Listings and forwards

[anne]

Just my 2cents about forwards. We are doing well in that area, but it is really frustrating when the same song gets such completely different feedback from reviewers. Frustration is on our part, and a lot of it is really in learning what the listing is looking for - it is not the screener's knowledge or comments. We've only had 1 critique that made no sense at all, but that may be just our opinion. I have to say that in the 3 months we've been submitting to listings and to dispatches, we have been running about 50/50 on our forwards vs submissions: We haven't had any $$ come yet, but are well aware that this can take up to 2 years from forwarding if it is purchased. Now, I have a question for you - in the email from Taxi Michael described the "CSI-ish background music" and recording it (see your inbox for Michael's letter the other day). I'm serious about this question - what would this be listed under for submissions? Instrumental, I assume, but would you call it moody or etherial or ambient? Just curious so we can submit more music appropriately!We just have a lot of instrumental tracks that we can use for submitting as well, but never thought about it until the email he sent!THANKS TAXI - without you my motivation was ZERO. Now, I'm much more motivated to keep writing.Anne@hsconc.com

[roughly]

Hi Anne,Congrats on the great forward ratio, that is very good so you must be doing something right. We have actually been trying to push some songs that we've written in the CSI style so when I got the Taxi letter I was surprised. I was starting to think we were the only ones who put that music into a genre of its own. But we have had quite a bit of luck with the music like that. It seems that most of the forwards we get for that style are for electronica listings, many times for downtempo electronica. Every once in a while there's something in the television or instrumental categories that they fit into as well. Hope this helps and you get many forwards for these tracks as well.-Theresa

[davewalton]

Quote:Now, I have a question for you - in the email from Taxi Michael described the "CSI-ish background music" and recording it (see your inbox for Michael's letter the other day). I'm serious about this question - what would this be listed under for submissions? Instrumental, I assume, but would you call it moody or etherial or ambient? Just curious so we can submit more music appropriately!Hi Anne,There's a lot of good info in what Michael was talking about although I'm not sold on the ease in which he says one can write 1000 tracks per year. One thing I need a lot more of are "groups" of tracks in various genres and/or styles for music libraries. I have a lot of tracks but they're kind of all over the place and not grouped and focused like they need to be for music library stuff.I watch CSI all the time and I love the music. CSI music is, of the examples you gave, moody. It can be etherial but usually not and definitely not ambient. As far as genre, I might generally define it as "electronica" and "downtempo electronica". Usually, even though it might be downtempo, it'll have a razor edge to it, never soft or fluffy.This gal, who apparently has too much extra time, has cataloged practically every outside song that has appeared on CSI (songs not written by CSI's composer John Keane). Scroll down the list and you'll see a lot of groups and artists you'll recognize. Of course you'll see people like "Wayne Newton". He certainly doesn't exemplify CSI music but you'll see they used him for muzak at a supermarket. Anyway, here's the link:http://members.aol.com/jrd203/csi-music.htmI think that there's a two-sided approach to what Michael is saying. Submitting to Taxi listings as they come up but also to proactively submit to music libraries on our own. That's not anti-Taxi, just a reflection that listings only come along every two weeks and not every music library lists with Taxi.BTW, for practice you can buy CSI episodes for just a couple bucks from iTunes. Even if you don't have the capability of scoring to video, you can write your own song, play it in Windows Media Player or Quicktime while watching the video in iTunes or another instance of Quicktime with the sound muted. After switching back and forth between the original music and your music, you'll hear pretty quickly if you're on track.I agree that a CD full of edgy CSI music would be well received by a good number of music libraries. Later,DavePS - Congratulations on an excellent forward ratio. Reading those listings is an art for sure.

[horacejesse]

Dave,I can really relate to being scattered stylistically all over the board. I also am wide but not deep enough in any one place. But I continue to record what I am inspired to record. Hmmm...inspiriation of course can be somethging like, "Okay, this is the easiest song that I might have a chance to finish tonight."I only have about 17 pieces that I think are well done enough to send out. A lot more, perhaps 15, are done except for an excellent singer. So far they are sung by me, a passable voice but not more than that. Then I have about a hundred more old ones that I have not been able to get to yet, both instrumentals and vocals. And that is my backlog. After that are the ones newly written, which continue to trickle in. If I can ever get them all well done I have a thinking maybe I will be at least semi-deep in a few areas.

[matto]

Another listing category CSI music could fall under is "TV Drama music" or something to that effect.

[anne]

Thanks for the "old CSI" episode idea for practice on that type of music. I'm getting my collection together now, and resolving to spending time skipping all the scenes that don't have music and playing (repeatedly) the ones that do. The other thing I've been doing is taping talk shows to listen to some of the music they use behind the narratives, and commercials that have no lyrics. Thanks for the advice and inspiration to get my research method together -