Is Taxi Geared for Original Sounding Music?

[billg]

" It's the listing company that writes these things, not Taxi "About a year and a half ago I shot Taxi an email for clarification on a listing. There was an artist mentioned in the "alas" that seemed not to fit at all with the others and I wanted to make sure I was on the right track with my thinking about the sound they were looking for. The person at Taxi told me that HE added the group because HE thought they fit & then mentioned one specific song by the group to explain his thinking. So someone at Taxi does from time to time work on or edit the listings (or at least they did it once!). The group that seemed out of place was the one I thought I could emulate, that's mainly why I was concerned. I submitted three songs, two were forwarded but I never heard anything from the listing party.

[hummingbird]

Taxi works with the listing party to compose the listings. Not an easy task somtimes, as discussed many times on this forum. Whether you are dealing with Taxi listings or directly with a busy music supervisor, publisher or library rep.... whose idea of what they are looking for might be framed in words or phrases that don't make sense to the average musician... and who might say, 'I can't describe what I'm looking for but I'll know it when I hear it."Turn it around. After I've signed my library deal, my next task is typically to submit the final copies of the music for the library. They want me to fill in form that says, for each track... the atmosphere, the instrumentation, the 'sounds like'. I struggle with this sometimes - especially with instrumental tracks - how the heck do I know what artist or composer my 30 sec cue sounds like?? But I have to figure it out... because that's how they categorize their music so they can find it when there's an opp for that kind of track. The better I can describe it.. the more chance my track might come up in their database search, maybe get a listen for an opp... and maybe get placed... which is when I get paid.

[liamkelly]

Oct 10, 2008, 6:43pm, geo wrote:Oct 10, 2008, 2:18pm, wta wrote: I don't mind stealing bread from the mouths of decadence I can't feed all the powerless cause my cups already overfilled I'm going hungry...In my top ten favs.... one of the few songs I can sing the hell out of... Peace, GeoFew? You got plenty miles left in that voice, Geo

[arkjack]

I've found that sticking to your own sound and originality in your writing and recording does not lead to a lot of forwards or Taxi success. Only fodder for the screeners to critique and return, and 90% of the time won't hit the target. I tried a few times to put together tracks for specific listings, but I can't really seem to venture far from my own style. There was a listing a while back asking for a John Denver ala..... I put together three pieces, and wound up not submitting because I knew it sounded too much like ArkJack. The critiques are rarely helpful in suggesting the actual genre, sub-genre and sound alike for future submissions, and the times that I followed up on a suggestion, It got returned. Probably the harder course is trying to discern the listings that your original and unique songs in your catalog fit in terms of the taxi listings, as opposed to being able to create a track for a listing target from scratch.ArkJack

[hummingbird]

Oct 11, 2008, 7:35am, arkjack wrote:Probably the harder course is trying to discern the listings that your original and unique songs in your catalog fit in terms of the taxi listings, as opposed to being able to create a track for a listing target from scratch.I'd agree with that. But unique songs in your cataloque can sometimes be considered if they are broadcast quality & establish a definitive mood... I've had two of my wierd vocal tapestry type songs considered for documentaries, one through Taxi and one through private submission.

[vicky]

...there's room for everyone.........the more unusual your music is ...the less listings there are for it, but in the end a niche can bring you more success in the long, long run.....ultimately getting calls because 'no one else will do' is the greatest....IMO everyone wants to hear something new on a majority of the listings....Working within a framework is a matter of writing chops....vtbp