Music Publishing Companies: Your Rights When You Sell Your Music

I saw this question in a comment on Todd Brabec’s video on ArtistsHouseMusic’s channel. He asked:

“[sic] what does ascap do for me if i sell an audio clip (copyrighted/registered with ascap) through a royalty free site, and that clip ends up in a tv show/documentary that is being aired alot?”

When you join a performing rights organization (PRO), you essentially put on a suit of water-proof armor that protects you from music publishing companies that act as cold-blooded sharks–versus the music publishing companies that stand strong as a hawk, scoping out for your best interests with fair payments to each involved.

It costs a little bit of energy to create and wear this suit of armor that costs $35 to wear initially–and then a bit of your percentage to cover the companies’ costs. With these costs in mind, though, PROs protect you from the financial bloodletting of your music, say, from some music publishing company that wants its hands in your pocket.

 

Find a PRO When Working With
—
Music Publishing Companies

Performing rights organizations will collect your royalties, especially if played on national TV, regardless of what work-for-hire or royalty-free agreement you establish with another site or person directly. At the least, they’ll make it very painful for whatever music publishing companies that attempt to use your work for less than you deserve.

BMI’s a little more vague and tiered in their payment system, but at least consider ASCAP’s philosophy:

“As a condition of membership, all ASCAP members agree that the writer – and not the writer’s employer – will be paid the writer’s share of ASCAP performing rights royalties, even in work-for-hire situations. ASCAP’s Articles of Association provide that writer royalties “shall not be sold or otherwise disposed of.” Therefore, with very few exceptions, ASCAP will not honor an irrevocable assignment of writer’s royalties. We strongly believe that music creators should benefit from their work. Period.” (ASCAP’s Payment System: Introduction)

No matter what you might do with your music behind the scenes, companies like ASCAP (and, likely, BMI) will help ensure that you get the pay you deserve.

 

Be Your Own PRO When Working
—
With Music Publishing Companies

Still, on the other side of this pancake, You still need to create a powerful system of defending yourself from “Shark” music publishing companies– or companies out to draw in money just for themselves without care for what’s fair to the artist. This powerful system such as education on music publishing, connecting with fans on multiple platforms like YouTube and Facebook and SoundCloud (who will help defend you and your music for you), and finally creating a relationship with a trustworthy music publishing company representative. You need to actively represent yourself and draw your money in, because “Those who snooze will be abused” according to Eric Beall. Here’s a quote from his website:

“It now seems that every record label uses songs without mechanical licenses in place, theater shows routinely drop songs into a revue without clearing the dramatic rights, advertisers sign sync licenses long after ads are on the air, and everyone pays late, if at all.  It takes a new kind of tenacity to get paid, and only those who are the most persistent, the most unrelenting, and the nastiest will get their money. You can’t just put your registrations in place and wait for the payment to show up.  Those who snooze will be abused.”

Eric Beall’s Blog

You always have rights no matter what you do. It is possible to sell your musical soul to the devil, but the musical society has leaned the odds in your favor when it comes to collecting rights for your music.

 

The Journey Ahead

There are plenty of sources to observe when it comes to protecting yourself from “Shark” music publishing companies, including the PRO websites. Furthermore, you can observe more in our blogwhen it comes music publishing companies, because, well, we’re the “Hawk” music publishing company.

You deserve to get paid for the value you create.

One Surefire Way to Make Instrumentals Liked on Facebook (Or: One Surefire Way to Avoid the Massive, S***ing Turtle)

There's a floating turtle the size of your house taking a massive dump on your back porch. Have I got your attention?

There isn't really a floating turtle the size of your house taking a massive dump on your back porch. I just said that because I love you. However, this turtle willbreak its ass through your window and defecate over your face if you don't listen to the following post... which will get your links to your instrumentals clicked and liked on Facebook.

 

If you can perceive that giant floating turtle, you can conceive whatever goal you want in life, whether it's to make instrumentals awesome or create the biggest collection of Yahama synths in the world. So why not keep that image in your mind?

One very cool guy said, "Thirst is the surest proof of water." The same applies to your goals and whatever nature they may be.

