Tell, ya the truth, I don't think I'm all that successful, and I'm not that far down the road just yet. But the best I can do is to share my experiences as to how I got deals, how I got to know the people, etc.. My career ain't too long so there should be enough room to start from the beginning. So here it goes.
For me, there's always 2 roads of musical possibilities. One in Taiwan, and the other is in Japan. (I moved from Taiwan to Japan) The one in Taiwan started earlier so I'll start with that one.
There was this artist management agent.. she was a friend of my dad's best friend. (yeah, talk about people connections) When I was a freshmen in college, I was back in Taiwan for a vacation, and the agent just happened to be at a get together thing. So my dad pulls out a tape full of my songs, and starts playing it very loud. (everyone was drunk) The agent was very pleased, and dragged me up to her office, and sets up appointments for me to meet with a bunch of Taiwanese producers. Everybody was pleased.. pleased that a college student could do so much. But only so much. The material was good for my age, but not good enough. So no definite talks at the time. The agent tells me to keep sending her demo material, and she'll see what she can do because she was pretty determined that I had something in me. (talent?) During this time, the most important thing that I learned was that this business is full of spontaneous oppurtunities. You mean people you don't know, and they don't know you. No body knows what to expect, so it's always good to be prepared. ALWAYS have your best demo material ready, and be ready to give them away.
Actually, now that I look back to those days, my material wasn't good enough.. and there was another thing.. my mentality as an artist wasn't developed enough. It was something I did for fun.. speed didn't matter, format didn't matter (like A B chorus), I didn't have much knowlege about mixing.. And most important of all, most of my material didn't have any vocal, and since I hadn't worked with vocals before, my melodies weren't very voice orientated. So after my encounter with this agent, I started doing lots of singing, joining acapella, listening to lots of vocal meterial, learning how to mix, etc. etc. This probably was the beginning of my musical career.
Well, that was that.. in Taiwan. Back in Japan, in college, I started acapella, met new people there.. most importantly, met many vocalists there. Many of them were really good. Some of them were considering going pro. (tho even with my ears, I could tell there was no way) So I spent lots of time helping them make their demos.. I became famous as the "demo" guy. I worked for free. It was obvious I was learning new things. Working with different vocalists helped me understand just how these people like to work. Working with many different singing styles helped me learn to mic many different people, mix their voices. So I kept working for free. It was kind of ridiculous to be charging when niether the singer nor the composer had professional abilities. Anyway, so I had a rush of vocalists coming to my house to do recordings. Then, one day, this girl comes over and she's just got it. She's got the voice. I immediately knew and started working seriously with this person. Though I didn't mension it to the other vocalists, I spent more time on her, than on anyone else. Tune after tune, I began to learn her voice, just like I'd learn how to play in instrument, and the quality just kept on rising. I started to learn what kind of melodies she liked, and she started learning just how songs were made.. it was a good process.
The commercial jump came when we had a couple of high quality tunes that we knew, would beat all the other demos. There was another composer friend of mine, who was only a beginner, that wanted our help.. this guy had connections. He knew poeple.. knew what to do. He's just that sort of guy. So there it was, a team of me, the beginner composer, and the girl. Sometimes we 3 worked together, sometimes him and her worked together, but most of the times, me and her worked together. We kept on cranking out tunes and the beginner friend sent out the demos. To where I don't know.. I didn't really care because I wasn't really interested in working in Japan anyway. (because I had the Taiwan talks) But I just went ahead to see where this would go.
After around 2 months of waiting, we scored one agency that specialized in composers. Some agencies specialize in vocalists.. but this one specialized in composers. We met up with the A&R, she was very pleased with our tunes, surprised at the quality digital home studios could produce. (this was back in the days with Yamaha DSP Factory) Things were sounding nice.
At the same time, the beginner composwer friend sent a demo (most likely with my material), without telling us and got another deal with an aspiring male vocalist to help make his tunes. This male vocalist was already contracted to a semi-major label, but was just lacking the hit to bring him out into the mainstream. The beginner friend got the deal.. but it was obvious he didn't have the skill to meet the needs.. of course, he comes to me and asks for help. I say sure and the project starts. But as soon as the project starts, something smells wierd.. I realize that the beginner friend had become the producer, and I'd become his engineer, that actually does all the job.. he sits back, blabbers some what not that sounds musician like, and the male vocalist goes "wow, I don't understand but if you say so" and I have to figure something out to cut out of the strange situation. It was totally messed up. I was completely getting used. Strange things like this happen.. it's a slight difference of within the power structure inside the creative environment that messes things up. Anyway, I did one song for them.. and that was IT. I quit but sort of giving vague replies to questions like "when do you want to do OUR next song".. It's strange.. when we're together, the beginner composer friend says it's a group project. When it comes to rights, the male vocalist is the composer(melody), the beginner friend's the arranger, and I'm either the mixer, or just nobody that doesn't get paid. Well, anyway, the tune got finished, and is played at Kanebo (cosmetic company) commercials.. and I didn't get one red cent, or even any creative rights. Through experiences like this, you learn to be aggressive when it comes to rights.. and be careful about just who it is that you call friends. It's horrible. Money brings out the worst in some people.. I really hate it.
So the mood between the trio becomes somewhat dim.. I don't want to complain out loud.. and the beginner composer friend isn't too proud of it either.. and the girl vocalist has heard everything from me so she doesn't feel safe working with the beginner friend.. The trio sort of died away naturally and we were back to where we began.. just me and the girl vocalist. The first deal we got with the composer agency sort of died out too because we cut contacts with the beginner friend.
Ya see.. It's soo much about your personality.. I could feel it when I was working with the beginner friend.. we spent 7-8 hours straight together making tracks and recording vocals.. and near the end, you can see the greed in his eyes and he can see the disrespect in my eyes. It's about people. It's about your personality. You work with people so tightly that they'll see everything in you. So keep that in mind when you meet your A&R. Good A&Rs look for these qualities. Bad A&Rs look for instant hits.
Ohhhh my hands.. I'm tired. Actually, I think I'll take a break right here and see if anyone is curious to find out about the rest. The story has gone up to my senior year in college, which is about 1 year ago. So there's still 1 year of events that I haven't written about.
Well, there's a lot of details I left out.. and I tried not to use any names so sorry if it's confusing. So maybe there's something you can learn from this?? dunno.. but hope it's been of some help. Tell me if you want to hear the rest and I'll find time to type some more. ugghh, this is SERIOUS typing.. haven't typed this much since 7th grade computer class! Oh well, hope you enjoyed reading.
