Software to Consider
• Video- Adobe Creative Suite (Premiere, After Effects, etc.)
Check out Student Discounts- $350
• Audio- Reaper Audio http://www.cockos.com/reaper/ A great way to do pro level audio inexpensively $50 and a decent audio card gets you going
• Web Design- Dream Weaver – $185 and
• WordPress as a site building app, not just a blog (free)

General
• Be a salesman!
• You are “YOU” Incorporated, sell your product.
• Start your own business. Lots of pitfalls, but jobs are scarce.
• Learn to listen
• Let your vision exceed your grasp
• “Always be the weakest link”
• Be nice to clients
• Develop People Skills

Future
• Do you want to do this for Business or Hobby?
o Business – Start a business
 Get a DBA (Doing Business As) $10

o Hobby – Get a “Day Job” and do Freelancing

Business
• Be Unique
• Read books about marketing!
Think for yourself (Hack around problems to find a solution)
• In an interview:
• Ask questions (then shut up!)
• Networking
o Facebook-for business
o Twitter
o Linkedin.com
o ImDB.com – Put all visual work on this site

Media
(Books, Magazines, Websites)

• The E-Myth Revisited (Book) by Michael Gerber (A must-read about running your own business)
The Cash Flow Quadrant by Robert Kiyosaki. Find out where you want to be. E, S, B or I
• Millimeter (Magazine)

• DigitalContentProducer.com (Website)

• Reel-Exchange.com (Website)

• Check out the Sandler Selling System
Ongoing marketing/business classes
Because you are actually in sales.

And don’t forget the 3 Food Groups of Media Production
1. Caffeine
2. Ibuprofen
3. Maalox

YOUR AREAS OF STUDY
• Your performance: find your own voice
• Write original material
• Acquire new material-attend concerts
• The elements of music: melody / harmony / rhythm / form / soul
• Vocal technique – including pitch, interval study, breath control, vibrato, vary your releases
• Listening is everything- how to listen specifically within a recording, to all styles, all ethnicities, all artists, to your own breath

MUSIC THEORY
• Notation-transposition
• Write your own lead sheets – transcribe others
• Instrumental technique – style, facility, practice, learn guitar tuning
• Improve relative pitch
• Ear training – interval study is the key to all pitch
• Set your individual keys for your songs
• Time – must have sense for absolute time, THE POCKET
• Keyboard technique
• Independence-right/left
• Develop ability to harmonize –sight reading-play/sing
• Mic technique
• Music history
• Musical form – arrangement
• Lyric syntax
• Collect verses, novelty songs-new ways to sing
• Learn other instruments
• Your instrument – diet, vitamins/herbs, regimen, exercise. if you don’t take care of your body, where you going to live?

STUDIO EXPERIENCE
• Understand / operate sound systems – theory & applied
• Recording skills – as an artist, engineer, producer, sideman (or woman)
• Creating bed tracks, beats, any accompanying tracks.
• Record and listen to yourself; listen and play it back. Hear the difference in the real sound and your perceived sound. Re-record the same passage and listen again. Repeat as needed. This is your most useful tool to shape/control your vocal sound. Do the same with video.
• Experiment with different recording styles, record audio samples for your albums – ie: ambience like nature or conversation soundbytes
• Organize your material: Date everything.
• Protect your data. Get a sensible process to back it up or risk losing it. Digital data does not exist until it lives in two completely separate places. Trust me on this.
• Play percussion instruments. Practice with a digital click, drum machine or drum pattern on an inexpensive keyboard.
• Video skills: Practice lip synch,

YOUR BAND
• A lyric writer might get a composer to supply music
• Hiring a band, rehearsing; kicking your brother out of the band. Being in another band
• Cueing and leading a band
• Stage presence-owning an audience – attitude, flow, creating a show. Listen to the great ones. Dealing with hecklers.
• Choreograph yourself; or get help. Use video to learn.
• Study/develop humor
• Accompany another vocalist
• Commitment.

MARKETING ISSUES
• Your art, once completed, is a product. Develop your demo package (writer or artist) a killer e-commerce website and ongoing video content to create the buzz.
• Preparing a resume; presenting yourself
• Database for list of your songs
• Great 8×10 B&W photo. http://www.abcpictures.com/
• A great recording. You want a demo? The only “demo” should be an unsigned master. Make all your recordings master quality for shopping and a saleable product at shows
• Merchandise, merchandise, merchandise

BUSINESS ISSUES
• Copyright issues. File unpublished collections. The process. File online. Ask us for our step by step helper form. http://www.copyright.gov/forms/
• There is no such thing as “poor man’s copyright” (mailing content to yourself)
• Licensing your songs
• The business of music: copyright, contracts, a business plan, understand how record labels work. Why you can retail your own music and what it takes.
• Gigging must-dos – being prepared, gear, checklist, your ride.
• Online distribution and promotion.
• A distribution deal. What is a good one?
• The duplication process: costs, areas of expense. Graphics: a basic understanding of the whole process.
• Cost/time management and effective job
• You as the CEO of your own business
• Cash flow, networking, client relations, business plan
• Take business courses if you plan to make this your profession. Talent is not enough.

