So today we’re gonna branch out in terms of subject matter  and talk about what I’ve  catchy titled tonight,  getting Your Tracks Industry Ready.  Now, I had something in mind for that when I first planned the session, but over the last few weeks in terms of mentoring, actually I found myself talking a lot about what we’re gonna talk about tonight, which is how approach, how to approach  getting your tracks  industry ready.
In other words, accepted on an industry level as being something that sounds pretty good that can compete with other things  and that can mean lots of different things. But what we’re gonna do is talk about that in principle today. And then I’m gonna, make something, we’ll do a bit of studying some music,  and then I’m gonna make something sort of live  to try and put into practice  what I’m going to waffle on about for a little time beforehand.
Okay? and if you want to tell anybody this could be particularly relevant for non logic users actually as well, I think this is a very relevant thing to be talking about.
And the one thing I’m gonna say first is,  this is not  directed at anyone who is not willing to compromise on your lyrics or your melodies  or who writes what they want to write.
And there’s no interest in engaging with people.  That’s what I’ve said, okay?  Now, actually, sometimes, to be honest, I do come across people like that who are very much like, this is what I’ve done, this is the way it stays. And in terms of what I might have to offer as an opinion, it’s a bit like  computer says no. so what we want to do is we want to focus on the music you are making, which you want to have people engage with.
 So I’ll say that again.  This masterclass is geared towards  making tracks, making songs. If you want  to have people engage with it,  if you want to have people like it,  if you want to have people use it commercially.  And if you want to,  get paid for it as well. So when I’m talking about getting your tracks industry ready, it’s getting your tracks ready, to a place that they can engage with the industry so that you can have lots of people like it  because the industry will be sharing it  because they like it and they understand it.
They know how they can sell it, they know what they can use it for, Â and they know that they can pay, get paid for it themselves, and therefore pay you as well. Â So that’s what I’m, Â that’s what I mean in terms of deceive.
Okay? Now then  let’s get to,  here we go. right, so  what, a good place to start is, talking about this is  getting creative with your brain  so often in a beautiful way when people are creative, they’re not necessarily creative with their brain at the same time as their creative force.
 So in other words, we all know that particular thing of  it just came out.  And I’m constantly having that really, and seeing that in terms of members where you’ve got an idea, you get an idea for a track or a song or a top line or whatever it is,  and it’s just come out  and suddenly you find yourself having given birth to this thing, which sometimes you can’t even lucidly remember where some of the ideas came from.  And then you wonder what to do with it.
 And often this is inspired by lots of people of late  saying that they want it to be,  they’re thinking of this song to pitch for sync or something like that.  And we’ll come back to that later. But  my approach to that is, well, did you write it for syn  or did it just come out? And now you’re like, I don’t really know what to do with it, but people tell me that sync is an option.  So hopefully gonna be, do a bit of demystifying in terms of that, that tonight. the first thing I’d say as well say, you’re gonna use, we’re gonna be using our brain  and we’re gonna try and align our brain with our creative juices, our creative forces.
 We’re gonna ask ourselves the question, are we rooted in a contemporary reference?  So as I often say to members, I probably said to a number of you in the past,  are you making music that can exist today?  Now, to clarify that, that can be a piece that sounds like it was made in 1972,  kind of,  but that could still exist today because the beauty of today is we are hearing all kinds of music from all different eras all the time, and we’re hearing it used commercially.
You can turn on a Quentin Tarantino film and hear music that was made 40, 50 years ago. You can also hear music that sounds like it was made 40, 50 years ago, but it was actually made quite recently. let’s take for example, somebody like Jack White, Â you know, Â amazing writer, amazing artist, but a lot of his stuff you could say has a degree of something that has echoes of, Â you know, classic seventies rock, shall we say, but still has a freshness that’s made today.
 What I’m saying is, is that it doesn’t sound like it belongs in the corner of a pub  being played on a guitar, because I don’t hear many songs that if I went down my pub on a Thursday to the open mic, there’s something about those songs which doesn’t really feel like it would go in a film straight away.  So this is the kind of things we’re gonna, we’re gonna explore and delve deeper into this.
 So  we’ve talked about getting your tracks industry ready,  and I just thought it was worth having a little think about what is the industry, what is the music industry?  Now I came up with the following idea, it’s the business side of music where they’re looking to sell music.  So  in order to engage with that industry properly,  I’d suggest you’ve got to have something to sell and something that they want.
 It has to be packaged  in a way that they can understand.  And I’ve written here Think product.  Now of course, when we are talking about packaging,  we’re talking about audio packaging, aren’t we? We’re talking about pressing play on something which is  packaged in an audio way, in a sonic way that can be understood by the industry.  And I’ll mention at this point that having spent the last few weeks covering, mixing and mastering that the principles of presenting something that sounds polished as is basically given at this point.
Okay?  So we’re not talking rough demos, we are gonna sort of backtrack before the mixing, mixing and mastering process. And this, we’re gonna focus on what you should do in terms of your approach to music before that process goes on. So we’re gonna assume that whatever you are presenting  Is mixed and mastered and can, can can, from that point of view compete with, other, other material, other tracks that are out there that those in the industry is receiving and is using.
 So if you wanna know more about that, refer to the last four sessions that I’ve done. and, from the point of view of the industry. So therefore we’ve, you’ve got to have something to share or something to sell. in terms of  people,  you’ve gotta think about how it’s packaged  And you’ve gotta make sure that it’s mixed and mastered so that it can compete.
It doesn’t sound too quiet, it doesn’t sound,  the vocals sound good enough in terms of the mixing, all the instrumentation fits, right, all the arrangement, all that kind of stuff. Everything sounds polished and precise ’cause that’s what  the industry is putting out there.  Let’s just drill down into that, which is,  it might seem an odd thing to say, but out there in the world now, in terms of, TV, film,  Netflix,  in a Lyft, in a shop, all the, you know, all the places that we hear music in a cafe, in a bar, we don’t hear anything that doesn’t sound very good.
 So I’ll say that again. We don’t hear anything that doesn’t sound very good.  So whatever you come up with as then product has to be on the same level as anything else.  And we’re not talking about just the mixing mastering, we’re talking about the instrumental parts, we’re talking about the lyric, we’re talking about the structure.
 This is the kind of thing we’re going to, we’re gonna start to delve into a bit,  okay?  So  the things that come up in terms of  what we talk about in the Singer Songwriting Academy and what your members commonly talk to me about a lot  are three areas of focus.  Alright? The first one, which is the most common of late, I have to say, which is what prompted me to  focus a little bit in this session, is ….
