Rock Star Parents

Wow... so much to tell...

I guess it has been a while since Rockstar Mom has posted. There is so much to tell. The journey from knowing nothing to knowing a little bit has been fun. Some high level points:

Rock music is sort of a free form guild system, an association of craftspeople (ie, musicians), with apprentices (the least informed), craftsmen (skilled) and journeymen (the masters).

For young bands, it is GREAT to find a high-level journeyman to pass down the knowledge. It is hard to find this journeyman, but it can be done!

Most people find this way of learning the music trade very strange. They are used to going to classes, ie, conservatory classes, or drama classes, or some other sort of classes with a reputation and prestige. There are then set times to perform, ie, a fall musical or a concert. When this isn't readily available for rock musicians, involved parents founder. Or they look for some program that seems close, ie, Powerchord Academy.

For parents who think kids should learn everything on their own and they shouldn't be involved -- well, let's just say the amount of knowledge that a teenager has to consume and execute in order for a band to be successful, plus do their homework, go to school, etc., learn their instruments, and practice, is well nigh impossible. Think of school concerts or community plays -- the more conventional experiences of teens. These events are put on by a team of people who find the hall, do the publicity, create order, direct, do sound, etc. For a teen band, they have to do all these things plus write their own music, etc.

In future posts, I'll review PowerChord Academy from a parent perspective versus the guild or mentoring method. I'll talk about publicity. I'll talk about booking. And I'll ask for advice because no matter how many books you read, no matter how many people you talk to, you realize that you don't know anything about this industry.

One Way on How To Make Your First CD

OK, we are making our first CD. Rock Star Daughter went to the first recording session last week. She is making a "scratch track."  A scratch track is a recording that is unlikely to be used in the final product -- hence the name, scratch. The producer had her record both her acoustic guitar and vocals to a click track. A click track is a metronome sound that allows you to seamlessly integrate new music over old. This scratch track will be used as a base for other  professional musicians to play along with so Rock Star Daughter will be able to come back to the studio and record a final vocal track over the complete instrumentation.

Now, for the background. Rock Star Daughter quit her band a while ago (see Why Bands Break Up for more about this phenomenon.) Let's just say they didn't have the same goals. So, she is doing this project pretty much solo. Part of the reason for her doing this now is to be able to find other kids like her and be able to say, "this is the type of music I am interested in, are you in?" The other part is for her to get experience. My part of this whole thing is to try to learn to do what it takes to successfully promote the Indie project.

Finally, this summer she played in a garage band with this producer, who has had a top 20 hit on the Billboard Charts and a long and wide musical career, and he suggested that she was ready. He said that her songwriting  and voice was mature for her age, that she was vulnerable, not canned, and that her young age would likely get interest. She also had great pitch and timing. (If your daughter or son wants to be a singer, give them drum lessons in elementary school for four years!)

So we started this roller coaster ride. We are paying a minimal fee for the producers time and for the session players who will play with her. We will own the master. We will copyright all of the songs (with two of them co-written by her old bandmates. At least one of the old bandmates will play a track on both of the songs.) As we go through each stage of the process, I'll try to document it so others can learn as well.

The first thing that I found out is, your first time in the studio is really easy if you only have to deal with one person at a time! My daughter asked her father, Rock Star Dad, to play guitar for her for the scratch tracks. The producer heard Rock Star Dad play, and he plays with finger picking. Rock Star Daughter tends to play power chords. The producer wanted Rock Star Daughter to play everything on the scratch track to help get her sound as "her sound" so the session guys could use that as the base. Some songs, Rock Star Daughter was able to play guitar and sing at the same time, one take. Other songs, she played the guitar and then went back and added the vocals.

One word about the guitar... it is a "once in a lifetime guitar", a truly beautiful one with outstanding attributes. It even has a woman's name inlaid on the fret board. I'm sure it will become her signature guitar.

With her first time hearing the click track, she was able to put out one song every half hour. It turns out that the last song had a problem with the "form" because she did that one first with the guitar and then added the vocals and there were extra riffs in there. It will be easier to go back and do it from scratch again rather than trying to edit them out.

The next session is this week...

(Note: we are not using union players for this. A great article about working with union session players is found here. The guys who will be playing on her CD are friends of the producer. We've heard all of them play and they are excellent.  I don't know how common this is? Anyone with more experience, feel free to chime in.)

Creative Commons - Good or Bad

OK, just read this article over at Music, Technology, and Policy:

Carefully Co-writing without Creative Commons

Now, Mom at RockStarParents.com has already published one of Rock Star Daughter's songs under a Creative Commons license.

----------------------------------------

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5

You are free:

• to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work

Under the following conditions:

	Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor.
	Noncommercial. You may not use this work for commercial purposes.
	No Derivative Works. You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.

• For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work.
• Any of these conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder.

Your fair use and other rights are in no way affected by the above.

------------------------------

To a novice, it seems like that is plain language (which I applaud!) and only offers restricted rights, and she shouldn't get in trouble, but.....

it is stuff like this, and band names, and other legal matters where new bands can make mistakes...

And be aware that there are far less restrictive Creative Common Licenses that, most likely, WILL get you into trouble down the road. So be careful what you choose!

She wrote the melody and the lyrics, but did I make a mistake? How to balance promotion with unforseen problems in the future.

Any input here? Or maybe we just try to muddle through ourselves and we'll post back after we hit a huge problem!

