up and down

Sunday morning... I felt, with the good reactions to my music over the last few weeks, that my goal of composing and producing to the level required by film & televsion is becoming closer. So I decided to take the plunge and contact a music publisher who signed one of my instrumentals last year. Up to now I've always submitted through an organization like Taxi or SongU or Sonicbids, etc. I've never approached a publisher on my own. I knew I had one chance to make a good impression, that's why, even though I made the deal last June, I didn't use that connection to try to market anything else. I had to wait until I had the skills, and the tools, to consistently produce effectively for film & tv. In February, I cracked it. I got several forwards to publishers/libraries thru Taxi, a little composing job with a internet tv show which also wants to use a couple of my existing pieces, and great feedback. I knew that I had stepped up a rung. So I composed the email, included links to the 3 best pieces I have in my cataloque (but also said I'd be happy to send MP3s or a CD if they preferred), and pressed "send". I knew it could take weeks or months to hear back from any submission, if at all. An hour later, I got an email - they want to sign all 3. Got the contract, mailing it shortly.

Monday morning... had coffee with a former student who I worked with for the last couple of years. He had to stop lessons a few weeks ago. He had not felt that great in his last couple of sessions. Went to the doctor, he has cancer. Very bad. His last test gives him perhaps 4 or 5 months. He might not see summer. We had a good long chat, came out to find he'd been given a parking ticket. He laughed. Friday, my trio and I are going to go over to his place & jam. He says when he's playing music, he's in the now and the future is the future. The now is all any of us have. Yesterday is gone, we can't go back, even if we wish we could. Tomorrow is tomorrow, and we can't say what will happen, for any of us. All we have is today. Live for today, this moment, for in this moment, life is in you, and you are life.

Tuesday morning... I finally finished drafting a lyric I'd been working on for the last few days. A producer in Europe had been looking for country lyrics for an artist he's producing. I, along with some other lyricists, were given the music for the song & asked to write a lyric to fit. I sent in my lyric. A couple of hours later, I got an email back. Several lyrics had been considered, and the two best were going to be made into demos to present to the artist next week, and she will pick one. Mine is one of the two to be demo'd.

As for spring cleaning... didn't get nearly as far as I wanted. Better knuckle down, eh?

2 comments:

rebekah said...

Hi,
my name is Rebekah i'm probably a lot younger than you, like a lot but I thought it would be fun to chat with you because we have so much in common, though you are in the professional music biz and I just write songs on my guitar, and sing in choirs. but I also act like you, so I just thought we should chat on blogger, becuase it would be fun, feel free to say NO but you just sparked my interest!

Vikki said...

Rebekah, nice to meet you. Glad you feel a connection! Are you on myspace? We could chat there:
www.myspace.com/vikkiflawith

if not, email me through my main site:
www.vikkiflawith.com

talk soon,
cheers
Vikki :)