Royalties - Chloe

Royalties in the industry are very important as they determine who and how people will receive money for performing or writing music. It also includes who pays for music to be played.

Royalties are a payment made to a composer or artists that when their music is played or performed in the real world. This includes airplays, TV broadcastings, public places e.g. Cafe, live performances events as well as physical and digital formats. When music is covered or remixed this doesn't usually count towards the composer or artists music. A one off fee is usually ore arranged first.

The two main companies that deal with royalties are PRS and PPL, They both do different things and its important that we know what each one does.

PRS

PRS (Performing Rights Society) is the company that deals with royalties for performance of music and pays the composers. If you are signed up to PRS you will be on their system and they will pay you your royalties when your music is played on the radio, on TV or at a live show especially when you perform the music. You do not get paid from PRS if your play on other peoples records as a session musician, thats PPL. You are supposed to hand in you set list after a show or upload it to PRS and then they will pay off your royalist accordingly. PRS is very important for musician especially for composers as this is where they can make a good amount of money especially if they have a hit.
PRS Costs £50 to join and this will cover you forever. This has varied over the years and you have to meet a specific criteria to be eligible to join. There are payments in different months throughout the year, April, July, October and December. Payments are only payed once your total has reached over £30 to make PRS time worth while. This was introduced in 2006. I think PRS is a great way to get some money for the music that have written. It is also good because you find out where your music is being played all over the world and you will be paid for that success. By not being signed up to PRS when writing music can be a huge mistake as you could miss out in hundreds of pounds if your track it being listened to by everyone in France. You might not know but by having PRS you would be sent your entitles royalties for the music you have written.




PPL (Phonographic Performance Limited)

PPL is similar to PRS as in it collect royalties but for different people for different roles. PPL collects the royalties for performers who have played on records and broadcasts of recorded music for the musicians playing on that recording. For example if 'Cadburys' used 'In The Air Tonight' by Phil Collins. Every time that advert was played all the musicians on the record would have been paid by PPL if they were signed up to PPL. If you wrote the most famous song ever but you didn't perform on the recording itself you would not receive PPL royalties but you would receive PRS. International broadcasts are accounted for by PPL. The best bit of it its free to join. PPL has really helped musicians and claim the right for music that they have performed on. I think this is a really good royalty because many of the top musicians are session players and they would never see penny if royalties because they would not normally write the music. Now with PPL they will get money for the tracks the play on when they are broadcasted.

MCPS (Mechanical Copyright Protection Society)

This company collect the royalties from the sales of recorded music for the copyright owners of the music which can be the writers but also can be 3rd party people who have bought the ownership. If you have publishing deal you will get this done for you and they will collect MCPS. in your early stages of your career this isn't so important compared to PPL and PRS but its good to understand it. You will not got MSCP if you have performed on the record only.
I think its very important to copyright your music and lyrics because there have been so many stories in the past where music has been copied and claimed to be there own and if the music hadn't been copyrighted they would have had legal permission to claim it as their own because they didn't copyright the materials.
You can copyright music my posting the files or in the old days posting the tapes to yourself and then filing this away with a lawyer. This is recognised in the eyes of the law because the time and date will be stamped across the seal of the envelope.

Licensing

Live Music 2003 Act

This act was put in place in 2003 by the government. This act amended the previous laws which were no form of entertainment, dancing, music, singing or open mic nights were allowed without a licence. This changed to a 24/7 license.  This was a great shame because it meant that only big venues could put on music and only big artist would be able to perform which was really difficult for up and coming musicians. When the 2003 act was introduced this allowed music and all forms of entertainment to be allowed in all venues but they needed a licence. This licence was very expensive. Little venues running small events couldn't afford to pay the licence therefore could put on live music. This really effected the music industry because it prevented little open mic nights that new musicians could stand up and perform to get their name out.