 

Now, let me ask you this. What would happen if you pictured your goal more intensely, more vividly than ever before? What if you revved up that intensity every day so that your goals became a freakin' Mo-driven opportunity and cascade of good on life that this idea of your goal actually DROVE you to whatever end you can conceive?

Wouldn't it be a crazy change in life?

 

If you don't begin to hold that amazing goal in your mind and on paper right now, if you don't uphold that outrageous goal that no one else thinks you can uphold right now, then that turtle will break its ass through your glass and smear the glass-laden, bloody poop all over your face. It'll do terrible things only if you stick to blurry, small goals that don't allow you to realize your full potential.

 

------------------
For more information on goals, consider any personal development book in the world. Specifically, consider these books in the following order, Think and Grow Rich, Master-Key to Riches, "MTO" with Paul Scheele and Jack Canfield, all things Tony Robbins, and The Magic of Thinking Big.

Another thing, too, is that once you set your goals, you can apply the other technical know-how described elsewhere in the blog. Especially when it comes to understanding your modular synths or making instrumentals of  yours rock.

For instrumental music free downloads, consider this blog post as the beginning of a source of never-ending music that you will love and love forever.

How to Speak Thor: 16 Terms You Must Know About This Modular Synth

(Thanks, Hjistory for the image)

To speak Thor with a fellow friend and generate music at a faster rate, consider these ten terms for your erudition.

The Terms:

1. Modular Synth (i.e. Thor – en pluribus unum) Synthesizer that plugs in as a piece of the whole sound system set up
2. Oscillator – The device used to generate the signal–technically your guitar is an oscillator
3. Crossfaders – A device that allows the DJ to be super cool and change presets of modular synths to accompany his demands of style from the entire soundboard.
4. Waveform – Determines the “shape” of the music – the sound you hear is entirely based on this and the filters created
5. Delay -  The stupid factor; this is the time between striking and perceiving the note…
6. Attack – The spazzity, intensity, psychopathic nature of of the note; one might classify this as abruptness of the note… how soon, intense, a note “hits you”
7. Velocity – volume based on how fast the key is pressed (based off of the observation that a piano string when fastly hit will play louder than a piano string hit slowly) 
8. Decay – How much sound actually plays in the note?
9. Trigger – Anything X that you can set to effect Y (example, if you set your oven to 350 degrees, your computer will play the note “G”)
10. Mastering – Polishing your sound(s) for the end-user; giving your music the extra buff… this is what makes your music sexy
11. Normalization – Making your music not as fucking loud
12. Amplitude (Obvious, I know) –  The maximum extent of a vibration or oscillation, measured from the position of equilibrium.
13. Redrum – A drum machine that slaves itself to the superiority of Thor
14. Subtractive Synthesis –  The process of creating a new sound by filtering and shaping a raw, harmonically complex waveform
15. RPG-8 – A “Monophonic Arpeggiator” which has nothing to do with Thor, it’s just cool if you want to consider adding cool arpeggios to your Thor-based song
16. Arpeggios – Melodies created from chords

 

To push these ideas further into your mind, consider one of three approaches:

 

1. Write a story about how the modular synth attacked the master(ing) and caused a delay in the release of the note which would have gone at an intense velocity. This absurd provocation triggered a man to trigger an RPG at his Redrum machine because even in the midst of everything, he knew that Oscillating between Thor and this crappy software would only cause his waveforms to dissipate into nothingness… Too bad, though, that he didn’t know about the Crossfaders… which could have allowed him to incorporate both.
2. LINC these words of wisdom to yo’ mind.
3. Study Genius Code by Paul Scheele, ask yourself excellent questions, and then rock your own world when you discover how much you know.

If you apply these strategies to learning this content, you will do some amazing things with your life (and Thor).

Knowing Your Modular Synth: 23.499 Minutes to Understanding Thor

Check out Propellerhead (or the creator of Reason’s) description of Thor… If this doesn’t compel you to use it, I don’t know what will:

Thor sounds like no synthesizer you’ve ever heard before – and every single one of them. Where other synths use one specific form of synthesis and one single filter, the Thor polysonic synthesizer features six different oscillator types and four unique filters. What does this give you? Simply the most powerful synth ever created; an unstoppable monster of a sound generator that utilises synthesizer technology from the last 40 years.

