In between movements at the New Music Seminar

(Continued from part 1, part 2)

The Third Movement -The Creative Process and Radical Differentiation

Conductor

• Jason Bentley (KCRW, Music supervisor for the Matrix movies)

Players

• Tom Jackson (Live performance coach, Taylor Swift)
• Rodney Jerkins (Producer, Lady GaGa, J-Lo)
• Justin Tranter (Singer, Semi Precious Weapons)

“I’m never trying to be relevant.  I’m always trying to be revolutionary.” – Rodney Jerkins

Notes from the third movement:

Jason Bently, Rodney Jerkins, Justin Tranter and Tom Jackson

• Rodney Jerkins tells the story of how Jimmy Iovine of Interscope Records had Lady GaGa writing songs for the Pussycat Dolls a few years back.  Rodney came to him and told him “I think this girl’s a star.”  Jimmy wasn’t interested in her as a solo artist and felt that she was more valuable as a songwriter.  He didn’t buy into her as an artist in her own right until she produced a short film on her own with virtually no budget that became an underground hit in Europe.  The moral that I get out of that story is that you may be thinking “If only I could get my music to Jimmy Iovine, or Clive Davis”, when in fact, you really need to get yourself to the point where you won’t be denied.  It’s all about you.  If you build it, they will come.
• Everybody has experiences and emotions that other people can relate to.  Justin Tranter spoke about how Taylor Swift is a beautiful girl who grew up as Nashville royalty, yet she still has insecurities and knows what’s like to feel lonely or awkward.  She taps into that and is able to write songs that will resonate with an arena of people who grew up with very different backgrounds.

“Lack of urgency is killing pop culture” – Justin Tranter

• Justin also spoke about staying true to yourself and remaining honest while the rest of the world tries to get you to do otherwise.  He’s a cross-dresser who plays in a Rock’n'Roll band.  Nobody gave him a chance and everyone told him to conform to something more mainstream.  He stuck to what felt honest to him and now he’s about to tour the world opening for Lady GaGa.
• Tom Jackson stresses the importance of getting your live show together.  Don’t spend all your time and money on your CD and then just wing it with the live show.  Spend some time and effort putting your show together  (OnStageSuccess.com)
• Keep it simple for the sound guy.  Justin Tranter suggests just asking for the one or two things that are most important to you.

“When someone says go left, always go right.” – Rodney Jerkins

• Take risks at rehearsal.  If you won’t try things in rehearsal then you can’t expect to try things that will work at the show.
• A big part of live performance is creating memorable moments.
• 15% of what you communicate to your audience at a show is from the words of your music.  30% is the raw emotion.  55% is the visual.  Does your show ‘look’ like one big blur or are you creating visually distinct and interesting moments?
• The song is the script.  Let the song dictate the performance.

“People go to see stars, not to see music.” – Tom Jackson

Part of this movement included the final voting for a contest called “Artists on the Verge”.  At stake: a $25,000 prize package.  The audience would choose the winner by text message voting.  We watched a video of each artist and made our judgement based on our overall impression.  The first video was a rock band called Loomis and the Lust.  It was a grainy live video with poor audio quality.  The performance looked solid and song sounded decent, but the audio quality made it difficult to judge.

The next video was a proper music video of a girl named Nikki Lynette.  It was very Salt-n-Peppa-esque with a few bars borrowed from Toni Basil’s “Hey Mickey”.

The last video was another proper video of a 3 piece rock band with the drummer as their lead vocalist.  The video was decent quality, but I didn’t care for it.

The panel discussed each video before we were to vote at the end.  While the panel was discussing the last video, the singer for Loomis and the Lust actually walked up to the stage and interrupted

them.  I was thinking to myself that this could be interesting and potentially very awkward.  He appealed to the panel to let the audience see a different video, because they apparently played the wrong one.  He said he didn’t even know where they had gotten that from.  The panel and the crowd agreed that we wanted to give them a fair shot.

Will Loomis waits patiently for the crew to cue up his video

After fumbling around on the side of the stage trying to get the correct video cued up, they told him that they just weren’t going to have enough time.  To his credit, Will, the singer of Loomis and the Lust came out again, told everyone what they told him and the asked up “what do you guys think?”  We all wanted to see it and Justin Tranter even said that he’d stop talking for 3 minutes so we’d have the time.  So after much anticipation, they finally cued up the video and hit play.  Tune in tomorrow to find out what happend next.

(To be continued….)  click HERE for part 4

Also:

Follow on Twitter:

Jason Bentley = @jason_bentley

Tom Jackson = @onstagesuccess

Loomis and the Lust = @loomislust

Independentrockstar = @independentrock

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