Would Kurt Cobain have made a deal in here?

[Paulie]

I blame Miles Davis for this fallen state of the musical world.

Explain please?

[superblonde]

I'm not sure what musicians were like in the pre-multitrack-recording era. I assume musicians were better since there were no do-overs. Playing a solo meant actually playing the solo all the way through and sight-reading the part and recording as 1 full take. Certainly the off-the-cuff Lomax recordings show the depth of talent among everyday musicians in prior eras. While multitrack recording was experimental, punch-in recording was viewed with distain by real musicians. From what I take from the history of recording, Miles Davis was the first musician's musician to create jazz solos from multiple takes to create the full solo, a solo which would never have been played 'live' (and was also impossible to play at the time). Piecewise solos had to happen eventually though it is too bad he legitimized the technique when he did. It now seems incredibly rare for any musician to claim to write music & record music as a real performance i.e. without manipulating time. It now seems incredibly rare for creativity to have to be employed in a premeditated way, instead musicians record a dozen takes of various quality and choose the best one. Billie Ellish discusses in interviews how she recorded 150+ takes of single lyrical lines in various ways in order to find the right one by ear afterwards, and repeating this for every lyrical line, etc. Is that skill ?

[Zaychi]

It opens up myriads of possibilities which would otherwise not exist. Much of the music we know and love now would not have been possible.

[superblonde]

Dave Grohl has a fabulous story in interviews about recording his first Foo album whereby he had to continually fight everyone to simply record the album as "one-take and done" with no post-edits/punch-ins allowed. According to him it reached the point where, after producing the final stereo master, he physically cut up the production tapes because there was so much temptation amongst the engineers & musicians to go back & make edits for future re-release/re-master.

Compare to the detailed story of how Billie Eillish recorded her album in Logic using hundreds of takes even for individual words.

Which musician is the "better musician" at "writing music" ?

[RPaul]

with all this categorization and framework for listings going on here on Taxe I wonder if creative people who make music "out of the box", crossover stuff with new and creative sounds and tunes would be able to find deals in here, since such material would hardly fit into any wheelbase of any listing.

Any thoughts about that?

It probably goes without saying that this is just my personal opinion:

True artists -- i.e. the people who are out there doing something different -- would be unlikely to get through the categorized screening processes designed to look for specific forms in the wheelhouse of something that's already been done. But that's never been the way for true artists to break through. It's generally building an audience, in whatever way is applicable in their times, such that "the powers that be" smell money and "have" to get involved (or miss the boat).

The wheelhouse stuff, looking to fill catalogs for specific types of identified needs, tends to be more craft-focused than art-focused. Perhaps you could say its more like technical writing compared to novel writing. Someone who can write a best seller novel might well be able to do technical writing as a day job, but they're not going to get anywhere with it if they force their fiction-oriented styles on, say, a software manual.

Of course, the craft-oriented skills one builds trying to target the wheelhouse stuff could eventually help toward getting the art out to a wider audience. For example, production techniques learned in emulating one style could transfer to recording your original "artsy" stuff.

I suppose the big question would be what you, or I or any individual considering the question, is specifically trying to achieve. If we've just got outside-the-box "art" in us that wants to get out into the world, we're probably going to be better off putting it out there, trying to build a following (e.g. through social media), and trying to get to that tipping point where things start to happen. Of course, a nice sync placement could help with that, and perhaps there might be the occasional needle in a haystack TAXI listing that could even be applicable. (This can especially be a possibility in the area of original takes on cover tunes since there is often the opportunity for something very different.)

Of course, we can also inject some art into stuff we create trying to fit a wheelhouse. We just can't get too extreme if we want to get through the screening process for those needs.

My personal take is that, writing and/or recording for certain types of wheelhouse opportunities has led to my coming up with some songs that I'm really pleased with as an artist. Part of this is tackling opportunities outside of my comfort zone, such that they stretch me compared to what I might have done if I was just creating organically. But I also have to pick those opportunities carefully to avoid the "why did I even bother?" reaction when I don't get a forward from something that I really wasn't all that interested in doing in the first place. At least if it was something I was interested in, I end up with whatever I produced, and I can put it out into the world in some fashion.

