Gary Powell, Composer/Producer

by Gary Powell

Upon leaving academia, every career path in the music and media businesses immediately becomes unique. Successful individuals have each created their story, unless they came into their professional life as a legacy which is a whole ‘nother topic. Our unique stories is why global advice is so easy to get and so hard to follow; and is advice seldom effective in its practical application. Worse than that is the fact that the eduction we did get can be misleading or even harmful under the stress-test of a real-world artistic career. If you find that your cap and gown has left you disrobed or simply had nothing to do with who you are as an artist or how you earn money as an artist, then read on for the good news.

Whether the graduation robe was relevant or not, you will still have to find the success you desire….. yourself.

After working in the music business full-time since 1976, I still struggle to find time and money to produce what I consider to be the truest and best expression of my life and capabilities. Certainly, aspirations can fuel the search for perfect artistic and financially rewarding expressions. Also, maybe we have identified a mission for our music of some particular choosing. When aspirations are not enough or the poetic mission-statement fails, it might be time to take our dreams to the gym in the form of education; either formal or not. Figuring out what kind of education is right is the next challenge on the path to our unique selves. Oh, I forgot. You may already consider yourself educated. If so, continue reading.

We artists did not choose to study finance, accounting or business, so more than likely we will have to forge this new career path ourselves. Where were the courses in Entrepreneurship in the Arts when we were being educated the first time? Even in the height of my career, I continue to seek out mentors to discern some sage advice which might be applicable to my own psychology, circumstances and talent; all things which are in constant flux.

Other careers may have offered stability with dutiful profits and financial security. We didn’t choose that, did we? So, seek out music mentors, accounting and investment mentors and business mentors; seek out those who have walked a mile in the shoes you want to wear but haven’t even picked-out yet. Regardless the size of a mentor’s career, most successful people are surprisingly willing to help other aspiring individuals. Understand that their advice is not necessarily to be followed, but it is there to be integrated within your own circumstances. I’m still learning. I hope you will too. Whether the graduation robe was relevant or not, you will still have to find the success you desire… yourself.

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Filed by Gary Powell at 1:56 pm under Music Business Insight
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by Gary Powell

There is a point in the development of your performing career at which your own vision of self must become disordered. This is a time and place where your prevailing reality is challenged. For me it came at age twenty-seven in Los Angeles.

Let’s say you are a pre-teen who loves to perform. Maybe you are even talented in doing your literal and proverbial tap dance. Even the most jaded audience enjoy watching your youthful energy. You will soon be asked to perform for many talent shows, Rotary Clubs, weddings and funerals. You have sung the National Anthem dozens of times at sporting events. Yes, it feels great to be in such demand. Continuing on to high school and college, your fan club increases. By now, you have already successfully adjusted to having competition for the lead role in the school musical or ballet. You have usually won these auditions and the infrequent loss of a role doesn’t freak you out….BUT the “shift” still hasn’t happened yet.

During college your talent may be discovered by a summer camp director for boys or girls where you become the song leader, art director or dance coach. No doubt, several churches are offering you high praise to bring your talent into the fold. All this feels inspiring and motivating as now you are beginning to win scholarships and stipends. The next year you perform in a summer-stock theater. Yes, you are on a roll and are now chanting the “I’m being paid to do what I love!” mantra.

In the past, the seemingly harmless career seductions probably did not feel like seductions at all. Now they do! – Gary Powell

At this point you’ve come to terms in juggling auditions, competition from other performers, money issues, and holding a job along side your obscenely long rehearsal hours. But now comes the “shift”. At every step of your development you, the performer, thought that each of the opportunities you’ve experienced was about you. Each circumstance was earned by you and you proved your talent again and again, but now as you have matured you have noticed opportunities thinning out. Some opportunities expire expectantly like graduating from college. Other opportunities expire not from just loosing out to the competition, but loosing in a thousand other ways you had never even considered and in other ways that had nothing to do with you whatsoever. Other professional opportunities expire because you yourself have outgrown them. In the past, the seemingly harmless career seductions probably did not feel like seductions at all. Now they do! They were, at most, a major part of your continuing education and each of your performances was a mini-equivalent to your own record deal.

This is the shift. It is a simple yet broader understanding of yourself and your talent within a larger context; a context which can and must be continually negotiated for the rest of your life. Now you finally know that each of your shows and appearances were about what the show needed rather than about what you needed. As a young performer, the negotiations with yourself were processed internally and silently. Later these negotiations will be voiced and leveraged from all sides. Welcome to the magnificent world of the adult artist who learns to live and prosper through and beyond our losses, our betrayals, our self-doubt, our limitations and our competitors. When you arrive at this point, hopefully before age 27, you will stand in the spotlight you mindfully created and the mastery of your earlier professional life will light your way toward a prosperous future.

