TUESDAY MAY 14, 2019
Hi all!
I had an amazing time at the ASCAP Expo 2019! An unbelievable amount of knowledge and inspiration was gained, and I still couldn’t see everything I wanted to go to! But I had a great time and got to meet plenty of interesting and talented people!
This time I gravitated more toward the songwriting panels, now that I’m getting back into songwriting and training my vocals (details on that on another post!). I did go to a film scoring feedback panel lead by Bear McCreary (the composer for Defiance on SyFy! I miss that show!), and it was fascinating to see what other composers did with a certain scene and compare it to what Mr. McCreary himself did. One take-away I got from that that I don’t remember from anywhere else… “Who’s Point of View are you showing with your music?” That was really cool! I loved the “We Create Music” panel and the Limitless Songwriting panel, and another songwriting panel had instructors form the Musician’s Institute talk about their advice on how to write songs. I took a bunch of notes!!!
The "Battle of the Music Directors" event was both entertaining and educational... It made me think about the descriptive language used by music supervisors when they are looking for certain types of songs or music tracks to license for their projects. It also made me want to heavily evaluate the production music I'm creating for licensing, so that it can be even more "discoverable." I'll be working on it!
Questlove’s discussion with ASCAP chairman Paul Williams opened my eyes a little more about collaboration in songwriting… And even though I like to create my music on my own, down the road I should co-write with somebody. It’s just easier for me to go it alone, but… maybe, really, it’s harder? I don’t know, I’ve never co-written a song with anyone other than my sister so far. But I suppose it won’t hurt to try.
The networking was… pretty much everything I was afraid it was going to be, at first. As an introvert, it’s one of the main reasons I typically always avoid these things, unfortunately. On the first night I didn’t know who to start with and where to go, and I just stood around like an idiot sometimes, and it was hard to talk over so many voices going on at once. And I didn’t want to interrupt anyone's conversations that might’ve changed people’s lives for the better if I didn’t butt in. But once I got into it, I got to talking to some very nice and interesting musicians, and even tried out some tasty hot buffalo [chicken? quail? some bird?] treats. The next two evenings over there were easier for networking, and I met some more awesome musicians. This Expo actually gave me a reason to bring a bunch of my business cards, which I hadn’t had much of an opportunity to pass around for along time. (At least this time, all my info on the cards were correct. Back in 2011, some of my contact info changed after a year, so whoever had my cards then, wouldn’t be able to reach me now by email or phone. But that’s life, I guess.)
You know, with all this new information and inspiration, I’m even more motivated to finish up some new tracks I still have sitting in my computer. Some are literally a LISTEN-OVER or two away from being done! The whole thing made me realize how much I really need to update my Soundcloud account with more music. Even if they are rough-drafts of my songs. I know some people speak against showing songs or tracks on Soundcloud until it’s absolutely perfect and done and crystal clear and perfect and (did I mention perfect?) and polished, but the whole beauty of how so very cool Soundcloud can be is how a song develops and inviting people into the process of creating a new track can be interesting. I just need to be more active on Soundcloud, period. That, and maybe decide on one other social media platform I can use for more constant updates, or another way to contact other people in the music industry. (Twitter?? or Tumblr???)
Thank you ASCAP Expo 2019, for helping me meet such wonderful music people, and for validating why music is my life. I'm even thinking of going next year! Not positive on that yet, but it may be likely!
Thanks for reading, and stay tuned…!