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As a musician

Petecellar,

Good post. What do you play? I notice you're in PA too. Any music I can hear anywhere?

Do you do any writing? Where I've done good is not by sacrificing, but shifting. I do a lot of commercial writing now (contract work where someone comes up and says "I need 20 minutes of music for this"). What I'm really pumped about is that I'm doing a 120-minute soundtrack for a PBS documentary. Completely different market than the popular music business...it pays, the music is licensed, and it's not the stuff that's going to be turning up on the p2p networks.

*edit* -- corrected a misspelled "petecellar"

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Composer, performer, pianist
[text was edited by author 2003-07-27 08:41:00]

Pianotech what genera of music do you write. I am wondering if I might have listened to some of your stuff. Congratulation on the PBS sound track. I never had a chance to do what you are doing I was and Army musician for 22 years, enjoyed every second of it too. As I have said before I play most of the brass instruments, and have a real love of antique instruments and music. give me a crumhorn, racket, sacbutt, or saxhorn, or whatever I am in
heaven.

I don't know if you know of Steve Roach but his website
is a good example of what an independent musician can do
(»www.steveroach.com) I have been a supporter of Steve for more then 25 years, each release he publishes is evolutionary, and builds on what came before. I am not really worried about the RIAA they are in self destruct. As Petecellar pointed out a contract with any of the members of the RIAA amounts to servitude, and more and more musicians are not interested putting their yoke on The RIAA looks at domains like live365 as serious threats and would love to put them out of business.

The argument to download and listen before purchasing really doesn't hold water. There are plenty of places where you can listen to a given track in a streaming form, of course I have a DSL line so that helps.
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low Brass Rules!

Transmaster,

Well, it depends on what I'm writing for. My main instrument is piano (go figure!) and keyboards, though I do also play guitar, french horn and some drums. Lately, due to the applications I've been writing for, I've been turning out mostly instrumental, semi-classical/new age stuff.

I agree with you about RIAA...a contract with them pretty much means saying goodbye to your money, your soul, your music and your sanity. It all belongs to them. No need for it any more.

If you'd like to hear some of what I'm doing, click on my signature link and it'll take you to my mp3.com page. Are you still active in it? Still playing, hopefully? Never stop playing!
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Composer, performer, pianist

I am listening to "Design" as I type this, very taste, very nice, It would be at home with My Narada label collection. Steve Roach uses MP3.com for his streams as well. I can see why PBS picked you out for a soundtrack.

No I will never stop playing. About 80 mile west of Cheyenne there is a place called The Snowy Range at place near what is called Libby Flats 11,500 ft above sea level on a tallies slope in front of a mountain side which has the most fantastic natural echo patterns I have ever heard, I'll take a French horn, Baritone, or perhaps a Euphonium up their to play. A flute, especially an Alto flute with amplification would be unreal. It gives me goose bumps just thinking about it. A friend of mine does Scottish Bagpipes. When he plays in this location the sound of those bagpipes with a multiplex echo pattern of up to 1 minute in length left me slack jawed the firt time I heard it. I want to go up there sometime and record in a binaural mode with those Sennehiser Mic's that go in your ears. What a sound!!!!!
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low Brass Rules!

Transmaster,

I love the Narada collections and also Wyndham Hill. We may have to attempt a collaboration some time!
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Composer, performer, pianist

reply to petecellar
Wow, PBS documentary work. Congratulations. I have a couple friends in Baltimore attempting to line up some Learning Channel work. Very rewarding.
As for checking out any of my stuff. Here' the rock band I play in > »members.bellatlantic.net/~vze2c9···EDO.html
Free samples via BitTorrent, so you'll have to fileshare like a common criminal!;)
I've also done a lot of music for local dance performances, and those actually pay better.

[text was edited by author 2003-07-28 08:41:37]

reply to pianotech
You know... things like this PBS opportunity have some strong potential to promote your music. Do you have your own website? I think it would be VERY helpful if you did. It's a great way to have your musical "resume" online as well as give opportunities for people to buy your music.

Here's the scenario I am seeing. Someone sees that PBS documentary and really likes the music. They stick around for the end credits to see what music was used and see your name on it. They go online to find your music and your website comes up. They see what other commercial work you have done as well as see how to get a CD. Poetry in motion.

Same goes for P2P. Same situation about the PBS broadcast but maybe this person didn't catch your name. They go on a P2P service to find the music (based on the documentary title most likely). They love it so much they want more. So they search online and BAM, again your site points them in the right direction as well as show what else you have done. Maybe a commercial you did previously catches their eye as well. Sheer brilliance!