Thor Polysonic Synthesizer (Your Favorite Modular Synth)

If you’re interested in advancing your proficiency in the modular synth, Thor, and fine-tuning your work, check out this video.

 

This is one of the more comprehensive Thor tutorials available on the Internet: Reason Basics – Complete Thor Tutorial. Then, Thor Demystified 1 is the start of a series by Propellerhead that elaborates into why and how Thor–and all modular synths–work.

 

Watch the movies and comprehensive breakdowns, and you, too, may understand Thor in no time.

 

“We can’t win a game that we don’t understand” (Pagan, Eben in Self-Made WEALTH when talking about the monetary system… applies to all).  Let’s understand Thor–and Reason.

 

Talk soon, Friend!

Your Friend,

~ Aaron

Let Me Give You a Reason: How to Double the Quality of Your Music Instantly

If you have Reason, a certain component of this software is guaranteed to make a world-famous musician out of you, which will, in turn, make you extreme levels of love and monetary gain.

Furthermore, this part of this amazing software will allow you to express yourself more fully than a lot of other instruments out there

With build up no more, allow me to pay homage to one of the reasons that Reason is so great.

 

The 2012 version of this Swedish program, Reason, comes with the Thor Polysonic Synthesizer, provided you didn't uproot it from the installation.

Thor's an excellent component, you'll find, because of two reasons:

1. It works beautifully and organically with or without a MIDI device (as compared to the Kong and Redrummer drum machines... Which Thor can easily replace), and
2. It has powerful preset MIDI sounds that even the most basic user can play with for some amazing effects.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

More on the First Point:

Because it works perfectly with or without a MIDI device, I felt really happy when I found this.

A keyboard lies underneath my bed; however, the keyboard is less a MIDI to USB cable, which is essential to playing this beautiful instrument WITH my computer.

I suspect that some traveling musicians and beginning music software afficianados will like the ability-to-play-anywhere feature of this program

 

More on the Second Point:

Besides the user-friendly interface that works with or without the MIDI device, this software has a myriad of incredible presets such as "Bendy Reece," "Syn Cymb B" (not "A"), and every bass wobble you can imagine, (which, if you're into DubStep, is an absolute gold mine).

Furthermore, it has a series of very playful presets such as the “I Am Thor” and “Thor's Tiny Hammer” inputs. Thor's Tiny Hammer could go into a fun retro game, I suspect.

If you want to know the absolute coolest sound, though, set up “Percutron (Run)” and simply play with that, because if you're into video games, you could definitely make a cool soundtrack or background music with just that.

(I love the guys who made Thor.)

 

In Conclusion:

No matter what you choose, these various (high quality!) presets allow you to create incredible music of your own.

It might even please you to know that some pretty popular bands have played many of these exact sounds (or really familiar sounds, at least).

 

How to Use:

When you have Reason, simply click Create => Instrument => Thor Polysonic Synthesizer.

If you don't have a MIDI keyboard yet, like me, press F4, and Reason will present you your beautiful, world-class, on-screen keyboard--just for you... isn't that nice of Reason?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Play with it, watch your love for music increase ever more with it, and blow your own mind with it and the melodies you create.

If you play this awesome device in this awesome software, I assure you that you WILL be amazed... Beginner or Advanced.

And, of course, you may just double the quality of your music instantly.

(However, if you're advanced and opine that different software makes an even greater impact in the music community, I want to know!)

 

Talk soon, friend!

Your Friend,

~ Aaron

 

P.S. If you want to learn how to make instrumentals SUPER awesome...

The Next Level

If we could research and figure out the answer to one question or one area, what would it be? What area of research and development would give you the most satisfaction, the most love and connection as well as growth and contribution to the world in how we actually contribute value?

 

Because this music-based blog covers three main things: music publishing, app developing, and sphere-making.

We want to focus on one.

 

 

Each of these subjects provide excellent insights into the possibility of what we can create:

• If you want to monetize your music most effectively, then we'll focus this blog on the best insights to music publishing you've ever seen—this will likely cover some music creation tips here and there, just for fun

   

• If you want develop and market your own app, we're certainly not experts yet, but we'll keep you in the loop with our progress as we bring people who ARE experts on this site; we'll give you exactly what you want in this area

   

• If you want to make wickedly cool spheres made out of the rarest rocks, we'll cover this awesome subject as well, too; Jim has a website called Spheremaker.com, and he does some pretty wicked business on that site—it's somewhat popular

 

So let me know what you want to learn more of, and we'll take things to the next level in whatever area we see the most demand.

