psykickgirl.com

Good Article on Approaching Music Blogs, Writers, and Other Music Press

McKenna — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 18:58:04 +0000

This article has some great tips, in particular, how to pitch a unique story (you as the unique individual). In my case, I have the advantage of the still commonly-held view that women doing anything technical or with making beats is “unusual” and not a part of our DNA. Hogwash!

I also agree that keeping the story local (although Los Angeles is hardly a small town) is good, and as is being very specific about how you approach each person (and don’t spam them with follow up emails!)

Film Scoring Opportunity

McKenna — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 00:50:33 +0000

I’m currently working on a few pieces for a guy I met through Mandy.com. He’s got a pretty decent little 20 minute film about a teenage kid-cum-serial killer. The director is interested in something along the lines of Thomas Newman’s “Paper Bag” song from American Beauty or Trent Reznor’s score for The Social Network. Now, who wouldn’t want that? The toughest thing will be giving it my own stamp and not sounding like a total copycat.

It’s funny that this director reached out, because I’ve been craving some kind of short film scoring project…one where the film isn’t embarrassingly bad. His film and the performances are quite decent. Quality cinematography and editing, too.

For today, I’m vegging out in front of the TV…but I’m going to need to get to work ASAP over the next few days. Hope I can crank out something, dark-yet-hopeful-yet-quirky-yet-beautiful.

p.s. I sure would love to go to an indie film fest and see my name in the credits/hear the music in a theatre. The last time I got to experience that was wayyy to long ago at AFI when I worked on the Machinima project “Leaving the Game”. See below…

Tunesat Update

McKenna — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 00:44:14 +0000

Just a quick note to say how pleased I am so far with Tunesat. In only a month’s time, the software has already brought up 50 detected instances of my music on TV. Excited to announce a few new networks I’m on now, like FUEL and Comedy Central!

The majority of the instances are for my song “5 Reasons Why”, which got licensed to Tria Laser for an informercial. That sucker is airing constantly all over the place! I think we can look forward to some nice backend royalties for that! I’ll have to get on the horn with Lynne Enman from ASCAP about 6 months from now to document everything…

Music as a Business vs Art

McKenna — Wed, 04 May 2011 21:25:21 +0000

Friend Michael Benghiat of the Music Kitchen, who I partnered up with on tracks for Oprah, lent some great advice at this workshop about the music biz. He pointed out that writing music and licensing it can pay off a lot more than playing gigs, which is certainly the case for me.

“Songwriters and publishers make money every time their music is played,” Benghiat said. “Performers only get paid when they perform.”

“I know people who aren’t very talented who are doing really well,” Benghiat said. “If you can produce good-sounding music inexpensively, you can make money.”

TuneSat

McKenna — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 20:45:19 +0000

I spoke with a really cool rep from TuneSat today. Attached is a little peak at their interface. They have a digital fingerprinting technology that will track your songs as they appear in broadcast. They are much more accurate than ASCAP’s sampling surveys/techniques (though, to ASCAP’s credit it has improved a lot over the last few years) and have gotten music companies/composers a lot of additional money. In fact, their technology has resulted in so much extra discovered placements/money for composers, it has overwhelmed ASCAP. I know for a fact when I’m talking to the back end royalties folks, they are completely overwhelmed trying to keep up with it all.

I’m wondering if anyone who is a “semi-pro” indie composer, basically someone doing music/licensing thing part-time but making good money at it, is using this service? For a full on music library or production house, the investment is not so much. But at $27/month (first tier of pricing to track 50 songs, goes up from there) and a year contract, this is not overwhelming, but significant to an indie composer on a very tight budget. can anyone give me some feedback? It’s not the monthly rate, but the year commitment, that is slightly intimidating.

But i’ve gone into my budget and eliminated other waste, like my $10/month box.net account (dropbox for me now, even though it has less features), and now using Blue Host/Word Press to host all my sites for a much more economical/manageable solution. And I’m sure to truly see results, you have to be using the service for long enough…as we composers know, there’s a long turnaround time for any music appearing in broadcast–you can expect to see the records from ASCAP and payment until 9 months later.