Rick

[Paulie]

Going to have to disagree on the Miles Davis feedback above. For starters, he was one of the most innovative and influential musicians in the past 100 years. He changed the course of jazz multiple times, and his concerts were marathons of live performance. He was an innovator in so many ways, I think dinging him for utilizing technology is a little silly. I totally get the concept of using some tools as a crutch to improve performances, punching in better solos or phrases, or cleaning up vocals, etc. But they are merely tools. Tools are just tools, they are only as good as the person wielding them. And they cannot replace actual talent. Miles was not the first person to use technology to alter music, there was a ton of that going on starting in the 60s, after which synthesizers changed the world.

Billie Eilish and her brother are immensely talented. Her lyrics are ahead of her years, and her vocal style is a wonderful blend of various singers. She is a perfectionist, and the tools let her get the music the way she wants. There is no shame in that, and she sounds great live. Its one thing to use tools to get the music the way you want it to be by obsessing over every detail (a flaw many of us here have). But this is different than using the tools to make up for a lack of talent or skill.

[Paulie]

And to return to the original post... No, Cobain would not have made a deal here if he was pitching his original music. Taxi is not a place solo artists get discovered, it is a place where composers and songwriters go to learn what the tv/film industry is looking for at a given time and then matches music to customers that need it. Sometimes you see a listing for someone looking for new artists, but those are rare and not really the goal of Taxi, IMHO. This is about creating music that fits client needs, needs that change every day.

[Picardster]

Very interesting comments here, many of which I can relate to very well.

Rick Paul differentiated well by writing:

The wheelhouse stuff, looking to fill catalogs for specific types of identified needs, tends to be more craft-focused than art-focused.

This place can help increase ones production skills - and this to a high extend. But this most likely is not the place for art-focused productions, since these hardly fit in previously framed wheelhouses.

Anyway, it stays an interesting, and obviously successful, enterprise.

I, for me, will submit to less listings - only to the ones which are I my wheelhouse. Learning genres which do not tickle me, is a burden. And it would not lead to good results.

[shoodBworkin]

Kurt Cobain hacking out instrumental bits for music libraries? lol Best laugh of the morning, thanks

[RPaul]

I, for me, will submit to less listings - only to the ones which are I my wheelhouse. Learning genres which do not tickle me, is a burden. And it would not lead to good results.

I've also been submitting to far fewer listings than I have at some points. However, I do enjoy working on the types that are out of my comfort zone, but genres I actually like and would like to be able to learn more about producing.

It is true that, most of the time, those don't end up in resulting in forwards. Then again, my natural styles tend not to be in any specific wheelhouse, partly because I like to incorporate influences from various genres and partly because I've never been a very good imitator. (I sometimes joke that I'm a really bad imitator, and that's why I'm an original.) Also, some of the forwards I've had have been ones written totally outside my wheelhouse, really just to try something different. (This can often be true of even my "normal" -- i.e. not done with any TAXI listing in mind -- productions, where maybe the direction I take is influenced by wanting to try out a new virtual instrument.) That said, of the six forwards I've had since rejoining TAXI very late in 2018, five were outside my wheelhouse in one way or another. And my first time through TAXI (a year somewhere around 2010 or 2011), three of my five forwards were completely outside my wheelhouse. (One of the pieces I wrote for a listing back then that was not forwarded at the time ended up being my first forward this time around, too.)

Even when no forwards result, though, I can end up with songs I really feel positive about and that are different from what I'd likely have come up with purely organically, so this can be one way to prevent getting stale. Also, I may learn new production techniques in the process, and those can be applied in other areas. I suppose I typically pick listings that I feel will challenge me in some way, especially in areas where there is something I am interested in learning.

In my case, submitting to fewer listings is a combination of focusing a bit more on finishing recordings I've had in some "close" state to finished state (some of which originated from TAXI listings and others that did not), and in some cases recording songs I've had on my backlog "forever" (e.g. my next single will be one I wrote back in 2008), and putting those out into the world, and (at least for now) deciding to focus more on listings where I think the potential work that arises from it will be something I that excites me, as opposed to something I am creating as if for a day job. That latter aspect means focusing more on songs than on instrumentals, and songs tend to take a lot longer to write and produce.

Rick