Recording - April 2013 - 58

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some people have probably heard that one before.
The second one is Access Hollywood; the third one is
Say Yes to the Dress; and the forth one I got a sync
fee for this year, a non-broadcast, but I wrote it this
year and got a sync fee for it. So I was pretty happy
about that.
[music plays]
All right, Mr. Walton, set her up.
Dave: Actually, these tracks that I chose are recent
tracks. They are just tracks that I like, and I guess
we’ll see in like a year or so how they work out.
[music plays]
Barry?
Barry: I’ve got four short clips that are basically in
my Top 10 earning cues. I’ve gone through and
thought which ones actually made me the most
money. The first cue was a cue for Dr. Oz, which
has generated over $9,300 in the last two years. It’s
very simple, very basic. The second cue is an energetic, basic cue, the second highest earning cue. The
third one is a dramedy cue that was written for, and
has appeared in multiple episodes of, Toddlers &
Tiaras. [laughter] And then the last one is actually a
song, a co-write with the vocalist, Logan Pepper,
who is moving into a new house with his wife and
new child. Wish he was here. We met at my first
Road Rally in 2008. This is the first track we ever
worked on. We used the Forums, the Peer-to-Peer
section, to really help to improve the quality of the
track. It’s been signed to one of, if not the largest,
music library in the universe. So these are four of
my Top 10 hits.
[music plays]
Dean, set it up.
Dean: The cues I picked on here were all things
that have had multiple placements in multiple
shows—both instrumental and vocal.
[music plays]
I’ve known all you guys for years, and you’re all
great friends, but I had really little idea how wide
ranging the styles, not only across the board
among the five of you, but within each of your catalogs. So that’s pretty cool.
Matt, the panel’s called the Five-Year Plan. I believe
that you are the father of the Five-Year Plan. You really
did start the ball rolling. Tell these guys what the FiveYear Plan means.
Matt: Well, it’s really like a statement that you
should give it five years of dedicated and sustained
hard work. That’s the only way I believe that you
can expect to see some results. You could get lucky
58

and see results quicker, but I believe that’s what it
takes. And I certainly didn’t know that when I started
out, so I didn’t have a five-year plan. I was just kind of
stumbling around. Then later on it came to me that I
should advise other people of the Five-Year Plan. I
wish I’d had one when I started.
But look at the gift that you’ve given to thousands, I
mean, literally. How many of you guys in the room have
seen the video I shot with Matt years ago? It’s on
YouTube. It was just literally a spur-of-the-moment
thing. I called him up and said,“Wow, I have a camera
that shoots videos. Wanna come over?”It was like a
little $150 Casio camera. But you were so eloquent, and,
literally, that video I believe has changed thousands of
lives. So thank you for that.
John, I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen you
talk people off the ledge on our Forum. Everybody in
this room, there is a formula. I’m gonna repeat this over
and over and over again this weekend, and none of
these guys will disagree with me. The formula is: look
for common threads in the criticism or the feedback
from the screeners. Don’t get ticked off about a particular thing. Look for common threads, number one.
Number two: Submit carefully. Don’t submit something
if you’re thinking,“Well, maybe they’ll hear that this
could work.”Submit carefully! Number three: Hang out
on the TAXI Forum and get to know these guys and all
their compatriots there. Number four: Come to the
Road Rally. Number five: Work at it every day. That’s the
deal, right?
So, John, I’ve seen you talk people off the ledge. You’re
kind, you’re smart, and you’re pretty you’re patient with
people with people you probably shouldn’t be. It’s a real
talent of yours. How do you keep yourself motivated?
Aren’t you in bio-medical research or something?
John: I work at a bio-tech company. I’m a
technician.
It’s a pretty weighty job. It’s not like you’re sitting there
at a tollbooth or something where you can be working
on your music at work. How do you keep yourself motivated after you come home from work to work on music
as much as you do?
John: Well, I put myself in the position where I
have to have deadlines that I have to meet, and that
really motivates me. It keeps me thinking about what
I need to write all the time, so I always have in my
mind the next piece that I’m going to finish and how
I’m going to get there. It’s like, “Wow, I have three
days and I have to work two of those days. How am I
gonna do this? I had better map out the structure of
this piece tonight after work and get the drums done.
I’ve got two minutes, there’s my goal right there. OK,
now I’ll put the drums in and then put the skin on
the bones.” Just piece by piece put it together. But I’ve
already known what I want it to be and what I want
it to sound like when I walk into the studio, because

I’ve been thinking about it all day.
Do you literally make like a little tick list, a checklist of
drums first, bass second…?
John: I’ve kind of evolved that process, and it’s still
evolving. But what I do is I’ll say, “It’s gonna be a
dramedy piece. OK, I’m going to use pizzicato
strings, marimbas…” I write out my palette first, and
then it’s like that’s what I have to stick with. If I go off
on a tangent, I’m never going to get this piece done.
So I limit myself to “I’m going to use these five
instruments, it’s gonna be a minute and forty-five,
the last note is gonna ring out for two seconds, and
then boom, away I go.” It’s already worked out in my
mind so I don’t waste any time when I sit down in
my studio to write, because I don’t have eight hours a
day to write music most days. Some days I do, but
some days I don’t, so I have to be very efficient with
my time.
A plan! We hear that a lot from successful members.
Dave, you live in the thriving metropolis of Cape
Girardeau, Missouri. What’s the population there?
Dave: Thirty-eight thousand, something like that.
And it’s like 2,000 miles from here, right? Yet you’ve
built this incredible network of friends and composers
by coming to the Road Rally and networking on the
Forum for all these years. How important has that network that you’ve built been? And, not only in becoming
a better composer, but in learning to be patient and
staying focused and determined—all those traits I
think all of you guys share.
Dave: They are completely irrelevant. [laughter]
No, it’s given me perspective. I was thinking about
the perspective of my music, because from my family’s perspective, my music was always really good.
They don’t know about whether it’s relevant or
whether or not it’s current, because, from their perspective, they can’t write music. So the fact that I can
even do anything is amazing to them. [laughter] So
then I came to [my first] TAXI [Road Rally], to a
much bigger environment, and then I got the
perspective. I had a good sound—production-wise
things were fine—but the style, the sound, the synthsounds that I was using were out of date, out of style.
I was still thinking late ’70s, early ’80s. But I was trying to be current with out of date type of sounds. So
TAXI and the whole everything just gave me the perspective to kind of evolve into something that’s more
current.
Barry, I remember meeting you at the Road Rally four
years ago. How did you organize your thoughts and use
the Five-Year Plan?
Barry: I’ll give you an acronym: OPS—Organize,
Prioritize, and Schedule. The first thing I did was start
treating it like a business. I knew to be successful I
had to be organized. I work 40 hours a week as a web
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Recording - April 2013

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