REFERENCE BOOKS
Buy (and read) books about music business online:
• All You Need to Know About the Music Business
Donald S. Passman (good start)
• Music Publishing: A Songwriter’s Guide
Randy Poe (very practical)
• This Business of Music
Shemel & Krasilovsky (a huge reference text)
• Hitmen
Fredric Dannen (The story of the power brokers & payola in the music business)
• Interval Study Method
Joe Messina (The definitive ear-training workout)
• The E-Myth Revisited
Michael Gerber (How to start a small business and not lose your perspective or your mental health. Easy to read and a serious reality check on making your passion into your business)

Set goals.
Plan strategy.
Apply resources.

You may find some of these folks on YouTube. They have been some wonderful inspiration.

World music
King Sunny Ade –juju music
Salif Keita
Ladysmith Black Mambazo –other-worldly acappella

Jazz
Bill Evans
Miles Davis-trumpet
Miles Davis with Gil Evans—Gil was an amazing arranger
John Coltrane- tenor- see “A Love Supreme”,
Keith Jarrett –pianist – solo or with bands
Chick Corea-pianist
Check out Kind of Blue- Miles Davis

American folk music
Joni Mitchell
John Prine- lyricist extraordinaire
Utah Phillips-likewise
Utah’s son, Brendan
Dr. John- funk, New Orleans style
Tom Waits -a great poet

Blues
Keb Mo is a modern incarnation of a huge tradition.
This is a list that is being compiled

Funk
Earth,Wind & Fire
James Brown
George Clinton-Parliament Funkadelic

Classical
Shostakovich- Symphony # 5- “A Soviet Artist’s Reply to Just Criticism” (banned for years for not being patriotic)
Here is one movement with Mr. Bernstein at the wheel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogJFXqYEYd8

Mstislav Rostropovich playing Bach cello sonatas

Debussy

Reading List

Philosphy
By Osho:
The Spiritual Path – oddly hard to find- 300pp, try online
Meditation: the First and Last Freedom –Borders, Amazon
The Book of Secrets- a large and lifelong read: it consists of112 methods to meditate- one or more will work for every person on the earth-all based on the 112 tiny stories in the little book: Zen Flesh, Zen Bones”-(get the Tuttle publication) online

Food
By Nina Planck – Real Food The industrialization of food in our society & why we should eat clean food.

Business
Michael Gerber The E-Myth Revisited an intro for those considering entrepreneurial adventure

Other:
For Film folks:
Find some re-runs of Project Greenlight with Ben Affleck or catch excerpts on YouTube. This is the reality of movie-making. Pressure and budgets.

Treat everyone as you would be treated. Love is the answer.

The End Use
This last question is really the first question. Where is this footage to be used in its final edited form? Will it be for broadcast? Is it for DVD or web use only? The answers to these questions will help you to determine many of the choices that are to be made concerning production.

Timeline
What is it? Is this an emergency or does it allow reasonable time for us to help you set up a smooth and flawless shoot that will get you everything you need? If this is an emergency (one week or less) please click here and we will do our utmost to expedite a solution for you. If you cannot reach us by phone, please send an email with the words ‘production emergency’ in the subject line

Camera Format
The end use as well as any existing client infrastructure will help to make this choice. You may have a particular format for which you are already set up. We have shot in almost every format that exists today and can usually accommodate whatever you and your editor are set up for.

Green Screen
If you are shooting in green screen, the camera format must be of suitable resolution. Mini DV or most consumer cameras, even those labeled as “High Definition” are not appropriate. Though inexpensive, they do not provide the resolution to allow a clean compositing of the subject. So you will need a format with enough resolution and lens quality to allow good quality keying.

Script
Do you really, really have the final edit of the script or is there anything you can do before the shoot to ensure that no last-minute script changes are needed?

Popular sources of problems include:
a. Grammatical or typographical errors that are discovered on set resulting in wasted time, increasing pressure to finish on schedule, increased fatigue for the subject and potential cost overruns if it all takes longer because of lack of preparation in this area.
b. Acquiring authority to make final script changes prior to the shoot. This will eliminate delays making phone calls to get permission.
c. Legal permission for the subject to read the final version of your script. We have seen occasions where entire shoots were cut short with frustrating results because no one had discovered that the subject had a conflict of interest until most of the way through the shoot.