Band Touring

I just found a blog that highlighted something that every young band should think about if they are going to take being in a band seriously: how to go on the road.

It talks about some of the daily grind in the "Touring Diary with Cloud Cult..." Please make sure you click on the link within the post itself too.

Interesting reading! And it probably romanticizes things a bit because it seems they are on the way up, but it still has a lot of, well, interesting times.

Required reading for all!

Feel free to post your own experiences as well.

So... should you do a single or a CD?

You have successfully started a band and you have some originals. So, you are thinking about recording. Should it be only digital or should you actually manufacture a CD? Should you do just a single or a slew of songs... well, if you are an indie, the blog Coolfer has an interesting post on the digital music trends:

In theory, indie labels should have a great digital album share than a CD share. In the physical world, limited shelf space and challenges with distribution can hamper access to the consumers. It turns out this is exactly the case. Indies have a 28% share of digital album sales, far higher than the 18.8% share they have of CDs.

But indies don't sell single digital tracks as well as they sell digital albums, and not even as well as they sell CDs. The indies' digital track share is only 15.8% There could be a number of reasons for this. The most rational explantion is that indies tend to market their artists around an entire album, not a single. Singles, and the singles chart, is largely the domain of major labels with the resources to make the kind of elaborate videos get considerable airplay, and the means to promote a single to commercial radio. In promoting an album through a single, a label is often promoting just that song, not the artist or the artist's album

Surprise, surprise -- it seems that your music genre also has an impact... read the post to see what genres do better!

Flameproofing a rock studio or how to make a cool practice room safe...

You want a cool practice space. You want to put fabric all over the walls to help diffuse the sound and cover up the holes in the garage or the basement walls or even your own room. Or maybe you want to put up a wall of curtains on wire to pull across the walls.  It is ok to do... if... and this is a

big IF...

you use flame retardant fabric from the get go or you buy fabric and then flameproof the fabric by spraying it. (It is never OK to use regular foam on the walls even if you try to flameproof it.)

This isn't funny. 100 people died in a night club fire because the soundproofing wasn't flameproof.

Thankfully, this is the web, and I can link to a great fireproofing science experiment website where Janyn M did a handy experiment to SHOW people the difference between regular cotton fabric and fabric treated with flame retardant. As her tables show, there is a huge difference in the time it takes untreated fabric to burn versus treated fabric. Imagine being in a room covered with fabric that takes 2 seconds to catch on fire and all the fabric burns rather than 60 seconds to catch on fire and 86% of the fabric DOES NOT burn!

So -- we got cheap fabric to put on the walls of our own garage, (we got cotton at $1 a yard) but we had to flameproof it. Let me tell you, finding flame retardant spray was tough! Especially if you want to cover a whole two-car garage with fabric! I was finally able to purchase it at Backstage Hardware -- they ship UPS! While you can't order online, just call and they will ship it to you! (And all of you Halloween Haunted House flame retardant people looking how to build a Haunted House with fabric and other materials, this usually includes PTA's, PTO's, and camps, you can call them too!)

Depending on what you put on the walls, there are different products to use:

Roscoflamex C26
Roscoflamex C26 is a concentrated flame retardant that works with water absorbent theatrical textiles, paper products, cotton, muslin, canvas, cardboard and other cellulosic materials.

It is approved by the New York City Board of Standards and Appeal under Calender Number 1287-80-SM and has received a Certificate of Test from the Better Fabrics Testing Bureau, Inc.

Roscoflamex S33
A pre-mixed ready-to-use, clear liquid, Roscoflamex S33 effectively flame treats many synthetic fabrics, such as polyester, nylon, acrylic and rayon. It also treats cotton blends including cotton/poly, cotton.nylon, cotton/acrylic, rayon/nylon and rayon/acrylic.

Registered with the California Fire Marshall.

Roscoflamex W40
Roscoflamex W40 effectively flameproofs untreated wood, plywood, cellulose board, accoustical board and corrugated paper.

Registered with the California Fire Marshall.

Roscoflamex P50
Roscoflamex P50 is an additive for water based Rosco Paints. Designed to be added directly to Roscopaint, one 12 ounce jar of P50 makes one gallon of fire retardant paint without altering the the color.

Registered with the California Fire Marshall.

If you have some leftover, put it on some drapes in another room! (Basically, we used a spray bottle to saturate the material.)

Now, you can always purchase the fabric that is already flameproof. One example is to use duvetyn. Duvetyn is a black soft fabric (perfect for at least one wall unless you want to practice in a cave) that is already flameproof. Of course, you can't wash it. You can also get this at $6.99 a yard at Backstage Hardware, or a 50 yard bolt for $271.50 (these prices were current when I posted.)

So, if you are going to rock out in style, please rock out safely!

And, if you are truly looking to build a professional studio and want to build room treatments the way the  pros do, I highly recommend reading Rod Gervais: Home Recording Studio: Build it Like the Pros. He goes into bass traps, reflection control, absortion coefficients -- and fire safety.

(If you have any other ideas for a practice space, I would love to hear them!)

How Much Does it Cost to Raise a Rock Star?

Found this great article on how much money it takes to raise a rock star.

Some great insights here, but I notice that they didn't even put in the amount for the lessons! Voice lessons, bass lessons, guitar lessons, etc. DO add up over the years.

Rock Star Dad and I will do our own list shortly.

Update: Just paid for a RockStar camp! Yikes! The list in the magazine doesn't begin to cover things!