 
Talk soon, friend!

Your Friend,

~ Aaron

 

P.S. If you're into music publishing, here's a post on making instrumentals that you can apply to crafting your music publishing deals as well.

How to Stop Yourself from Screwing Up… Again

“Failure is nature’s plan to prepare you for great responsibilities” (Napoleon Hill).

“Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. You don’t fail overnight. Instead, failure is a few errors in judgement, repeated every day” (Jim Rohn, 7 Strategies for Wealth and Happiness).

“There are no failures – just experiences and your reactions to them” (Tom Krause).

 

 

 

90% of succeeding life is productive failing… the other 10% lies in getting that “big success” when your psyche needs it most.

So here’s a good suggestion you might use to recoup all the loving and important memories you have of yourself. With this, you can keep the great details about you in check and in focus—even when your darkest hour comes.

Napoleon Hill, author of Think and Grow Rich, says that it’s usually when people face their greatest failure that they create their greatest success, so here’s a post you’ll enjoy as you go by your “greatest failure.”

 

 

 

Many people have provided many tools to deal with the “negatives” in life. These tools aid with dark moments such as loss, “failure,” letting someone down…

There’s one from NLP that you’ll be incredibly fond of, I’m sure. It’s called “Program Yourself for Maximum Learning.

NLP’s a powerful tool that allows one to work directly with the subconscious of others and ourselves. Master NLP practitioners such as Paul Scheele of Learning Strategies Corporation and Ross Jeffries (who infamously uses NLP to seduce women, too) both suggest using this process to every f***-up–and every success–you create.

I do this process daily. It makes the world a much more peaceful and happy place to live in, because you get that sense of growth and purpose of yours recharged.

You’ll like it, and this process takes, at most,  twenty minutes. Use it for a daily session or use it for “emergency touchups” on a particularly bad situation.

 

 

How to Program Yourself for Maximum Learning–It’s Easy:

1. Replay the situation or day before you—keep the event happening before you, just “over there.”

   If you’re doing this as a daily practice, then imagine the whole day going before you

2. Now, once you’ve run all through your day, go back and run the event or day before you one more time

   This time, congratulate yourself on the successes you’ve earned in this event (or over the last twenty-four hours)

3. In the second run, we congratulated ourselves on our success

   Once you’re done running the day before you for the second time, run the event or day before you once again for this session

   In this run-through, you might find situations where you really feel that you could have done better

   Running through your event or day now, for every time that you really feel that you could have done better, just go into the situation and replay as you would like to do now.

   Just go into the situation, and replay it going perfectly in your mind

   Keep doing this until you reach the end of event or day for this session

   Once this day is up, you can wake up feeling relaxed, alert, and totally energized! You are a success!

Paul Scheele recommends you do this every day. An alternative might be once a week or even a month. Whatever suits you.

 

Do this exercise, watch your skills increase. Do this exercise, watch your feelings of love and contribution increase. Do this exercise, watch how people look up to you more.

It’s an excellent exercise, and may help you take yourself to the next level.

 

Talk soon!

Your Most Amazing Friend,

~ Aaron

 

P.S. Got hemorrhoids? Use Atmospheres. It’ll do nothing to help it, but you’ll have some nice ambient music to listen to.

 

P.P.S. For another nice tune to listen to (besides the app), check out this instrumental music free download.

 

P.P.S. Here’s the first in a series of posts on how to make instrumentals of yours amazing.

 

Interesting Article on Making Instrumentals

Here are some excellent tips from Ken Trujillo on how to make instrumentals that rock.