Prompter
Is your script long enough to require a teleprompter? If so, you probably know that a great operator can save many headaches and expedite the entire flow of the shoot. Not to mention, make your subject very happy with intuitive cuing of re-takes. In order to ensure a smooth start, it is also helpful to email the script ahead of time, in order to be placed into the prompter software so it is ready to go when you are. Check with the production company to ensure that the format you are sending is acceptable.

Audio
Not many great video shoots work well without good quality audio. Be specific about your needs and whether you will be using a voiceover or the talent’s voice will be recorded. How many people will be speaking at once? A good audio tech can make the most of any recording environment. Using only the microphone on the camera or going home with distorted audio can be disastrous. A professional with professional gear is definitely required here.

Workflow
A solid workflow for raw video files must be in place. If you are shooting to tape, this is not an immediate issue, but will be addressed in post-production. However, at the time of this writing, card-based systems or systems that record directly to hard drives are rapidly becoming mainstream. These systems eliminate the considerable time required to load a tape of raw footage into an editing system in real time. (On a retrospective note, “back in the day”, the real-time load-in process was often useful to editors unfamiliar with the footage who would watch it as it loaded into their editing system. They would take this time to make notes and become familiar with the content, eyeballing preliminary edit points, identifying lighting or audio issues etc. Things move a little faster these days, though the editor now just scrubs the data to identify such issues in a much more cursory fashion.) No pun intended.

With card-based systems, files must be off-loaded as you shoot and ingested into a compatible system (properly tested and configured to take the files in their digital wrappers) in such a way as not to interfere with the flow of the shoot. For example, without sufficient cards for a camera such as Panasonic HVX200 (P2 cards) or Sony PMW-EX3, you may find yourself stopping the subject in the middle of a nice productive flow in order to dump raw footage into an ingest device.

So it may be best to allow for ample cards to permit swapping them on the fly for the shoot. This process also requires a laptop with the correct software loaded and operating correctly, an external drive for portability. A crew member who is familiar with the process and perhaps able to double-check color and lighting issues is also required.

Secure Document Transfer
An intuitive system should be in place to allow secure file transfer of sensitive documents, such as last minute script changes or contract revisions directly into the email of the client while on location. The client must be able to retrieve these documents from their own email system to avoid sending them through third-party email accounts where the security of such information could be at risk. Thus, a fast wireless connection is a very good idea.

Expedited Delivery via FTP
For your finished files, you may require expedited file delivery globally via a backbone web service. This is the fastest file transfer available and serves to get time-sensitive material including very large amounts of data, such as raw footage, delivered to an ftp site immediately following your shoot. From there, the files can be downloaded for editing anywhere in the world. Your production company should be able to take care of this.

Rentals
Upon occasion, your project may require specific pieces of gear that are less than common. Find a company with a large inventory of their own gear for studio and location production, but with long-standing relationships with the best rental houses in the area.

Crew
Depending on the scope of your shoot, you may be able to cover several of these tasks with one person, if the workload makes sense.
Some of the crew you may need includes:

Producer
Director
Camera Operator
Lighting Director
Video Assist
Audio Tech
Production Assistant
Teleprompter Operator
Makeup Artist
Wardrobe Supervisor
Set Design
Script Supervisor
Jib Operator
A host of other crew may be called for. Your production company should be able to supply them for you.

Some time ago, probably before the 1900s, some maniac played a minor blues scale on top of a major chord. The major chord came from Celtic and other European folk forms and the pentatonic blues scale came straight out of Africa via a slave ship. This shotgun wedding gave birth to bluegrass, jazz, gospel and blues. American music subsequently turned the whole world on its newly awakened ear. Musicians in Jamaica heard radio from New Orleans and infused R&B with more African derived rhythms, cross-pollinating it into Blue Beat, Ska, Reggae and Soca. Blues and Jazz festivals thrive from Denmark to Japan, and American music in all its pagan splendor, roots and branches of a million twists and turns, is the prevailing popular culture of the world. Quincy Jones points out that “When folks forgo their own musical culture in favor of American music, it’s not because of a marketing plan, it’s because it speaks to their souls.”

This pervasive influence wouldn’t have been possible without a second resounding explosion. As Muddy Waters stated: “The blues had a baby and they named it Rock and Roll.” It’s post-WWII, and there’s a new crop of kids in unprecedented numbers. We weren’t yet called a “demographic bulge” but we sure were. Preachers and nay-sayers were warning that these “jungle rhythms” were dangerous and that seemed to be just the ticket in the Eisenhower era. I remember seeing Elvis on TV and being aware that this music had power to upset people, to draw a line between “us” and “them.” The originators of the style were the wrong color to be beamed into white living rooms, but we eventually sought them out. We wanted a full-strength dose of this magic.

