The Music Business Buddy
A podcast that aims to educate and inspire music creators in their quest to achieving their goals by gaining a greater understanding of the business of music. A new episode is released each Wednesday and aims to offer clarity and insight into a range of subjects across the music industry, all through the lens of a music creator for the benefit of other music creators. The series includes soundbites and interviews with guests from all over the world together with commentary and clarity on a range of topics. The podcast is hosted by award winning music industry professional Jonny Amos.
Jonny Amos is a music producer with credits on a range of major and independent labels, a songwriter with chart success in Europe and Asia, a senior lecturer in both music creation and music business at BIMM University UK, director of The SongLab Ltd and the author of The Music Business for Music Creators.
www.jonnyamos.com
The Music Business Buddy
Episode 19: Unlocking the Secrets of Production Music with Jason Tarver
Ever wondered what it takes to create the music behind your favorite TV shows and films? Join me as I sit down with media composer Jason Tarver to unlock the secrets of production music. From its origins to its indispensable role in modern media, Jason uncovers the creative process, editorial needs, and industry standards that shape this fascinating field. You'll gain a comprehensive understanding of how production music differs from commercial music and why it’s crucial in the world of TV, radio, and reality shows.
Curious about the financial workings behind the music? We're breaking down the income streams in the production music industry, including performance, mechanical royalties and neighbouring rights. Jason shares an intriguing story about a track meant for a production library that found its way onto a Twice album, giving us an insider’s view into the contrasting worlds of production and mainstream music. You’ll also hear about the importance of contracts in securing earnings and how analytical skills can impact a music professional’s enjoyment of media.
Navigating the studio industry isn’t just about technical skills; it’s about professional behavior and situational awareness. Jason recounts his early career challenges, the invaluable lessons from hands-on studio work, and the ethical implications of AI vocal use in music production. We delve into the significance of collaboration for new composers and share essential tips for aspiring musicians. This episode is packed with insights and practical advice that will benefit anyone looking to make a mark in the music industry. Tune in and let Jason Tarver guide you through the intricate landscape of production music.
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The Music Business Buddy. The Music Business Buddy Hello everybody. Well, welcome to you. You're listening to the Music Business Buddy with me, johnny Amos, podcasting out of Birmingham in England. I am the author of the book. Out of Birmingham in England. I am the author of the book the Music Business for Music Creators, available in paperback, hardback, ebook format in all the major bookstores. I am a music creator with credits on a variety of indie and major labels, tv shows, etc. As a writer or a producer sometimes both. I'm also a senior lecturer in music creation and music business. Wherever you are, whatever you do, consider yourself welcome to this podcast and to a part of this community.
Speaker 1:My goal is to try and educate and inspire music creators from anywhere in the world in their quest to achieving their goals by gaining a greater understanding of the business of music. Okay, so I always like to listen to those that listen to me doing this and get feedback. It's so useful because, ultimately, the reason I'm here is to try and help people and try and be of an aid in some kind. So I had some feedback about episode 11, where I talked to a media composer called Chris Tai and a lot of people came to me and said hey, you know, this was quite interesting, I'd like to learn more about production music. So with that in mind, I thought right, let me try and find a media composer that's had a lot of success in production music, that does it full-time, that can go a little deeper into it. So that's what I've done.
Speaker 1:I've found a guy called Jason Tarver, who is brilliant and he goes into immense detail on what it's like to be a media composer, how to get into it, all that kind of stuff. He also starts by explaining what it actually is. So here is the interview with Jason, and I will see you at the end. First of all, Jason Tarver, thank you very, very, very much for being here and for being a part of the music business. Buddy, it's great to have you here on the podcast.
Speaker 2:It's a pleasure. I'm very happy to be here. Thanks for having me oh you're a top man.
Speaker 1:Top man, ok, so let's go. Okay, so let's go. Very often, jason, when I talk to guests, we kind of sometimes jump back and kind of figure out you know where people started and that kind of thing. But we can do a little bit of that. But I thought it would be quite nice to just jump straight into the here and now, so before we kind of jump back a little bit. So you know, as a media composer, you work with quite a wide range of clients, including the likes of Universal Production Music, emi, Waters, various others, and you've established, you know, composing as your main source of income, which is, by the way, a phenomenal achievement. Could you tell us a little bit about the type of production music projects that you work on and things that you're involved with and things that you enjoy doing?
Speaker 2:Would it be helpful to your listeners to explain a little bit about what production music is, or?
Speaker 1:is that a given?
Speaker 2:No, that's brilliant, Thank you. So I think probably the easiest way to explain production music is like a little bit of a musical cul-de-sac. I always think in in the sort of overall music you know, sort of cosmos. So production music exists mainly as background music for tv, radio, radio jingles, basically any kind of media where you hear, you know, any kind of visual, where you hear music behind it, production music will exist. So reality tv is huge for production music. You know 99 of the music you hear on on reality tv is production music alongside commercial releases.
Speaker 2:So in the olden days library music used to be referred to as lift music, then it became library music and now it got about maybe 10, 15 years ago people started calling it production music to get away from the sort of library music I don't know, stigma I suppose. And anyway, when you write library music or production music, whatever you want to call it, basically you either write a whole album's worth of material in whatever genre you're doing, worth of material, uh, in whatever genre you're doing, or you write on various uh writer albums and if you go on any of the production music websites like uh, kpm is the big one. Used to be owned by emi. Now it's kpm, again universal, so uppm. Their website is called warners, have their website as well. You'll just see thousands and thousands of albums, and they're usually 10 track albums, um, and they're usually two minutes to three minutes, 30 length tracks in most genres. You don't really go outside of that and what you'll notice is library music tends to echo what is ever, what's ever going on in the sort of commercial sphere or the real world, if you like.
Speaker 2:But it will function in a certain way. So I myself write huge amounts of pop music for library, so you're always looking at what's happening in the pop world. You don't have to look very hard because they tend to send you a lot of references that they, you know, they want kind of not versions of, but something you know that sonically is in that field. And, uh, you have to kind of make that function like a library track. So a library track will feel like a pop track, for example, but it will do certain things that make it editorially more useful than a pop track it will have. I, I mean edit points are a big one. So you put certain little pauses, little things within the arrangement, little pickups that just help the editorial process and make it easier to follow a narrative. So in a nutshell, that's kind of what library music is, but it covers. I mean, it's huge. We do beds, we do songs, we do instrumentals yeah it's just ridiculous.
Speaker 1:That's a brilliant explanation, by the way, jason. I really appreciate it and it's far more useful, you know coming from you than me, kind of trying to pick it up and try and do a. You know a half explanation of it, so do you work with full songs as well with vocals?
Speaker 2:I would say 90% of what I do is full songs. But within the sort of like library structure of a song you might not develop it as much as you would if you were writing a commercial release. For example, you would probably steer clear of doing a middle eight not that middle eights are particularly popular anyway anymore but, um, you probably wouldn't go there. And the main reason being is, with a library track you want to find, uh, you want to hit your stride early on, you want to know what it's about and then you don't want to leave it. You don't go from happy to sad or from happy to pensive or you don't want to change the emotional content of it. You can change the dynamic of it and you can change the ride if you like and you can pull back and you can go more full on, but you don't want to change what it's about emotionally speaking. Interesting Lyrically, you know you can sort of be a little bit flexible. I mean, lyrical themes in library are another sort of topic. But yeah, you kind of want to hit your groove and you want to stay there and you want to give them some variety within it, which in a sense makes it a lot easier than writing a commercial track where perhaps you want to take people on more of a narrative journey. So, yeah, you, you, once you cotton on to the formula, it makes your life a lot easier.
