Gary Powell, Composer/Producer

3/20/2007

Teri McCarthy Goes Big
in Austin with McCarthy Print

Teri McCarthy, Heidelberg Press
by Gary Powell

My goal is to drop more words than names on this weblog to try to explain, and even understand myself, the components of success. This success story should be helpful to us as artistan entrepreneurs. However, over the past six months I’ve been noticing my preference for the word achievement over the word success and the word aspiration over dream. In any other city, the story below might be called, “The Key to Success”. In Austin we would probably call it “The Wholeness of Achievement”.

Achievement and aspiration have context while success can be JPL….Just Plain Lucky. In other words, all success is not created equal.

Meet Teri McCarthy, owner of McCarthy Print in Austin, Texas. How did this five-foot-something blonde-tornado build this successful Austin printing business from scratch? Off the top of my head: she is competent, creative, industrious, personal, consistent and ethical. And now Teri has a newcomer to her printing business. It is a Heidelberg 5 Color Perfector (SM 74-5-P) capable of printing on paper 29.13 inches wide.

To put this in musical terms: outside of KLRU-TV, the home of Austin City Limits, I don’t know of a single recording studio in Austin whose total expenditure on gear is equal to the cost of this ONE printing press…… and this is her second one!

So, how did she do this? This I know: Heidelberg 5-color presses don’t come in a cereal box, from the U.S. Government or from getting lucky. They are, however, freighted in….. cash-on-delivery to people and businesses who have a long history of affecting the economy in a positive way. One trusted method of affecting the economy is to create and maintain professional relationships using that list of Teri’s attributes above.

This machine sits atop an isolated slab of layered concrete six feet deep. The slab alone could have built many a musician’s dream studio.

A successful business cannot be understood by inflating one person’s contribution to mythic proportions, so here’s one simple true story. When I began teaching at the University of Texas in 1985, I wanted more than the typical one sheet black and white printed programs for our shows. Teri adopted me and my singing group while she was working for Dividend Printing creating color programs for us with individual photos and bios of every singer. Broadway didn’t have programs this nice and still doesn’t. This effort happened while she was “just” an employee and “just” working for a client, me, who was paying next to nothing.
Teri McCarthy Gary Powell
What’s to learn from this story? Talent and persistence win and aspiring people find each other. Once found, they tend to be loyal and supportive networkers. So now I’m writing about Teri McCarthy because of her loyalty to me, her achievements, her company’s beautiful product and……. she’s my friend.

And, I’m seeing some 29 inch wide business cards in my future!

To contact McCarthy Print
E-mail or Call James Adame at 512.484.0785

Also, my special thanks to Tim Koderl, Michael Mack and all the staff at McCarthy Print for the great work they have done for me and my projects.

BLOGGING TIP: This is the first post in a new category, “Colleagues”. If you wish to receive notifications in this category, login in the users area on the right sidebar and add this category to your category choices.

Filed by Gary Powell at 1:49 pm under Winning People
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3/19/2007

Winning People

by Gary Powell

The people you meet on my site are on the whole more competent than lucky. In that regard, we can learn from them. There is little to learn from someone who was simply born to success or from someone who rolled everything they owned on a “hard-eight” and won! If you are not a legacy, are not royalty, have no trust fund, don’t vacation in Vegas and your uncle’s first name is not “Senator”, then this new category might soon become your favorite.

This “Winning People” category will help us learn from the stories of unique individuals in hopes of understanding the many components of a successful life. Here, I will take philosopher Ayn Rand’s advice and profile the careers of producers, songwriters, composers, performers, educators, artists, painters and business owners to enhance our knowledge and embolden our courage.

“Don’t work for my happiness, my brothers, show me
yours… show me your achievement… and the knowledge
will give me courage for mine.” - Ayn Rand

“Winning People” will examine individuals who have manufactured their own bootstraps, installed them and also pulled them up… all within the proximity of both allies and competitors.. Here in “Winning People”, we will hopefully engage the wisdom and insight of others, who are already winning the life we would like to have ourselves.

Filed by Gary Powell at 1:21 pm under Winning People
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3/13/2007

Austin Rotary Club Speech

Speech Delivered by Gary Powell

Gary Powell Speaking I learned to sing in Huntsville, Texas…..in prison…..the women’s prison. It was my first teaching job at the Wyndham School District inside the Goree Unit, the former women’s prison within the Texas Department of Corrections. Little did I know that a boy from Highland Park, Dallas, would learn so much in that place. I owe much to those women, who gently introduced me to a world I didn’t know existed.

SING: “The Spirit of Rosa”

One terrible gift of maturity is no longer seeing our reflection in the popular culture where we actually do “live”. The chasm between these two places has compelled me to engage bigger ideas in order to stretch my capacity for understanding and hopefully not just finding, but creating a reflection of my liking.

All this leads us to examine our “brand”, its purpose and its scope. The “Gary Powell” brand has proven to be dependable, competent and largely compliant. It has only surrendered upon the threat of extinction. What happens next to each of our “brands” seemed to be the topic for the day. It will be interesting to watch what happens next to the “Gary Powell” brand as thirty years of experience become emboldened to a purpose of its own choosing.

The hidden compromises with which we all live put terrible stress on both us and our culture.

