The things we can learn from our children

[remmet]

For at least two years, my older son has been trying to convince me that my website is hopelessly unprofessional, confusing, and very likely detrimental to my music business aspirations. And I simply didn't get what he was saying. But I think the light went off during a Thai dinner last night and I finally understood what he was talking about.

In short, in designing my website, I was trying to satisfy competing desires by having it serve two functions:

1) A place where my friends and colleagues could learn about my life and listen to the music I'd written, and

2) A place that would generate income opportunities for my professional services as a composer.

Apparently it's not a particularly good idea to attempt to do both things at the same time in the same place.

And this realization opened up a long-simmering-below-the-surface quandary: As a musical artist, what am I doing? Do I have aspirations to make great art music? The honest answer is Yes. That being the case, how can I reconcile such aspirations with the model that we all, to one extent or another, are dealing with in the Taxi / music library / media placement / back-end income world? This seems to be an increasingly salient issue in more recent times when we've seen a narrowing of creative license and an ever more stringent requirement to produce music that specifically sounds like someone or something else. Like my website predicament, can you do two things at once: be an original creative artist -- and create to order by copying other artists' music?

Theoretically, it should be possible to do both. The money-making part should buy you the time for the artistic part. And I'm aware that for some of you, this is true. I've found that for myself, however, the money-making part takes a huge amount of time but hasn't generated enough income to buy much time for the art part. Perhaps at some point it will; I'm still plugging away. But I can't quell the lingering uncertainties as to whether this is a good idea.

In any case, my son made me promise to seek out a good designer to completely revamp my site. So in addition to any thoughts you might like to share, if anyone can refer me to a good web designer, please let me know.

Thanks.

Richard
http://www.richardemmet.com

[ottlukk]

Talk about a can of worms, especially for those of us (like me) who are amateurs for the most part. I've spent multiple hours on various sites. TAXI (my favorite, hope glimmers when you submit), Reverbnation (don't actually participate, but Mojo told me to join), Just Plain Folks (got thrown off the site), YouTube (don't know where the rare hits are coming from), Musicians Together (a year ago, and all of a sudden all these people want me to watch their music videos), and Songramp (my current favorite,, because I get such positive feedback). Pitch-wise, I've also tried Blazetrak (even got positive feedback from a couple of Grammy winners). And, just like a bunch of people here, I am looking for that song fairy who will deliver one off my tunes to the correct artist, producer, or one of their closest friends. Oh yeah, forgot MySpace, where I spent countless hours asking for a listen. It sometimes seems to me that all of us are throwing corked bottles with our music into the ocean, and hoping someone with talent picks one up when it washes ashore, and likes the music. Excuse the rant. Sometimes, to me, this seems like a giant roll on a roulette wheel. Ott

[mikeymike2000]

In any case, my son made me promise to seek out a good designer to completely revamp my site. So in addition to any thoughts you might like to share, if anyone can refer me to a good web designer, please let me know.

Thanks.

Richard
http://www.richardemmet.com

Hey Richard, I will only answer the question asked.

My friend Jeff can help you out. You already have everything you need, just a face-lift. You can check me out here: http://tinyurl.com/79mf6zy he set me up so I am able to change whatever whenever. If you like the way it looks just click the hosted by link at the bottom and you can contact him. This is just one sample of what he can provide for you.

Private message me if you are really interested and I will give you his direct contact and introduce you.

[cardell]

...the light went off during a Thai dinner last night and I finally understood what he was talking about.

How did the light going off make you realize?

...can you do two things at once: be an original creative artist -- and create to order by copying other artists' music?

This is one of the ways music teaches me about life: "Should I be my [unique, true] self or an altered more likable, socially acceptable (expected) version of myself?"

Stuart

[mojobone]

can you do two things at once: be an original creative artist -- and create to order by copying other artists' music?