Speaker 2:Um, and it's a classic thing for people who start to do it and I did it for years without, without, you know, gleaning this. Actually, that's what you want to do. You want to hit your stride early on and just keep going, because you need to look at how it's used. If you're thinking of, you know, endeavoring, uh, on a library career sorry, production music career you need to, you need to, like, look at how this stuff is used.
Speaker 2:And, and you know, a really good piece of advice, I think, is that when you're dealing with pop music and library music and you're writing a top line, you almost want to think of it not as the top line, because the top line is the program, it is the, the narration and a lot of music. This didn't used to happen until a few years ago, so much. But on a lot of reality tv now you notice that vocal tracks get used. They use instrumentals and vocal tracks all the time, but you hear more and more of the vocal tracks being used, and we've. We, as audiences, just seem to have got used to this thing of hearing two voices at the same time, you know you've got the narration of the program, what's ever going on.
Speaker 2:And we can. We can stomach hearing a top line singer sort of noodling away in the background, and I, a few years ago, we couldn't do that as audiences, so you would always you'd stick a top line on something to sell it to the tv people, to make it sound authentic, basically, and then they, 99 of the time, use the instrumental. That seems to have changed a little bit, at least in the telly.
Speaker 1:That that you know that I'm watching, um, so yeah that's very interesting because traditionally speaking, let's say, you know, I've heard other media composers have to in the past go, well, you know what. We've got this killer kind of top line background idea here, but we're going to have to take replace that, that, those words with uh, you know a lead instrument, because otherwise it's going to conflict with dialogue. Replace that, that, those words with uh, you know, a lead instrument, because otherwise it's going to conflict with dialogue and it won't be useful on an editorial level. But maybe I mean what you're saying there. I have noticed this as well, you know where. You do have these kind of two voices going on at the same time, which I mean some people might struggle with, but many people don't seem to anymore in the same way they used to. Perhaps that's something that's changed in technology and you know the way that people consume these days. So is that a thing?
Speaker 2:I think we're just used to being bombarded with information now, aren't we? It's just coming at us and we're just more accustomed to dealing with it. I mean, there are a couple of sort of tricks within it that you do try and do within a, you know, a piece of music for media versus a commercial release, which is carve out space for a voiceover, so you might push things to the side a little bit more, you might carve out space around where that vocal would sit in the mid-range, um, but it's very hard to do that when you're, at the same time, you are trying to sell the publisher your pop track that sounds as authentic as possible, right? So that, I mean, that is the challenge. You know, that is the that's. You know you're constantly trying to, you know, weigh up those two things like how usable is this to the end user and how sellable is it to the publisher? Um, that's the challenge very interesting.
Speaker 1:Wow, uh, really interesting. Okay, um, let's explore the type of uh contracts that you work with in in this world of production music. Um, you know, the sonics, the choices of instrumentation and the arrangements play an important role in your work, but your work extends to sound copyrights as well as composition copyrights. How is that kind of reflected in the contracts that you see and how you're remunerated?
Speaker 2:Well, I guess it's pretty straightforward in library land. I mean, you have three or four basic income streams. As I see it, arguably just three. I mean the obvious one is the PRS. I mean that's where most of the money is now. Mcps, yes, still exists, although it's dwindling a little bit and certainly has been for the last decade or so. There is perhaps a downward trend PRS-wise, mcps-wise. And the third one, which is perhaps a slightly more emerging source, is NR, neighbouring Rights. So I guess, as relates to your question, prs, yes, as relates to the performance royalty, which is very confusing to people, that term relates to the performance royalty, which is very confusing to people, that term, I think, performance royalty.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:It suggests performance.
Speaker 1:Whereas if you performed it, but only once, and then it was documented, and then broadcasted Right exactly.
Speaker 2:So let's think of it as performance of the piece of music, not your performance, whereas Neighbouring Rights is your performance on said piece of music. And then MCPS to anyone who doesn't know is a payment for the use of the master recording which will go directly to the publisher if you are published. So you will receive PRS payments. From the PRS you will receive MCPS payments via your publisher or publishers, and your NR you will receive via. Well, if you collect it yourself, you'll receive it yourself, or if you go via an agent, like most people people do, you will see it via your collection agent. And those are the main sources.
Speaker 2:The fourth one would be an upfront payment for your composition, and in the old days when I got into it, that was a thing and you would maybe see 300 quid or something for each track you submitted Quite quickly. Well, since I got involved, quite quickly publishers started recouping that payment. So I can't really say it's a valid income stream because you are eventually going to pay it back, but when there is, I mean we call it an advance. Now, when there is an advance available on a track, yes, I suppose it is income because it's going on your tax return as income.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and is that? Do you find that that upfront fee? You know, if they're involved, that that relates to the composition or to the recording?
Speaker 2:It relates to both really.
Speaker 2:Okay, it relates to you delivering a product and they won't distinguish much you know which, which part of it they're paying for. The only time I've actually made money for a physical recording in that way was, and this is something you would know more about. Was was a K-pop project I worked on and we sold the the pro tools session to the publisher, um, which I'm glad. This is great. We're selling a pro tool session. I got hundreds of thousands more if you want to buy them, um, but uh, that's right you, uh, you had a a hit with twice, right I?
Speaker 2:would. I wouldn't say it a hit, but we got. We got an album cut.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's what I would call that hit, and it did.
Speaker 2:It did pretty good, did pretty good. We still make a few shekels from it. It was one of those. It was a really good. I mean again, you would know more about this than me. I mean that's the only time I've dabbled in the world of K-pop, but it was a really good exercise in learning the value of a piece of music versus, you know, the value of a piece of production music, the amount of work we put in. I guess work versus reward. And we sort of came away from it and we're like, I don't know, production music seems pretty sweet after the work we put into that track. However, not as fun, you know seeing, seeing like the band that we we did it for you know, do it live and all those kind of things. Like it's way more fun than you know just a piece of music that disappears into the ether and may never, you know, be heard of again.
Speaker 1:Um, that's that's interesting, because I mean, if you think you know the skills that you put into it, they're exactly the same skills. You just they're just being used slightly different. Well, the context shifts rather than what you, but that's that's very interesting. But I suppose when it comes to k-pop, you know, for those that don't know, um, you know we're talking about, you know, large physical sales, uh, cds, dvds, which seems somewhat alien in the west and world. You know, but, um, but that's a part of it. So, which, which is why, which is what you were alluding to, I think. Think Jason Is that right about the kind of the MCPS side of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean we did see some physical sales for that early on. I mean they tapered off very, very quickly. Yeah, I mean there was, you know, when I look at the difference between what the single did off of that album and what our track did, you know, just in terms of exposure online, and I mean if you can land a single with a big act like that, I mean you're laughing for a little while, you know whereas ours was just a nice little top-up to our sort of production music work, although, funnily enough, our track started off as a library track which no one knows about.
