Big Blue Barry's Blog

Hard work really does pay off

2010-07-02T22:21:00.001-05:00

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

I Need Your Help

2010-06-22T21:45:00.002-05:00

I'm sorta having an identity crisis. OK, actually... I think I've resolved the crisis part, but now I need some help. Confused yet? Let me explain what's going on.

A few months ago I participated in a blog contest. One of the areas that we had to complete was coming up with a "perfect pitch." In other words, we needed to be able to describe our sound/music within 15 seconds. This is also known as the "elevator pitch." I actually didn't have too difficult a time coming up with mine (it's the phrase on my site that starts with "Imagine a steel cage match...") but that was because I had decided in the previous section that I was going to take on this contest as "Big Blue Barry, the artist" and not "Barry French, the composer."

Fast forward to a couple of weeks back. I found out that I was one of the 1st place winners in the contest and I was going to receive a free 6 week PR campaign. And that's about the same time when my identity crisis hit...
Even when I was doing the contest, I know that I struggled between identifying myself as an artist versus a composer. At the time, I went with the "artist" path, probably because that "sound" was something that I knew I could easily define for myself. I also had been getting music library deals as a result of that sound. But while I was still writing those pieces and posting them online, I've also been writing some other styles that I haven't been able to post online, at least not permanently, due to the exclusivity clauses with the libraries I'm writing them for.

Which brings me to now... I was able to solve my identity crisis earlier this week. Instead of thinking of myself as either "Big Blue Barry, the artist" or "Barry French, the composer", I realized that the answer was right there the whole time, and that answer is "Big Blue Barry, the composer." I know it may seem silly to some, but for some reason, it just wasn't that easy for me to see.

And now for the part in which I need your help... While my current pitch works great for one style of music that I write, it doesn't cover the entire spectrum of what I do. What I need is to come up with a new pitch that covers more of my entire body of work as a composer than the current one does. I've posted some music samples on the music page of my site that offer a more comprehensive picture of the what I can/do write. Some of them will only be up for a limited time as they are (hopefully) going into an exclusive library and I won't be able to post them online after that happens.

What I need from you are suggestions for a new 15 second pitch. If I end up using yours, or even a part of it, I'll give you 15 free downloads as a way of saying thanks. You can leave your suggestions as a comment on this blog, or you can post them on my Facebook fan page, send them to me as a tweet, or you can even use good-old fashioned e-mail as well. I'll be making the decision in the next two weeks as my free PR campaign is about to start up and I want to have everything set before that gets started.

Thanks in advance!
- Big Blue

Stories From The Studio: Printing FX

2010-06-16T00:55:00.002-05:00

I recently signed a deal for a song that I co-wrote with my buddy Joel for our Big Blue Shoes project. It's more of a Pop-Rock/Indie Pop/Rock kind of "band" and a definite departure from my Crushing Gray project and the "typical" Big Blue Barry metal tracks. But I digress... so, the library that is signing the track wants an instrumental version of the track as well as the full version with vocals. No problem. So I thought...

Though it feels like I've been doing this a LOT longer, the truth is, I've only been at this film/TV/production library and songwriting "career" for about two and a half years now. Granted, I've been playing music for a long time, and I did write my first song YEARS ago. It wasn't until January of 2008 that I truly became serious about it.

During these last two and a half years, I've had to learn quite a bit. Some of it was about songwriting. A LOT of it was about song production. I can pick things up pretty quick when it comes to "techie" stuff, but I didn't have the formal background or training that a lot of my peers, colleagues, and competition had. I've pretty much taught myself every step of the way. That's been a very fulfilling process, but I know that I've missed out on some things here and there. Which brings me to the topic of this post... printing FX.

I needed to export two copies of the song for the library, one version with vocals and the other just a simple instrumental mix with no vocals at all. I had already made both versions of the mix back when we first worked on the track but since I had to export them in a different format than I already had them in, I was going to have to open up the session. When I opened up my Pro Tools session and gave both versions a listen, I quickly realized that something was wrong.

We had made some changes to the song for a theme song pitch about a year ago. When I finished with the remix after re-doing the vocals, I didn't bother to make a new instrumental version. When I listened back I realized that I must have made more changes than just some new vocal parts. No big deal I figured. I'll just remix the entire track again. Shouldn't take too long, 30 minutes tops. Oh how I wish that were the case :-)

When I listened back to the "non-rendered" version of the session I could tell something was off. For my non-musician friends, here's an analogy to explain what I mean by "non-rendered" version. Think of an empty room in a house, let's pretend it's a living room. In this scenario, the living room represents the "song". Now imagine you have 2 couches, a love seat, a coffee table, and an entertainment center. Those pieces would represent the individual instruments. For example, the 2 couches would be the 2 guitar tracks (one for each side), the entertainment center would be the drum set, the coffee table would be the bass guitar, and the love seat would be the vocals.

So when I say I'm working with the "non-rendered" version of the session, that would be akin to an interior decorator working in the living room with those pieces of furniture, trying to arrange them in such a way as to get the maximum appeal for the room as well as make it appealing to you. Each piece can be moved around and placed in a variety of positions. Some will work and some won't. While I don't know this for certain (I'm not even close to being an interior decorator) I would imagine that there are probably some rules, or guidelines, that have been developed over the years that an I. D. would use when setting up a room. And of course, some rules will be broken depending on the situation. Same thing applies to mixing. Sorry to get off track so much but I wanted to make sure that my non-musician friends weren't totally lost.

OK, so back to the song. As I listened back to the song, I knew something was wrong. Specifically, the vocals sounded off. I noticed that I had a Melodyne plug-in (this is similar to AutoTune) on each of the tracks. For some reason, I didn't actually "print" the FX on the vocal tracks. For my non-musician friends, a similar concept would be buying an article of clothing at the store but leaving the tag on it because you're not sure if you're going to keep it or not, so you want the ability to exchange it for something else if you decide not to keep it. It's a commitment issue :-) lol

I opened up the Melodyne plug-in that was associated with the lead vocal track and a little box appeared, one that I had never seen before. And then it hit me. This track was done over a year ago. Since that time, I upgraded my Melodyne plug-in. And this was no ordinary upgrade. So after a few minutes of trying to figure out what was going on, I was able to get a grasp on the situation. I had to locate the "temporary work" files that the old Melodyne plug-in used so that this new version could import those values. Fortunately, I was able to do that.

And as soon as I had all of those values imported, I IMMEDIATELY printed the FX

So at the end of the day, something that I thought would only take about 30 minutes tops, ended up taking closer to 3 hours. Lesson learned.

Until next time...
- Big Blue

Music Success In Nine Weeks Recap

2010-06-13T23:48:00.000-05:00

Before I get to the heart of this post, here's a quick update of what's been going on since we last spoke :-)

While I didn't win the grand prize for the blog contest, I DID win one of the 1st place prizes - a free 6 week PR campaign! Look for that to start within the next month or so... I've been finishing up some of the "busy" work for one of my library deals, ie... paperwork and lots of stems and edits for about 25 tracks. This is a new start-up library that began about a year ago. We now have a MAJOR distributor in place and the first group of tracks will begin to hit the streets in about a month. I also signed my first deal for a vocal song with a very selective music library. The song is a co-write with my friend Joel and is going to be on the Crushing Gray album when all is said and done. I'm sure there's more stuff to update you about but it'll have to wait for the next entry.

Earlier this week, I got an e-mail from Ariel Hyatt asking me if I could do a blog entry for her that basically re-capped my experience in her blog contest. She was so inspired by how the first one went that she's going to do another one. She'll be posting my blog summary on her site as a guest blog entry. Below you'll find what I sent to her.

Ariel asked me to provide a summary of my experiences with her first Music Success In Nine Weeks blog challenge. It's hard to believe that it's been three months since the contest ended. Seems like it was just yesterday when I was posting my final entry. But as I look at the calender, I can clearly see that the hands of time have moved well past that point in time.

I remember before I decided to take the challenge, that I was kind of sitting on the fence about it. You see, I'm not a touring artist. Haven't been in a long time. My dreams and goals at this stage are to one day be a full-time composer working with Film and TV. Hence my hesitation about taking the challenge. I wasn't sure how it would apply to me as a "stay-at-home composer." But after some great feedback from some musical colleagues, along with a gentle nudge from Ariel, I decided to take the challenge.

I remember going through the first chapter and just feeling overwhelmed right at the start. Not because of the amount of work, but instead, because of the "type" of work. While my wife is probably more of the "dreamer" type personality, I'm much more of the "nuts and bolts" kind. At my day job, I spend most of my time bringing other people's "dreams" into reality by doing the actual grunt work. So when it was time for me to dream big, I really struggled. And part of the reason for that was because I was trying to walk the line between "Barry French the composer" and "Big Blue Barry the artist." I wasn't sure "who" was taking the challenge. And looking back at the goals that I set for myself, I straddled the line between the two.

As the book progressed, I began to form a clearer picture of who I was as an artist. Developing our perfect pitch definitely helped solidify that "side" of me. As I'm typing this, I have a feeling I should probably read the book again, but this time, do so as "the film/TV composer" 'cause I'm sure my pitch would be different than what it currently is, which is "Imagine a steel cage match between Sevendust and Linkin Park with Joe Satriani as the referee..." in case you were wondering :-)

I remember being excited when I got to chapters 3 and 4. I knew that my web site was in need of some work and this was the perfect "jump start" to help me get it taken care of. I did the re-design myself, and while I'm not a graphic designer, I was very pleased with how things turned out. And in regards to the Web 2.0 sections, I was already doing some of those things and that chapter helped to improve my efficiency. I definitely remember feeling "victorious" at the end of those chapters.

The next couple of chapters, e-mail and mailing lists, were a bit of a challenge for me. And honestly, they still are. While I was in the contest, I definitely made an effort to grow my list, and it worked, as my list doubled in size in just one day. But once the contest ended, so did my attempts at growing my list :-( I do plan on attacking this one again as I did see some monetary results because of it. Simply put, if you follow her advice and stick with it, it works.

The other area that I struggled with, at least initially, was the Continuum program. Of all the chapters that made me wish I was back in one of my old bands, I think this one was it. If it were 10 years ago, I would have had no problem filling up one of the charts she provided in the book. But since I'm not touring and I don't have any merchandise, I wasn't really sure what I could offer. In the end, I wanted to do something that would help my career but at the same time help others and her idea of linking up with a charity really spoke to me. I ended up deciding on donating 30% of my album proceeds for the remainder of the year to 3 different charities (10% each).

It's been great trying to reflect on each of those entries that I did for the contest and remembering all the different things that were going on at the time when I wrote them. The contest was definitely worth doing. I made some new friends through the process as well as got a better definition of who I was and what my long term goals were. I'm also happy to say that one of my goals, to write and sign 50 new library tracks by the end of the year, has ALREADY been met!

So if you're reading this and trying to decide on whether of not this challenge is something worth doing, let me encourage you to give it a shot. There will be areas that you'll find difficult as well as areas that come very natural. But in the end, it will really help you to get a clear definition of who you are as an artist now, where you want to be as an artist, and the tools to help you get there.

Thanks again to Ariel and her crew for allowing me to be a part of the initial challenge. I thoroughly enjoyed it!