The short answer is yes...but you might want to create a separate headspace for each activity, because the switching back and forth can otherwise cause a kind of creative dissonance. That goes a bit deeper than just creating different templates within a single DAW, it might involve using different DAWs entirely; Ableton Live and Reason are better suited to EDM and hiphop, for instance, as DP and Logic are more oriented toward orchestral and hybrid music. It goes deeper than that, though; I have one chair in my studio where I mix, but there are separate 'stations' for playing bass, drums and guitar, which are oriented differently in the room. This helps me get my head straight for a given task; I'm thinking 'bass' at the bass station, and so forth. It might seem a small thing, but you need to have a care for making transitions when you wear so many hats.

It's the same with a website, you can't ask a single page to do too much; it takes away the focus. Your site can be many pages, if they're well-organized and if you maintain a visual theme throughout. I like Wordpress for its ease of use; when you're trying to earn while you learn, you don't want to be calling up a designer and incurring fees while you experiment, and really, why reinvent the wheel?

[Russell Landwehr]

This is one of the ways music teaches me about life: "Should I be my [unique, true] self or an altered more likable, socially acceptable (expected) version of myself?"

Stuart

And...? I'm guessing you haven't found the answer, only more questions.

Reminds me of a Zen saying that goes something like "Believe a man who says he is seeking the truth, Disbelieve the man who claims to have found it."

rl

[Len911]

Richard, after looking over your site, it reads more like a footnote of your accomplishments than any direction of where or what you are musically. Your bio is very interesting, and your credits are impressive, but it doesn't tell me anything about the kind of music you would write as an artist.
I would expect to see your music as an artist displayed prominently, and everything else secondary as a sort of big plus and wow factor. It's as if I was looking at a Barry Manilow website, and all that he showed were his jingles and none of the cuts from any of his albums.

[matto]

And this realization opened up a long-simmering-below-the-surface quandary: As a musical artist, what am I doing? Do I have aspirations to make great art music? The honest answer is Yes. That being the case, how can I reconcile such aspirations with the model that we all, to one extent or another, are dealing with in the Taxi / music library / media placement / back-end income world? This seems to be an increasingly salient issue in more recent times when we've seen a narrowing of creative license and an ever more stringent requirement to produce music that specifically sounds like someone or something else. Like my website predicament, can you do two things at once: be an original creative artist -- and create to order by copying other artists' music?

Theoretically, it should be possible to do both. The money-making part should buy you the time for the artistic part. And I'm aware that for some of you, this is true. I've found that for myself, however, the money-making part takes a huge amount of time but hasn't generated enough income to buy much time for the art part. Perhaps at some point it will; I'm still plugging away. But I can't quell the lingering uncertainties as to whether this is a good idea.

Richard,
This is just my humble opinion so plaese take it with a grain of salt...

I think that if this is how you look at it and feel about it...that writing production music is nothing but copying other people's work and that you only do it to make enough money so you can write what you *really* want to write, you are probably in the wrong business.

I think composers whose main reason for composing is artistic self expression tend not to do well in production music (or film scoring or writing for commercials for that matter) because in those fields you are almost always given a more or less narrow set of guidelines on what to do. 'Self expression artists' tend to find this too confining and not enjoyable. Like a straightjacket they have to shoehorn their creativity into.

People who tend to do well in the music for media fields are those who are more into the craft of 'putting things together'. They tend to thrive when given guidelines, they find it inspiring and feel it gives them a sense of direction, a focus. Like a skeleton to build their composition around.

There are some who do both things equally well but most will gravitate toward one or the other. The stronger one is pulled towards one side, the less comfortable one tends to be with the other.
In the end I think forcing yourself to do something that is 'not you' not only leads to creative unhappiness, but you're also not likely to compete very well against those who are writing to their strength...

matto

[guitaroboe]

Richard,
I'm gonna go with Matto on this one coz I'm pretty much in the same boat as him.
You know, I've had people (friends even) call what I do: 'musical whoring'. Not that it bothers me...
I find the challenge of following a brief and eventually nailing a piece of music, very fulfilling.
So I guess there's freedom in anything that everyone of us does with their music as long as
the end result provides a sense of achievement.

take care
Adonis

[gtrmann]

I think Matto nailed it also !!!

When your are feeling creative and ideas are flowing .... Write for art.
When you have writers block, write for a listing....
In between, eat more Thai dinners..!!