Speaker 1:Oh really, yeah, oh right, okay, wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we wrote it for a production music library and before we released it my mate was like I don't know, this sounds like K-pop to me. So he kind of sent it off to a publisher through a contact he had and that was that. And they went yeah, yeah, yeah, this is great this is great.
Speaker 1:Well, that's great. It's like musical intervention there from your colleague.
Speaker 2:That's brilliant well, it is great, but it also means that we've got no idea how to actually go about writing k-pop because, you did it by accident we did it by accident and we did try. We tried to do it again and we were hopeless at it. So we sort of of gave up, went back to the library.
Speaker 1:Have you ever had the opposite of that, where you've kind of written a song like a song song for the commercial world, if you will and then repurposed it as production music? Have you ever done that?
Speaker 2:Early on. Yes, we've had a lot of tracks over the years. I mean, this is how it goes doing doing production music. You know, at some point, you know you get you get itchy feet and you want to kind of dabble into other things and you think, oh, you know, looks pretty good what's going on over there in the commercial world. So you do some work on it and you sort of come up with some tracks or whatever and try and push them and a couple of years later you go whatever happened to those tracks? And then you end up, you know, repurposing them and and perhaps just sort of maybe you know, streamlining the arrangements and pushing them back into production music. The good thing about production music from that uh, in that way of thinking is it does tend to be I wouldn't say it's behind the curve, but the trends last longer. Um. So there are certain things that you know that you do in like I put with a pop track for in production music that you just wouldn't do in the commercial world.
Speaker 2:It'd be way too like 10 years ago right and you know a lot of the references that come up on on on the briefs that I get. They'll have tracks from, you know, 15 years ago or from 2006, and then tracks that are up to date, and I guess a lot of that has to do with how happy music is at the time, I mean music isn't as happy now as it was, yeah, maybe 10 years ago.
Speaker 2:Pop music it's in quite a sort of I don't know slightly darker, more introspective place at the moment, which I prefer personally. But if you want to sell something, it's not so good. You need happy, happy sales.
Speaker 1:Now, that's a good point. So maybe, that's perhaps then to do more with mood than it is to a fixed point in time.
Speaker 2:Definitely yeah, Mood and I would say, more vibe. When you're dealing with music, something like Beyonce crazy in love, you know that will be something that comes up over and over again, just because it's got that really infectious groove and rhythm to it.
Speaker 2:You know I don't think anyone gets bored of that so much. So I mean the other thing with, if we're talking about longevity in in production music, uh, there is something to be said, for things with real instruments tend to last a bit longer, um so, yeah, so an acoustic track or a track that has a lot of live instrumentation on it tends to have a slightly longer shelf life. Because it doesn't date as quickly because it doesn't date as quickly and because it's not time.
Speaker 2:I guess it's more that it's not time stamped so um, dubstep, for example, came and went in a bit of a flash. And it came and went in a bit of a flash in production music as well, and it's almost like if I make something go whoa, whoa, now no one wants. No one wants that, you know, they're not it's. It's just, that's too. I mean, how long ago was dubstep I mean probably 10 years ago now, when it was?
Speaker 1:you know probably more now, yeah, like 2011, 2012. Yeah, there was a yeah, or maybe, and before then it was a. It was, it became a thing, but I hear remnants of it. You know like I hear pieces of it still left and kind of sat in, I don't know future base or maybe even melodic dubstep. We hear sometimes, yeah, but I know what you mean the actual, the big, big warble, warble stuff. Yeah, it's, I miss it. I really like that, yeah, it was quite.
Speaker 2:There was something almost punk about it at the time there was, it was cool. There was an aggression and a roughness to it. I really yeah well, we'll be ready when it comes back, won't we? Yeah right, but you know where it? One area where it left an indelible mark, I think, was in trailer music and hybrid trailer music and a lot of that production kind of crossed over, I think, and you do hear that still, but it's just done in a slightly more you know, know, classy way now and you hear a lot of that.
Speaker 2:You know almost sound design meets music kind of programming okay, but do okay.
Speaker 1:So I'm just thinking of like action trailers and stuff. Very often you hear kind of orchestral hybrids that do that. You know they might have some strings in there with that kind of stuff and it works. But car adverts, for example, that kind of combine the classic and the modern, you know yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, very much so, very much so.
Speaker 2:I think maybe I don't remember hearing so much of that before dubstep happened no, that's a good point. Yeah, I think a lot of the composers you know who do that stuff, took note and you know have kept on incorporating it into their, their sort of sound palette. Because it sounds, just sounds great, that combination of oh it's beautiful, as you say, strings and and an aggressive programming.
Speaker 1:It just sounds cool as oh yeah, I, I, I hear it all the time on, especially on adverts for cars actually, especially if it's like you know kind of um, uh, bugattis, or you know cars that are like right, how do we sell? Especially if it's like you know kind of Bugattis, or you know cars that are like right, how do we sell a Messi's that's like modern and clean, but also you know kind of classic and sort of suitable for James Bond, or you know it's like well, the answer's in the music yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Well, it's fascinating, isn't it? I mean we? We've never, in terms of how we uh garner our emotion in, uh, you know, in sort of music for television, or or how we garner it as an audience, we've never, I mean we. There isn't another thing apart from an orchestra or a string section that that gives us that emotion, is it? I mean it's been with us.
Speaker 2:It's such a, it's such a part of our kind of musical DNA. There was, have you seen I mentioned this just because it was on recently, but there's a David Mitchell thing on at the moment called Ludwig, and they use a lot of Beethoven.
Speaker 1:Oh, really, I love David Mitchell, but I've not watched that.
Speaker 2:It's worth. It's worth the watch because the music in it is. I think it's brilliant, I think it's really well done, but it is a lot of it and I know it was quite a lot of people who got annoyed by the amount of music but I thought it was really good. Anyway, to me it's a really good example of how the use of the orchestra and the strings really bring the thing to life and give it a personality and give it the correct emotional content, because it's not, you know, screaming deep, dark kind of uh, you know it's not introspective, it's just it's fun and it's light and then it makes you think and it's quirky and it's it's intriguing and it and the guy manages to bring all of that into the score. It's very good.
Speaker 2:I was really impressed, but you know, for someone who was wanting to take up film scoring, I would suggest that as a really good, well contemporary, example of something to listen to. I'm probably only saying that because it was on telly yesterday.
Speaker 1:That's all right, but it's fresh in your mind and I think it's you know. Do you find that, jason, when you're kind of watching television or watching films, that it's difficult to kind of just be swept away by what you should be focusing on the narrative of the film or the television? Are you kind of constantly thinking about how the music's supporting it?
Speaker 2:No, do you know what? I think it depends how good the overall effect of the program is. I tend to not notice the music unless a it's like really good and it just really catches my ear and then it's a pleasant thing. Or I notice it because the program isn't engaging enough and my brain goes to oh what's the music doing?
Speaker 2:And then I just at some point after that switch it off. Okay, it's just not cutting it for whatever reason, because it should be a 360 experience, right? The music is wrapped up in the picture, is wrapped up in the performance, is all wrapped up in this one bundle.
