My screening adventure at TAXI HQ. Warning: Long Post

[mazz]

Here's a report on my short screening session at TAXI on August 30th, right before the TAXI Live show.


Long post alert:

On my recent visit to TAXI HQ, I had about an hour available to do a little bit of screening. I had asked ML if I could do some just to get a feel for the process and hear a little bit of what comes through. Now please realize that this was not a real or valid screening, no member will see my critiques or decision to forward or return, this was just simply an opportunity for me to get a glimpse inside the screening process.

I didn’t have the benefit of an orientation by Robin, the head screener, she wasn’t in the day I was there so I was pretty much on my own. Craig set me up with a “guest” log in to the screener page and let me choose between a Latin music or a Children’s music listing. I chose the Latin listing.

After logging in, I was presented with a screen that looks a lot like the critique screen that we see when we get our listing results. It has a few extra things like the name of the member, some navigation buttons (next, etc.) and the check boxes for ratings, etc. are “live”. Before submitting a critique, the screener must fill in all the comment sections or the software won’t let you submit. The screen does show the names of the members submitting, but I guarantee you that I don’t remember any names!

I was on a little iMac with some Sony headphones and the music opens automatically in iTunes when it’s chosen. The screeners sit at cubicles with partitions between the computers.

I happened to be there on a day when John Braheny was screening and I was sitting right next to him. I’ve met him before at Road Rally’s but I didn’t make contact this time as he was deep in concentration doing his screening. In fact, there were about 8 folks in there screening at the time and the room was very quiet. These folks were really focused on what they were doing, the atmosphere was very focused, no chatter or small talk going on. In fact, the vibe was such that when I transitioned from the hallway to the screening room, I automatically lowered my voice and quieted down. The atmosphere feels very respectful of the job at hand.

My main objective, as I mentioned before, was to get a feel for the process and also for what the screeners hear when screening for a particular listing. This listing was one that is currently running:

LATIN INSTRUMENTALS - from Contemporary to Traditional - needed by a West Coast-based Music Library whose clients include Xbox, Microsoft, Visa, Clorox, Adidas, and more. Instrumental performance, composition, and arrangement must be top-notch! They offer a standard non-exclusive, 50/50 deal and they don't acquire your song's copyright. Songs must be broadcast quality (great sounding home recordings are OK). You must control the publishing and master rights to your songs - no samples that require clearance, please. Please submit one to three instrumentals online or per CD. All submissions will be screened and critiqued by TAXI and must be received no later than Thursday, September 23, 2010.
TAXI # S100923LA

Sounds pretty straight forward. I’m no expert in Latin music but have certainly heard my fair share and have even played it on gigs from time to time.

I heard some very good music and some very good playing. I believe I listened to about 10 pieces and forwarded 2 (not officially, remember!). I also heard some other things that I’ll enumerate below. I constantly was referring to the listing text during my screening, it was always available in another window on the screen if I needed to reference it.

Here’s a few things that I noticed as I was doing my listening:

Many of the pieces submitted were not in the style/genre the listing was asking for. Latin music is a pretty broad genre, but there are certain hallmarks that are pretty consistent throughout the genre and having only one of those in a piece every once in a while doesn’t make the piece a “latin” piece. It may add some latin flavor, but it doesn’t land it in the latin genre. One piece had some horns that sounded a bit latin but the rest of the piece was a rock piece. I’d call it a rock piece with latin horns. A few pieces had some Santana influenced guitar but not enough other bona fide latin elements to put it into the Latin Rock category. This listing is asking for music that is Latin from the get go, not Latin if you make a stretch.

Arrangements that have little or no contrast for 3 or 4 minutes. This includes repeating sections unnecessarily, basically a structure issue. One piece I heard had lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass and drums. All instruments played all the time all the way through. There was no contrast to add interest to the piece, no dynamic changes, no drum fills (another glaring issue in many of the pieces), no breakdowns. Being a composer is a different skill from being a player, and they can feed each other, but when composing for media, there needs to be thought put into the composition, not just “play the head and then jam”.

Out of rhythm and out of tune. Several of the pieces had playing that strayed from the groove pocket. Some of this was in the rhythm guitar, for instance, some of it was in the lead instrument. Many times this seemed to occur at the point of section or chord changes. It’s important to take a step back from the piece, maybe give it a few days, come back and try to listen with your ears and not your hands and eyes. Try to be as detached from the actual creation and playing of the piece and be brutal when it comes to the groove. Close your eyes and see if anything takes you out of the flow of the piece and then edit that section until it flows. Latin music is groove music and it needs to have that dance of the clave and that swing. Any little discrepancies from that groove will kill the vibe immediately. The devil is in the details and a successful composer sweats those details. It takes a little practice to be able to discern that stuff, but remember, if you are making excuses to yourself about something, it’s a guarantee that the client will hear it loud and clear. Don’t let it leave your studio until you’re 100% satisfied. One of the pieces I heard had a rhythm guitar that was out of tune. It’s easy to listen to something long enough that things like tuning can become inaudible. Again, don’t fall in love with it, be honest with yourself and don’t let it out until it’s right.

