Get Inside a TAXI Screener’s Head on Monday's TAXI TV

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Get Inside a TAXI Screener’s Head on Monday's TAXI TV

Post by TAXIstaff » Fri Jun 25, 2021 3:25 pm

Get Inside a TAXI Screener’s Head On This Week’s TAXI TV!


Click the link below to watch Monday at 4 pm Pacific

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eva06hgFZO0

7pm Eastern (EDT) / 6pm Central (CDT) / 4pm Pacific (PDT) 12am London (BST) / 9am Sydney (AEST)


Dear Songwriters, Composers, and Artists,

TAXI A&R team member Paul Taylor is one of our most valued and highly complimented screeners of all time. Our members regularly send thank you emails, and hundreds, if not thousands have benefited from his sage advice over the last several years.

I’m very excited to have him as my guest on this week’s TAXI TV!

Paul has asked me if he can start the episode by sharing some tips with members to help them overcome common mistakes that he sees over and over again. Mistakes that result in “returns” instead of “forwards.” Who wouldn’t want to know what those are?

After that, we’ll move on to the Q&A part of the show. If you’ve ever wanted to get an inside look at what goes through our A&R team’s head as they listen to your music, then you really don’t want to miss this episode!

Your Best Chance to Get Your Question Answered:

Comment your questions on the posts about the show on our Instagram or Facebook Page or send us a Tweet no later than 2 pm PDT on MONDAY, June 28th.

This is the level of people who routinely screen your music at TAXI. Hopefully, you think Paul is qualified ;-)

Paul Taylor has almost 30 years of experience composing, orchestrating, and conducting in the field of Film/TV, Video Games, and trailers. Recent and all-time favorites are orchestrating the video game scores for the Fallout series, Lord of the Rings series, the Syberia series, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Avatar, Fantasia;Music Evolved, the Dead Space series, and the upcoming Bethesda flagship game Starfield.

Another Fantasia highlight was an orchestration of Jimi Hendrix’s Fire, with legendary producer Eddie Kramer (Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles).

Paul has also worked with live orchestras all over the world, including the Video Games Live concerts, and has conducted session orchestras in Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco, Nashville, Budapest, and London.

His recent projects include Heavyocity’s acclaimed brass and woodwind sample libraries, FORZO and VENTO, as well as orchestrating the video game scores for the latest installment of The Elder Scrolls franchise, Pub G mobile, Bandai Namco’s JumpForce, and Capcom’s Monster Hunters World. Trailer placements include Knives Out, A Christmas Carol, and The Shape of Water. TV/Film work includes hundreds of library cues, a full-length feature, TV commercials for Beats and the U.S. Marines, and the Academy Award Winning short film, West Bank Story.

Click the link below to watch Monday at 4 pm Pacific

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eva06hgFZO0

Here’s how you can join us in the Chat Room if you’ve never taken part in the live chat before!
You’ll need to be signed up to YouTube (FREE) and be logged in to be able to join in on the chat during the show. Go to youtube.com and click the "Sign In" link in the upper right-hand corner of the page and fill out the short form to join. If you have a Gmail account, you’ll be able to associate your YouTube account with it!


7pm Eastern (EDT) / 6pm Central (CDT) / 4pm Pacific (PDT) 12am London (BST) / 9am Sydney (AEST)

See you on the show,
Michael

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Re: Get Inside a TAXI Screener’s Head on Monday's TAXI TV

Post by superblonde » Tue Jun 29, 2021 12:12 pm

This was a fascinating and educational episode. It's incredible that his top item involves reading comprehension of the listings as the most frequent problem. As a problem-solving exercise though, a possible solution is changing the format of listings, for example, as a checklist, or as a scorecard, and submitters are tasked with adding up their score for each requirement of the listing with submissions allowed if the score exceeds a minimum value of checks or +1's. Some people in general work better reading paragraphs and fail at checklists, others work better following a checklist and fail at reading paragraphs. If it is the most frequent problem... maybe it deserves a solution..

Also this episode might be the first time I heard about a "three act format for trailers".