2012 Act

The 2012 act amended the 2003 act greatly to improve its possibilities for small artists. This act enabled all venues free permission to put on events. There were a few restrictions. You could only have up to 200 people and the event has to take place between 8am and 11pm. This really worked for small venues as they could put on free events. The 11pm curfew was added to prevent people getting too drunk and roudy and causing disruption to neighbours meaning the possibility for police to get involved.

By adding this licence it really helped the music industry because venues could put on a wider range of shows for lots of different genres and give young starting musicians like myself a chance to perform in a good location to a good crowd. The government thought that by allowing more nights where the venues can put on live music they will sell more alcohol which they make a lot of money on because of tax.

This brough money back into the music industry as musician could make some money.

TEN (Tempory Event Notice)

This is the final type of licence that the government introduced. This licence was for small pubs or venues who only wanted to put on events occasionally.

This lisence cost £21 and it allowed them to have 7 days of lisenced entertainmen for up to 500 people. This was good for the pubs or venues who wanted to put on weekend festivals.

Aural Assesment Retake Olly Sellwood

Style Aural Test - Re-sit

This is the re-sit for the Style Aural Test due to the ineffectual nature of Moodle. This test can be done whenever you would like before the 5th May. Only spend one hour on the test. You may use a guitar, piano and/or Logic. Don't try to look up answers on the internet - they're generally wrong anyway.

Post it on your blog and label it Unit 4. Then please e-mail me the link so that I know you've done it.

Question 1: What instruments are in these songs? 

Describe the role of two of them for each song.

Drums: The drums are playing a steady 3/4 beat. This track is very much rhythm based as the drums, percussion and bass are very prominent. As the drums and rhythm section are very repetative this leaves a lot of room for the vocalist be quite free with her singing. The drums also don't include much more that kick and snare. I think this has been done to keep a strong backbeat for the rhythm section to develop. This also allows for the horn section to keep very punchy and tight.

Horns: The horns have been added to develop and accompany the vocals to create some interesting harmony. This gives this piece and other dynamic of harmony which leads away from the rhythm based beginning. The harmony of the horns is exaggerating the vocals and bringing some harmony into the track. As these are introduced fairly early on its a good way to introduce to the listener that there is harmony coming later. This builds character to the song and excitement.

Synths: The synths in this piece are playing very long chords that creating the harmony behind the vocals. The rhythm doesn't seem to have much relation to the drums at the accents are not together which does create interest. The harmony of the synth chords and the very basic texture of the song create these fine layers of drums, synth and vocals that are all very different and all stay apart from each other but there are moments when all the harmony just comes together really nicely.

Drums: The drums are very interesting in this because rather than being played tightly with the rhythm they are accenting with the vocals more which is a really nice feature because there is very little going on that when this does happen is creates a good amount of tension and interest. Because the drums and rhythm are very slow in this song the interest is created though the snare and kick sound and how the contract with the harmonic change from the synth. 

 

Question 2: What are the intervals between the first two notes of the vocal melody in both of these pieces? 

Remember to that you need to state whether the interval is major, minor, perfect, diminished or augmented.

a) Givin Em What They Love - the first words: 'I am..'

This does not have an interval its the same note sung twice 'A'.

b) Somewhere Over the Rainbow - the first word: 'Somewhere...'
This is an octave. A flat Octave 

 

Question 3: What chord sequences do these songs have? 

Pick one section of the song and say which one it is. Be accurate in your description of the chords and try to identify any extensions or inversions.

I have chosen the opening section of this piece.

The guitar chords are A minor and E Minor in there first inversions.

The intro to this song has the chords: Bm-Bflat -D 5th-Aflat Minor 1st inversion-G-D 5th- G-D 5th-EMin
The rate of harmonic change is quite fast.

Question 4: Describe the rhythm in these pieces of music. 

You need to talk about time signature, simple and complex rhythms, syncopation, how the rhythm is constructed (not just the drums), accents, phrasing, and anything else that might be relevant. You may compare similarities and differences if that helps to make your point.

