Five Year Plan Is Working!

[digital1]

As I finish up my 6th year as a Taxi member (joined December 2010), I thought I would stop and reflect for a couple of minutes. I don't remember exactly how I came across Taxi, but I do remember an episode of Taxi TV I watched that featured Jeff Greenleaf. He explained how he was able to get great placements on television and gave details about the equipment he was using to get those placements. It was pretty inspirational. So I thought I would give Taxi a try.

Mind you, I had very little DAW experience at the time. I had previously taught web design and video production (as well a English), but aside from a few recording sessions in college when I worked at the campus radio station, I didn't really know much about creating something that would be broadcast quality for TV or Film. But I found tons of info online through MacProVideo, Groove3 and YouTube, and learned as much as I could as fast as I could. I began posting tracks I had created on the Taxi forum and getting great feedback from the members who replied. Owen Chaim and Robert Hamilton as well as Andy Gabrys were instrumental in guiding me along the way to creating more professional tracks. Until fairly recently, I only had a very basic setup: an iMac, Logic, Trilian Bass, BFD drums and a small sample library in addition to an audio interface and studio monitors.

As it somehow does, life had a way of interrupting this process every so often, but I stayed the course when I could, learning the craft to the best of my ability, and submitting songs to Taxi. My very first forward came a year after joining Taxi, and it resulted in signing that track to a Music Library. I kept writing, submitting and repeating.

After relocating back to the West Coast in 2012, I attended my very first Road Rally, meeting several of the people I had originally met in this forum and making new acquaintances. Attending that Rally led to a referral by a fellow Taxi member to a great music library.

Year five was when I became aware of my first placements (through ASCAP cue sheets). Year five was also when a library emailed to say a TV show they were supplying music to liked one of my tracks and wanted more like it. Talk about a great feeling! When I first joined Taxi, I thought that getting a forward would have been great. A library signing would have been even better. A placement the best. But to have a TV show want more of your music, well, for me that was awesome.

To date I have 120 pieces of music signed to four libraries. Most of my music consists of instrumentals or instrumental cues. This year, I branched out and completed four song co-writes with talented Taxi members, and one track was signed to a very successful music library. As an English major in college, I have always loved writing and plan to spend more time composing lyrics.

I had my first placements on MTV's Catfish last year, and have had even more placements in this year's episodes. I have had music placed on VH1 (Basketball Wives LA), Viceland (Vice Guide to Film) and on Canadian Network television (16x9 News Magazine). My music has been played in the UK and Hungary as well. This year, 2016, I've begun receiving quarterly payments through ASCAP for those placed tracks. I'm using the bulk of those payments to improve my studio.

So, six years on, I am continuing to learn (I watch instructional videos of one form or another almost every day, and pick up Dean's books for technical knowledge and inspiration). I continue to practice my craft, and write, submit, repeat. As much as possible, I try to work every day to improve my craft and learn from others.

I could not have accomplished any of this had it not been for Taxi. Everything flows from that first encounter with Taxi.

Michael, his staff, this Forum, Taxi TV and the Taxi newsletter all provide the tools for success, however you want to measure it.

One of the most rewarding things a person can do is to use their artistic abilities to create something each day. Whether it's your best work or something you need to move on from doesn't matter. Keep creating, learning and using the tools available out there to make the creative experience rewarding for you.

Rock on, Taxi people!

[andygabrys]

Right on Jerry!

Inspiring!

[Paulie]

GREAT message, thanks for sharing!

[ronnie35]

Thank you so much Jerry for sharing
Ron very inspiring

[WeWillWriteUaSong]

Very inspiring indeed. Thank you so much for sharing.

[TerrellBurt]

Thank you very much for sharing! I'm using this as motivation!

[edmondredd]

that's such an inspirational story! thank you so much Jerry for sharing this!

[digital1]

Thanks for the kind words, everyone. Glad my story can be of some help to you. The other thing I should mention is persistence. It's pretty essential to any endeavor.

Jerry

[jeffgreenleaf]

Congrats man!

[mainman]

Thanks for sharing this. After closing in on one year at Taxi, I was feeling a bit down on my ratio of submissions to forwards--your post put things more in perspective for me and is inspiring!