Recording - September 2013 - 59

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Tim presented me with the notes below, and asked
if I could use any of his thoughts as the basis for
some of my questions during his interview at the
Rally. I was so taken with his notes that I asked Tim
if I could print them out for the folks who were
joined us. Typical of his generous personality, he
agreed. I’ve left them unedited, and hope you enjoy
them as much as I have.
Enjoy,
Michael

Time Management
Time is precious in the music industry, make sure
you’re not filling it with people who are time
wasters. Don’t have long drawn out 2-hour conversations about future plans that aren’t going to
happen. Stick to the present moment, and work at
things that are in front of you. It’s ok to dream, but
don’t get lost in your dreams and lose focus of the
task at hand. Your Mission: write a lot of great
songs, and make an amazing living doing it.
Thankfulness
Always be grateful to your whole team. Write at
least one email everyday of thankfulness to someone your working with. It could be as simple as
“thanks for writing with me, I had a great time and
you’re a talented songwriter! Can’t wait for next

time,” OR to your team member “thanks for pitching that song, fingers crossed we get that
commercial.” People do nice things for nice people.
Make sure you come across to your team as a
thankful person. Let’s face it, you are thankful!
You’d still be working at a coffee shop if it weren’t
for your team!
•••
Tim,
I think I speak for all of our members at the Road
Rally when I say thank YOU for sharing and inspiring all of them to work harder and accomplish
more by doing what they love—making music!
Thank you!
Michael

Starting Off
-I worked at coffee houses and restaurants, and I
was broke. I gave 20% of my masters to producers.
Write a full song that can be pitched to commercials. I didn’t have money upfront to pay producers
large sums, so I gave 20% on master side per song
to a producer. It’s a great way to start off. You have
to have great quality recordings.
-Find a placement company or publisher.
-Two sides to a synch or placement in TV/Film, the
master side and publishing side. Try to own both
sides, create your own label entity that you can have
projects under, and create different publishing entities for different projects. For example if you get
50k a side for a commercial, 20% of that money,
10k, would go to that producer who did it on spec.
-For TV/Film write and record full songs, do not
write “jingles.” “Jingle” is an ’80s, ’90s term, nowadays music supes are looking for real, full songs by
cool indie artists and big artists like Florence + The
Machine, Arcade Fire, Foster The People, Fun., etc.
Whatever song you write make sure it’s ahead of
the curve, don’t copy what’s on TV now, because
usually it’s already a big trend and people will be
moving on [for] the next year.
Songwriter’s Philosophy
Work Ethic
Write/record or work on a song everyday! Oscar
Hammerstein, Monet, Picasso, worked on their
craft everyday! It takes 21 days to make a habit,
make a habit of writing or recording everyday.
You’ll write a lot of really bad songs but you learn
from those mistakes and over time you get better at
your craft. Write with different songwriters, build a
community. All the huge successful songwriters I
know (including myself) have maniacal personalities, they are constantly writing, working and
looking for the next big project.
Write as many songs as you can, the more chances
something big will happen. Opportunities aren’t
going to come out of nowhere, you have to work
everyday to create them. Try saying “yes” more
than you say “no” to a lot of things when you’re
starting out. You never know what could be the
next big thing. But don’t waste too much time on
something that won’t be successful...
59

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Recording - September 2013

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