When I first began pursuing music as a career, making albums and touring was initially my first plan. Growing up in an environment where I saw my father (who was also a producer) deal with many record labels both independent and major however turned me off to the idea of being signed. It became my goal to continue to write what I wanted to write and release what I wanted to release without the pressure of a money hungry label (and not having to sell my soul to it!). Financially, however, going it alone was excruciatingly difficult at the beginning stages.
Unfortunately, in the world today, though there are many honest upstanding people, it seems there are many more dishonest people who feel music should be free. To an artist just starting out, pirated music is enough to almost cripple your efforts all together – equipment and software costs, studio costs and living expenses on top of that make it near impossible when people don’t want to pay for music.
This was my first experience as an artist: you release a few songs, and if they are well received, almost immediately they start showing up on thousands of torrent sites. Now, of course, I am happy that people like the music enough to pirate it in that sense, however, I had to change my strategy a little to continue to pursue my dream. I am not going to let pirated songs stop me from writing, however, I don’t want to have to rely on money from iTunes or similar music providers alone to live.
I began writing Stock Music to compensate for the income side of things – because while individuals may escape using music illegally, businesses and corporations with deep pockets will not take that risk with the fear of massive lawsuits.
So for now, I mainly write and produce for licensing purposes (mostly for TV and film) and royalty free content, however that does not mean I don’t have some upcoming plans for iTunes releases or live shows! What I have on iTunes currently are songs that were for specific projects that I still wanted to make available to the public. There will be MANY iTunes releases in the future crossing many genres, but right now I am primarily concentrating on building my Royalty Free portfolio. Due to the popularity of many of the Royalty Free tracks I am now doing the best I can to release songs I believe will be wanted for licensing and for listening – however this creates a tricky situation with different contracts and agreements. So if you're a fan, which you must be if you’re still reading, hang in there! More music is always in the pipeline!
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