- "Big Blue" Barry

Back in the swing of things

2010-04-08T01:06:00.004-05:00

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/joiseyshowaa/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

I knew it had been awhile since I last posted, but until I actually looked at my site, I didn't realize it had been almost a month! Yikes! Gotta say that the blog contest I participated in definitely helped me post on a more frequent basis.

One reason for my lack of posts is that March is the height of the college basketball season here in the States and I end up spending quite a bit of time following my favorite team, the Kentucky Wildcats. I really thought we were going to bring home Championship #8 this year but alas, that didn't happen. We had our worst shooting night of the season against a team that was having one of their best and in a one-and-done type tournament, that usually spells disaster for you. But regardless, I was very proud of our team this year. I can't remember when I ever had so much fun watching the team play but it was probably the '95-96 season, ie. Championship #6, and the first one that I could remember. I was only 4 when they won #5 so I don't remember that one. But I can tell you exactly where I was at when we won #6 (and #7) :-) Earlier tonight several of the players announced that they would be entering the NBA draft so it looks like next year's team is going to be a brand new group of players. Let the fun begin!

After Kentucky lost, I suddenly noticed an increase in the amount of "free" time I had once again. So last week I started composing some new tracks for a new library that a colleague of mine introduced me too. I wrote some of my normal "rock" tracks as well as a singer-songwriter track. Then later in the week I ventured out into a new genre altogether... Spy Music!

I had a BLAST working on the track! Actually, I started on one track and then moved on to a second one in an attempt to try and get something closer to a James Bond feel. I got some GREAT feedback from one of my TAXI buddies, John Mazzei, or Mazz as most of us call him. He is one of the nicest guys I know and so knowledgeable and encouraging. He gave me some tips on how to improve the track. I did a revised version, which you can hear at this link, and submitted it to the new library. I heard back from them today and it looks like they're going to sign my spy track, and possibly my other ones as well! I imagine I should know for sure in the next couple of weeks.

Earlier this week I found out that I had a song placed in an episode of TLC's Toddlers and Tiaras. I had never heard of the show until I got my ASCAP statement and saw it listed there. I was able to find a clip of the show online on TLC's YouTube channel. My track was used from the 4:35-4:55 mark of the episode. Here's a link that starts just before my track starts playing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UumlX8s9Fxw#t=4m33s

Then yesterday I found out that one of my pop-punk instrumental tracks is going to be used on an international TV show called World Impact. This is directly because of a friend/colleague of mine who has a connection with the staff of the show. They asked me if I had any tracks that might fit what they were looking for. After going through my library of material, I sent them four tracks. It was definitely a cool experience as it gave me a good perspective of what it must be like for some of the music libraries that I write for when they get calls from their clients looking for music. When I pitched the tracks to them, I told them which track that I thought was the closest to what they were after. Turns out I was right as that was the track they selected to use on the show! It's supposed to air in 4-5 weeks.

One more thing before I wrap this up. I started my B3x10K challenge last month. While I haven't sold as many albums as I would like, I am happy to say that I have at least sold some! I know that I need to do more promotion for the project, but I really just don't like doing the whole self-promotion thing. I guess I'm going to have to get over that. That, or find a sales rep who'll work solely on commission :-) If you haven't done so yet, you can get your copy of the album at http://bigbluebarry.bandcamp.com. And remember, 30% of the proceeds are going to charity!

Until next time...
- Big Blue

TAXI - From a member's perspective

2010-03-10T19:29:00.006-06:00

Over the last few weeks I've started to notice that I'm personally getting asked a lot of questions about TAXI. The questions range from "Is TAXI worth it?" to "Is it legit?" to "How much money have you made as a result of TAXI?" and on and on. So after getting asked once again today I thought I would take the time to do a blog about my experience with TAXI so far.

Let me start by saying that I am not a paid spokesperson for them. I do not get any monetary compensation from them. That being said, in order to give full disclosure, I have to mention the fact that at the 2009 Road Rally, I was a part of a 10 member panel during one of the sessions and I was also presented with the TAXI 2009 Inspiration Award. But that being said, I promise you that the opinions that I express in this blog will be completely and 100% my own. Now let's get to it...

Photo credit: TAXI.com

I'll start off by explaining what TAXI is. It's an independent A&R company that acts as a kind of a middle-man between musicians and the industry. I'll stop right there and say that some people are already going to have a problem with that model as they don't want to have to go through a middle-man to get to the potential client. I completely understand that, and even agree with them to an extent. I'm about to go off on a slight tangent but please bear with me as it does relate to TAXI.

As an independent musician, it's very challenging trying to navigate through the current system. Sure, there are more opportunities than ever before, and technology has made it much easier for people to record their own music, but there's a downside to that as well. The downside being that it's much easier for people to record their own music. Not every one can play guitar like Dan Huff or Brent Mason. Not every one can mix like Chris Lord-Alge, David Bender or Ronan Chris Murphy. Those guys have put YEARS into honing their skills and their craft.

Let me stop here and say that I'm just as guilty as anyone when it comes to this. When I first started recording back in 2005, I didn't have a clue as to what I was doing. Seriously. Not. One. Clue. If you don't believe me, I've got a few former co-workers who can verify this story for you (I'm looking at you Joel S., Chuck S. and Cody B.) In fact, I really don't consider my starting point for learning the art of recording until January 2008. Why that date? That's when I joined TAXI. See, I told you I'd get back to TAXI.

When I joined TAXI in January 2008, I had maybe, 10 songs to start with. Most of them were in the hard rock and metal genre. But none of them were "ready" for use. In fact, I can remember this very clearly. I had been a member for a couple of weeks. There was a listing looking for romantic instrumentals. I had written one track that I thought might fit. I had programmed my drum track. I recorded my bass and then my guitars. And then it hit me. What do I do now???

I called up a friend of mine who happened to own a studio. I told him where I was at in the process and asked him what I needed to do next. He simply asked "Well, have you started mixing it yet?" I was like "What?" He replied "When do you want me to come over?" :-)

I ended up submitting that track for the listing and it was returned for being off target. But then I went on a run where my next nine submissions were all forwarded. I suppose I should stop here for a second and explain what I mean about forwards and returns.

When you submit a song to a listing it goes into a queue of songs. Once the deadline has passed, each and every song will go through a screening process by a TAXI screener. On TAXI's web site you can get a list of people who work as screeners, past and present. The screener will listen to the song that you submitted and then make a decision on whether or not they are going to mark the song as a return, or that they are going to forward the song on to the client who ran the listing. Some of the listings are marked as Y/N listings, which means you do not get a critique. But for the listings that do get a critique, you are provided with some information as to why the screener decided to forward or return your song.

I need to note that there is a $5 submission fee for each song that you submit. Some people don't like being charged to submit their music. I understand that. In a recent Ustream chat, TAXI CEO Michael Laskow commented on why they have a $5 submission fee. I tried to find the exact spot in the video for you but Ustream seems to be having issues. I think it's about halfway in. If I remember correctly, I think his answer was that it's actually to help CUT BACK on the number of submissions that they receive. By putting a small fee on each submission, the intent is to curb the amount of "spam" that they receive for each listing.

What do I mean by that? Here's an example. Let's say that a company is looking for songs that are in the range of Kelly Clarkson, Avril Lavigne and Lady Gaga. Now, if they didn't charge per submission, then the likelihood of people submitting anything and everything for that listing, like Jewel, Beyonce or The Killers, in the chance that it "might be what they're looking for", is much more likely. Even with the $5 fee, I know early on when I was submitting, I would throw in a song or two that I thought was "close" but I wasn't 100% sure that it was what the listing was asking for. Then when it would get returned I'd usually say "Well, I knew it wasn't on target" and I'd wish I had my $5 back! But over the last year, I quit doing that.

Big Blue TAXI Submitting Tip of the Day: If you have to defend your song submission, then it's probably not on target.

Speaking of on target... Let me try and get back on target myself. So, where was I. Oh yeah... So some of you are probably asking why would you want to pay to have someone screen your songs? Can't you just submit to these companies on your own? Well, the answer to that is yes... and no.

If you have the time to do the research and find out which companies are in need of what material, then by all means, go for it. TAXI even says that they are the "2nd best way" to do this. But if you're going to do that, you want to make sure that not only you're music is up to snuff, but your music business skills are as well. You get one chance to make a first impression and from what I've seen in this industry, if you blow that chance, you may never have another opportunity with that company again.

Case and point. I just signed a couple of tracks this week to be made available for a production company that specializes in the extreme sports film industry. They made it abundantly clear that they will not tolerate any unsolicited correspondence from me or I would be permanently removed from their database. Understand now, this is a company that WANTS my music and WANTS to work with me. As they put it, they want to work with people that are easy to work with but they don't want a lot of contact and they definitely don't want any drama to deal with. Again, this is a company that WANTS to work with me. They also made it clear that this opportunity would not have happened without the work of one of the TAXI screeners filtering the music for them. I can say with 100% certainty that there is no way I could have gotten this deal on my own. So while I know it is possible to get deals on your own, which I have done multiple times, there are going to be times when it's going to take a forward from TAXI to get you in the door.

Also, let me add this as well. I've read that some people consider TAXI to be for amateurs. While I don't think that's a fair characterization, I do think that there is some truth to that. But let me add this...

If you join TAXI and within your first year of membership, and you submit your songs on a consistent basis (2-3 submissions a month), and you take the advice you get from the critiques, and you visit the forums (hadn't even mentioned them yet) and get some assistance in the Peer 2 Peer section, and you attend the Road Rally (I CAN'T STRESS ENOUGH HOW VITAL THE ROAD RALLY CAN BE TO YOUR SUCCESS!!!!)... if you do all of that within your first year, and someone still characterizes you as being an amateur... that's not TAXI's fault, that's all on you.

TAXI gives you plenty of resources and opportunities to help you grow from being an amateur into a professional. Now, I don't mean that you'll be doing this as a full-time career after one year. The business doesn't work that way. But if you take advantage of the resources that TAXI provides you with, then you should have no excuse to not make the transition from amateur to professional.

In fact, let me say this, even though Michael might not want to read this, if you utilize your TAXI membership to your maximum benefit, I believe there will come a point where your relationship with TAXI will change. And by that I mean, in the early stages, you will probably make a lot of submissions because you want to take advantage of the opportunities. But if you continue to get forwards and then those forwards start turning into deals, eventually, you will reach the point where the relationships you're making with the music libraries (I guess I'm referring more to the film and TV aspect of TAXI than I am the record label part) will be so time consuming that you won't have as much time or need to submit to TAXI listings. That, however, doesn't mean that you won't necessarily have any use for TAXI. I still would contend that the Road Rally may be one of the most important aspects of the membership and like with Nashville and Country music, I'm finding that with film and TV as well, it's all about the relationships. And the Road Rally is a great place to develop and foster those relationships.

OK, Let me try and summarize this monster of a post by telling you who I personally think would be a good candidate for TAXI and who I think would be better off saving their time and money.