If our popular music can be equated with the “canary in the coal mine” as the barometer of our culture’s health …… then the bird is dead. Our unspoken assessments of a failed system don’t bring the bird back to life. The bird is still dead. Speak up like Galileo did at his trial before the Catholic Tribunal and you may find yourself exiled or executed. That’s the message we learn. Be seen and not heard. In 1992 the Catholic Church formally admitted that Galileo’s views on the solar system were correct. I don’t have quite that much time. NOW is the time and place where I intend to practice respectful non-compliance with systems which fail the test of reason, with governments which purposely seek to silence the voice of truth and with corporations which strategically swallow whole the magnificent individual.

SING: “The Boys in Red”

Every Tuesday, these Rotarians stand up and recite “The Four Way Test”.

This is my lyrical version of the parental “Four Way Test”. The lyric was inspired by a photograph I saw of parents holding a tiny infant in the palm of their hands. The lyric is what we all could only have wished for from our parents at our birth.

SING: “In My Palm”
Gary Powell at Piano

IN MY PALM

Music and Lyric by Gary Powell
11/12/02

Verse 1
Is there more that I can do
Is there more that I could say
Is there more that I might be
To hold you in a way

That might show you how to love
That might show you how to see
That might show you who you really are
And who you’ll come to be?

Bridge 1
So for now I’ll hold you here with me
Close and safe where you might learn
How to walk the path ahead
And how to love the path you’re on

Verse 2
And when you are far away
From the peace, the care, the calm
Please remember just how safe you felt
When your world was in my palm.

Institutionalization insipidly happens to all of us. It is nothing less than an effort to collectivize the human spirit all the while silently limiting our potential. It is the hijacking of the most resolute and powerful thing we humans have, our individual aptitude…..now conscripted into the service of the common good. However, with our integrity so compromised, the good is less than common and the common is far less than good.

Here, at the Austin Rotary Club, they do far better than that. Thank you Rotarians for your service to our community and for the good work which each of you has individually chosen. Your gracious reception allowed me to step away from my own comfort zones and take some risks today. My hope is that you found some reflection of yourselves in my words, songs and life experience. This was indeed a good day and one I will always remember!

Special thanks to songwriter Ande Rasmussen for the invitation to speak and gracious introduction, Gaines Bagby for the great memory of singing “I Can’t Find the Street Where I Live”, Ben Franklin and St. David’s staff for working out the Headliners Club DVD playback, Tom Granger, chairman of the Headliners Club for permission to share the club’s music video, Austin Rotary Club president Pete Meeker for his support and friendship and to my father’s longtime professional associate and friend Don Ray George for the big bear hug!

This event was videotaped by my long time associate and friend Larry Seyer and my studio assistant, the talented young filmmaker Taylor Seyer.

All Content of Gary Powell’s Site is Licensed Under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License

Filed by Gary Powell at 9:26 am under Speaking Engagements
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3/8/2007

Vocal Performance Master Class

DeSales University with Dennis Razze

by Gary Powell
Dennis Razze, musical theatre specialist at DeSales University, has invited me to present a vocal master class on campus this March 24-25, 2007. This post is an invitation to you, the students, and me to get to know one another before the workshop. I want to hear your comments, suggestions, aspirations, experiences or questions before I just show up pretending to be brilliant.

We, as singers, all bring incredible vocal diversity to performing opportunities. Many directors and producers miss the very thing that is unique about your instrument. Even though that certainly affects you, there’s not much you can do about it. The question to ask yourself, however, is whether of not your talent or vocal aptitude matches your aspirations. The stage performer will likely prosper with volume. The singer-songwriter will often prosper with vocal intimacy. The recording artist will likely prosper with agility. The successful career as a session singer will often be determined by your ear more than your voice.

I’m making two points here: One, that many times we define singing careers too narrowly, and second, we make choices based on ego and desire rather than aptitude and skill.

This vocal workshop will serve you best if we work together to make sure you are being wise in assessing where you are most likely to prosper: The stage, the artist, the studio? Learning the capacities of your own instrument is great fun if you have an investigative mind and are up for the challenge.

We all know that almost any voice can make it as a recording artist, right? This is an excellent chance for you to get a very real assessment to help determine where each of you might have the best chance of finding an audience. This vocal master class will be the the polar opposite from that typical American Idol non-constructive-ego-driven-television-nonsense. Hopefully, we will simply identify a path where you might prosper while giving you the skills to further your development in accordance with your very own individual aptitude, psychology, resources and work ethic. I’m guessing this may ALL hook back up with your audition experiences, although beit with a wider net offering you a broader perspective of what effective singing sounds like…..for YOU!

So, be bold here. Engage me now, before I show up. First, you will need to subscribe with the button at the top right of the page. (If your browser is Explorer, the sidebar navigation panel may be shoved to the very bottom of the page.) Then, post your comments, questions or concerns below. If you prefer to keep your communication private, then click on “Meet and Greet Gary Powell” and you’ll find a form for sending me a private e-mail. Also, you will find much information within this professional weblog which should be helpful. Look around, check out the other singers who work in my studio and get involved if you like.

The format and schedule for classes will be forthcoming after I hear from you and work it all out with Mr. Razze, respecting your existing academic responsibilities. I have created a quick online survey which might help me understand who you are. I hope you will participate. (The Survey is Now Closed)