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Filed by Gary Powell at 11:12 am under Music Business Insight
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by Gary Powell

Okay, nearly everyone has chimed in with a positive response to my suggestion of learning how we can help each other online in a more direct and meaningful way. There is nothing new about this strategy for any of us. Making it spring forth into computer code, that doesn’t just flirt with its self-serving image in the mirror, is the real question. We can become so focused on our own outreach that these efforts for our friends can eventually be overlooked or forgotten. I would like to see us all support and point our audiences to the people of our choosing. No record company needed. No art galleries needed; no telephone, satellite TV or newspapers needed to tell us who’s who while taking not only their clients’ money but our money too. Do we really need this kind of help in deciding who we really are. Thanks, but no! We’ll take it from here.

I’m assuming social-media guru, Tom Parish is the one of us with the most experience in managing any online presence. He’s the one who actually makes his living teaching people about leveraging social media toward specific goals. That said, I’m proposing that social media is just one of many strategies we should be using. Somewhere between the smokey back-room deals, the two-martini lunches, the Wednesday-night church suppers, the untoward affairs of the politically afflicted, or even just good friends who hold each other in high regard, that this is where real connections and deals are made. FACT: I have NEVER secured a job that I applied for. However, when I was referred by someone or I was found simply by chance and given the opportunity to present myself, I have never NOT been offered the job. (Sorry for the double negative, Emma. I just liked the way it sounded.)

“The other dancers will only look at themselves in the mirror. They’ll never even see us.” – Mitch Pileggi, actor

In year 1980 Mitch Pileggi, X-Files’ Agent Skinner, dragged me to a modern dance class as part of his training to be an actor. I said, “Shit, Mitch, I can’t dance. I’ve never taken a dance class in my life and all those real dancers are going to be starring at us. “You’ve got to be f’n kidding me” he barked, “Gary, shut up. The other dancers only look at themselves in the mirror. They’ll never even see us.” We went. Mitch was right.

“Blog, post video and photos, but quit looking in the mirror long enough to give a little support the people you would like to see win. We can no longer choose to sit idle while we wait for our big break. That paradigm is over. We are our big break.” – Gary Powell

Maybe we should hold a small seminar for ourselves and stir this around and see what happens. I’m not much for clubs, or joining things, or meetings for that matter. But, I don’t want to miss an opportunity for us all to get really smart and effective at helping the people of our own choosing. We have already hired Tom Parish as a moderator for us once before. He’s been so helpful to me in the past and is great at wakening our individual spirit. But we too easily slip back into old patterns.

After blogging now for five years straight, I’ve noticed that there is an obstacle to our successfully joining forces in supporting one another in our artistic or business interests. We’ve all been groomed throughout our lives to believe that talent and product is presented to us only through proper channels like universities, television, newspapers, magazines or movies. Our lizard brains have been too institutionalized to even conceive of promoting and helping the people of our choice. So, most of us go the promotional route alone with the same results as before; wasted time and money. Well, it’s time to wake up and understand that Louis Prima (Big Night) is not coming to dinner and we should have never waited for Godot. Not one minute. Let’s help one another open our lemonade stands. It’s so easy to do now that we have the technology and we all win.

Join me on my Facebook Fan Page.

For further reading: Christine Herron has spent her career finding new applications for infrastructure technologies.

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Filed by Gary Powell at 5:23 am under Music Business Insight
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by Gary Powell

If you finally get the call for the job or the opportunity you’ve worked for, it might be a good time to realize that healthy business relationships are born of mutual understanding, mutually earned respect, mutual reliability and mutually earned loyalty. Notice the omission of the word trust. These new business relationships are never born from a bilateral adoration of you, the artist. If you really believe it is all about you, then prepare to stand in a very long cue while enjoying a very short career on the latest thrill ride called SEDUCTION. Next, order any one of these books written on the topic of “One Hit Wonders” before your story ends as a chapter in the latest edition of one of them.

Most of our early opportunities in the performing and creative arts come to us by way of the often used seduction business model. Perceiving how you are being seduced now in business should help you identify the dangerous patterns within your future business offers. Recognize the pattern and be conscious of how new business proposals couch illimitable opportunities. Keep in mind that seduction is nothing more than the act of using influence to excite hopes and desires without regard to fair and equitable returns for your participation. Any business relationship that honors your contribution should offer you a financial participation bearing some resemblance to how your work has effected their bottom line. Of course, this is also after you acknowledge and place a value on the risk and expense that your employer is taking. But then, and maybe after briefly enjoying the flattery, take the deal or don’t take it, but always try to understand who is doing what to you, why they are doing it, and for how long they intend to keep doing it. It is your job to understand these strategies and it is your job to take care of yourself. Be armed with the knowledge of these common practices in order to make prudent decisions that will yield you uncommon wealth and happiness.

