Use of Jango and Taxi for improved song crafting.

[Hookjaw Brown]

I use Jango ( a pay for play website) to test how sucky the new songs we write are. ($30/month) I also make heavy use of Taxi critiques prior to recording and releasing the songs on Jango. After three years on Taxi and two on Jango we are getting free plays every week and are in the top 2% of Jango artists. (thanks Taxi critiquers!). I have even had a few forwards on Taxi.

I read blogs of other Jango users that have tips. One of the bloggers stated that he has been a Taxi member since 1997, spent about $4000, has had over 100 forwards....and no sales. He also does well on Jango and gets a lot of "organic" plays. Enough that he got $13.28 from Soundexchange last quarter.

He really likes Taxi and the crew. Nothing but praise for them, the opportunities they list, and their availability to answer questions. He uses Jango for quick feedback and geographic targeting. The Jango crew is somewhat opaque and hard to get a hold of.

Success is a constantly moving target that takes lots of different tools and methods to achieve. I am in awe of some the Taxi members and their accomplishments and read their comments carefully. I guess I am saying that I just don't see why some people don't "get" what Taxi is about.

[mojobone]

Did your friend with the hundred forwards go to the Rally?

[ottlukk]

Hook: I am at a bit of a loss as to why you use "Jango". They advertise "free music". If you enjoy hearing your music on their site, and don't mind not getting paid, I can understand that. It's nice to hear your stuff on the radio. But internet radio pays virtually nothing to anybody. There are a lot of people on this site (I realize how bleak all our chances are) who would like to get their tunes on regular radio, where they might actually earn more than $13.00/quarter. Ott

[Hookjaw Brown]

Ott,

I don't "LISTEN" to Jango. I only use it for analytics. Sad to say, some of our songs...well...they suck. Posting songs on Jango is a fairly rapid way of weeding out the sucky songs and focusing on the ones that work with a radio audience. No matter how many books you read, how many classes you take, how much advice you get...some songs just don't work with an audience. We play out once a month for the same reason, to get some audience feed back. I do get the pleasure of having friends at get togethers say they heard our songs on the local NPR station's blues show....

Mojo
Brian Hazard didn't mention the Rally in his blog 12/12/11. His blog appears on MTT (Music Think Tank). I haven't attended a Rally yet cause I am still trying to get a catalog together of songs that don't suck. We are getting closer to suck-free music but are not quite there. Just three inches short of a yard long song (that is a para-phrase from Michael on TaxiTV).

I have to get that line in a song! Maybe the one about a "Recovering Hippie".

Make it a Rodeo Jazz or a Bluebilly style song with some Baltic Beats (really Popular genres).

You should check this site out Mojo...http://www.number7records.com/ and listen to some of the cues.
They offer Exclusive contracts with Work For Hire only to composers. Who are these people who would compose for free and no copyright?

[mojobone]

My opinion, you shouldn't wait 'til you have a catalog to attend the Rally; it's the biggest benefit of Taxi membership, and you'll likely need at least one Rally to get your bearings, before you can fully exploit a catalog. I know a little about Brian; he's artist-oriented and his unique style of electronic music maybe doesn't lend itself well to underscore/song-score. I suspect he could license a lot more of his music, if he spent less time selling it it directly to fans, but he's also a busy mastering engineer; perhaps his Taxi experience is atypical?