The part about, essentially, continually developing relationships with supervisors/libraries, seems really important and maybe a hidden (or glossed over) aspect of this business. So much daily time spent practicing an instrument, then practicing writing music, then playing and writing new works, yet the fundamental problem is not focusing on interpersonal networking. 🤦‍♀️

The quirky aspect of listings is the use of certain terms which are so ambiguous as to be meaningless. The university textbook "Musical Composition" by composer Alan Belkin has a quirky phrase in a chapter about melodies, to write "pregnant melodies". Pregnant melodies? "Captivating melody" or "hook-y melody", or "inviting melody", compared to what, a "non-inviting melody"? Isn't the intention of every melody to be captivating, inviting, hooky, pregnant, enticing, any number of synonyms, yet indicating nothing about the desired content of the melody. A consonant melody can be just as (insert word) as a dissonant melody. A flat-looking melody can be just as (insert word) as a melody with leaps (disjunct). Most rap, hip hop, and even Taylor Swift uses monotonic melody a lot of the time. It's like asking, "Write something good." Well, doesn't everyone already intend their music to "be good" or "not boring"? No one sets out to purposely write nonsensical music ("bad" music). To compare the contrast, what listing specifically requests "Non-inviting melody" ? So, many aspects like this seem to be a kind of meaningless verbiage.


Stop the presses.. Dick Van Dyke sings in a Barbershop Quartet group in Thousand Oaks?!? Now that is crazy trivia only available in these episodes..
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Re: Get Inside a TAXI Screener’s Head on Monday's TAXI TV

Post by Telefunkin » Tue Jun 29, 2021 1:45 pm

superblonde wrote:
Tue Jun 29, 2021 12:12 pm
It's incredible that his top item involves reading comprehension of the listings as the most frequent problem.
Its very tempting to try and shoe-horn existing tracks into the listings, and most of us have done that at some time. In that case, its less about not reading the listings and more about choosing to disregard certain aspects of their content, or thinking you can slip a track through without adhering to them. There's also the difficulty in actually making a track that adheres to every aspect of a listing, so again, it might seem like it wasn't read but having made a track its tempting to submit it anyway on the off-chance that it gets through. Its a bad plan, but I'll bet most of us have done that too :).
superblonde wrote:
Tue Jun 29, 2021 12:12 pm
As a problem-solving exercise though, a possible solution is changing the format of listings, for example, as a checklist, or as a scorecard, and submitters are tasked with adding up their score for each requirement of the listing with submissions allowed if the score exceeds a minimum value of checks or +1's. Some people in general work better reading paragraphs and fail at checklists, others work better following a checklist and fail at reading paragraphs. If it is the most frequent problem... maybe it deserves a solution..

The quirky aspect of listings is the use of certain terms which are so ambiguous as to be meaningless.
So forward should be decided by an equation? :) There have been many suggestions on how to 'fix' Taxi's submission system, and I suspect just about all possible options will have been considered. If there are forwards for every listing, and have been for many years, somebody is managing to read and understand them OK, so they can't be that bad. Also, as mentioned in the Taxi video, the listings are far more detailed (as is the feedback) than you'll get from most libraries.
superblonde wrote:
Tue Jun 29, 2021 12:12 pm
Also this episode might be the first time I heard about a "three act format for trailers".
Its common parlance for trailer composers and has been discussed quite a bit, for example,
post586524.html?hilit=three%20act#p586524
post584471.html?hilit=three%20act#p584471
post583543.html?hilit=three%20act#p583543
It'll even say it (unambiguously ;)) in many trailer listings.
superblonde wrote:
Tue Jun 29, 2021 12:12 pm
The part about, essentially, continually developing relationships with supervisors/libraries, seems really important and maybe a hidden (or glossed over) aspect of this business. So much daily time spent practicing an instrument, then practicing writing music, then playing and writing new works, yet the fundamental problem is not focusing on interpersonal networking. 🤦‍♀️
In the first instance the music must be right in order to start those relationships, and worrying about maintaining them can come later (although you might find that some libraries don't exactly work like that anyway). Such things are probably more taken for granted than glossed over, and most people are quite guarded about their library contacts so you won't hear much of the detail.
superblonde wrote:
Tue Jun 29, 2021 12:12 pm
To compare the contrast, what listing specifically requests "Non-inviting melody" ?
Effectively, many drone listings ask for that if they don't want any distracting melody, so it does happen.

I hope some of that helps.
Graham (UK). Still composing a little faster than decomposing, and 100% HI.

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Re: Get Inside a TAXI Screener’s Head on Monday's TAXI TV

Post by cosmicdolphin » Wed Jun 30, 2021 12:20 am

superblonde wrote:
Tue Jun 29, 2021 12:12 pm
Some people in general work better reading paragraphs and fail at checklists, others work better following a checklist and fail at reading paragraphs. If it is the most frequent problem... maybe it deserves a solution..
Or you could actually try listening to the reference tracks and figuring them out.

