Month: February 2018

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Advice for an aspiring musician

I have a good friend who has a daughter that has expressed interest in getting into the music world. Knowing very little, I sent her the below. For those in the music industry, what advice and recommendations would you give to someone wanting to go in that direction?
Hi,

I listened to this podcast on my way to work this morning and thought of your daughter. It might be helpful for her to listen to it:

The Deadline Podcast: CREW CALL 19: “Bobby Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez”

Deadline is a film/tv industry trade journal and they do a podcast with creatives. This podcast they had on Bobby Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez (they are a married couple that work together).

Here’s why I think this podcast is helpful:

1) When I lived in NYC, I worked for a CPA/Business Manager. Bobby and Kristen were (they still are for the company) one of my clients. I worked with them on a regular basis.

2) They are some of the nicest people I’ve ever met.

3) They are some of the most normal people I’ve ever met.

4) They’ve done some amazing things coming from normal backgrounds.

5) They recommend some great tools/tips on if someone wants to get started in the music world.

Here are two:

ASCAP

Have her start following these sites. Have her start becoming familiar with what they offer. It looks like they both do events:

BMI Events
ASCAP Events

A lot of organizations also host competitions of sorts. I’m always a bit wary of competitions only in sometimes its the luck of the judges. But it’s good to know what’s out there, know that sometimes you have to submit multiple times, etc.

ASCAP Songwriting Competition

Anyway, she may already know about this stuff. This is pretty much my knowledge when it comes to the music industry. But if it’s really something she is passionate about, I think there are lots of things she can look into to get started, to even see if it’s something she would want to do as a career.

My guess is if it’s anything like my industry, it’s still hard and takes up a lot of time. But, sometimes it’s also just knowing where to start…

ashley
2/15/2018: Added this amazing podcast to the list: The Other 50%: Episode 89: Molly-Ann Leikin, Songwriter, Consultant
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Shitty Days with Amazing People

Thanks to our dog, one of my harddrives fell on the floor after Suzi was wanting to play, pulling the cord for the drive with her tail as she ran by and, well, you get the picture.

Thanks to an amazing husband, he feels there is a likelihood that we’ll able to get most, if not all, of the data back.

Thanks to him handling that, I got to cool down by playing (and beating) Horizon: Zero Dawn.

After which I got to play some Mario Kart 8 with Twin B and Twinplet E (thanks internet). We chatted while played, got caught up on life, etc.

So, notwithstanding the crummy harddrive situation, it ended up being a really good to thanks to some amazing people.