Speaker 2:And once one part of that falls apart, then I sort of start to notice the cracks, maybe, and then the music becomes more evident okay, okay yeah, but I know people who don't do that and who are very good at analyzing it and maybe maybe my career would be in a different place if I'd done that more. But I don't know. I just get wrapped up in whatever the film is or the programme is.
Speaker 1:Oh no, it's good for hey. Listen, I'd say it's worked out pretty well for you, mate. You've done bloody well with it also, and also you've got the balance right there. Right, you can still enjoy stuff and be human about it, you know that's. You know, if we get to, it's like you know, sometimes if I go to a gig with a sound engineer, you know, and they're kind of just they're off duty and they can't switch off, they're like, oh, the sound's hitting that over there. Why haven't they dipped the EQ there? And I just go just enjoy yourself.
Speaker 2:It can't be done, no, I suppose. Well, here's a question for you in that case. So can you still enjoy music the same way you used to when you were 16, for example, or has that analytical part of your brain kind of screwed it up a little bit?
Speaker 1:Right now, at the age of 45, in this very moment. Unfortunately it is the latter, I hate to say it. I hope it comes back. That's my truthful answer. I'm sure it will change at some point. Um, but um, it's become so mathematical and methodical to me now, uh, just on a sort of deeply subjective level, that I do struggle to kind of differentiate between it. Just because you can see how things are done, you know, you look at the shape of that melody, or the inflection of that vocal, or you know the purpose of the way that that's bowed, or, and you go yeah, I can see why they've done that and why it works with this over here and why you know. So, yeah, I, I would love to, uh, distance myself from it a little bit further. Maybe I will in time, but it's something which I grapple with in this current era, if I'm being brutally honest, absolutely no same totally okay, it's a shame, isn't it?
Speaker 2:yeah, it's a real shame. It's a real shame, uh, to find that the the enjoyment in music is is, you know, is where it's at mind. You, I think there are things you can do, like, I think there is something you can, you, you can switch off from it, and I don't know, for me, I like, I really like just playing guitar, for example, and trying to not think of it, think of it as something else, like trying to think of it as as like exercise in in in my life, you know, it's like going for a run or something, trying to disconnect it from the job and the process and just let it be this thing that you enjoy doing in of itself. And, funnily enough, since I started doing that, I find that bringing the guitar back into to work is much easier and I'm probably a little bit better at it as a result.
Speaker 1:Really, that's really nice to hear, that. That's, I find that very refreshing to hear.
Speaker 2:Yeah but it's I don't know. I think it's like you know you kind of have to just turn that annoying thing in your brain off. That's that's sort of you know in work mode or in analysis mode or you know, it's just, it's just how we're kind of wired and programmed um, and just trying to find, trying to find space, you know, within that yeah to enjoy it a little bit more but, going back to the film thing, I vowed a long time ago that I wasn't going to let music ruin films for me.
Speaker 2:I really like watching them. Um, so you know, I I refuse to to overanalyze them. Um, well, good, good for you for sticking to your guns, mate yeah yeah well, but then I suppose I'm sort of lucky in that I don't, or unlucky. I don't work with films, so what I do is, you know, is a million miles away from working in films. Um so I mean, funny enough, some of the music sometimes ends up in films, but it's not, you know, it's not by by design.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's interesting okay, yeah, um, okay. So let's jump back in time just a little bit, can you? Because you you studied music, you know academically right, so you could you kind of tell us a little bit about what that looked like and then what your transition from that looked like into kind of finding work, because you started out working in as a recording engineer, working in loads of different studios, didn't you?
Speaker 2:uh, yes and no. So I suppose, starting with the degree this was around, I think, was it 2000 I went to university, I think so. Um, well, no, no, I think it was 2000. Um. So I went to university at westminster. I did a BA in commercial music and that covered performance and business. It was a little bit of production, although that was sort of slightly embryonic at the time. I think it does a lot more of that now. I certainly hope it does. We had a really the business school. There was very good, the music business school.
Speaker 2:I elected not to do any of those modules, which was really stupid. Um, I tended to try and do the, the fun ones, the, you know, go and make some music or sound design for this advert or whatever. So in a way kind of kind of um helped out. But I wish I'd done more of the, the businessy kind of things, um, because I've had to relearn all that stuff. We, we learned all of this, all the prs, mtps, neighboring rights maybe not so much at the time, but we covered all of this at university and I forgot it all or didn't turn up for that lecture or whatever.
Speaker 2:Bit of an idiot anyway. Um, so after that I tried to get a job for a long time in the studio. It felt like a long time at the time. It's probably only a year or so. I was writing a lot of letters but I probably wrote 200, 300 letters and I was sending them all over the place at the time. I managed to try and get a job in a studio at the time when all the studios were shutting down. So you know, it was every month another studio was gone, whether it was townhouse or whatever in London. So it was a bit tricky.
Speaker 2:Um, eventually I got a job in a small project studio in West London which was good in as much as it had rehearsal rooms. It had a couple of studios. One of them was just about big enough to do interesting stuff in. So we got a lot of different kind of clients coming in, started off answering the phone there, setting up rooms for rehearsal bands and stuff. Um, start got into the engineering side of it wasn't hard to because it was so badly paid. People would come and go very quickly through that uh studio. So it's quite easy to get your foot in the door and start doing sessions, um, and you didn't have anyone helping you. You didn't have an assistant once you were running sessions, so you did everything, which was good in terms of cutting your teeth, um, but a little bit stressful, um, and we used to have a lot of um.
Speaker 2:What was really good for me was we had a lot of weekend bands who'd come in, a lot of indie bands at the time, and they'd be doing their two days.
Speaker 2:You know, saturday sund record a demo, two or three tracks, whatever. It was usually an unrealistic amount of work for two days and you'd you know you'd bang it out. So for me it was good because I got to record a lot of drum kits, got to record lots of guitars, got to record lots of vocalists, and I probably made a terrible mess of a lot of it thinking back, made a terrible mess of a lot of it thinking back. But but you know, uh, I I sort of gradually got better at it and um, and it was good actually because it was around that time that, you know, there was more and more information available online. You know, people were really starting to share a lot of stuff, um, so you could get quite good quite quickly by reading and by then going back and experimenting, because I don't know. I mean, you can read a lot about recording things, but you really do need to stick a microphone in front of stuff and you know, learn to hear what it's doing, and so it was very good for all of that.
Speaker 2:Then I sort of started to get a bit more freelance work. Then I sort of started to get a bit more freelance work A lot through some of the people that came into that studio, because they would sort of take you away and say, well, I like you, but I don't like the studio or I don't like the whatever. So they sort of take you to go and work somewhere else. So I got to go and work in some nice places. We did some stuff at Real World once. That was really cool.
Speaker 1:Oh wow, nice Okay cool.
Speaker 2:Did uh real world once. That was really oh wow, nice, okay cool. Did a few sessions there. Uh, that was great and when I think about it, I really had no business being there.
Speaker 2:You know, in terms of my career you're so modest but it's true, you know, because there were guys who were working there who you know really worked their way up and worked with some heavyweight producers and stuff, and I I'd sort of sidestep that a bit, not because I didn't want to do that, I really did want to do that at the time but it just wasn't available. You know, I couldn't couldn't land one of those gigs. So I sort of felt like I was, I was kind of making it up as I went along. But there were lots of things that came along at the time. I mean, pro tools hadn't just come along, it'd been around for ages. But learning pro tools at the time made that a lot easier. You could go from studio to studio without having to learn each different console, yeah, and you could work with the, the in-house assistant, and get a session running pretty quickly and get what you wanted out of it.