In this song the time signature is 4/4. This piece is made up of fairly simple rhythms. The snare is on beats 2 and 4 and the Hi hat is on the off beat. The rate of harmonic change is every bar. Beat 1 is not accented much like in popular music. The way the music shows the 1 beat is with a little pause because the accents are placed elsewhere.
The bass line i the chorus misses out beat 1 every other bar and joins the rhythm back on beat 2. The simp rhythms allow a lot for the lyrics which is what reggae is mostly about.
The guitar is playing a chord on the off beat with hi hat which creates the bopping feel to the rhythm going. The reggae style relies on the the off beat to keep the piece moving. The repetition is what makes the track to catchy and the harmony of the vocals is what matches the basic rhythm so well to create such a simple melody that is backed by a really energetic yet simple rhythm section. 

 
This piece is in the time signature 8/8. What makes this piece so interesting is that the signature changes throughout the piece to create interesting rhythm texture and small breaks for the vocals to take over but the bass and drums and guitar are still vamping a simple rhythmic pattern while the vocalist can freely sing. This links in closely to the track because although this one doesn't rely on the off beat quite so much and the accents have be placed in different places. This piece does have the accent placed on beat 1 and 3 but occasionally that changes. There is a middle section where the time signature changes to 7/8 where we loose a beat the whole feel and groove of the track doesn't loose out at all. personally I think the rhythmic patterns are a lot more imaginative and creative in this piece although there are many parts of this piece that have similar ideas to the more reggae style we looked at before. The idea of having the accent on beat 3 is commonly used in reggae whack i think is where this song gets its groove and movement from.

Self Development - Luke Toms

Mastering

Describe

Mastering is the final part of the recording process where you are dealing with the EQ and compression of the whole track. This is done after the track has been mixed to finalise the track. Once the track has been mastered it's ready to be distributed. After the track has been recorded it is sent to the mix engineer then a left and right track are sent to the mastering engineer who will complete the process.

This relates to my future careers as I would like to have the experience of learning to master as well as getting my own music mastered. I think it's a good idea to know how the process of mastering works if you are recording and writing music that will be mixed and mastered. Now that I have a fairly good idea on what mastering does I could tell someone how I wanted it to sound, whether that be bass heavy or very prominante in the high or mid range capturing a very vocal track.

Explain

A mastering engineer is a fully trained engineer who specialises in EQing and compressing a track after its been mixed. They deal with a left and right track. This is the final stage of the recording process before the music is ready for release. The working environment for a mastering engineer is a very natural studio that has great monitoring. High quality mastering studios will have a small amount of hardware such as a couple of compression units and a couple of EQ units.


Critically comment

Mastering techniques have gone through changes and genres over the years. Having a track sound bass heavy and fat sounding is the way that recent tracks have been mastered. They are also compressed massively so that the track can be made louder and sound fatter. This is because people generally think louder tracks are better. As well track who is listening the way music is distributed apart from CD is a much larger range. The way the market has led is to people listening to track on their iPhone. This has effected the way track are being mastered.
Radio stations compress tracks a lot before they will put them on the radio stations. This is because they can make the tracks louder and this will attract listeners.

The music that is recorded more recently is specifically written for instruments that have a low dynamic range. The music itself will also have a low dynamic range and not need it either. This was because they know what when the track is mastered they are going to compress the track so much that they can then turn it up as loud as possible to have a louder track. This all links back to people think a louder track sounds better.

There are many techniques to mastering but because you are mainly working with compression and EQ you can toy around with EQ before compression or compression before EQ. If you were to EQ a bass guitar you might boost the low end but then if you compress it you are just squashing all that bass you have just boosted. You could then try EQing ager compressing. Once you have compressed the track you can then work on the EQ without having to compress it after.

Tracks that were recording in the 60's and 70's the music was very much about have the raw instrument sound and making the record sound as good as possible and as real and exciting as possible where as now its made to sound as loud and as bass filled as possible because this is what the music industry it trending at at the moment, this will change in time.