Bad sounds. I heard some really good compositions and playing that had arrangements that used just really sub standard samples for things like flutes and horns. A client that provides music to film, TV, corporate clients, etc., could never use something that used sounds like this unless it was obvious that it was done tongue in cheek and even then it would have to be really well done to work. I understand the need to write what you know and to try to get that sound without having to use real players, hire a studio, etc. etc. But then you’ll have to invest in the really good samples and learn how to use them really well in order to make it over the bar. The writing and arrangement in itself won’t be enough to get you there, the sound and production is part of the package and cannot be avoided or overlooked. If a composer doesn’t have great orchestral or big band samples, then that composer will either have to find a way to come up with the money to buy them or scale back the vision of their arrangements until such time as the money is available. Some of the pieces in question could have worked just as well with a simple rhythm section and one live lead instrument like guitar or sax. There are libraries out there for rhythm section instruments that won’t set one back an arm and a leg and those same libraries sound really excellent. Focus on mastering those instruments and arrangements and add really good samples as budget allows.

Drum parts that are the same 2 bar loop for 3 or 4 minutes. Do I need to elaborate on this any more? Listen to drummers and learn what they do to make a song come alive and do that.

Production values. The term “great sounding home recordings” refers to a bar that gets higher and higher every year with clients having access to music from the likes of Big Blue Barry, Keith Lubrant, Matt Hirt, Jeff Greenleaf, and so forth. As I mentioned in my TAXI Live show: the studio is your instrument. It’s every bit as important as that great axe you play on gigs. It’s a fact of life of the modern composer that the production is every bit as important as the music. Long gone are the days when the media composer wrote and arrangement at the piano and then took the charts into the studio and had a studio full of cats to read it down in one or two takes. It’s all on us now, folks, and so start climbing that mountain.

This was a long post but I hope that I helped shed some light on the process and my experience hearing what the screeners hear was enlightening. Obviously this was a one hour experiment that isn’t the whole story by any stretch, but my intuition tells me that my little slice of life isn’t that far off from the day to day reality of a screener.

I urge us all to continue to raise our personal bar and to seek out the support and ears of your colleagues here when you just have spent way too much time on something to have any perspective. There’s no shame in letting your peers help you. We’re all in this together.

Until next time!

Mazz

[Kolstad]

Nice experience, nice report and nice read, Mazz, thanks a bunch!

I think we know these principles by heart, but need to have them repeated, exemplified and repeated, in order for our minds to act upon them, as we sit there with stuff initiated with our hearts, polishing them for exibition to the masses.

No stinkin' socks allowed on a night out!

[Len911]

Thank you Mazz for posting! Very insightful, and I have always wondered what the listening setup was that the screeners used. I had a vague idea of computer and headphones, and that was all. The category choice you were allowed to listen to was curious, latin or children's. Those are a couple of the listing genres I skip over pretty quickly, over my head and out of my league.

[manyunk]

Just a quick and maybe odd question Mazz, ...You didn't happen to notice if the Itunes default EQ was turned on or off. If the screeners are using Itunes as their music player, having the itunes EQ has a noticeable effect on the music they hear,especially in MP3"s. Not the quality of the song obviously, but the production...Just curious.

[kclements]

Thanks Mazz - what a great post. So nice to hear what goes on behind closed doors - and offer a reminder for us of the pitfalls and areas to re-pay(?) attention to.

kc

[byllsong]

Thanks for that report Mazz.

[eeoo]

Hey Mazz, do the screeners have further insight as to what the client is looking for or do they rely solely on the listing that goes out to the members? From their comments sometimes it seems like they know something that we don't. Thanks for the post! eo.

[mazz]

Hey Mazz, do the screeners have further insight as to what the client is looking for or do they rely solely on the listing that goes out to the members? From their comments sometimes it seems like they know something that we don't. Thanks for the post! eo.

Ethan,

I didn't ask that question, which is a good one. I would imagine that the screeners would be able to solicit some clarification if necessary, but I'm not 100% sure about that. Maybe ML will come on and help clarify some of the questions that come up. It's also possible that the screening manual and the orientation would cover this, and as I mentioned, I didn't get that training this time.

Thanks!

[mr clean]

Thanks Mazz. Your post was very helpful in understanding more of the process. Both on the composer and the screener's perspective.

[abtwilley]

Thank you!