Here is a list of people that I would encourage to join TAXI:

People that are relatively new to songwriting and recording. The critiques are very helpful and informative.
People that have a decent size song catalog
People that are willing to learn
Instrumental composers (all styles and genres) who have a home studio and are able to crank out lots of material on a frequent basis

Here is a list of people that I would NOT encourage to join TAXI:

Country songwriters, with one exception. I would encourage you to join so that you can see how high the bar is set for country music. Then after getting that reality check, I would suggest you move to Nashville. As much as it's about the song, in all honesty, it's also just as much about the relationships you form with the people in the industry. And living in Nashville, I can attest to the fact that it really is a lot about who you know. You gotta have the talent. That's a given. But you gotta have the connections too.
People that have only written 3 or 4 and hope to retire off of them. Though it's possible, one of them could be a hit, the odds of you only attempting something 4 times and finding that level of success at it are not very good. Put it this way. Would you expect someone who's never swung a baseball bat in his life, to be able to hit a home run against a major league pitcher in his first 3 or 4 attempts ever? Me either. Possible? Yes. Likely? No.
People that are not willing to learn
People that can't handle constructive criticism

I'm sure there's much I could say but I need to get back to my studio. I've got to make a CD tonight so I can mail it off to the new client I got this week courtesy of TAXI.

Let me conclude by saying that TAXI is not a miracle worker nor a magic pill but they are 100% legit and they do exactly what they say they will do. I've had an opportunity to spend some time on the phone and in person with Michael Laskow and I can personally attest that he is a man of his word.

If you have any questions, or comments about TAXI, this post, or music in general, leave them below and I'll do my best to answer them.

Until next time...

Blog Contest Week 9 - An Overview of Traditional PR

2010-03-09T12:54:00.005-06:00

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/joiseyshowaa/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

It's hard to believe that I'm on my last entry for Ariel Hyatt's Music Success In Nine Weeks Blog Contest. It's been quite an experience to say the least. Some of it has been easy to do, while other times it was definitely a bit challenging. But I guess you could really say that about anything in life.

Last week I mentioned that my main goal was to get my first newsletter out the door. I'm happy to say that I succeeded in doing that. I've actually gotten some nice feedback from a few of the people that read it. Definitely encouraging and I look forward to developing it into a routine.

The final chapter in the book deals with traditional PR. While this chapter would be extremely helpful to me if I was doing the touring band thing or just playing gigs, I still think I'll be able to glean some knowledge from it for my non-touring band (more on that later).

The chapter gives you some very practical and helpful info on traditional PR methods, such as 8 simple steps to creating a proper press release. Having a background in the music publishing side of the business, I'm very used to receiving press releases from other artists and publishers at my day job. Though I never took the time to analyze them or study them, as I read through the 8 steps in the book, I was trying to remember some of the old releases I've received and thinking to myself "So that's why they all seemed so similar!"

That section was followed up with a step-by-step guide to help you get as much attention as possible which was setup into two parts - your press kit and getting the word out about you. Again, this is a section that would have been so helpful to have had back in the day. But I know that I'll still be able to take some of her advice and apply it to my career today, whether it's as Big Blue Barry the artist or the songwriter and composer for film/TV or for my "band" Crushing Gray (Shameless Self-Promotion - If you like Breaking Benjamin, Nickelback or Daughtry, then I think you'll like us. Check us out at http://www.crushinggray.com).

There are a couple of exercises near the end of the chapter for you to complete. The first one is a personal analysis of your current press kit. The second one is to help you get quotes, both from fans and the industry alike, for your kit. Then to wrap up the chapter, she gives you tips on how to post the perfect press kit to your web site. I'll give you a hint, it involves your music, bio, photos and album artwork. I'll confess and say that I did not complete the exercises yet, however I do plan on doing so, especially for Crushing Gray.

There are a couple of "bonus" sections at the end of the book. One of them is for helping musicians find the right publicist and the other contains a list of 20 sites that she believes are critical for musician's in this new age of the industry. They definitely provide a nice supplement to everything else she talks about.

And with that, my final entry in this blog contest comes to a close. I want to thank Ariel and her team for giving me the chance to participate, as well as everyone else who read the blogs, and especially those who took the time to comment. I really appreciated that. I think I'll post another blog later this week with my thoughts on what I got from this book and contest and what it means for me going forward.

Until next time...

Blog Contest Week 8 - Creating a Continuum Program

2010-03-03T23:58:00.009-06:00

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/28634332@N05/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

When I first glanced at the title for this chapter, I immediately started having visions of intergalactic time travel and laser beams. But upon closer inspection of the book, I soon realized that it had nothing to do with the Space-Time Continuum. I gotta admit, I was a little disappointed. I thought I was going to be able to put some of my college education to use (I minored in Physics). But my disappointment went away rather quickly once I discovered that this chapter was going to help me come up with a plan to generate a stream of income that will, wait for it... continue... long after the first purchase has been made.

Ariel provides a quick recap of where we should be at this point in the book as it relates to the various tips, tricks, and techniques we've been learning since starting the book. Even though I'm following the majority of every idea and principle she's mentioned, I still feel like I'm just starting out.

I think the major reason behind me feeling that way is, even though I'm a very patient person, it generally doesn't take me too long to learn something and once I do, I expect to continue performing at the level on a constant basis. Well... I know with the social media stuff, that's not the case for me.

I'm still trying to figure out the best way for me to use Facebook and Twitter to communicate with my fans AND my friends. I want to keep everyone in the loop and I want to share my excitement about what's going in my musical career but at the same time I don't want to be "that" guy. You know the one I'm talking about. The one that ONLY talks about himself and is only concerned about his career. I don't think I'm "that" guy. But I can also be honest and say that I know a lot of my posts on Tweetybook - you like that? I just made that up :-) tend to deal with what's going on in my music career.

I think the challenge is trying to find time for everything and maintaining a balance. If this was the only job I had, then I think it would be much easier. It's rather difficult to have a day job, try to create a career as a musician, be married, keep up with friends and family as well as any interests of your own, and fit it all into a 24 hour/7 day work week. Whew.

Don't know where all that came from. Guess I needed to get that out of my system. OK. Moving back to the book again.

The gist of the chapter is the concept of the funnel and how it applies to marketing and sales. At the top of the funnel you would include something for everyone, like a free download. Then as you move downwards towards the smaller end of the funnel, you would start adding other items that increase in cost.

Ariel provided us with some ideas to help jump start the process for us. On the left you'll see a picture of my initial attempt. Some of the ideas were definitely geared towards artists that play out, but she had a few others that anyone could implement.

At the same time that I initially read through this chapter (I actually read through the book rather quickly, but trying to blog consistently, well that's been my challenge) I came across a thread on a web site that I frequent in which the author proposed that he was going to sell 1 Million Records in a year. This year to be exact. Starting on January 1, he was going to begin the process of writing, recording, mixing and mastering an album and then sell 1 million copies of it by the end of the year, all the while chronicling the process via YouTube. I'll be honest. I'm not sure if the guy is being serious about it, or if it's some big prank. Regardless, it did inspire me a bit. So as I tried to think of ways to further my music career, from a financial standpoint, two things kept coming to my mind.

The first was that guys contest idea. Now I know that the odds of me trying to sell 1 million records in a year is about as likely as Kentucky winning the national title in basketball. Oh wait a sec... that actually might happen this year! Had I wrote this last year, then the analogy would have applied. Seriously though, I knew that any number with TWO commas in it was just not going to happen. But I still wanted to dream big.

The second idea was one of Ariel's suggestions and that was to donate a portion of the proceeds of an event to charity. That one really stuck with me. And me being the numbers guy that I am (My major in college was Math), I tried to come up with some ideas that I could do that incorporate some type of numerical patterns.

What I finally ended up with was something I call the B3x10K challenge. You can read the full details at the B3x10K page on my site by clicking here. But the general gist of it is this:

Starting on March 1st, and lasting until Dec 31st of this year, I'm going to donate 30% of my online album and single download sales to charity. I'm going to give 10% each to the American Cancer Society (I lost two grandparents to cancer), the Red Cross (Haiti still needs help) and the Humane Society (What can I say, I love animals).

Here's the crazy part. I want to be able to raise $10,000 for each of them. Considering the fact that I'm a non-touring artist, I know I'm being unrealistic. And I'll be honest, I have no idea how I'm going to do it, other than I have to start building up my fan base NOW and really begin developing those relationships so that I can find people that will believe in me and want to help. I've always said that I wanted my music to make a difference in people's lives. Regardless of how many albums or singles I sell, I'll be always be able to look back at this year in my life and know that my music DID make a difference in someones life.

Finishing up this chapter, Ariel gives us a couple of exercises to help us to be able to finish our continuum program. This is something that I'll definitely be spending some time on and tweaking over the next couple of weeks as I continue to try and find the balance between myself as an artist and myself as a composer for film/TV.

Hard to believe that there's only one chapter left!

Until next time...

Blog Contest Week 7 - Real Live Networking Tips

2010-03-03T18:45:00.003-06:00

Before I get to this week's topic, here's a quick update on last week's entry. I set aside some time to go through a stack of business cards that I had acquired over the last year or so from people that I met at the TAXI Road Rally in LA to increase the size of my newsletter list. I'm happy to report that I was able to double the size of my newsletter list! Now, in full disclosure, it wasn't very large to begin with, but hey, that's what this contest is all about right? Taking the steps to build something. I haven't even tackled my "inbox" yet, or the majority of my friends and family either. So I think it's possible that with a little work, this list can break the 100 mark very soon! The next step is to actually send out a newsletter! LOL... That's my primary goal for the week.

Now on to this week's contest. Chapter 7 is entitled "Real Live Networking Tips" and though I'm not gigging out anymore, this chapter still has relevance to me. One of the concepts she mentioned was being a shark in a sea of tuna. In other words, go hang out with groups of people that are NOT doing what I'm doing. One of the things that immediately came to my mind would be film festivals. I actually went to the Nashville Film Festival last year for the first time and was able to make some contacts there. Nothing came out of them yet (other than a few email addresses I was able to collect!) but it's something that I'll be even more prepared for this year.

She also gives some practical advice on things you shouldn't say as well as things you should say, and how to position yourself in the conversation. Some excellent advice that I will be implementing as I find myself in live networking situations. Which these days, don't seem to be that often. I used to spend much more time outside of the house but over the last couple of years, I've really become much more of a home-body. Wonder if it's related to the fact that I got a home studio about 2 years ago. Coincidence? I think not.

That's all for this week's chapter. I'll be posting my entry for Chapter 8 very soon so be on the look out!

Until next time...

Blog Contest Week 6 - How To Build Your Mailing LIst

2010-02-19T23:28:00.007-06:00

This week's entry in the CyberPR Blog Contest finds us in newsletter land. Back when I was doing the band thing, I used to send out a newsletter to our email list. But since I made the switch from gigging artist to film/TV composer I just never thought about sending a newsletter. Well, that mindset is gone and I'll be sending out my first newsletter next week. I'm going to try and coordinate them around the first week of the month.

In this chapter Ariel makes the comparison that the size of one's email list is directly proportionate to the size of their income. And while I can't speak about that from the perspective of someone with an email list in the tens of thousands, unfortunately, I can however verify the other end of the spectrum of that statement. But hopefully with Ariel's help (no pressure!) that's all going to change.

She encourages you to set aside a scheduled time once a week of about 60-90 minutes to focus solely on building your email list. So tonight that's what I did. I think I went over the 90 minutes but I figured, what the heck, I'm already behind, time to start getting caught up!

She provides you with five tips on getting more fans onto your list, such as adding friends & family, creating a location to store potential email addresses, offering a bribe, list trading with other bands, and going mobile. I decided to focus on the first three methods mentioned.