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Re: Get Inside a TAXI Screener’s Head on Monday's TAXI TV

Post by superblonde » Wed Jun 30, 2021 9:30 am

cosmicdolphin wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 12:20 am
superblonde wrote:
Tue Jun 29, 2021 12:12 pm
Some people in general work better reading paragraphs and fail at checklists, others work better following a checklist and fail at reading paragraphs. If it is the most frequent problem... maybe it deserves a solution..
Or you could actually try listening to the reference tracks and figuring them out.
Huh? One of the main questions in the episode, was, "What should I do if the reference tracks don't seem to match the description?".
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Re: Get Inside a TAXI Screener’s Head on Monday's TAXI TV

Post by superblonde » Wed Jun 30, 2021 9:37 am

Telefunkin wrote:
Tue Jun 29, 2021 1:45 pm

So forward should be decided by an equation? :)
More like a "Cosmopolitan 7-Question Dating Compatibility Quiz".

'Let's see if your track is compatible for a date with the screener prior to uploading. If your score totals 1-3, you're not a match. If your score is 4-6, you may be a match but it's a stretch. If you're score is above 6, then it could be love at first sight!"


From both sides of the desk, if screener time is being wasted on non-relevant tracks such that this is one of the most common topics brought up, then it would make sense. Less wasted screener time means relevant tracks get more screener time. Consider that 2 minutes of Road Rally Day 2 was "wasted" on a listening panel segment when the randomly chosen track to play for the "Instrumental Cue Panel" ended up containing vocals and had to be cut off after the lyrics started up after the song intro ("Sorry, we have to cut that one off prematurely, it was submitted to the Instrumental Cue, but obviously the track vocals, so regardless of how good it is, it doesn't fit as an Instrumental and shouldn't have been submitted as a track for this panel").


Note I am not advocating taking quizzes from Cosmopolitan magazine.
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Re: Get Inside a TAXI Screener’s Head on Monday's TAXI TV

Post by cosmicdolphin » Wed Jun 30, 2021 10:17 am

superblonde wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 9:30 am
Huh? One of the main questions in the episode, was, "What should I do if the reference tracks don't seem to match the description?".
Didn't watch it but you can reverse engineer the music without even reading the text and have a much better chance of being on target

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Re: Get Inside a TAXI Screener’s Head on Monday's TAXI TV

Post by Casey H » Wed Jun 30, 2021 11:38 am

superblonde wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 9:30 am
One of the main questions in the episode, was, "What should I do if the reference tracks don't seem to match the description?".
My personal experience has been that if there is a discrepancy between the description and the reference tracks, the reference tracks rule. Music sups and A&R folks are often bad at genre, style, year descriptions. Taxi does their best to tailor the wording but sometimes it's tough. When all else fails A/B listen to the reference tracks and yours. Yours shouldn't be a rip off but how well would it blend together on a playlist of similar styles?

Regarding checklists, make your own for a listing if that's what works for you. How do YOU think your submission stands up? Not being mean at all, but if you want something bad enough, work harder for it. I've been with Taxi since the early 2000's and people are always suggesting ways to change how they operate. All I can say is tons of thought, pros and cons analysis, business issues, etc. have gone into how they do things over around 30 years now. People often have no idea what other problems would arise from implementing their ideas. Also, with Taxi TV, the rally, and the forum, they put out TONS of information on how to interpret listings and be more likely to get forwards.

Best,
:D Casey

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Re: Get Inside a TAXI Screener’s Head on Monday's TAXI TV

Post by superblonde » Wed Jun 30, 2021 3:23 pm

Casey H wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 11:38 am

Regarding checklists, make your own for a listing if that's what works for you.
My comment was/is not about me or my submissions. This about apparently the bulk of others' submissions which 'apparently didn't read the listing well enough' thus contribute to the 'most frequent reason for rejection' in a screener's list of problems with submissions.
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Re: Get Inside a TAXI Screener’s Head on Monday's TAXI TV

Post by Casey H » Wed Jun 30, 2021 3:34 pm

superblonde wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 3:23 pm
Casey H wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 11:38 am

Regarding checklists, make your own for a listing if that's what works for you.
My comment was/is not about me or my submissions. This about apparently the bulk of others' submissions which 'apparently didn't read the listing well enough' thus contribute to the 'most frequent reason for rejection' in a screener's list of problems with submissions.
Sorry if I misunderstood. I think the reality is no matter what anyone does, some people are going to not read the listing well or read it but think they can send their song anyway.

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