1.) Find tracks you like - If you are making great instrumentals for DJ's at a club or for making good rap or hip hop sampling is vital. Go through some of your old favorites or downloading some new great beats, and then really go for it by chopping some of the sounds out of it and making some awesome loops.
2) Avoid drum beats in the beginning - Be wary of using samples with drums, because you will have your own drum beats, and drum beat never typically match
3) Think AMAZING beats - On the topic of drums, you will want a totally amazing drum beat. The drum beat is the root or foundation of your song, you will want to great to give that song your signature sound.You can download royalty free drum loops and if you have good software you will be provided with some.
4) Find Samples - Then you need to do the same as with the samples, chop, mix and loop those sounds until you have something that sounds great. Avoid using drum beats for long, you will probably find it's much more fun and rewarding to make your own!
5) Get a sequencer - You need a program that has a good sequencing ability to finish it off. The sequencer is important to put all of your sounds on the same tempo and give them beats proper spacing.Getting the right program really is key.

Good inspiration! Here's his article: "How to Make Instrumentals"

Another excellent place to start when looking for information on how to make instrumentals of yours attract love and fans included in this sentence. 

Talk soon!

Your Friend,

~ Aaron

Three Ways to Make Instrumentals of Yours Clean and Creative

To make instrumentals of yours the best they possibly be is art in its highest form. So, consider the research performed at PlayGrind to make the best music, the best music that will receive you the most love available for your work, in both human and money form.

 

Below is the five step process to follow that'll make instrumentals of yours a reality, a reality refined:

1. Define Your Purpose - Why are your writing this music?
2. See Your Outcome - Different from purpose; here you conceive the structure to which instruments will conform 
3. Prepare - Buy equipment after conceiving your first song or what you want to create, because you're buying the equipment mainly to conform with the material that you create (which can save you money)
4. Freewrite - Have fun—You have many resources at your disposal... Use them and make your 168M+ View/Listen soundpiece; this is where you let your creative genius flow and play; this is what creates the “diamond in the rough”
5. Eliminate - Bruce Lee said that the highest form of mastery is not addition, but eliminating things that do not contribute to our purpose; here is where we put everything we have into it and grit our teeth and remove everything that doesn't make the song as cool as possible; the goal here is to cut 50% of the "stuff" and DOUBLE the impact of the piece while we do it. 

 

Alright. We've covered what we're going into. Now, let's delve a bit further into how to apply this process to YOUR work.

To do this: 

1. Define Your Purpose: Why are you writing this song? Why do you want to make instrumentals? Who are you making this for? 
   
   Answer this and the rest is easy.

     

2. See Your Outcome: Construct your song frame work. Put these words in order (or find words of your own) and build around them:

   Hook/Intro/Lead-in/Open the Loop
   Verse
   Chorus
   Coda
   End/Completion/Close the Loop

   Life has provided for you a million cool different "phrases," but unless you say "No" to the ones that don't work, and you combine the ones that do in the right order, it's rare that you'll get the effect you want

3. Prepare – Buy your equipment and download the software you want;
   To give you an idea of what you can use, here's an incomplete resource list of instruments and software you can use to construct your own “studio” (or just studio, if you're going legitimate)

   (S) Reason
   (S) Logic
   (S) Pro Tools
   (S) Fruity Loops
   (S) Ableton Live
   (S) Dr. Drum
   Microphones
   Electric Drumset
   Guitar
   Bass Guitar
   Cello
   MIDI Keyboard
   Drum Machine
   SPEAKER
   SUBWOOFER
   “Sound Catchers” (It's what I like to call them)

4. Freewrite – Take ten minutes now, plug your guitar in, start the audio/MIDI/clay pot recorder and jam

   If you're connected to the computer, you're lucky because you can use software to do plenty of things with the music you record. 
   If you just have a recording device, you're still lucky, because you can really get an organic feel or style of music to conform to whatever you want... Which can be a lot harder than just doing it to the software and making music through the very robotic interface straight away. 

5. Eliminate – David Jenyn, my music producer friend, invests three hours into every minute of edited video he makes (and his video is typically very good); it's you're music, but this is generally a good idea to get "Just the right feel" in your songs

   It's a good idea to invest more time into your work; this is the part where you chip away at the diamond in the rough and make instrumentals of yours epic and amazing once and for all. 

 

Follow these ideas, and you'll be well on your way to making excellent content for everyone to enjoy. Let's make it happen. 

 

Life is Go; Life is Good! Talk to you soon!

Your Friend at PlayGrind,

~ Aaron

 

P.S. Here's the link our original, abbreviated post on how to make instrumentals great.