Do you have any say on how your work is marketed once it's being used by a client? Is your PBS music already recorded on your CD or is it new material, and if it's new are you able to create a CD and have it available to the public? Can all of your commercial music be available that way?

Not only can your commercial work be lucrative financially by the projects themselves, but they can also be a positive promotional tool to sell your music to the masses. All that's needed is a source to refer to. If you don't have one already I would seriously recommend creating an official website.
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Love Science Fiction? www.spacestationzoom.com

reply to petecellar

said by petecellar:

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Free samples via BitTorrent, so you'll have to fileshare like a common criminal!;)

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reply to SRFireside
Fireside,

My website is currently under construction, so for now it redirects to my mp3.com page. Which is just as good for now, since that's who hosts the music and actually creates the physical CD's when someone buys one.

What I would eventually like to do is host/stream/download songs right off my site, and give people the ability to purchase either a CD or individual tracks from the site, which they can then download.
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Music for a rainy day...

RE: Your Website

Check out these sites of Artists I have supported for decades for examples of what you can do. I have no connection to any of these artist's other then My great respect and enjoyment of their works. Iasos (pronounced Ya-sos) has one of the coolest New age sites out there.

»www.michaelstearns.com/
»iasos.com/
»www.aeoliah.com/
»constancedemby.com/
»www.steveroach.com
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low Brass Rules!
[text was edited by author 2003-07-28 20:33:59]

Transmaster,

Yeah, that iasos site is pretty good! I'm following some of the other links you posted. On my way to steveroach.com now.

Btw, added some more songs to my mp3.com site and made more of them downloadable, if you'd like to check them out.

Where can I hear some of your stuff?
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Music for a rainy day...

I have preformed in public enough but I have never published anything on my own. One of the most memorable things I did while at the University of Wyoming was the performance of one of John Philip Sousa's symphonic band compositions, "By The North Star" with My
Euphonium of course. This is one of a handful of such works Sousa did. The Professor had to go all the way to the
Library of Congress to get the charts. By The North Star had never been published so we all worked off of copies of the originals. This went out over National Public Radio.

By the way Michael Stearns has a couple of Harps he made called one is called "The Beam" (a 12 foot long instrument strung with 24 piano strings), and the "Lyra Sound Constellation" (156 strings tuned micro tonally and stretching up to 20 feet in length from ceiling to floor) incredible sound.
»www.michaelstearns.com/1977-1987.html

I am looking at Mike's catalog and the years wow it has
been a few since I was turned on to him by the radio show "Music from The Heart of Space" in 1973.

Isn't this more fun then worrying about what the RIAA is going to do next.
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low Brass Rules!

said by Transmaster:

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Isn't this more fun then worrying about what the RIAA is going to do next.

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reply to pianotech

said by pianotech:

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My website is currently under construction, so for now it redirects to my mp3.com page.

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reply to pianotech
Here is a photo that shows "The Beam" it's propped up at an angle on Michael's right side.

»michaelstearns.com/graphix/bmroom.jpg
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This what I mean about the Music world. There is a whole different dimension out there already that has nothing to do with recording executives and the RIAA. In my mind it kind of like trying a different flavor of ice cream. You are a chocolate freak, then one day you discover a blackberry malt. Things are just not the same anymore.
When I was turned on to New Age music it just like the blackberry malt. I remember it well. I was utterly blasted away by Michael Stearn's "Planetary Unfolding"
I have the CD now but I still have the original LP, it's now framed and hangs on the wall here in the ham shack.

Speaking of LP's do any of you remember Wendy Carlos's
two record set called "Sonic Seasonings" I have that one
framed on the wall as well, except on my copy the artist's
name is Walter Carlos. It seems he/she had a little life changing surgery shortly after this recording was released.

low Brass Rules!
[text was edited by author 2003-07-29 01:21:17]

Thanks for the photo. Looks incredible!

And yeay, I have an old vinyl album from Wendy Carlos back when she was still Walter..:)
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Music for a rainy day...

I am still trying to find a photo of the Lyra harp, when
Michael plucked one of the strings on that one the earth moved.
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low Brass Rules!

Transmaster,

Have you checked out eMusic? If not, I highly recommend that you do. There is a veritable cornucopia of incredible stuff there. Check it out!
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Music for a rainy day...