.  First, this is a path measured in years, not days or months.  Second, there’s really not that many of ‘em, and once they are done they can sit on the shelf until another listing comes by that fits.  I’m not redoing them for the sake of it, if I think there’s something there and an opportunity presents itself then it’s worth the effort.  There’s only a couple left from the past I’d like to re-write when the opportunity arises anyway. 

There’s also the studio improvements to take advantage of.  Some of these were recorded with RiffWorks and a PODxt in an untreated room.  Some were mixed that way as well, and though they seem to be okay for broadcast (comments being “a little ragged but okay for broadcast”) that’s surely an issue I can take off the table these days.  The two I’m working on this week had all that, plus were sung by a then-7 year old who continues to get better.  With a Children’s listings staring me in the face I’ll take some of that Taxi critique guidance and work ‘em over again to see what happens.  And with another Children’s listing looming at the end of September, Keelin and I can work on her next new one.  As she told me, a few more and she can have an outdoor concert!  That part I can’t deny…

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:

2008 – Join Taxi.  Fill in the blanks on equipment (I wanted some better acoustic treatment, and a pair of small condenser mics).  Submit to a few different types of listings, to determine if I can really read the listings accurately and based on critiques see if I have any business even trying this.

2009 – Get forwarded.  By sometime in 2009 I should figure out what it takes to be in the ballpark of professional songwriting and production.  If I can’t get over the hump by now, it would be time to pack it in and spend more time at the lake!

2010 – Get a deal with a publisher.  Hey I’m easy enough to deal with!  After 3 long years, I should be able to crank enough tunes out that can get over the hump that something should stick once I get to a publisher.  Besides, at this point I do have other singers starting to come of age.  Maybe I can’t take it over the top myself but with the help of friends and family there ought to be a way.  In the plan I sketched out, year 1 and 2 were really about learning all I could.  Year 3 is about finding a way to put it all together.

2011/2012 – Somewhere in here I should get something used that’s going to pay out.  It may not be much but this is where the goal is realized.  How much depends on lots of factors, like how much time I can devote to this over 5 years.  How many songs get written and done that are worth something.  What other twists and turns life takes. 

So the goal is not how much but getting one in the bag!  If it looks like it will work out, I’ll find a way to devote more time.  If it looks like I’m getting nowhere, well, I may just fall off the wagon halfway through.  Life is about choices, and I’ve come back to rehash one I made long ago.  The answer is the goal!

Life never lets up on you, and I’m not a guy who sugarcoats things too much.  At the end of each year I’ll review how far I got.  It will either motivate me to keep going, or put things into perspective that it’s just not happening.  Hopefully it will be an education to all those who wonder and who dream about being a songwriter…