For tonight, I focused on adding friends and family, as well as offering a bribe. The past two November's I've had a chance to go to the TAXI Road Rally in LA and make some great connections. In doing so, I've exchanged business cards with quite a few people. So the first thing I did was go through that stack of cards to find some potential list members. I ended up emailing 25 people tonight, using the template that Ariel provided. So far I've had 5 people respond back that I could add them. I think that's a good start!

Also tonight, I went through my followers on my Twitter account and sent a direct message to the 40 most recent followers and told them that they if they signed up for my monthly newsletter, they would get a free mp3. No response on that one yet, but it's not helping matters that about an hour after I did that, the ReverbNation site went down for maintenance.

Earlier in the week I started keeping a folder in my e-mail client with potential leads in it. I'm going to continue to do that and start making that a weekly habit as well. I'm going to grow this list. Oh yes! It will grow!

At the end of the chapter Ariel lists 7 steps to help jump-start your email list. Let's see how many of those I did tonight!

Make dates with yourself for the next 3-6 months to focus on your list? Check!
Create a list of bands/artists you play with? Nope. Might re-visit this one later on when list is bigger.
Draft a "form" email? Check!
Mobile fan club management? Nope, not for me at this time.
Add a bribe to your home page? Check! Though technically, it was already there thanks to an earlier chapter in this book.
Use ReverbNation sign-up widget? Same as #5
Go through MySpace friends and ask for email? Nope. I don't have much of a MySpace presence at this point.

I'll be back soon with the next installment as this contest is coming to an end in the next couple of weeks.

Until next time...

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/adrianclarkmbbs/ / CC BY-ND 2.0

Blog Contest Week 5 - Newsletter, Email List & Surveys

2010-02-06T01:25:00.004-06:00

This week's chapter in the CyberPR Blog Contest is centered around a very important paradigm that some artists don't necessarily like to embrace; The concept of thinking of themselves as a commodity and their fans as a customer. I admit, I'm not always comfortable with that notion, but I completely agree with it, especially from a business standpoint. If you want to have a successful business, you have to give your customers want they want. Same thing with being a successful musician, gotta give the fans what they want.

One of Ariel's tips is moving away from the old business model of selling a few things to a large group of people, but instead, sell many things to a smaller group of people. Instead of trying to reach all of the masses, find your hardcore group of fans and deliver products to them that they WANT to buy from you.

So how do you do that? She suggests to start out by building up rapport with your email list. Don't communicate with them only when you're trying to sell something, but instead reach out to them for other reasons to help foster the relationship.

Ariel provides us with her 3-step process on how to get the most out of our newsletter - Greeting, Guts, and Getting. Start off with a personal greeting, something non-musical. Then move to the Guts of the email aka "the meat" of the newsletter. Then the last step is Getting them to act. Put in something that will get them to take action, like joining up to follow you on a social networking site, or offering them a free download, etc...

The next section is about using surveys to find out what your fans want so that you can maximize your potential to deliver it to them. She suggests waiting until you have a real fan base (minimum 1,000 strong) to ask them what they want from you. It's gonna be awhile before I get to that level but fortunately for me, the next chapter in the book is on growing your list :-)

I think the thing that I'll definitely take away from this lesson is the concept of selling many things to fewer people. Not sure what I'm going to do to make that work for me just yet, but I'll be spending some time brainstorming on that one for sure. Might even try and get some ideas from my fans while I'm at it... :-)

Blog Contest Week 4 - Musician's Web 2.0 Guide

2010-02-04T21:06:00.007-06:00

Hard to believe that it's been almost a month since I wrote the entry for Week 3 in the CyberPR blog contest. Check out my last post to see some of the reasons (*cough* excuses *cough*) why (as well as pictures of our new cats!).

One area that I've been struggling with as I've read through this book is in the way that I perceive myself as a musician/artist. Here's what I know:

What I know that I AM: a songwriter and a composer for film and tv

What I know that I AM NOT: a touring artist

My dilemma lies in finding that line between writing music for use in film/tv and writing music for mass (hopefully) public consumption. Because I don't sing, or at least not in a voice that most would find pleasing, though I can do the scary cookie monster growling thing fairly well, I typically write more instrumental tracks. And though most of what I do is guitar driven, I am NOT a "shredder" like some of my favorite guitarists - Satriani, Vai, Petrucci, Gilbert, etc... - who typically write guitar driven instrumental music.

I do have some side projects with a couple of co-writers that do sing, Crushing Gray (rock/metal) and Big Blue Shoes (indie/rock/pop), but I still have a desire to "do my own thing." I guess what it REALLY boils down to is a fear of failure. I think every artist deals with that though. In this instance, my fear is about something that I'm planning on launching next month. I know that on my own, there is NO WAY I will be able to achieve the results that I'm hoping to get. But instead of dwelling on that now, let me try to get back on topic for this post. Trust me, there will be plenty of time to talk about "the big project" after I announce it next month.

Ok... Chapter 4 - A Musician's Web 2.0 Guide... There was a lot of stuff in this chapter that I was already doing or familiar with. But instead of glossing over it I wanted to put the time in to it as if it was all new to me.

The first exercise was to head on over to CommonCraft.com and check out some short videos on different Web 2.0 concepts. Though I was already familiar with the concepts, it was fun to watch the videos. They were short, concise and amusing. Well worth the 15 minutes.

Up next was setting up a Google Reader. This one has been one of the best pieces of advice for me personally so far. I had worked with an RSS reader once before a few years ago, not Google's, and just didn't enjoy the experience. But Google got this one right. With the exception of a few social networking/community sites, I've now got the RSS feeds for all of the sites that I visit on a daily/weekly basis set up in my reader. What a great time saver!

The next section was blogging and podcasting. One of the things she mentions to do is to sign up for an account with http://www.mybloglog.com. So I signed up for that and you should be able to see their plug-in is now on my blog.

This next exercise was to identify 50 blogs that you would like to have your music reviewed on. Remember the indecisiveness and the fear of failure from earlier? I think this exercise helped contribute to it... lol... I had to skip this section for the time being. I do plan to revisit it later, but it will be for when I go back through this book for my "band" projects, Crushing Gray and Big Blue Shoes. Actually... I just had a thought... instead of looking for blogs to review my music on the basis of it as being art, I think instead I will look to have it reviewed more for the basis of it's production quality! Yeah!!! I think that will be more in line with my "goals" at the moment. Then I'll start expanding the list to include reviews on the quality of the art. Whew... I'm glad that thought popped into my head. I actually feel a sense of relief, as funny as that may sound.

The next step was to join the Podsafe Music Network. I was glad that the book had the web site URL listed near the back of the book, but it would have been handy had it been included in this specific section as well. I didn't realize it was in the back of the book at first and I ended up going to google to find it. I created an account there and will begin the process of adding my music there over the next week.

The next section was on Twitter, which I've already been using for a while. I've got things synced up now so that when I upload a new track to my ReverbNation profile, it updates Twitter which in turn updates my Facebook profile. Thanks to an article by Robert Holland from http://www.facebook.com/SocialSEO - I was able to get my Twitter feed to update my Facebook Fan page as well. Unfortunately, the specific method he was advocating, using Yahoo! Pipes, no longer works due to a change in policy by the Third Party developers. I'm still able to do it, but it's not as "neat" or "clean" as Robert's first plan was but it still does the job.

Finally, the next step was to get set up on Flickr. I wasn't sure if I was going to follow through with this step or not as I was beginning to get concerned that I was starting to spread myself too thin. But I figured I'd go ahead and do it anyway. I created my account and uploaded a couple of live shots of me from a show I played a couple of years ago, a picture of me with the legendary Bill Gaither, and a picture of each of our cats, both past and present.

That's all for this week's chapter. Now that I think I'm out of my funk and moving forward again, I plan on getting caught up this weekend and knocking out Chapter 5 as well as trying to do a better job of organizing my time for blogging, facebook, etc... so that I don't start to get the feeling of being overwhelmed with all the "non-musical" music stuff that I'm trying to keep up with.

Until next time...

An update

2010-02-03T21:52:00.014-06:00

I've got another blog entry coming up for the contest I'm in but before I get to that, let me get everyone up to speed on what's been going on the last few weeks. There have been several things that have both helped me stay focused and at the same time keep me distracted.

The short version is that it took me a few weeks to really work through the grief of losing our cat, Grey. There were several days that I just didn't feel like doing anything with music or being active online with Twitter or Facebook, and for the most part I didn't. Now let me say, I'm not one for drama and I'm not out for attention. I wouldn't go so far to say that I was depressed, but I was definitely not myself.

Even today, I still miss our cat but I think the grief is over with. One reason for that is we are now the owners of TWO cats - Ronan (the tabby on the left) and Teyla (the calico on the right). And to any Stargate: Atlantis fans out there, the answer is "yes" but I'll save that story for another day. Needless to say, they have definitely filled a void that our last cat left, and it definitely took the both of them to fill that hole.

Another distraction for me is college basketball season is in full effect right now. My love for music is equaled (some might even say surpassed) by my love for Kentucky Wildcats basketball. And with the season we're having, especially compared to the last two-four years, I'm in hoops heaven right now.

But all has not been lost. There were a couple of weeks in which I actually was very productive on the music front, thanks in part to one of my friends and colleagues, Lydia Ashton. She gave me a chance to work with her on scoring the music for a short action/drama film. We had a quick turnaround time (2 weeks, start to finish) but we were able to get it done in time and the director really liked the stuff we came up with. I'll put a link up to the film as soon as I get one.

This was my second score-to-picture gig and I gotta say that I absolutely loved it. We had to stay close to the temp music, which was fine, but we still had a chance to be creative. I enjoy the challenge of trying to write something that's similar to what the director originally heard when they put in the temp music but is still original and unique and sounds like me. THAT... is fun.

One of the most exciting things that I took from that project was getting to write my first ever non-guitar and non-drum kit based cue. Typically, every piece of music I've ever written has either started with a guitar riff (electric or acoustic) or a groove on the drum kit. But while working on this film, I got to write a cue that was based more on synth pads, ambient sounds, percussion and strings. I had a blast! Once I figure out a "formula", I hope to start knocking out some more cues like that.

Speaking of cues like that... Earlier tonight I got an offer to work on another project for one of the larger libraries that I write for. I'll only be writing a couple of cues for this one. It's a VERY quick turnaround but should be fun.

Until next time...

Connections

2010-01-08T20:35:00.005-06:00

Earlier this week I read online that one of my favorite bands, Demon Hunter, was about to release a new album in a few weeks. I decided to listen to one of their older albums, Summer of Darkness, while I was working. As I listened to the album, I felt a connection that I can't really explain. I've got hundreds of Cd's and there are very, VERY few of them that I have the same type of strong connection with.

I'll try to put it into words but I doubt I can. The hard part in doing so is that while listening triggered some specific memories or emotions at the same time, they were also generic and vague. Make sense? Nah, not to me either. But regardless... that album makes me feel something.

As I think about it more, I can kind of pinpoint some of the reasons why the album connected with me so much. First off is the music itself. They weren't the first band to do the heavy-yet-melodic style but they were one of the first Christian bands that I personally heard do it that well. And that's another thing... I'm gonna get on a soapbox for a second... OK, actually, I'm not... I'll just say that everything that Demon Hunter did on that album, from the music itself to the artwork, screamed excellence. I wish more people would follow their lead in that regard.

