Category Archives: Pro Sound Business

I’ve recently read an interesting discussion on the Nashville Music Pros forum that many music professionals deal with in one form or another. Bret Teegarden, a very accomplished and well-respected engineer/producer who I’ve met, had someone ask (via Facebook) to “listen to his music” and asked for advice. (The entire conversation can be read here)

As (current or future) industry professionals, we’ve all been approached with this sort of question in one form or another. If it hasn’t happened to you yet, it will be.

The way it went down is this: Bret was asked for his opinion, and in a nutshell, the music was not marketable. The singing ability was lacking, and the singer’s abilities were not on par with what is commercially available. Bret’s response was genuine and was intended to help this person, even though the truth was surely painful to hear.

Bret should be commended for handling the situation as he did… his honest appraisal was intended to help this person learn and improve. Unfortunately, we cannot win in this situation no matter what we say. If we are honest, they get pissed off… if not, then we are lying… and that will always come back to bite you in the butt.

I make it a point to ALWAYS be straight with people. There are times when it’s difficult, i.e., when someone in a hiring position asks you to work on a substandard concept. But it is an extremely rare situation where lying makes things better.

Personally, I am a bit less altruistic than Bret when I’m presented with this kind of situation. I can’t get involved in a big flame war with this kind of person… it just isn’t worth the time and emotional energy.  Many people aren’t honest with themselves about their abilities, they don’t want to do the work required to improve… they just want their magical daydream to be true, where you just step into a studio and become an instant hit. This myth makes a good story, and that’s why it’s so often repeated. But it almost never happens that way in real life… professional musicians spend years honing their craft and marketing their skills, and even then it requires a bit of luck to be successful in the music business.

I try to never give a professional opinion about someone’s music unless specifically asked (as Bret was), and then I preface that opinion by outlining our position in the industry… where stroking an ego does no one any good, and honest critique just pisses ’em off. I tell them that ANY critique is going to be hard to take, and if they cannot understand that my intent is to help them improve, then I’ll save us all a lot of pain and just keep my thoughts to myself. I also tell them to take what I say with a grain of salt, since it’s just one opinion after all… there are others out there as well, and performers MUST develop a thick skin to survive in the industry. (And to be honest, specific, detailed coaching is reserved for clients.) I think Bret did the right thing, but you often can’t win with these folks.

There were several good discussions in this particular forum exchange. One of the best tips was to never give this sort of advice and critique via email, only in person. There really is no substitute for face-to-face communication, and you just can’t read a person through an email. Your meanings are often misinterpreted as well.

A great quote from Jim Evans– “You are never closer to victory than when you fail… IF you learn WHY you failed.”

The AFFT Quarterly meeting at the Doubletree Hotel in Chattanooga.

The quarterly meeting of the Chattanooga chapter of the Association for the Future of Film and Television as held this past Thursday. I helped a little to organize the event, but Emily Bowman did all the heavy lifting. We had a comparatively large turnout… over a hundred people… including several people who regularly work in LA or NYC in the film industry.  Congressman Zack Wamp addressed the crowd for a few minutes and declared his support of the film incentive tax credits program, which is an important AFFT goal.

I also distributed the first hardcopies of the AFFT Chattanooga directory. I had 42, and we went home with about 5, so the quantity was about right. These were a pain to create, since I had to do most of them at home. The office supply print shops have jacked their prices while no one was looking, so the first pile of these were laser printed and assembled at my office at a cost of zero. But we may need to put out a donation jar at the next meeting to help defer the cost of these, since they cost $1.40 each to produce. But if you’d like a copy right away, I have a PDF version that I can email you, as well as a VCard file that you can import into your address book. (I know it works well with Macs, and it’s supposed to work with Windows as well, but no promises.) My email is hammerguy at bellsouth dot net.

Just returned from this month’s organizational meeting of AFFT Chattanooga,  which was, as usual, well-run by the capable Dave Porfiri, who had the agenda prepared and completed within the alloted hour’s time. It was good to see some new faces there… Jeff Hanna and Beth Newhoff.

The 8/14 breakfast meeting of the AFFT in Chattanooga. I'm on the laptop just to prove I was there.

Mark your calendars… the next AFFT Chattanooga quarterly meeting will be on Sept 3 at 6PM, a panel discussion on film education in the Chattanooga region… it should be a worthwhile event.