I work with a couple of companies who own my tunes exclusively and are pretty tight on tracking things, but I have a half dozen other partners that do the “re-titling” thing with my tracks. Who knows where my stuff could have been used without my knowledge. Any way you slice it, “found money” is extra

“Dark Horse” – new track finally sporting vocals

McKenna — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 22:53:02 +0000

Recently a friend asked why I haven’t been recording vocals on my tracks lately. One legit reason is because I cannot seem to get the levels/quality of everything right. I need someone like Jeff Moleski to come in here and analyze my setup, create some templates so I know I am getting just the right sound. My standards of studio quality are just so incredibly high that everything I hear sounds terrible to me.

The truth is, I hear lots of possible vocals melodies and lyrics for songs I write. And it’s a shame I don’t record more vocals…another deeper reason I hesitate to do so is because I can hardly stand the sound of my own voice. I always wanted that light-as-air, faerie-like sound that is so popular today. But that has never been my true voice and never will be. In the higher register, I can effect those ethereal, Kate Bush kinds of tones. But generally, I’ve got the soul of a big black woman in me and I can’t deny it.

I posted up this song today and I think I can actually live with the vocals, for once! Just a scratch track idea…. enjoy and let me know what you think.
Darkhorse2 vox by psykickgirl

Psykick Girl’s Wendy Darling Remix

McKenna — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 01:40:46 +0000

We Speak Silently by psykickgirl
Here’s a remix I did this summer of the very talented band Wendy Darling‘s track, “We Speak Silently”. I *think* the band may have parted ways, but singer Cori Price is currently working on some killer new material. She sent me some tracks in progress and I really like what I’m hearing. I hope we’ll be working together again soon!

Exclusive vs Non-Exclusive Contracts with Licensing Companies

McKenna — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 19:49:32 +0000

Exclusivity in contracts with licensing partners is something I am nervous about. It’s a tough call, because the “re-titling” process is looked down upon, but offers me more flexibility to proliferate my music (although I’m careful to limit things so that I am not “spamming” myself everywhere). At the same time, I think I have seen (well-established) companies work harder and the monetary rewards bigger with exclusive situations. For example, I have a couple partners (Harpo, Musikvergnuegen) that
compensate me upfront for writing tracks for them, then the arrangement is that they exclusively own those tracks but I collect
the writer/performer royalties for my lifetime. Both companies have been doing GREAT with getting the tracks placed a lot and lots of revenue coming to me (both from front end licensing fees and back end royalties). However, a few other exclusive deals I had amounted to nothing and I had to work hard to end those contracts…some really good tracks “went to waste in hiding” in my opinion, for several years while a company tried to get its operational ducks in order, etc.

Welcome comments about your experiences and opinions!

Competitrack to the Rescue

McKenna — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 00:43:38 +0000

If you think that ASCAP has records on hand of all your music being used on TV commercials, and are PROACTIVELY working on getting you those back end royalties….THINK AGAIN. Also, don’t expect any companies you work with that license your music to be tracking that stuff carefully either.

Now I can only say great things about the folks at ASCAP that handle that stuff…ONCE YOU HAVE GATHERED ALL THE EVIDENCE AND CONTACTED THEM. That means, the invoice sent to client and commercial promo checklist (both of which you can acquire from the company that licenses your stuff, if you don’t do it directly yourself), an mp3 of the song used, all the ifo about the registered title on ASCAP (the track ID, your member #, track name, etc) and finally…

I’ve been using a site called competitrack.com. They are amazing! If you know the advertiser/product (in my case, Aquafresh Whitening Trays) and the approximate time period in which it aired on TV, you can do a search for the commercial and watch :15 second video clips. Within minutes I found my track and the reports showed that it aired 4,000 times.

I turned in these reports along with everything else to ASCAP, and followed up weekly with an email/phone call to check on progress. As a result, ASCAP finally confirmed everything and deposited 7K into my bank account. That’s right. $7,000.

I have about 5 other cases open with ASCAP, one of which is confirmed and will be paid out in the next distribution Jan 4th.

So make sure you get all the details from your licensing partners! It’s “found money” for both them and you, so they shouldn’t be resistant in the least when it comes to getting you all the documentation you need.

Finally!

McKenna — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 15:01:27 +0000

After many years of custom-coding psykickgirl.com, I finally got smart and switched over to the WordPress platform and all of its lovely, built-in features. It will be a lot easier to update my site with news–all kinds of great things have been happening with my music licensing! I regret all the breaking news bits that have already come and gone.

Anyway, welcome to the site and enjoy yourself!