And speaking of the artwork... I have no doubt the visual imagery that they provided for that album is one of the reasons it connected with me so much. It just added another element to the overall listening experience. They do that with each of their albums, another reason why they're one of my favorites.

This is also one of the first albums I got after getting back into music. From around September 2001 to March 2005 I took a break from the music scene. When I got back into it, a friend of mine told me about these guys and after watching a video from their first album I was hooked.

Sorry if this post has been a bit more of free-flow than normal. But I guess what I'm trying to get at is that I wonder how many other people out there have similar albums and stories. Is there a specific album that you have that no matter where you are or what kind of mood you're in, the moment you begin to hear it, you have all kinds of thoughts and emotions rushing through your head? Anyone?

Blog Contest Week 3 - Optimizing Your Website

2010-01-06T17:50:00.003-06:00

It's been a bit easier to focus on music this week, especially compared to the previous two. Having to go back to the day job helped re-establish a bit of routine but I'd be lying if I said that everything is back to normal. But I was able to do a better job with my Daily 5 this week, definitely better than the previous week.

Here's a quick update on the six music goals that I set for 2010 back in Week 1's post.

Distribution Model - I'm still deciding on the distribution model for my music but I will have a decision made by next weekend.
Online Presence Integration - I have some integration going on between Twitter, Facebook, Myspace and ReverbNation but I still need to tweak their appearances as well as change the Twitter-Facebook relationship to update my fan page instead of my personal facebook page.
Organizing Catalog into Albums - Haven't touched this one.
Re-Design Web Site - Finished!
Write 50 New Tracks - Should have my first one done later tonight!
Weekly Hour of Promotion - Haven't done this yet. Will start focusing on this one now that #4 is done and #2 is nearing completion.

Even though I haven't seen any monetary success from doing this blog contest (yet), I am already very appreciative of the focus it's given me towards marketing myself and my music. For those who truly know me, they would agree that I'm much more comfortable being in the background than I am being in the spotlight. I don't really enjoy the self-promotion aspect of music. But I also know that if I want to be successful and have a career at this, ESPECIALLY as a non-touring artist, then I HAVE to self-promote, and I have to do it EFFICIENTLY and EFFECTIVELY. That's one of the reasons I decided to do this contest. I'll be completely honest with you... I'm not even concerned about winning... Do I want to win? Yes! Of course I do. I'm VERY competitive. But I can honestly say that I'm more interested in developing a system of habits and techniques that will enable me to be successful over the long run than I am about winning a contest. But trust me... I want to win!!! :-)

Week 3 - Optimizing Your Website is the shortest chapter in the book at only 3 pages in length. But those pages contain 6 steps for maximizing your web site. Some of the steps include adding your pitch to your home page, making sure your page loads in 3.5 seconds, getting rid of flash intros and adding a consistent look and feel across all of your online presence.

Even though I had originally planned to have my web site re-design finished around May, after reading through this chapter I decided to move it up. Instead of writing some new tracks over the holidays, I spent some time writing code instead. I took the steps Ariel mentioned and tried to incorporate them into a new site.

While I was working on this, I heard from one of my old college roommates, Nathan, who happens to have the moniker of being my #1 fan. He's been there since the very beginning when I first learned how to play guitar back in the dorm room. He truly earned the name. The reason he wrote was to give his opinion on my perfect pitch. He mentioned that my more recent material had started moving towards a keyboard-based, dirty synth lead type of sound, a la Linkin Park. And while he thought the pitch was good, he felt like if I was going to continue in that new direction, that maybe I should consider that.

I was glad that he brought that up. And since he's a big fan, I had to consider what he was saying. Even though I know I still have a bit of the Foo Fighters influence in my songs, the more recent stuff doesn't reflect that as much. So I revised my perfect pitch and ran it past him and got the approval from the #1 fan. So here is the new perfect pitch:

Imagine a steel cage match between Sevendust and Linkin Park with Joe Satriani as the referee...

I agree with him that it's more fitting and is a better description of where I'm at now musically, as well as the direction I'm heading in.

Now back to the website... I tried to implement Ariel's 6 steps in my new design. First off, I added my pitch to the site. I put it in a spot so that it's always there, no matter which page you land on, so there will be no doubt for anyone who visits the site as to what my music sounds like.

The next step was making sure the page loads in under 3.5 seconds. I implemented some caching on the back end to help with this process. Another step was to not use a Flash intro. That was an easy one since I don't program in Flash :-)

The fourth step was to implement a consistent look and feel throughout the net. I've partially done this in regards to my other social networking sites but I haven't completed this one yet. Mainly because I was waiting to go live with this site before taking on the other ones. But that will be one of my Daily 5 items for the upcoming week!

The next step was to give away an exclusive MP3 or video or something that would entice people to sign up for your email list. So I made myself a banner ad with "FREE MP3" written on it to hopefully entice people to sign up. The final step is to make it clear to the user that once they sign up they'll be told how to get their free item, as well as make sure they know their email address will never be given out to anyone ever. To handle the first half of that step, I was able use a feature in my ReverbNation account that sends an auto-response when someone signs up for your email list so that made it easy to manage the instructions aspect.

Coming up next week is the Musician's Guide to Web 2.0. Looking forward to that one as I suspect it will be a crucial step in the process of getting my music out there. But now I've got a couple last minute things to check and then I'll be publishing my new site. It should be live within an hour or so of posting this blog.

Until next time...

Blog Contest Week 2 - Your Perfect Pitch

2009-12-30T20:56:00.002-06:00

As promised in my previous entry for this contest, here's an update on my progress for the goals I outlined in Week 1. It was a bit of a struggle for me with the "Daily 5" this past week. One reason was because it was Christmas, but the bigger reason was because of the situation with our cat. The short version is our cat had been declining in health over the last few weeks and this week ended up being his last. My concern was more for making him comfortable and knowing that he was loved than it was for my own goals. Next week though, I think the goals will be a good distraction to help keep my mind off of missing my little buddy.

I was able to make some progress towards the re-design of my web site. And since Week 3 is about optimizing your site, I'm actually planning on having that goal completed by then. But for now, let's get started with Week 2 - Your Perfect Pitch.

The point of this chapter is to really help you maximize your online and offline branding, to create your own Unique Selling Point, to create something that will give your potential audience a context about you. I remember back a few years ago when I was trying to do the band thing, trying to explain to people what we sounded like. We said the typical "we sound like us" statements that so many artists say. We didn't want to be pigeon-holed into sounding like someone else. We didn't want people to think we sounded like other bands, we wanted them to think we sounded like us! Looking back at it, how foolish we were.

Humans like context. We like reference points. We like what we know. And back to my old band for a second. People are going to think what they want to. I wonder how much more effective we could have been had we had a more clearly defined strategy in place, if we would have had our "Perfect Pitch". No point in wasting time on "what if's" at this point so moving forward...

The book gives some examples of some of Ariel's client's pitches to help us get a jump start on the process. Then there was an exercise to fill out. The first part was to list out the genres that you typically play, which for me was Rock, Metal, Hard Rock, Pop-Punk and Alternative. Next was to write down all the artists that people say I sounded like. My list included the following: Sevendust, Slipknot, Foo Fighters, Breaking Benjamin, Daughtry, Nickelback, Metallica, Pantera, Steve Vai and Joe Satriani.

Next was to make a list of artists (and authors or famous people) that have influenced me. I pretty much stayed with just artists and the list included Sevendust, Mark Tremonti, Foo Fighters, Paul Gilbert, Dream Theater, and Joe Satriani. The next step was to come up with a list of feelings and vibes that I want my music to convey. The list consisted of the following: intense, emotional, anger, sadness, rage, joy, melancholy, powerful, epic, melodic, brutal and rhythmic

The next part of the process was to go back over the first steps and choose my favorites and from there, create a few words or sentences that sum me up. I chose the following as my favorites: Sevendust, Foo Fighters, Joe Satriani, intense, powerful, melodic

Now it was time to write out my pitch. And to help test it out, it was suggested we log on to http://www.15secondpitch.com. I created a profile there and walked through the wizard that the site had for creating your 15 second pitch. Another term I've heard used to describe this is the "elevator pitch." Heard that term at least a dozen or so times at the TAXI Road Rally. So after going through the wizard to create your pitch, you're then shown the pitch and given a timer so you can test it out.

My first effort, which used the wizard, ended up taking me about 22 seconds to say, and it didn't feel natural. The site is geared towards businesses, and while being a musician is a business, the wizard seemed like a fill-in-the-blank kind of process. I'm sure for other people it probably worked wonders, but for me, it just didn't seem to be a good fit. But one thing it did help me realize was what NOT to do :-)

I continued to use the site and edit my pitch on the profile page I created, skipping the wizard altogether. Then I would use the timer function to see how long it was taking. After a few attempts, I finally came up with something that I felt good about. Something that I felt I could stand behind. Something that was 100% me. And just what is my Perfect Pitch? Let me tell you...

Imagine a steel cage match between Sevendust and The Foo Fighters with Joe Satriani as the referee.

The next step was to start implementing this pitch on my online and offline branding, starting with my web site's home page, myspace page, facebook page and any other social networking sites I use. Since I'm a non-performing artist, I don't really have a lot of offline branding that I'm doing, so I don't really have anything to focus on there but I have added it to my myspace profile, facebook fan page, twitter account and my web site.

Coming up for next week is Chapter 3 - Optimizing your website. The plan is for me to have my new site all finished and rolled out at the time that I post the blog for Chapter 3, probably a week from today. Actually, let's make that a definite. One week from tonight I will post the review of Chapter 3 and will go live with my updated web site. Now I gotta start planning out my Daily 5 to make sure I get it done!

Until next time...

The end of an era

2009-12-30T16:35:00.007-06:00

Yesterday, December 29th, 2009, was without a doubt one of the saddest days of my life. It was the day that we had to put our cat, Grey, to sleep. He was more than just a pet. He was family. He was my little buddy. He was one of my best friends. And he was the most un-cat like cat I've ever personally known.

Had he made it another 2 months, he would have been 20 years old. So, while I'm grieving pretty hard for him right now, I know that he was blessed with a long and happy life. Rather... we were the blessed ones to have been given the gift of taking care of him while he was here on this earth the last 19+ years.

For those of you who never met Grey, let me tell you his story...

Our adventure begins back in March of 1990 in Reynoldsburg, OH. One day while walking outside my future wife heard a faint squeaky sad "meow" type sound out in the distance. She walked down towards a field beside her house that was filled with waist-high weeds and also close to the highway. As she got closer to the field, out popped a little grey kitten.

The cutest little kitten she ever saw, with a silvery grey coat of fur and giant ears, about two sizes TOO big for his head. She reached down and picked him up and began to pet on him (she did this to any cat she came across). He let her love on him and began to purr. But when she turned to take him to the house, he jumped out of her arms and went running back into the field, letting out little squeaky "meow's" the entire time, so she followed him in. He even stopped a couple of times to make sure she was still following him.

