Hard work really does pay off

Last night I tweeted that I was going to be re-mixing some tracks for my "band" Crushing Gray with the hopes to pitch them to a major music library. I ended up staying up later than I wanted to, which for me means it was pretty late as I'm your stereotypical musician when it comes to being a night owl, but it was necessary.

There was a "soft" deadline of today for this particular opportunity. Though I would have a chance to pitch to them again later in the year, I wasn't going to pass up this chance. So before I went to bed I submitted the tracks. We were told that it may take between 6-8 weeks before we would hear anything, though I suppose that probably is a disclaimer for people that submit after the "soft" deadline. Why would I think that? Because I heard back within a few hours...

And the response I got was one that had me going "WHOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!" like the good ole "Nature Boy" Ric Flair himself. They wanted all four songs that I submitted! I immediately emailed Logan (the other half of CG) and told him the great news. I'm sure he's just as excited but we're dealing with a slight case of time zone difference right now as he's over half-way around the world at the moment so I don't know for certain :-)

The library we're signing with is one of the largest, if not THE largest music library in the world. Some of their clients include ESPN, MTV, Fox, Universal, Electronic Arts and more. I've been so blessed over the last year to get into some very high quality libraries and each one has been so exciting to be a part of and this one is no different. Now I've got some paperwork, instrumental mixes and photos (might their be a change coming to BBB???) that have to be uploaded so that we can start getting promoted in their catalog and then hopefully start getting some placements!

While I absolutely love composing instrumental music, first and foremost I'm a songwriter at heart. And while I know that my lyrics and melody writing lag behind my compositional and production abilities, I feel like I'm finally starting to make some headway in that area. Getting 6 songs that you co-wrote signed in less than a month tends to have that kind of effect, especially in regards to the companies that signed them :-)

It's taken a lot of work to get to this point. And where this point is, well, I'm not really sure. All I know is that today, I'm one step closer to realizing my dreams than I was yesterday. And tomorrow, well, I'll be one step closer then too. Not because I'm expecting to sign 4 more songs, though that would be nice, but instead because I'm going to keep putting in the effort that it takes to make this happen.

What I haven't mentioned is that in one of my other library deals, I'm having to do some re-mixing on some of my tracks because they weren't up to the standards that the client was accustomed to. After getting that news, I looked at their roster and saw that some of my new "colleagues" and competition also happened to have major label deals at one point or another :-)

While I know I'm not there yet, I've definitely come a long ways. And now... looks like I gotta kick it up another notch... As one of my colleagues said the other day... "It's time to separate the composers from the posers!" It's GO time! WHOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Until next time...
-Big Blue