Speaker 2:Um, I think metropolis we went to metropolis at one point all right well and I remember, you know, I was never, I'd never, worked in a studio that had, you know, a large um, a large console, uh, large format console like an ssl, like a g series um. So I knew the geography of it, I knew where everything had to go, but I didn't have hours and hours of experience. So that was where you would, you know, I would work quite closely with the in-house dudes and just say that you've got to help me out here, you know. But we could do things like, you know, I could run all the headphone sends through Pro Tools or whatever, and I would literally just, and I would just be using the desk.
Speaker 2:As for the preamps and for monitoring, which is pretty much what everyone's ended up doing now anyway.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's that's. That's true. Yeah, it's a funny one. I was an ex-student of mine was using the G-series desk. The other day. He said I went to a session, Jonny, and I said how do you use a G-series? And I was like, oh good, good for you, wow, how did that go? And he said great, yeah. Yeah, he said I knew how to use it because I've used the plug-ins for years. He said so really, the only thing that was difficult was like the patching and stuff. You said never had to do that before. I was like, oh right, that's an interesting insight to the times, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, apart from the really nice top end studios around London that we did a few bits and pieces in, I mean I got very annoyed with studios sort of by the time. I stopped working in them a lot, mainly because they were getting a little bit run down and you know there was.
Speaker 2:I did quite a few sessions, a few sessions overseas and stuff, and you know the amount of hours that we would lose to to dodgy channels or you know ghosts in the machine, and it was all always to do with maintenance and upkeep. You know, and you, you would just chasing your tail the whole time. And you know I what I really like now about working at home and working in my studio is I don't have any of that. It's all so simple and you know, if there is a buzz, I can usually find it quite quickly. It's not, you know, it's just we don't have to deal with that anymore. Um, but at some point it'd be nice to go into a big studio again, because it is really fun and do really enjoy it.
Speaker 2:Um occasionally occasionally we have done things where we go over to with with production music, where we go over to budapest or somewhere and do a, you know, string sessions because everyone records their strings over there a lot cheaper. Um, they're probably doing it in the commercial world as well, to be fair. Um, but you tend to get, you know, you do these sessions where you get 20 minutes to record the string part for your track.
Speaker 2:It's like 20 minutes ain't a lot of time to do that, wow um so anyway, but with reference to what we were talking about, it is nice to go back into a big studio with 50 players, but then again so many big studios, like Abbey Road for example.
Speaker 1:so much of the kind of bread and butter work that's in there these days is like big orchestras, recording sample libraries and stuff. Right, they can then be accessed by anyone to use and stuff.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, they can. They can then be accessed by you know anyone to use. You know, um, I think they do. From what I've seen, they do a huge amount of content creation as well, don't they they? Do very high-end stuff and it looks and sounds amazing, but I don't know how much of the um you know their bread and butter is is just straight up recording work, calm, no no, I wouldn't have thought so.
Speaker 1:No, no, um, okay, so in in the that kind of era, you're, you know, starting to kind of be thrown in at the deep end, working as an engineer. You know, you, in addition to kind of, you know, being a composer and whatnot, you've worked on some pretty big artist projects, you know, with big producers and stuff. As an engineer, likes of kylie and mel c and people like that. Um, so you obviously kind of, you know, as modest as you are, jace, you must have kind of stumbled across like, okay, I figured this out, figured this out, and now producers want to have me as a you know, you see, you, that was must have been interesting to kind of do that uh, yeah, well, I think I just got a bit lucky with a couple of people I worked with, but it but it's true, you know I wasn't, I wasn't working day in, day out with with, with different producers.
Speaker 2:There was a couple that I worked with, uh, that did do.
Speaker 2:Do you know good big things like, um, I think if there was one thing that that I think I was good at and then probably I hope I'm still good at it, um, if I had to do it again is, I think, uh, I have a a relatively good bedside manner with people and it's such a people thing.
Speaker 2:Once you're dealing, uh, you know, particularly with people in in the upper echelons, like cause, you can, particularly with people in in the upper echelons, like because you can't be a rabbit in the headlights, you know you, you've got to be, you can't be. Uh, you don't want to be, you don't want to be, you know kind of uh, over the top and you know disrespectful, and so you know self-confident, you've got to find a, you've got to find a balance. Um, you know they are, they are the star, and uh, but at the same time, you've got to meet a balance. Um, you know they are, they are the star and uh, but at the same time you've got to meet them, you know, meet them on their level and and be human with them, and, um, you know, and that's just, I think bedside manner sort of sums it up, um, you know, I've never heard that terminology before.
Speaker 1:I love that bedside manner. I love that mate.
Speaker 2:That's brilliant um bedside manner. I love that mate. That's brilliant um.
Speaker 2:But yeah, you know, I it for me it always boiled down to like little things, like you go and you know if you can. You you just chat with someone while you're making a cup of tea and you know it's just. How was your day. How did you get to the studio? Yeah, our traffic was awful. Um, you know, whatever it is, because whoever it is, and no matter how big a star they are, you don't know if they're nervous or not no, that's right you assume they're not, you assume that they're just all over it because they're who they are.
Speaker 2:But they, you know lots of people, just they're not. You know they, they carry their, their emotional baggage with them and you want to make them feel as as comfortable and as at home as possible. Um, and I think a lot of that is, you know, firstly, yeah, make them a cup of tea or whatever. Um, whatever it is that they, they, you know, respect their sort of rituals that they like to do pre-recording. Give them space, but not don't alienate them. You know, I mean, it's always I I'm the producer I was working with at the time on that was, was, was good, and he knew, you know, that it was always good to come in and have a chat. And you know everyone to kind of, you know, break the ice and feel, uh, settled in, uh, before you know, asking someone to go off into the next room and record, because that's the worst thing, I think, you know someone disappears next door too soon.
Speaker 2:You haven't broken the ice yeah and you start talking to them like we are now over a microphone with headphones on and it and it's just, it's not. You need you need to have built up that little bit of rapport first, if you can yeah you know, so you can.
Speaker 2:You know you can kind of have a little bit of chat with them and you know, and also you want to gauge if you can have a little bit of chat with them, because you might not, you know it might they might just be all business and just want to want you to shut up and record them. So you've got to kind of gauge that and find out. You know where your line is and I've seen that quite a few times. You know it's just people being missing, misappropriate I suppose, in the studio, and you can derail something so quickly oh, yeah, yeah um, and that's, you know it is.
Speaker 2:You're just keeping the. You've got to keep the dream alive, haven't you've got? You've got to suspend reality for the time that you're doing the thing you're doing. And I can't I can't remember who, who said it, but I remember reading a quote once, and, and it, and it, and it's really stuck with me. It's like, particularly when you're working with other people and this is much easier to do when you're working on your own thing but you have to believe that the thing you're working on is the best thing in the world for the duration of that hour, or that two hours, or that eight hours, whatever it is. You know, just just go into it. 100, it is the best piece of music ever written. And you know, you, you may know in the back of your mind that that's a load of bull, but you know, if you can suspend that disbelief for for that period of time, then then you know that's extremely helpful to the person you're working with, I think, because you've got to go on that journey with them, haven't you?