He led her to a plastic bag like you'd find at Kroger or Wal-mart. The bag was tied in a knot but she noticed that there was a big rip in the side of the bag. The kitten started poking his head inside so she looked inside the bag as well. Inside she found another little kitten, a tabby, that appeared to be the same age as the grey kitten, about six weeks old. It was shivering and looked terrified. She pulled the kitten out of the bag and then grabbed the little grey one and took them both home. Her mom adopted the tabby and she kept the little grey kitten for her own. And she had him ever since. What a sweet little cat he was to make sure that his sister was found too! And how horrible it was for someone to tie two kittens up in a bag and throw them off the side of the road! But our little grey was a fighter, a hero. He wasn't going to let his sister die in that bag.

A few years later, my future mother-in-law was emptying the groceries out of the car. She left a car door open and Grey, ever the curious cat, decided he wanted to go for a ride. Just as he was leaping inside, my mother-in-law started to shut the door. She didn't see him trying to get in and she shut the door on him. Fortunately, no ribs were broken, but it did result in him getting a very distinctive "purring" sound, much louder than typical cats. After that incident, he hated to be in a car and would meow his little head off anytime he was in one. It also made him snore at times, kind of a cute little wheezing sound. I miss that sound already.

The first six years of his life he was forced to be an outdoor cat by my mother-in-law even though he often demonstrated signs that he wanted to be inside with the people instead of being outside and alone, such as darting inside the moment a door opened and once inside, hiding so he wouldn't have to go back outside. So six months after my wife and I got married in '96, we brought him home to live with us as an indoor cat where he was well fed, spoiled and pampered until the end of his days.

One of the funniest memories of Grey I have is from the second year we had him when we lived in Nicholasville, KY. He loved to chew on our shoe strings. Well one day he was chewing on the shoe strings of my wife's winter boots. He got startled and the next thing you know he started to take off running down the hall. The one thing he forgot to do was let go of the shoe string. So as he went sprinting down the hall, he had one of her boots in tow right behind him, kicking him in the backside, which only made him more run faster and kept the whole process going. My wife chased after him the entire time, trying to get the boot string out of his mouth. I, however, was crying from laughing so hard at the sight of this poor little cat being chased by the boot. lol.

He ran down the hall. Took a left into the bedroom. Jumped on the bed. Ran ON THE WALLS around the room (just like in the cartoons, I kid you not) back out to the hallway. Down the hall again. Hard left into the dining room. Another hard left into the kitchen until he finally stopped in front of the fridge. He opened his mouth to breathe and the shoe string fell out. He proceeded to wedge himself in between the wall and the fridge (I still don't know how he fit) and let out some of the saddest little "meows" he could ever whimper. We finally got him to come out and we never saw him chew on the shoe strings again! lol

There are so many stories about Grey that I could share, from him climbing into the back of the open dishwasher with it fully loaded, to announcing to us that it was time for him to go to the litter box, or hearing us turn on the TV in the bedroom and then seeing him sprint into the room where he'd jump up on the bed and proceed to crawl onto my chest and just plop down so that I could love on him. But there's one other memory that I'll always treasure.

This past year my little buddy decided that he wanted to become my assistant engineer in the studio. I thought I'd give him a shot since I didn't really have anyone else there to do the job. But he wouldn't run any cables for me. He wouldn't turn on the lights. Pretty much he only did two things. The first thing he would do was wait until I had to record acoustic guitar parts and then proceed to act as if he was on Feline Idol or something. Maybe he thought we would become a singer-songwriter duo and take our act on the road.

But the other thing he did was just so precious to me. He would come into the studio, whether I had a guitar in my hands or not, didn't matter what I was doing, and he would proceed to walk right over to the edge of my chair. He would then look up at me with those big eyes of his (imagine the scene from Shrek 2 with Puss 'N Boots), then proceed to put both of his front paws on my leg (or the front of the chair), and try to climb up on me, even though at this point, he really wasn't able to. So I'd pick him up and then he'd perch himself on me, both front paws dangling over my left shoulder, like he's trying to knead some dough, while I rub his belly and he rubs his head against my cheek, letting out that big ole "purr" sound of his the entire time, which was probably anywhere from 15-30 minutes at a time.

Earlier this year, we noticed that Grey had really started to lose weight, even though he was eating more than he ever had. We took him to the vet and he was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism. He had some medication that we had to give him each day, but over the last couple of months, the medicine just wasn't working anymore. Last week we took him to the vet for a check up because he just wouldn't eat or drink. For the past week, we had to double up his medication but it didn't make a difference.

Yesterday, I called the vet to give him the latest update. I dreaded making that call because I knew what was going to happen next. So after giving the vet the latest info, he told me what I was dreading to hear, but knew was coming, that it was time to bring Grey in and have him put to sleep. The moment I hung up the phone the tears began to flow. I had been trying to hold it in for the past week and just couldn't do it any longer.

So yesterday afternoon, about 24 hours ago, we put our little buddy to sleep. Remember how I mentioned that he hated cars and would always let us know about it by meowing his little head off? Well, yesterday when we took him to the vet, for the entire duration of the ride over there, he never made a sound. We stayed with him throughout the entire process. It was hard to let him go, but we know we did the right thing. Doesn't make it easier, that's for sure, but we know that we did all we could do for him and that his time with us was done.

After he was given his sedative, in typical Grey fashion, he proceeded to walk over to the scale that he would get weighed on and cozied up for his final nap. He loved to sit on things, whether it was a book you were reading or a notepad you were writing on. He liked to sit on it and claim it as his 0wn. I believe that he thought our house was his and that he thought he was being gracious by allowing us to live here and take care of him.

Earlier today we buried Grey in our backyard. We bought a black wicker box to put him in, one that he probably would have tried to crawl inside of and take up residence in if he were still alive, especially if we needed it for something else. As if saying goodbye to him wasn't hard enough, trying to get the hole dug, proved to be a challenge as well. Between breaking my first shovel, the ground being more mud than dirt, constantly running into tree roots or underground tubing that the previous homeowner had installed to help drain water away from the house, I thought I'd never be able to get it done. But I finally did and we were able to lay him to rest.

In the words of the famous professional wrestler Bret "The Hitman" Hart. When it comes to Grey... he's the best there ever was, the best there ever is, and the best there ever will be.

I love you little buddy.

Blog Contest Week 1 - Getting Mentally Prepared

2009-12-22T23:27:00.004-06:00

As I mentioned in my last entry, I've entered myself into a blogging contest for Ariel Hyatt's book Music Success In Nine Weeks. I'll be doing a total of nine entries, one for each chapter, over the next nine weeks.

The first week is about "Getting Mentally Prepared." One of the things that Ariel talks about in this chapter to help get you mentally prepared is the concept of setting goals, both short term (daily) and long term (year from now, lifetime).

I'll be honest. This chapter has been a bit of a challenge for me, mostly because it's forcing me to "dream" a bit. Let me explain that a bit.

I joined a company called TAXI in January of 2008 with a long term goal of getting some of my music placed in film and television. Well, honestly, when I first joined, I was hoping that it would be a "short" term goal, but I quickly learned that, for the most part, the music business, especially film and TV, is a very slow moving process.

Back to that goal... I spent the first year really learning the ropes so to speak. Figuring out how to improve my recording and production skills. Then this past year, all of the blood, sweat and tears that I had been putting in started to pay off. My songs started getting signed to different music libraries. I had some placements on MTV. I scored the music for part of an indie documentary film. I landed a spot as a composer for a daytime talk show. And most recently signed an exclusive deal with a publisher overseas. And while all of those things were part of my "generic" goals, none of them were things that I would have written down as specific goals (with the possible exception of MTV).

Which brings me back to the book. Part of the "homework" in this book involves writing down five successes that we hope to accomplish each day, but not all of them will be music related. They can be something as simple as doing laundry to something a bit more involved like composing an orchestral piece. The key is to get in the habit of doing something positive each day and not to focus on the negative.

I'm a pretty even-keeled person, so not focusing on the negative isn't really that much of a challenge for me. But one thing that I think I'll benefit from by doing "The Daily 5" will be to help me keep a bit of balance in my life. When I put my mind to something, I go for it at maximum velocity with every bit of energy that I've got. And while that can definitely be a good thing, it also means that sometimes I might neglect other aspects of my life that need tending to. When I got focused on something, I just block out any distractions that might get in the way, whether they're an actual "distraction" or not because I am focused on the end result, and I'm too stubborn (thanks Granddad!) to quit or give up.

The next section of the chapter deals with setting some actual Goals, and not just strictly music related goals, but also goals for your life in general, some of which are for the upcoming year, and some are for your entire lifetime. While I won't bore you with my "Daily 5" lists, I will however, present some of my music goals for your reading enjoyment. If, for no other reason, then to have them there for accountability. So with no more adieu and no further gilding of the lily, I present you Big Blue's Six Music Goals for 2010, Edition 1:

Choose a distribution model for my music (ReverbNation, CD Baby, Tunecore, etc...) by Jan 15, 2010
Integrate, streamline and improve my online presence (web site, myspace, twitter, facebook) by Feb 1, 2010
Organize my existing catalog into "albums" and make them available for purchase by April 1, 2010
Re-design my web site by May 1, 2010
Write a minimum of 50 new instrumental tracks and get them all signed to a music library by November 1, 2010
Spend an hour each week adding quality friends/fans to twitter/myspace/facebook

It's recommended that your Daily 5 include tasks that will help you work towards achieving your goals. By doing something every day, no matter how large or small, you're at least making progress towards achieving the success that you're hoping for. Every little bit helps.

I'll be sure to include an update on my progress when I post the entry for the next chapter. And for those of you that know me, you won't be surprised to hear that a "lifetime" goal is to have one of my tracks used during the broadcast of a Kentucky basketball game (or highlight package) on ESPN or CBS. That, quite honestly, would be a dream come true.

Well, that's all for this week. I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and I'll be back soon with my report on Chapter 2!

Until next time,
- Big Blue

Music Success In Nine Weeks Blog Challenge

2009-12-17T19:05:00.003-06:00

Earlier last week I got an email from Ariel Hyatt talking about a blogging contest that she was going to be doing in regards to her book, Music Success In Nine Weeks. I wanted to take her class at the TAXI Road Rally last month but it was up against another session that I also wanted to see so I didn't get to take it. But, as it turned out, I had a chance to meet her during one of the lunches while I was there.

When I first got the email I really wasn't sure if I wanted to do the contest or not. There were basically two reasons for my indecision. The first reason was that I'm not trying to do the traditional artist route anymore. And though I knew that the book was not strictly for the traditional artist, I still wasn't sure just how much of a benefit it would be for me. The second reason was simply this... time. By doing the contest, I knew that it would be taking up quite a bit of time. And at the moment, time is not necessarily a commodity that I have loads of currency in at the moment. And as much as I'd like to, I seem to have difficulty in maintaining an active blog.

But the more I thought about it, and the more feedback I got from some friends of mine (some of which are also going to be doing it), the more I decided that it was probably an investment worth making so I got the book earlier this week and plan on starting it this weekend.

Over the next several weeks I will be posting a blog entry about each chapter of the book and what I learned, what I struggled with, etc...

I know it's going to be a lot of work, but I'm looking forward to the challenge!