The explosion was seismic. As it continued into the tumultuous ’60s, it reflected, addressed and affected social events and society at large. No African influence, no field hollers….no blues, no rock and roll. No Johnny Otis, no Little Richard…… and no Beatles. No anonymous cracker playing the blues on a guitar (a European instrument) and no Woody Guthrie. No Woody, no Bob Dylan. Bob has got to be one of the most influential people of the last century, if for no other reason than he’s credited with goading the Beatles to become politically aware and take responsibility for their massive influence. Dylan is arguably more influential, even as a singer, than Elvis. Nobody tries to sing like the King, but thousands of guys are still trying to sing like Dylan.

Every significant creative aspect of pop music happened in the ’60s. The deck has just been endlessly reshuffled since then. Every “new” sound, from synths to studio wizardry is a trifling cosmetic change. That backbeat and the ability to express emotions and celebrate life is still inherent in the music.

Elvis in ‘56 is still more dangerous than a thousand death metal bands. Marilyn Manson is an after school special compared to James Brown and Hank Williams. The preacher was right. The music made us move, think, question and pointed the way to something more human and more spiritual than what was laid out so carefully before us. That jungle rhythm is still a call to dance and a call to stand up for our values. That African groove is in our DNA… some of us paler folk just left the “dark continent” a little bit earlier. Elvis was on fire in ‘56 and the world was ripe with possibility. If you still believe, it still is.

Posted by Nolan Mendenhall

There are a lot of great versions out there of course. Willie Nelson’s hit record is somewhat marred by the pop trappings of the day, but his youtube performance with Bob Dylan runs deep. Any version of the song has merit because the story works on so many levels. It involves the listener because of what’s left unsaid. Did Lefty turn Pancho in? Was it for the money? Pancho was a mythic figure, a bandit admired by law enforcement. His redemption and that of Lefty is that a song exists about them, an extension of a venerable folk tradition… conveying the essence of great events in song. Great friendship, betrayal, redemption, forgiveness and acceptance…. a terse American short story. It could have been written by Hemingway, except for that haunting melody.

Living on the road my friend
Was gonna keep you free and clean
Now you wear your skin like iron
Your breath as hard as kerosene
You weren’t your mama’s only boy
But her favorite one it seems
She began to cry when you said goodbye
And sank into your dreams

Pancho was a bandit boys
His horse as fast as polished steel
Wore his gun outside his pants
For all the honest world to feel
Pancho met his match you know
On the deserts down in Mexico
Nobody heard his dying words
But that’s the way it goes

All the federales say
They could have had him any day
They only let him slip away
Out of kindness I suppose

Lefty he can’t sing the blues
All night long like he used to
The dust that Pancho bit down south
Ended up in Lefty’s mouth
The day they laid poor Pancho low
Lefty split for Ohio
Where he got the bread to go
There ain’t nobody knows

All the federales say
They could have had him any day
They only let him hang around
Out of kindness I suppose

The poets tell how Pancho fell
Lefty’s livin’ in a cheap hotel
The desert’s quiet and Cleveland’s cold
So the story ends we’re told
Pancho needs your prayers it’s true
But save a few for Lefty too
He just did what he had to do
Now he’s growing old

A few gray federales say
They could have had him any day
They only let him slip away
Out of kindness I suppose

TOWNES VAN ZANDT, Nobody heard his dying words, but that’s the way it goes.

Posted by Nolan Mendenhall

“The media has an unquenchable appetite for intrigue. Following sluggish ticket sales in Norway it was widely reported that we’re breaking up…. quite to the contrary. Although I have retained separate management, strictly for my wrestling career, ALL of the boys will be at
MEMPHIS SMOKE in beautiful ROYAL OAK on SUNDAY, DEC. 6. Join Roscoe, Billy, Nolan and Todd for a coupla sets of American roots music. The festivities begin at 8:30. We’re hoping that Andy Rooney’s unfounded and vicious remarks last week won’t affect the gate.”

If you would like to check out the band, visit http://www.myspace.com/grievousangelband

You can also email Nolan at nolanmendenhall@hotmail.com and ask him to put you on his list of distinguished guests. You won’t be disappointed.

Let the festivities begin.
Happy Holidays to all.

Please note:
The views expressed in any blog or in any other portion of this website are strictly those of the authors and in no way constitute legal advice. We assume no responsibility for any action taken or any result or lack thereof which may occur as a consequence of following suggestions made on this website.

Connectedly yours,
Randy Leipnik,
President
Semper Media Group