Speaker 2:You've got to buy in.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm so pleased that you brought this up. I didn't think this subject would come up in our conversation, but the subject of kind of knowing how to behave around well-known people is something which is an important facet for any music professional, right? You know, whether, whether you're a composer, engineer, producer, whether you're you know you're working as a runner, working at a festival events, whatever it's like there's just so many people that don't know how to behave around people that are well-known and it really, really really must bug them, especially as a lot of people say the same thing to them all the time and some of them get really tired of it.
Speaker 1:Like, everyone gets in a bad mood sometimes and you know if, if, if, if the wrong person that is usually a very chirpy person happens to be in a bad mood one day and they just happen to be near you. You know, those that are less informed can kind of go oh, oh, that guy's really moody, like the very often. You know you speak and people find out about what you're doing. They go oh, what's it like to work with such and such and are they a nice person? That's always the question. It's like well, why wouldn't they be a nice person, like they're just a person, yeah Right.
Speaker 2:I nice person, but probably most of the time they are. I think like maybe maybe the best. The best way I can think about it is you've got to read the room and you know. If you've got to learn to read the room and you know you can read into that what you like. But but for me it's like you, you just gotta, you've got. You've got to read the room, you've got to learn to. You know, recognize people's uh, you know body language is obviously a huge part of it. Um, and just listen to people. You know there is a I've seen it so many times in in studios and sessions where you know people will often start uh, you know the conversation comes up and then like, yeah, because when I'm doing my music, I like to do this, and they're like they're not interested in your music, like it's not, that's not what, not what we're here to do.
Speaker 2:I never forget, working on a session and we'd finished everything and, um, at the end of the session, the artist wanted to just put on the music and listen to it. You, let's, let's, have that little, uh, five minutes of of glory, or half an hour of glory at the end of the session. We're just gonna bathe in in the genius of what we've worked on. And I think, you know, I think this guy knew that once the music left the studio, you know the scrutiny would begin. This was the one pure time that you know that that he might have to actually enjoy the music without all the voices of the record company or the, you know, the ni guy's manager, whatever, going. Well, I don't know about that bit, or I don't know, maybe that's too long or whatever the criticism is. This was his shot to listen to it in its purest form.
Speaker 2:Anyway, uh, I remember the studio assistant, um, after he put a couple of songs on, went oh yeah, right, check this out. I did this with my band last week and started playing this song, and this artist just just turned around and cut him down. He just went no, really, yeah, and it was like OK, yeah, and it's like yeah, because you're ruining his moment, this is his, this, this is his time to just kick back. And I didn't, you know, at the time I just thought that's a bit aggressive. But, you know, in once I'd sort of had time in the subsequent years to sort of think about, I thought no, you're right, you know, this is your, this is your moment, is it?
Speaker 1:you won't get another chance to hear it like this um so you know, don't, don't, don't let the dude over there ruin it for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah anyway, good example. Dude didn't read the room and got shouted at and uh, oh, no, I mean we, you know, I'm just trying to to think if there was. No, I don't. Don't think I ever did a clanger like that.
Speaker 1:Really, um, but no, I, I can't imagine that you did, you know, I just it's just in the thoughts of that. I mean, several years ago I was on a tour I won't name who I was with, but it was you know, someone you know quite well known, and and there was a promoter that said to me can you, on the way to this gig that you're travelling to him with? That? I was the support act and we were travelling together and he said can you pop round to my house on the way through and just come and say hello to my wife and stuff? I was like um, and I said, well, that's fine by me, let me check with this person. And he said no, no, I'm not doing that. I said why with this person? And uh, and he said no, no, I'm not doing that. I said why? He said, oh, because you know, he just wants to get a picture. And like I, I, I, I'm tired, I don't, you know.
Speaker 1:And in my head at that time I thought, oh, that's such a shame. Come on, you're better than that, you know. And as the years have gone by, I get it, I get it. It makes perfect sense. He was right, they did just want a picture and say that they'd met that person and and it. That's not fair, right. So you know, I I get it and uh, and again, it's just the reading the room thing and it's it's. It's a very unspoken and assumed part of our practice and if we don't know about it we get it wrong, and we get it wrong quickly and then and then either we but we might learn from it, but then we might lose work out of it.
Speaker 2:So it's an important subject and I'm glad you've raised it I've heard this talked about before, though by you know sort of much more, uh, people with way more experience than me, um, about getting into the situation too soon. You know, and it doesn't matter what you are within music and I guess this is you know, across all professions. But, thinking specifically about music, you know whether you're an instrumentalist, whether you're a technician and you want to be recording things or you know whatever it is you want to do. You don't want to be overreaching yourself. You've got to get a bedrock of experience before you take that step up.
Speaker 2:Um, and you're working, you know, to working with, uh, you know, sort of more heavyweight people, I suppose, um, because you're just, you know, if you're not ready, you're not ready and you will. You will make mistakes. I mean, particularly as a, as a, as a player. You know you don't want to be sort of. You know indie rock guitarist goes into the room with you know three absolutely phenomenal. You know pat matheny playing guitar. You're like you're gonna get eaten for breakfast, um. So you know you've got, if possible, you've got to move up step by step, right and and learn all these little kind of learn the intricacies of, of dealing, or the idiosyncrasies of dealing with people as as you go along um yeah, that's you know, because people are people and it doesn't matter how famous they are or or infamous or not.
Speaker 2:Famous or infamous, that's something completely different. Um it, you know, their reaction to how you deal with them over a microphone is probably going to be largely the same. You know how you talk to somebody, how you, you know, the classic one isn't it is always someone's just done a take. You think it's not very good. How are you going to tell them when you're listening to it and you're probably working that out while they're singing or playing or whatever they're doing um, because the worst thing is they finish and you have that awkward pause where they're like, was that any good?
Speaker 2:And you've got to kind of judge when you, you know, hit the talk back and and say what you're going to say, because you can destroy them in that moment, or you can, or you can buoy them up and and, and, you know, actually make them do something better the next time. So you kind of I think you've got to learn that stuff by doing it and doing it, and doing it, and doing it and and again, you know, sort of, if you've built up enough of a rapport with somebody, you can go. Well, that wasn't very good. Well, that was a piece of whatever, um, you know and and have a laugh about it and they'll come back and and do it better. But somebody else might not be, you know, up for that kind of no, no, do you know what that?
Speaker 1:that level of kind of there's micromanagement steps to that I think as well.
Speaker 1:Like, for example, you know, um, one of the things that I've kind of that softly bugs me I'll barely talk about this, actually but is when you have engineers that want to get a billion tracks of everything and I'm like, no, like we, if we've got three takes of something and it's not there, we need to understand exactly why it's not there and what we need to do to fix it, because we can't just have the singer or the horn player or whoever just keep going and doing the same thing because it's really dull and uninspiring for them. So unassertive engineering of let's get another take for the road. My question is why have we not, have we not got it? How do we know we've not got it? We have to know in the moment whether we've got something. We can't just be a retrospective. Let's look back at the files next week and see if we got it. We should know, you know. And then it means that we're not having to put people through their paces too often and annoy them or, you know, work past their peak.
