Recording - August 2020 - 59

AUGUST 2020
TAXI Road Rally 2019

How to Get More Forwards, Deals, and Placements
Part Three
PANELISTS:
Matt Vander Boegh
Sherry-Lynn Lee
Bob Mete
Moderator: Michael Laskow
Sherry, what's your next tip?
My next tip is collaborate. In the sync world-at
least that I have been told-it is a numbers
game, so you want to have as much music out
there as possible. It's great if you want to do stuff
on your own, but you'll be a lot faster if you collaborate with a bunch of people on different
projects all at once. And one of the great places I
find collaborators is on the TAXI Forum. One of
my collaborators is sitting right there in the
audience: John.
Yeah, collaborate with people; find people whose
skills you complement, and their skills complement you. John put out a listing that said, "I'm
looking for a cool writer who can sing, because I
can't. I'll produce." And I thought, "Great,
because I'm not that great at producing yet, but I
would love to write with you." And we did a
bunch of songs together and we got a lot of forwards from TAXI.
So collaborate with people. There are a lot of
advantages. Not only that you can put out more
stuff, but because you focus on the things that
you're good at. But also, if you feel like your
material is dated, write with somebody who is
young and who is already naturally up-to-date,
and then you'll get cool ideas that you would
never have come up with.
So the TAXI Forum, the Facebook groups are
great for that. And if you produce... I produce-
still new at it-so what I do is I outsource what
I'm not great at. So if I feel like I'm comfortable
producing it, but I don't know if I can pull off
the mix, then I'll send it to somebody else to mix,
or I'll send it to somebody else to master it. So

Matt Vander Boegh, Sheery-Lynn Lee, Michael Laskow, and Bob Mete are all smiles after they wrapped their panel.

you shouldn't feel limited, but try to outsource
what you need so you are not hindered by what
you don't know.
And when you do outsource, it's worth mentioning
that you should sign a work-for-hire agreement. I
mean, you want to be clear. If somebody is collaborating in a writing capacity, figure out what the
splits are upfront. Don't wait until you get something placed in a film and go, "No, no, uh-uh. Sorry,
I felt like I did 70% of the heaving lifting on that,
and you only did 30." Usually it's just an equal split.
It's kind of understood, I think. But don't let it just
be "understood." Maybe, yeah. If two or three of
these guys have worked together five, 10, 15 times,
maybe they can get a little sloppier because there is
a level of trust and professionalism there. But, man,
oh, man, it's really important that you get that. And
get a work-for-hire if you outsource a bass part or
outsource production. You don't want those people
coming back to bite you on the butt when that
piece of music makes some money.

Sherry: Yeah. I have co-writing agreements and
master-recording-ownership agreements with all
my co-writers. And if I do hire somebody like a
producer, work-for-hire, I would have them sign
an agreement, or any musicians, I would have
them sign an agreement.
Bob, how about your next tip?
I'm going to jump on the bandwagon on the cowriters. Choose well. It is in many respects a
marriage, and the song is the child. And we all
know about messy divorces, custody battles, and
all that. But choose your co-writers very well, as
you would a partner, because this is a relationship. Get everything upfront. Does this co-writer
like doing non-exclusive, or is he or she
exclusive? I like to do non-exclusive, so if I'm cowriting with a guy who's in libraries that are all
exclusive, we need to define where this child or
where this song is going once it's finished. Where
Continued on page 61
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