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Filed by Gary Powell at 6:16 pm under Music Business Insight
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by Gary Powell

Copyright law regarding songwriting is written in a way which upsets the balance of musicianship and credentials. You, as a songwriter can be easily compromised by the law lending support for all kinds of pretenders to lay claim to the intellectual property they had little or nothing to do with. For example, a song has three major components: the melody, the lyrics, and the chords under the melody. Chord structure is musically understood as the harmonization of the melody. For every one melody note, there are two handfuls of notes giving the melody its meaning and place. Thus, a melody and lyric can be masterfully harmonized any number of ways to broadly effect their color and tone. In that regard, harmonization plays a compositional role that melody and lyrics cannot alone achieve. Yet, the United States Copyright Office only recognizes melody and lyrics as official parts of a song. Really? That’s right! All those years spent in the study of music theory can be cast off just that easily with one bad law. And whom does this oversight favor? Thanks to the copyright office having been taken hostage, just humming a little ditty with a lyric like “Happy birthday to you” is all it takes to lay legal claim to being a songwriter or even a composer. This favors anyone who has ever hummed a tune, which for the good and the bad of it, is all of us. Professionally, however, composers disaffectionately call these people hummers.

“…one of the criticisms of the current system is that it benefits publishers more than it does creators.” – History of Copyright Law, Wikipedia

In the meantime, answer this question before you start hijacking the credit you don’t deserve: If left alone with only a piano and staff paper, would you be able to deliver a musical composition ready to be played by an orchestra waiting for their parts in the rehearsal hall next door? If not, then you’ll need a team of lost-voices or some very cleverly designed music-making software – of which there is plenty to choose from. But remember, if you can hum or even be in the room when someone else is humming, the the law is on your side. So, what happened to the music itself after the adoption of these copyright laws? Turn on the television or radio and listen, and you’ll immediately know.

Next I’ll be writing about how we are unwittingly supporting a system which progressively lowers the bar for the arts and ultimately in society.

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Filed by Gary Powell at 4:41 am under Music Business Insight
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by Gary Powell

The role of the music educator is being transformed. Music education has always offered a rich environment for listening, analyzing and experiencing the most masterful compositions in history while students study under expert tutelage. Transitioning a student from academia to a global market economy, however, presents new and specific challenges for us as educators which we are seldom able to wholly grasp. Why not? Higher education emphasizes and demands compliance, not just for the student, but for any person working within the institution. The successful student, in order to prosper within this educational, system, is unconsciously creating a thought process that will most certainly work against success in the less compliant world – a world where your ever maturing and less compliant self actually lives. You will probably, like me, find yourself needing to turn the page quickly, without even knowing you are being taught from the wrong book. In this societal time of personal imprudence, systemic corruption and waste, and the uncertainly of leadership, the teacher and the student now find themselves as unlikely roommates in their freshman year at WTF University!

Listen inwardly, then express outwardly by nurturing relationships with individuals who are fair-minded and also your equals in intellect, passion, and talent.

Compliance by definition requires action, not of your own choice, in applying learned quantities to known stimuli. Formal education is built on the wealth of accumulated human knowledge. Educators teach what is known. Obviously, they can’t teach what is not known, so who or what, exactly, is going to teach you the future? Sorry, but this next college degree is going to be up to you. Hopefully, educators will at least have the capacity to forecast and teach technological and market trends. If you are studying the arts, then the news for you is even worse. However, experiencing the historical perspective which education offers the music student is where you as the student have the most to gain. Conversely, most professors will not have experienced any of these paradoxical paradigm shifts in the market or emerging production technologies first-hand. Most are either not aware that changes or shifts have occurred or they abhor these career threatening inevitabilities altogether.

I suggest bringing your teachers into your world of experience. Your experience will not be their experience and vice-versa. Because of these rapid technological and societal changes, you, the student, now share nearly equal responsibility with your teachers in your music education. You will now need to take on the responsibility of relating to your teachers and music professors in an inclusive, yet respectful way. Invite them into your world, and if they find it wholly irrelevant to their curriculum, then look outside the hallowed halls for what you know you need. This is your responsibility to yourself. They in turn, as your professors, have the responsibility of keeping their perspectives current and relevant. There is no subject that has not been touched by technological and sociological change. Taking on the personal responsibility for your education through awakening your insight, beyond the ivory towers, will build relationships facilitating knowledge and a cogent path for you to follow during times when we all experience murky indecisiveness; a time when absolutely no one has the answers you need. Listen inwardly, then express outwardly by nurturing relationships with individuals who are fair-minded and also your equals in intellect, passion, and talent.

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Filed by Gary Powell at 6:46 am under Music Business Insight
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