Speaker 2:Okay, so I've got another question for you. So you're tracking a vocal with somebody. How many takes? Do you want to walk away with? What's your ideal?
Speaker 1:Ideal like full takes of everything in a song.
Speaker 2:Well, let's say just the lead vocal Three, three, yeah, yeah, I'll go with three, that's a good number I've got three four tops, much beyond that, like I get sent vocals with you know eight or nine takes. I'm like I've got to sit through this now and you know, unless they're so radically different, it's just not helpful. I'd rather have your four best than your eight average yeah.
Speaker 1:Unless maybe, like there's, you know, you've kind of, let's say, you've got one that's your best lead vocal in mono, couple of doubles wide, and then the rest is some kind of low mix gang vocal or something Fine. They can all be used. But generally I don't think that's necessarily all. All it depends on the style of the project. But like I don't know, I like assertiveness.
Speaker 2:I'm like, just give me less, or you know, if you cut it down or I cut it down, we don't need that many although I'm gonna I'm gonna slightly contradict myself here and say that it can be quite helpful, not so much for the performance, but sometimes when you find you get to the mixing end of something and some of the particularly the breaths or the consonants or something, just aren't gelling, and then I sometimes find it's very helpful to have multiple takes, to go back and literally take, you know micro parts out of um.
Speaker 2:You know, I don't know, for me it's a, it's a process of whittling it down, whittling it down, whittling it down and and a lot of this stuff. I I don't hear it in the here and now, but I'll hear it once I'm I've nearly finished it and suddenly I'll go oh, jesus christ, I've been listening to this breath that I suddenly find offensive for the last two weeks. It hasn't bugged me and now I can't stand it and I've got to do something about it. But I think that's because you know, as you're going through that process of recording and then you know arranging again and then mixing, you know you're removing problems, you're removing problems, you're removing problems and that breath, or whatever it was, wasn't such a problem when it was compared to these other big problems. But now it is the last remaining problem, and I want to do something about it.
Speaker 1:OK, that's interesting. Ok, well, maybe I get that Right, I get it, maybe I just got. Maybe. I feel like I'm too spoiled by Pro Tools, because if there's something, you know, I mean if there's something in a vocal that's like not quite right and I feel like I've got the best out of the person that's in the booth, or whatever, I think, okay, the rest I can fix. The rest, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, whether it's a Melodyne thing or whether it's like expanding something or shortening a vowel or whatever, we've got so many tools these days that we're like, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:We could spend 20 minutes trying to get that take, or I could fix it in two when you're not here, no, 100, 100.
Speaker 2:So where do you stand on? And this, this is so I'm gonna go off on a segue here.
Speaker 1:If you've got time, yeah, um, but where do you stand on AI?
Speaker 2:vocals. Um, from a moral standpoint, from a moral standpoint and also from a performance standpoint, would you use an AI vocal? And I guess I'm talking about vocal replacement, not generation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do have an answer for that actually. So if it's for commercial release, no, but if it's to represent a song that's going to be cut by somebody else, then yes yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that kind of makes sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's. It's interesting because, um, it's coming up more and more, um, certainly in the music for media world where, you know, perhaps six months ago it was we mustn't touch anything. That's ai, and and suddenly I'm hearing sort of anecdotal uh stories about people being asked to use, uh, you know, an ai, uh, replacement vocal, uh, because it's going to be cheaper. This is a slippery slope, um, but again, I know, I know lots of writers who do exactly what you're saying. You know, use it for the purposes of demoing.
Speaker 2:I mean, I've been sending session vocalists, you know, pitched up versions of me warbling, my co-writer, you know, like a couple of little micey mice on the track, and for them, I don't know, like is it, is it? I haven't actually had a conversation with one of them about it. I probably should. You know, do they? Do they prefer to have, you know, sort of take mcray singing the guide vocal, or a version of, or, or were they fine with? You know, with the chipmunks, I don't know?
Speaker 2:Um, you know, I guess part of it is the. The pitched up thing gives them a lot more freedom because whatever they do is going to sound better, right, um, whereas suddenly I mean some of the ai vocals I've heard sound pretty good so I'm like, oh no, now they've got to compete with it. So, psychologically, what's a nicer, what's what's better for them? And I don't know, if it was me, I'd probably plump for the, the thing that I can easily beat and and do a lot. You know much, a much better version of immediately. So I'd plump for the, for the chipmunk vocal okay, that's, I'm not.
Speaker 1:I'm not a session singer, so I don't know well, you know what some one of the things I've battled with in the past especially as a songwriter pitching songs for other artists is to not make the vocals too good on a demo and it's going to sound really silly, but I just if I've got a demo vocalist that is really good and a better vocalist than the artist that I'm pitching for, then it's going to present me a problem.
Speaker 1:Absolutely then it's going to present me a problem, absolutely. You know it's like it's, it's, it's a. You know it's awkward. It's an awkward problem and it's great because your song sounds as good as it can possibly sound and you've got somebody really perfect representing it. But then you go do you know some of the stuff in that that they're doing on that vocal? The artist can't do that. So how's the artist going to feel when they have to sort of replicate it or reinterpret it or like how's that? That that's gonna that's gonna be awkward at some point if they cut it yeah, absolutely, absolutely, and that's a very uncomfortable place to be put in right yeah, and I don't want to put anyone there, you know no, but that's kind of.
Speaker 2:isn't that basically why sia ended up releasing loads of her music? Yeah, no one could sing it.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, I think, as Rima has it, emily Sandé was similar to that as well. It was like wow, who's this girl writing all these songs? Who's this voice? She's amazing. Maybe she could be the artist you know, yeah, yeah, it's a thing, jason, I know you're a busy man. I'm going to come to the final question for you, which is and we've actually kind of inadvertently answered this a few times already, but what advice would you have for music creators that want to earn a living from their craft? That's a big question, I know, but what springs to mind?
Speaker 2:Well, we touched on it earlier. I think you can't overstate the value of collaboration. I think that's really important. I mean, if I'm speaking specifically to production music, I would say most people starting out are probably lacking in one of the skills you need. You know, they might be a great writer, they might be actually really good at putting tracks together, but their mixing isn't all that and that's what's letting them down. So go and find someone you know you can collaborate with on the mixing front.
Speaker 2:Probably probably don't feel like you have to be good at everything. That was something that I sort of struggled with. You know, I've got, I've got. I've got to get really good at programming. I've got to be able to do all these different things, um, you know like there's one guy I work with now all the time who's just really good at writing songs. That's what he's really good at. He's very good at um. You know lyrical concepts, um, and he works with me and other people, so he doesn't need to be great at logic and programming and you know kind of beat making side of it, um, so you know, play to your strengths really, um, and don't don't feel that you've got to do this. You know, learn everything before you've got a shot at having a go at it.
Speaker 2:I mean, the other good thing about collaboration early on is you're not making any money from it, so you don't have to. You know, split your um, split your income from it. Um. Also, you know, when you collaborate with somebody, you know there's the camaraderie of it. You're in it together. You're probably going to push it a little bit more because you you're talking about it with someone else, whereas on your own, you know, if you sort of have a confidence wobble about the material, it ends up dying on your hard drive. So there's that side of it as well. Particularly, I'm rubbish at networking. So if you're working with other people who are better at that, you know that's. That's a good thing too. Um, I did actually make a couple of notes that's it.