- Barry

Back home from the TAXI Road Rally, Part 4

2009-11-11T00:04:00.005-06:00

Day Six

After getting about 3 hours of sleep, I woke up in time to make it to the Film & TV Pitch panel. As was the case with the other panels I went to, I heard some really good stuff, maybe one that was great, and a few that were just ok. I, along with the rest of the members from the panel I was on, received a nice compliment during this panel. One of the panelists commented on how many of the mixes seemed to be a bit bass-heavy. When he listened to songs on Friday, at first, he thought it was the sound system. But on this day, he said that he didn't think that was the case because he had sit in on the TAXI members panel session that I was on the day before and said that every single mix he heard in that class was clean and clear. That made me smile :-)

After that panel finished up I decided to do some networking and hang out with some friends and "family." I enjoyed some nice conversation time with Dean K., Mazz and one of my newest friends, Jeanna (who's trying to get me to switch to a Mac and Logic Pro... we'll see...). Next thing you know, it's lunch time.

A group of us decided to have lunch at the hotel restaurant. One of those happened to be my buddy Devin. As we were having lunch, Devin said he had a story for me. The story concludes with him giving me a gift. An official replica of the Canadian national team hockey jersey. Again, another humbling moment for me. Being a sports fan, I know the passion that goes with following one's team (by the way, college basketball is now officially underway... C-A-T-S! CATS! CATS! CATS! Go Big Blue!) so I can appreciate the depth of this gift. I've already thanked him in person, but I'll say it again. Thank you Devin, love you man!

While I was at lunch, a gentleman that was sitting behind us said hello and told me that next year, he wanted to be me. I spent a few minutes talking with him to find out that he used to play in some bands in the 70's and 80's. Though the name of the band escapes me, it was one that I was very familiar with. Once again, another humbling experience.

After finishing up lunch, it was time to head upstairs for the TAXI 5 Year Plan class that was being taught by Matt Hirt, Dave Walton and John Mazzei. All three of them are TAXI members, at different stages of their career, but all successful, and all very generous and approachable. I got a lot out of the class and it really helped to answer some questions I had.

The last panel was the Producers looking for Crushing Gray, I mean... looking for Hits panel :-) As was the case with all the other panels, some pretty good stuff but nothing that I would have taken out a 2nd mortgage on my house for. Just being honest. There was one track that was REALLY good, but the chorus just wasn't there.

After that panel wrapped up, a large group of us had dinner at the hotel. Had some great food and great conversations, one of which included many references to Lord of the Rings and Samwise Gamgee. I also had a chance to meet some more new friends, Jeffrey and Theresa (hope I'm spelling their names right) that night. And then came the process of having to say goodbye.

Some of us where staying around till the morning but leaving on an early flight, while others were leaving on a red-eye flight that night. It was really hard to say goodbye to a few folks as many of these friends are as close as family. It really is difficult to put into words just how close so many of us have become.

As surprising as this may seem, I'm sure that I'm leaving out some great stories (I can already think of some that involve David Trotter, Sherrill Blackman, Fett and Michael Laskow). To all of the people that I may have left out, it was not intentional. As you can see, there was quite a bit going on. I'm already going through Rally Withdrawal and can't wait to see everyone again.

I guess I'm going to wrap this up for now. I'm planning on posting some more thoughts about some of the things I learned while I was at the Rally in a day or two.

So there you have it... TAXI Road Rally 2009 through a pair of blue-tinted glasses :-)

Love you all!

Back home from the TAXI Road Rally, Part 3

2009-11-10T21:33:00.008-06:00

Day Five

This was the day that I was a panelist during the first session, which was on writing songs and composing instrumentals for film and TV. I was a bit nervous at first but as the rest of the panel members showed up, the nerves started to leave. There were only two members on the panel that I hadn't met before, so it was very much a "family" type of feeling being up there on stage with them.

One by one, we were called to sit in the chair at the front of the stage with Michael Laskow as he moderated the panel. Each member would give a description of the song that they were going to play and then after the clip was done, they would be asked a question by Michael.

When it came my turn, Michael introduced me as "Barry French, but better known as Big Blue Barry." I couldn't help but smile. But before he had me introduce my clip, he said he wanted to share a story. He proceeded to tell the crowd about how we had met about 18 months ago in Nashville during a seminar he put on there. Then at last year's Rally, we had done a video interview, during which I was giving him a bit of history on my musical career. At one point I had told him that my wife and I had went through a rough patch several years back and that I gave up music to focus on healing my marriage. I got pretty choked up and they didn't know whether to hug me or stop filming. I eventually got my composure back and told them that several years later, with my wife's blessing, I got back into music and was going to work my tail off to not let her down and show her that her support was going to be worthwhile.

As he was telling this story, I couldn't help but to think back to that night he was talking about and I started to get a bit choked up. I kept telling myself "Pull yourself together man!!!" While I may look like a grizzly bear on the outside, I'm more of a teddy bear on the inside. Well, what happened next was completely unexpected.

As he's wrapping up the story, he says something to the effect of "Barry, you've been an inspiration to all of us here over the past year and we'd like to present you with 2009 TAXI Road Rally Inspiration Award." I was completely overwhelmed and I couldn't stop the tears from flowing at that point. I was in a state of shock from it all. So after the camera man finished snapping pictures, tears and all, Michael then asked me to describe my clip. Needless to say, it took me a few moments to regain my composure.

Once I got the tears wiped away and took a deep breath, I tried to explain the next clip that the audience was about to hear. Basically, I was trying to convey a couple of things. One of them was pay attention to the "listing." Even though the clip wasn't written for a TAXI listing, the process was very similar. The other concept I hoped to get across was to not spend too much time "tweaking" things. While you want to make sure you get the track to sound great, there comes a point where you just have to stop tweaking things and move on so that you can get it done. This is really more towards the film and TV market than it is making an artist's album. The one phrase I meant to say was being able to determine the point of diminishing returns, but I was so completely caught off guard by the award, that I forgot to say it. Hopefully, I was still able to get the point across.

After I sat down, the next person up was John Mazzei, better known as Mazz. He and I are both in a music library that composes for some popular daytime talk shows. As are most of the people that were on this panel, Mazz is truly one of the nicest and most helpful and generous guys you could ever meet. He's always giving of his time on the forums and is willing to share information with people to help them improve, not to mention, he's also one of the most ridiculously talented composers you'll ever meet. I really look up to Mazz and feel blessed to consider him a friend. So I was EXTREMELY happy to see him get presented with an award for all his contributions on the forums. He TOTALLY deserved it!

After the panel was over, I was met with several hugs and congratulatory remarks from people on the panel, as well as members of the audience. I had planned to watch the next seminar in the main ballroom but I ended up talking to several people outside in the hallway area instead. I can't even begin to describe how it felt to have people come up to me telling them how I had inspired them over the past year. It was one of the most humbling experiences.

Last year after I got back from the Rally, I had told my wife that I wanted to be a panelist one day. Maybe in three or four years from now, I wanted to be able to be up there on stage so that I could give back to the people what they gave to me last year. I had no idea that it would happen so quickly. THANK YOU Michael for giving me the opportunity this year.

I met so many people afterwards that either gave me a hug, shook my hand or simply said congrats that I can't remember them all. So, to all of them, I simply say "thank you" and I hope to continue to provide inspiration to you for years to come.

Up next was the mentor lunch. I was able to get a seat next to Ronan Chris Murphy, an audio engineer who's worked with tons of talented individuals over the years. I had lots of questions for him and I got lots of great info that I can't wait to start applying later this week! (Sidebar: I have 15 full-length tracks to complete in the next 30 days!)

I also had a chance to meet a record producer, the bass player for The Knack, Dan Kimpel (one of my favorites from last year too!) and Ariel Hyatt, a cyber PR specialist! I enjoyed them all, but one of the highlights for me was when the record producer asked us what the highlight of the Rally had been for us so far, one of my forum buddies Erich aka Teleblaster said "seeing Barry get the inspiration award." A couple of the others said that was their highlight as well, and I'd never even met them before. Again, it was just another, very humbling experience.

After that lunch I headed off to another listening panel, Major Label A&R. There were some good songs, but nothing really grabbed my attention. Admittedly, I'm kinda picky :-) The next panel was one about composing music for video games. LOTS of great info in this one! I look forward to the day when I have more time to focus on my composing skills as I would really like to do some composing for video games. One day!

After this panel, I went to dinner with the Pepper's and their friend Mary. We drove up to Manhattan Beach and ate at Pancho's then took a quick walk down to the beach and saw the ocean. I had such a great time with them. I wish they lived closer!

Got back to the hotel and did some more hanging in the lobby. I met some new people that night (Danny, his girlfriend Daneel(sp?), and also Rebekah aka Shorty). Danny and I talked about guitar mics and techniques. Thanks for the tips Danny! After talking to Rebekah about Master Release forms and other work-for-hire situations, I was about to call it night. But as I left, I ran into Ted (Australia) and he talked me into coming up to the 2nd floor and hanging out with him and some others for awhile. Ted told us about getting hustled while he was at the Venice area. Felt horrible for the guy, but I was glad that he was OK. It could have been much worse than it ended up being. Soon after that story, it was time to get some sleep. One more day left...

To be continued...

Back home from the TAXI Road Rally, Part 2

2009-11-10T19:48:00.008-06:00

Day Three

After a few hours of sleep, I made my way back down to the lobby to see that more and more people had started showing up. I had a chance to meet some more forum members for the first time. I made a quick trip to Denny's for some breakfast then back to the hotel to get in line for registration.

While in line I had a chance to catch up with a few old friends, Ragani, Dean K., Dave Penn, Trent Oliphant and Mark Smith. What a great feeling it was to see them all again and be able to catch up with everything that's been going on in their lives. That's one of the best things about the Rally, the "family reunion" aspect of it. The friendships you make there are of the life-long kind. Seeing each other online and chatting via email or phone is one thing, but it is no substitute for the real thing.

After a few hours of standing in line, the registration process started on time and with the addition of the 2 extra workstations, the line moved fairly quickly. After signing in, I went over and signed up for the mentor of my choice. After that I headed into the bookstore area to catch up with one of my personal mentors, Fett. He has a studio in the Nashville area and has been so gracious with his time and knowledge with me. I feel blessed to be able to call him a friend, just a great guy.

After spending a bit of time with him, it was back to the lobby to catch up with some more friends, both old and new, as well as await for the arrival of the other half of Crushing Gray, Logan Rayne Pepper. It wasn't too long before he and his wife Karen showed up. After developing the friendship with Logan over this past year, I was also looking forward to spending some time with his wife as well.

I ended up hanging out in the lobby for the rest of the night and forgot to get dinner!!! It was just so great getting to see everyone, my hunger actually took a back seat that night. But don't worry, I made it up for the next day :-)

Day Four

The Pepper's and I took a trip to Denny's for some breakfast before the first session of the Rally actually started. Mmmmm... Denny's... Man oh man, how I wish we had a Denny's closer to here!

We headed back to the hotel and found our way to the main ballroom for the first session, an interview with hit country songwriter Jeffrey Steele. After a nice introduction by Jason Blume, Michael Laskow came out and gave a "brief" bio of Jeffrey's accomplishments. Amazing. The interview was great and Jeffrey really came across as a genuinely nice guy who feels blessed to be doing what he's doing.

