The SoupASonic

if you happen to catch yourself dancing to this, could you please post a video?

Thanks -- you enjoy. :)

Somewhat inspired by the current stagehands strike on Broadway, and the writers strike nationwide, I had a dream last night, in which..:

The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra went on strike. I was called in to fill in for a special arrangement of Mozart's The Magic Flute (the Julie Taymor production), in which the orchestra was reduced to one on-stage violist (yours truly), and one on-stage violinist, played by some 10-year old girl who was chaperoned on stage by her dad, and placed on the opposite side of the stage from me. James Levine conducted to a packed house.

At some point, police dressed in Cuban army uniforms came in to arrest both musicians and Levine -- but the music continued, and our disappearance went seemingly unnoticed..

I woke up 10 minutes before our alarm clock.

This week, Radiohead released their new album, In Rainbows, exclusively via their website, and on an honor system -- pay what you wish. WNYC Radio's Soundcheck did a great episode covering this story, and you can hear it, and see my comments on the Soundcheck website. (Of particular interest may be the part about "REFUND" button.)

In a separate instance, Moby launched Moby Gratis to give away a large library of his music for use in independent features and short films and other non-profit ventures. Licensing, touring, and merchandising are the last fronts for an artist to make a living -- and now this.

As an independent artist writing for film, I'm all for making music *affordable*, but giving it away for *free* is another story altogether. As we learned from the dot-com bubble, *free* is not a business model, it doesn't pay for rent, health insurance, or the production of any further music.

By Moby -- a big shot, by any standard -- giving tracks away, he undercuts many musicians who would be happy to license their music for a small fee; or beginner/student/amateur composers, who would write custom music for free, if only given the chance.

Case and point -- several years ago, a student filmmaker asked me to write a track similar to Moby's "Honey". Since then, I'm proud to say that has been used in several shorts, and just got licensed for a wonderful upcoming documentary. With Moby's Gratis, this would've never happened.

There's a reason that subscriptions to magazines still cost something, even if it's $20/year. Every dollar helps.

Let's make music licensing affordable to everyone - everyone can afford to chip in something, however symbolic it may be.


Thanks!

--Ljova

Dear Lemon Lima, a short film I recently scored, is having its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival this week -- see above for the trailer, and below for showtimes.

Saturday, April 28, 11:30 am, AKB-12 (AMC Kips Bay)
Sunday, April 29, 12:30 pm, AKB-13 (AMC Kips Bay)
Wednesday, May 2, 4:00 pm, CCW-02 (Clearview Chelsea West)
Friday, May 4, 4:30 pm, RG-11 (Regal Cinemas Battery Park Cinemas)
Saturday, May 5, 2:00 pm, RG-10 (Regal Cinemas Battery Park Cinemas)

to buy tickets, go here.

enjoy!

A few days ago, I scored a delightful line-drawn animated advertisement for the SmartPower YouTube contest.

Enjoy below, and please rate and vote here!


x
Ljova

Try this thesis - music composition is a synonym for depression. It hits you when you're down. It can be cured by success, and/or travel in paradise.

That's pretty much my take on it. Any great pieces I know were either written while the composer was broke, lonely, dying, or all three. Same with me - I've written my best pieces while enroute to/from a gig, while trying to impress someone, and/or while trying hard to ignore the person sitting next to me on the subway.

Presently, we're in Big Sur, California - an incredible place I could have never imagined or Star Trek could've prepared me for -- but I can't write any music here. The ocean is too quiet, there are barely any people, the food is mediocre and overpriced, and our room is pretty vanilla. A car zooms past our motel every 20-30 minutes...

The locals in the restaurant are pleasant and thuggish at once. They act as though they've been recently let out of jail (i.e. the real world), and are adjusting to their new lease on life -- and seeing as they portray themselves as very "granola" but charge $5 for a gallon of gas (or $20 for a pasta) -- seems like their sentence could be extended.

Listening to the quiet of the ocean and the whisper of rock-n-roll coming from the restaurant's radio, I try to conceive my next composition - either a set of cues for an upcoming film, or sketches for a virtuostic piece for an incredible soloist-friend... I hear flutes, melodies, boring soft-core things which go well on an easy-listening album. I try to avoid those cliches, but nothing else comes, only this "positive energy" feeling. I try to concentrate on the locals, the prices, even recollect scenes from New York, but that feels wrong, as if I'm trying to pin a thumb-tack into a concrete wall. Hence, I'm blogging.

Sitting in Paradise, I can finally appreciate New York for what it is - it's got a lot to say, and most of it is hard to chew. But anything is better than an easy-listening medley of "songs you know and love".

Lately, I feel like a composer with a big agenda - lots of ideas on how to change things. But to bring an agenda to Paradise is like bringing your own butter knife to a fancy French restaurant. They laugh - you cry. (And in the process, you pay the bill.) :)

see you!

(Please excuse this moment of "prophetism".)

The most important - and most dangerous - questions, which an artist can explore are -- "What do you want to do now? How?"

The questions are most important, because they define what you do with your art, how you live your life, from moment to moment. They are questions we should probably ask ourselves every day, but I always forget. I already have 1,000 things to do, 25 books to read, 400 emails to write, (100 friends knocking at my door on MySpace) and a schedule seemingly set for the next six months...

The questions are most dangerous, because they often defy what I do with my life.

Art is at its best when it's impulsive, life is rather rigid.
Projects can take years to mature, but life goes on...
The hustle for new and interesting paying work is endless...
Sure, it's beautiful and scary, alternating, dueling, greying hairs...

What is a creative atmosphere? I'm not quite sure, but I'm fairly certain that where I am is not it 90% of the time. To be creative, you need a certain taste of Bohemia; I feel dogged by an endless agenda, and all manner of things non-musical.

"Music is not surgery" I often say, but in fact the industries I'm involved in often elevate it to that very state. The trouble with making a living in music is - if you want to get paid like a surgeon, you have to do it "right". Whatever "right" means to whomever is paying you.

But nobody wants to pay for music - not even you. I'd love to pay for it, and (though most of it comes to me for free), I do.

The only people who pay for music are people who "have" to - TV networks, brides, and churches. All of them "need" a certain kind of music, but for all of them, "music is surgery.

What to do? Not sure. But I think I have to keep looking - looking for this atmosphere where I can breathe and create freely, and still make a living.

Where is that now? I'm not sure. Hopefully nowhere I've already been.
But it is equally dangerous - for every Bohemian, there are at least two other people suffering at his or her mercy.

Trust me, I've been there. :)

Osvaldo feeds off Gustavo's ears, and Gustavo is in awe of Osvaldo's magic. One "writes" music, the other "produces" music. They both make an evening of fun. Is it just a question of tools?

Whenever I meet good singersongwriters, they're always in awe of my wide-ranging credits and training, while I'm simply amazed at the songs they created with no training whatsoever. They try to ask me for composition lessons (I laugh); I ask if they need any arrangements, hoping to learn for myself their gift, their craft.

I'm a Bachelor - both by degree, and by identification. I've never applied for a Masters, and have neither joined the camp of "composers" or "songwriters". I went to college for music, but have been using as little of what I learned there in my work as possible. At the same time, the squares (pun intended) that satisfy and inspire most songwriters are rigid and worrying for me, they make me feel responsible, give me head rushes that scream for a change.

I try to write this "Bachelor" music - music for the dogmatic snobs that still have their hearts open, this kind of sound where you think you know the world but have barely traveled, where you act confident but when you sit down, your knees are shaking; the kind of music which can be described by a 25-word tagline which is a confidence-instilling, attention-grabbing synonym for "I don't know... enjoy..."