Speaker 1:That's it. I can't, I can't imagine that you're you're not very good at networking because you're such a nice guy I get.
Speaker 2:Okay. Occasionally we have these um, it doesn't happen so much now, but the publishers, would you know, kind of do these big sort of end of year parties or whatever. Um, or if there's an event to go to, like I don't know, the, the pmas or whatever, I always end up talking to the other composers and we just end up moaning about stuff and you say, well, this was a failed mission, wasn't it?
Speaker 1:well, that's networking, though in itself, right, it's kind of yeah yeah, I don't think I've got any work out of it.
Speaker 2:That's fine, it makes me feel better. So, yeah, I don't know, I've never just never been very. You know, some people are so good at that getting out and putting themselves about. Um, I've, I've struggled with that over the years. But but you know, I mean another thing that I might sort of you know, if you're, if you're putting stuff out early on, you really want to get feedback from it as well. You want to get, and there's a lot, there's lots of places where you can do that. Now that didn't exist when I was getting into it.
Speaker 2:There's some very good Facebook forums that pretty much anyone can sign up to. That are writer forums. One that springs to mind would be uh composer's guide to library music, which was a book written by uh I can't remember his name dan dan, anyway, dan's book, very good book, all about library music. Anyway, he has an accompanying group on Facebook and he's got thousands of members. But it's very good because people do put stuff up there and ask for critiques and stuff and they ask all kinds of questions. It doesn't matter how basic it is or complex it is. You will get sympathetic answers to it.
Speaker 1:That's nice.
Speaker 2:It's a very good resource, you know, for someone starting out, I think. And of course, people will also. You know, if you ask a relatively obvious question, people will go have you read the book, and most people say what book? The book that you know this group is named after. So I would suggest maybe having a cursory read of the book that you know this group is named after. So I would suggest maybe having a cursory read of the book before you join that group. But it's very good.
Speaker 2:So you want peer feedback, really, and you've got to accept it as well. You've got to take it on the chin if it's brutal and, you know, see it as a big learning curve. Um, because no matter how brutal somebody's feedback is on there, it isn't going to be as as brutal as somebody's feedback, you know, or lack of feedback, when they just listen to it and go now you're not ready. Or you know we're not interested and you've, you've, you've. You know you've come out of the gates too soon, basically, and then, of course, you've got to be persistent. You could be, you know, the greatest composer, uh, producer, uh, that production music has ever seen, and you know, and still struggle to get people to hear and and to listen. And obviously that is where networking comes in and where you know putting yourself out helps. It's.
Speaker 2:Funnily enough, it's also where collaborations help. You know, if you can collaborate with somebody who's already working with a decent publisher, great, do that. That's your fastest way into a publisher, I think, and that's how I've got into quite a few different publishers. I've just done a collaboration with somebody. It's not enough to do one, you've got to do a few. And funnily enough, you know, even and I'm thinking about universal now I've done quite a lot for universal, but even after all the work I've done for them and other people, if I write them an email now I won't get an answer to it. You know it's.
Speaker 2:It's such a closed world, um, so co-writing really has been the only way I've got got work from universal. I mean, there's other publishers where I'm the person that they deal with, um, so it's a lot easier to to interact with them. Um, but my co-writers if, if they write to to one of those publishers, they probably won't get an answer. You know they tend to deal with one person within a group of people and you know it's it's just because they're saturated. You know they've got so many people they're dealing with. Um, you know, I saw on on kpm. I don't know, is it last year? I got a circular email and whoever had sent it out had forgotten to bcc rather than cc.
Speaker 2:Uh, the the group oh my god, okay yeah and I was one of six or seven hundred writers that they'd, that they'd emailed out. And if you think I'm one of six or seven hundred that they actually email, I'm not, you know, one of the co-writers of those six or seven hundred people. Or you know, sometimes you see four or five people on a track, so you start to get a sense of how many people were, you know, sort of contributing to those catalogues. I mean, there's just thousands and thousands of us doing it now, um, so you know how you make yourself cut through that noise is is the challenge, and I would say collaboration is, is is a really good way to go, because you're much more likely to get a result from um, messaging a composer um, you know someone like me, or whatever and going I think I've got a really good thing going on here.
Speaker 2:You know what do you think of it? And I go, yeah, that's really good. I can't do that. Well, that's a, a genre that, um, I'm not versed in. However, I can hear a million things that are wrong with it, that need to be changed to make it work in this format, and I can bring you know something to the table as a co-writer that you can't at this point. So it becomes quite a you know sort of helpful collaboration.
Speaker 1:Ah, that makes sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:You know where, I guess you're bringing your experience to it and you can then steer the production and steer the, the composition, in a way that's actually going to be useful. Um, you know, rather than you know, I mean that that is something that people struggle with early on.
Speaker 2:Is is learning the form, like we were talking about earlier um you know they put a great big intro on something or they put a mid-late in it, or you know just some of the things they've done in it aren't going to work in in library or whatever. So that that would be a good way to go. I would say is you know, apart from approaching publishers, um, or labels or whoever uh sync agents, you might also want to approach other um, other writers and composers, and just say look, look, I'm really up for learning and collaborating. What do you think? Will you have a listen to my stuff and see if it breeds anything?
Speaker 2:All you can do is plant the seeds right and hopefully some flowers grow. I mean, that's all we're doing every day with it and the same. You know every piece of music you put out. You're planting that little seed, aren't you? Hopefully some royalties grow out of this one, and you know, more often than not they don't.
Speaker 2:And you know the hit rate is very slow. But you've got to throw some mud at the wall and see what sticks. No, I think that's about it. I mean, I would just say you've got to keep the faith as well. You know you've got to not give up at it, um, and that's, that's very easy to do if you're 25 and you don't have responsibilities, and but you know, if you're coming to it later on and you've got families and stuff, I don't know you. You just got to find a way of making it work. You know you've got to put the hours in. You've got to do your I'm a big believer in, you know, your 10 000 hours. Yeah, you know it. Just something, something clicks after some went around that amount of time and you just get better at the thing, um, exponentially.
Speaker 1:So you know, and, and you just got a good luck basically yeah, yeah, well now, jason, thank you so much for your uh your, your, your perspective um your, your advice for others uh top guests.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, mate it's been an absolute pleasure I I rarely get to talk to people about it. Lovely, it's a privilege, my pleasure anytime, johnny. Thank you, mate, take it easy.
Speaker 1:Oh, what a top dude, I hope you enjoyed that.
Speaker 2:You know it's a privilege, my pleasure anytime, johnny.
Speaker 1:Thank you, mate, to you take it easy. Oh, what a top dude. I hope you enjoyed that. You know it's funny, isn't it, when you you know, when you have a conversation with somebody and you kind of go right, this is the narrative, this is where we're going to go, and then you stumble across all these other little bits and pieces and little gems and stuff. So we kind of went off production music at times and just went into talking about other things. I do hope that that was useful for you as well as learning about production music, how to get into it, what to be aware of, but also some other little kind of lessons around the music industry and stuff. So I hope that's been useful. Thank you for being here. Until next time. Be good, and may the force be with you. You.