I had never seen him before but my goodness, that guy can sing! He did a 20-minute concert for us at the end of the interview. Talk about powerful. He did a couple of songs on piano and a few more on guitar. For anyone who doesn't think a simple guitar/vocal or piano/vocal demo can "sell a song" then all they need to do is check out his performance from that morning. It left many people with chills on their arms and tears in their eyes. I'm not going to say if a certain tall, long-haired individual falls into that category or not :-)

The next panel was Broadcast Quality Demystified. They played some examples of tracks that were broadcast quality and some that were not. They then went around and grabbed some CD's from the audience to play. I wasn't able to stay around for the whole session as I had my one to one mentor session to go to.

My mentor session was with a music publishing guy. It didn't go quite as I had expected in my mind, but looking back on it, it was definitely helpful. It really confirmed some things that I knew I needed to do already. I didn't necessarily want to do them, but I knew that in the long run, for me to reach the goals that I have set for myself, it was something that I knew I was going to have to do.

Up next was the mentor lunch. There was a nice blend as far as the mentors went. I think there was at least one mentor that was able to connect with each member personally, myself included. In fact, as she was about to leave the table, she tapped me on the shoulder and asked me to email her later that night with some links to my music.

Up next was a listening panel for Film and TV music. None of my music was selected for this one either (a trend that continued throughout the weekend). It's always interesting to hear the songs that get picked in those panels. Most of them are pretty good, a few of them are REALLY good, an occasional great one, and then every once in a while, you get a dud. This year was no exception.

I decided to hang around for the next session in the ballroom as well. It was an A&R panel for World, Electronica, New Age, Jazz and Christian music. Of all the panels I sat in, this one was a bit painful. I'll try and be diplomatic about this and just say that as a musician, that happens to be a Christian, the majority of the submissions I heard for the Christian genre, made me want to hide my face and leave the room. I'll just leave it at that. Moving on...

I checked out the Advanced Record Production class for a little bit but had to make a phone call in the middle of it. Then after that session, I went back to the lobby and ran into some more friends I met last year (Debbie from Idaho) and some new friends (Tyler from Canada). A group of us went to Denny's for some dinner and had a great time, even if it took forever to get our refills and desert :-)

We headed back to the hotel and hung out in the lobby for awhile. I decided to call it an early night so I could take some time to prepare for the morning panel that I was going to be on. But later on, I did end up going back downstairs and hanging out some more. There's just so many people to see that you just hate to sleep, 'cause you don't want to miss anything.

One of the funnier moments was finding out that Ted (from Australia) has a dream of eating at an American KFC with someone from Kentucky :-) Unfortunately, there were no KFC's nearby, but if he comes back next year, we're going to try and make that dream come true. The reason it has to be an American one is because there is an apparent ban in Australia on one of the ingredients used in the chicken here in the States. There was also a discussion about the differences in KFC between the US and Canada. Logan and Karen were shocked to find out that we have all-you-can eat buffet KFC's here. Good times :-)

To be continued...

Back home from the TAXI Road Rally, Part 1

2009-11-10T18:45:00.010-06:00

Incredible. Amazing. Shocking. Humbling. Familial. Loving. Giving. Educational... The list of words I could use to describe my TAXI Road Rally experience this year could go on for a long time. Words simply cannot describe the event. It is something that one truly has to experience for his or her self to be able to appreciate the depth and range of the event. TAXI CEO Michael Laskow is one of the most generous and caring persons I've ever met and he truly does want to see people succeed in this grueling and demanding business.

I'll go ahead and warn you now that this is going to be a series of very lengthy posts. Maybe it'll make up some for the lack of posting the previous months. And so without further gilding the lily and with no more ado, I give to you my recap of the 2009 TAXI Road Rally.

Day One

I arrived at the hotel on Tuesday night. I wanted to get there early this year. Last year was my fist trip ever to California and I stayed in the hotel the entire event other than one trip to Taco Bell on Sunday afternoon. So this year I wanted to be able to see a little bit of the city.

After checking in at the front desk, I made my way across the lobby and immediately saw three fellow members, Dave Walton, Christi Green and Martin Haene (my roomie for the week). Had a great time chatting with them for awhile. Dave and I went to Subway for some late night dinner and more great conversation about life and music. Really enjoyed hearing his stories about the Billboard conference he went to the previous week, especially about Bear McCreary and Glee.

Day Two

I spent most of the morning putting together the rest of my CD's. I would have put them together before the trip but let's just say that I ran into some technical difficulties with the printers. Argh! As I was working on them, I got a text from my friend Devin letting me know that he was now at the hotel. I've been wanting to meet him since April of last year. His friend Mark was with him and the three of us made a trip to Subway for some lunch and gear talk. Good times!

As the day progressed, more people started to arrive. It was so great to see so many familiar faces, some of which I hadn't seen in a year, others in a few months. Even though it had been a year since I had been there, it really felt like only a few days had passed (and I'm already looking forward to next year!).

During the afternoon and early evening we had a chance to see parts of a Jewish wedding that was going on in the hotel. It was very unique to say the least. While that was going on, I shared a pizza with my friend Christi. We did that last year and since this past year went so well, we thought we'd try it again :-)

As I mentioned earlier, I arrived early so that I could see some of the sights. So what better thing to do in LA than take in a rock show. One of my fellow TAXI members, JVB, was playing a show that night with her band, Pinkstar. One of my forum friends that I finally got to meet for the first time, Jeff Greenleaf, gave me a ride to the show in his Corvette. It was quite fun cruising around Beverly Hills with him in a 'vette.

We arrived at the venue and actually found a great parking spot across from the venue. We ran into JVB outside and got a chance to meet her guitarist Jim. We caught a few songs from the opening band, can't remember their name, but I think their guitarist might still be playing his solo... lol... you had to be there...

Pinkstar hit the stage and delivered a very high-energy show. The bass player had some technical difficulties with his rig but that didn't keep them from rocking the place. They were a very tight band and JVB definitely puts every ounce of energy she has into the show. Fun show! Jeff dropped me off back at the hotel and I was planning on just heading up to the room but ran into some friends in the lobby so I stuck around, and I'm glad I did.

I had a chance to meet Josh and Ted from Brisbane, Australia, which for those of you that don't know, is close to Sidney... lol... again, you had to be there... These two young lads were one of the highlights of the Rally for me. It was their first Rally and Ted's first trip to America. LOVED their accent. Just really had a great time hanging out and getting to know them. Josh (fellow Pro Tools user) and I traded CD's. I was VERY impressed with his production, great stuff!

Finally headed off to sleep around 2am I think. Had to get a little rest as the next day was registration day which meant standing in line for a while.

To be continued...

Quick update: Crushing Gray, TAXI Road Rally

2009-11-01T15:36:00.005-06:00

It's been quite a while since I posted so I figured I should probably at least put out a quick update on what's been going on. The last several months have been filled with lots of music, work and excitement to say the least.

For starters, I've been going through some changes with the day job which initially I thought would free up some more time for music but it actually had the opposite effect for awhile. Now, I think things are about to settle down there again, so that's good.

One of the more exciting things that happened during the last couple of months was actually getting to hear some of my music on TV for the first time! I had been accepted into a new music library as a composer and a few weeks later was presented an opportunity to write some tracks for a new daytime talk show.

It was very much a whirlwind experience to say the least. In the end, I signed four new tracks for the show. During the first two weeks of the show, I heard one of my cues get used three different times. It was quite a feeling to say the least!

This past week I've been finishing up the mixes for the new Crushing Gray album. We were hoping to have the full album done in time for the TAXI Road Rally later this week but it just didn't work out. BUT... we will have 6 songs finished. We're still working out the details in regards to distribution, etc... but the wait is almost over!

And speaking of the Road Rally... I'm actually going to be a panelist during a session on Saturday morning. I'm humbled and honored to be chosen and a bit nervous as well :-) The panel is on writing songs and composing instrumentals for Film & TV. We're supposed to choose two tracks that we'll play for the audience. Before playing the tracks, we're supposed to discuss what made/makes it a good track for Film/TV. I know one of the two tracks I'm going to use but I'm still undecided on the second one. Gotta choose quick!

Well, I still have some prep work for the Rally to get done. I am going to make a much stronger effort to keep this blog updated in the future.

Until next time...
-Big Blue

Scoring to Film, Part 2

2009-07-14T23:34:00.002-05:00

I had a few moments so I thought I'd try and finish up the story on my first film scoring experience. The last post ended right as the scoring process was about to begin, so that's where we'll resume.

I was expecting it to be a challenging experience, and IT WAS. VERY MUCH SO. But as much as it was challenging, it was every bit as rewarding. In fact, I would even go so far to say that of all the projects I've been involved with, and all the music that I've written, I don't think I'm any prouder of any of them than I am of what I accomplished on this documentary.

You see, it's not just about the music. While I am very proud of how the music sounds and the parts that I wrote, I'm much more excited about how the music FEELS. That was probably the biggest challenge I faced throughout the project.

It's easy to write a piece of music, at least, I think it is. Now, that doesn't mean each piece is good. But I can sit down with a guitar and within 5-10 minutes, I can typically have the basic outline of a song started. I'm sure I'm not the only one who can do this. It comes with years of practice and dedication.

But to sit down and write a piece of music that:

a) Is high quality and performed well
b) Fits within the parameters that the producer has given you to work with
c) makes the listener FEEL something as they watch and listen

Well, that's a whole other ball of wax. For me, the first two were nowhere near as difficult as the third one.

I can remember a couple of nights where I spent probably 3 hours or more trying to write a piece of music that was around 30-45 seconds long. I would come up with something that met the first two criteria, but when I listened back to it while watching the scene, I would say to myself "That doesn't make me feel anything... ok, it makes me feel like crap 'cause I've spent over 3 hours on this and I'm nowhere close to what I want it to sound like!" Yeah, I occasionally talk to myself. :-)

Part of my struggle, especially early on in the process, was in the way that I typically write music. When I'm "riffing" on a guitar, I'm not really watching anything, so I'm not really concentrated on if the riff makes me feel anything for a visual cue. Continuing with that theme, from a physical standpoint, my actual recording setup made it difficult to record acoustic guitar while I was actually watching the scene. I eventually just settled on "writing" while watching the scene, then when it was time to record, I wasn't concerned about watching, as I had already "validated" that the music had the necessary emotion behind it before I began to record.

One thing that really helped me in dealing with the producer was drawing on the experiences I've had co-writing with my best friend Joel. I speak in numbers and he speaks in colors. Because of that, I've learned how to communicate better with people who deal more in generalities and less in specifics, stuff like "Can you make the song sound more orange?" Or in this case, "Can you make cue 10 sound like a Jewish song, but not really too Jewish?" Let me tell ya, THAT one was a challenge, but I think it may be one of my top two or three cues in the whole film.

We were on a pretty tight deadline. Even though I was only responsible for about 12 minutes worth of the film, I still only had about 2 weeks to get it completed. One thing that I wasn't sure how to anticipate would be the revisions process. Fortunately for me, nearly every piece, if not every piece, that I submitted was generally accepted for use in the film. There were usually a couple of tweaks here or there, but I don't recall any major re-writes taking place (thankfully!).

One thing that I learned throughout the process was that in my heart, I felt a feeling of completeness, a feeling that to me was saying, that I was/am doing EXACTLY what I was created and born to do. And by that I mean, working with music in general, not specifically scoring acoustic guitar music to film.

I guess that's it for now. Please feel free to leave me comments or questions and I'd be glad to answer them.

Until next time...
- Big Blue