 

P.P.S. Buy our balls and go to sleep--180-Day Satisfaction Guarantee that you'll like our balls and rest more easily.

 

 

Drastic Ideas for Drastic Change...Music Publishing Ideas from a Non-Professional Music Publisher

(Graphic Content Below! Not For Punks!)

 

Thought of you yesterday. Banging the keyboard, I came up with an interesting realization.

It could be interesting to you, because this idea came to me earlier, yet you'll find this post more applied to making the work you really know you can make.

I don't know this as a music publisher. I know this as a writer. Nonetheless, you will find it useful, I believe, because it applies to many professions.

You saw the above comment that suggests graphic content below. I feel you can handle this. It's pretty intense, so imagine us coming out the other side in love and trust, which I appreciate our relationship to always be.

I appreciate your readership, and perhaps we can continue having you around—even after this post.

 

You may have read in an earlier post on focusing during content creation. When you focus on a specific theme when you craft your musical piece, you gain the emotional effect more readily than just by throwing stuff out there (and hoping to go one day, “Hey, man... it works!”).

You also read earlier that I said that I know this as a writer, not a music publisher. The reason I know this applies to songwriting and making these musicals of yours is because it applies to other people as well.

• (Good) Writers know how to conform their work to the book title, chapter, article title, or section paragraph—if they don't, they risk losing the focus and effect of the chapter
• Actors like to think of the word or image when creating an emotion for the audience
• (Good) Athletes focus their attention (“Hit ball,” “Ball, bat,” “Basket,” “Line, Faster, Cruise,”)

It's “performance psychology.”

 

Because we've already covered some performance psychology in the earlier post mentioned before, in this post you'll get a scenario to play through in your mind, which you'll preferably play your instrument as you consider these scenarios.

Remember that we're still friends after this.

Imagine this:

• What would it feel like to have earned a million dollars through your newly released record or series of rock concerts from your tour? You've been working hard with your gigs for three years now, and your time has finally come.
• Now, feel cold cement pressing against your knees and palms. What would it feel like to be on your knees, hands before you, and a man standing before you with a gun to your chin, knowing you're about to lose it all? This man is taking everything from you.
• With you on the floor, he walks to the door in this empty room. How does it feel having the gun withdrawn from your immediate person?

• The man reaches for the door handle and stops. He reaches for his gun to his side, hesitates a moment with his hand hovering above it, then pulls the gun from his denim pocket and turns to face you. You're still on the grown. “I'm sorry,” he says as walks too quickly to you and draws the gun back to your face. How does it feel in that brief moment before the trigger squeezes, as the explosion from bullet propels the metal from the barrel... what does it feel like in that brief moment when all is lost? What do you think about then? What have you lost? What happens for you?
• Then, as your body lies before you, suddenly, you think of all the good you've done to the world. You think of how much joy you've given to your thousands and thousands of loving and loyal fans. You've reached the apex of your career, and you have fans shouting and tears streaming their cheeks as scream how they love you, waving their lighters before you, arms outstretches. You even hear of how a performance of yours saved a man from committing suicide. How does it feel? How does it feel knowing that your life was worth it? How does it feel knowing you've changed the lives of those you've touched?

You know, this is an interesting story in itself. It's story that, if performed correctly, could probably make people a lot of dollars. Yet the formula isn't secret to only me. Many authors and playwrights have uncovered the art of letting more than just the aerie fairy (or just the negative chains of the world) evolve from your focus with your work.

You could do a lot with this work. You could make it an award-winning movie, play, or expand it into a novel or comic series. Or you could take it and make instrumentals of yours absolutely fantastic. It's thoughts like that which create beautiful images in the mind. It's thoughts like the above which produce the most beautiful work conceivable to the human soul.

 

If you take these ideas to heart, you can be sure that you'll enjoy a greater level of success with your work. You'll enjoy a greater level of enjoyment, of fulfillment, too, as you work.

Look forward to your long and lasting friendship as a dedicated reader and loving friend.

 

Talk soon!

Your Friend,

~ Aaron

P.S. Here's the original post on how to make instrumentals of yours twice as connectable, twice as great. Let me know what you think in both posts.

P.P.S. Here's the Atmospheres advertisement. What do you think?