Ottmar Liebert
Music, Performance, Recording, the Business of Music, Traveling, Life, Art + unrelated subjects!

 


Tuesday, 25 May 2004
 


We're now in the seventh year of drought in much of North America, and there are few signs that the situation will be changing any... [Another World Is Here]
We need to help local government to change their minds on water usage. 10 years ago I was renovating and wanted to make use of grey water and at that time the city of Santa Fe did not allow that. Now they have come around and are supporting grey water usage.
12:11:31 PM  Permanent Link 2 this Entry  

David
Meanwhile, our boy Dave is freshly wiped down and ready for action. The cleaning of Michelangelo's David has finished, much to the relief of the experts who thought that the use of water in the process would hurt the thing.
It happened at this time that (the Gonfalonier, or Mayor) Piero Soderini, having seen it in place, was well pleased with it, but said to Michelangelo, at a moment when he was retouching it in certain parts, that it seemed to him that the nose of the figure was too thick. Michelangelo noticed that the Gonfalonier was beneath the Giant, and that his point of view prevented him from seeing it properly; but in order to satisfy him he climbed upon the staging, which was against the shoulders, and quickly took up a chisel in his left hand, with a little of the marble-dust that lay upon the planks of the staging, and then, beginning to strike lightly with the chisel, let fall the dust little by little, nor changed the nose a whit from what it was before. Then, looking down at the Gonfalonier, who stood watching him, he said, "Look at it now." "I like it better," said the Gonfalonier, "you have given it life." And so Michelangelo came down, laughing to himself at having satisfied that lord, for he had compassion on those who, in order to appear full of knowledge, talk about things of which they know nothing.
Wacky tech angle: Much of the cleaning was done with reference to Stanford's Digital Michelangelo Project who had laser scanned and mapped the whole statue. There's a 3D model of its head, and images of a flyround.

[Ben Hammersley's Dangerous Precedent
What Michelangelo did there is the equivalent of the monitor engineer touching a knob (without really turning it of course) and asking there, is that better
12:07:18 PM  Permanent Link 2 this Entry  

Good question
Ottmar, in the Forum we stumbled upon the question wether it is violating the artists rights or not to play your music in places like a cafe or an art gallery. What means personal use? Where to draw the line? First we thought it would be good publicity + in your sense. Then came up doubts. I know that in Germany one has to pay a general fee when not only playing radio in a surrounding like this (GEMA). But this fee doesn't go to the artist. So as well I wonder if there's a difference between your CDs that are owned by Epic + the ones by SSRI. Any guideline, any command would be highly appreciated. It should work for you, you know. - boris • 5/22/04; 4:04:28 AM
It is the same in the USA. If a store plays recorded music instead of radio, they are supposed to pay an annual fee to BMI or ASCAP, the two American performing rights societies. That fee goes into a large pot and is divided among the member composers. What the exact formula is for dividing up the money, I don't know, but it goes to the composer and the publisher, not necessarily the artist. It is also interesting to note that BMI and Ascap have agents who troll cities for public places (stores etc) that play recorded music without paying the fee. I imagine guys in trench-coats walking up to a counter and inquiring, where the music comes from...

A store or cafe can play radio without having to pay a fee to BMI or Ascap, because by law a radio station has to keep track of every song they play and then pays the composer via BMI or Ascap. That is built into the operating cost of a radio station. It also is keeping many aging rock stars in BlingBling, because if you multiply 5 or 6 cents per song per radio station per occurrence, times the amount of "Classic Rock" stations around the world, you quickly come up with some staggering numbers. Other solutions for store owners are satellite or cable music services or Muzak. Just like radio, these services pay the composers a small fee, a few cents - less than the radio fee, per play.

Here is where it gets tricky: I obviously want stores and cafes and restaurants and hair salons to play my CDs, because I don't get a lot of radio play and this is a good way for people to discover my music. In fact I know getting played in stores and cafes helped NF to do well in 1990. Now, since I own the master and the publishing for "La Semana" - drumroll, tada!! - I should be able to give people an official OK to play my music in their stores (and in fact I give CDs to certain establishments with that in mind), but I am not sure how effective that would be if the agents in trench-coats come knocking, because I am still a member of BMI, and have to be to get paid for every time my music is used in radio, TV and Film. Hey, the likelyhood of a trench-coat showing up in your place of business is probably no higher than your chance at winning the lottery....

So, to sum it up, yes, please play my music in your store or cafe...often!
7:50:09 AM  Permanent Link 2 this Entry  

If Life is a River...
...then music is in the middle of that river, where it is deep and fast. Many professions may give a man or woman a false sense of security, but not being a musician, and certainly not at the beginning of the 21st Century.

Remain flexible or suffer, many teachings say. As a musician you don't have a choice. Technology is changing rapidly and new techniques have to be learned constantly. Fashions are changing faster and faster and while some music is timeless, much is only flavor of the week.

Music has been a great teacher for me, and this is just one of the lessons. Practice, play, and try to relax as the current bounces you all over the place.
7:21:26 AM  Permanent Link 2 this Entry  

La Semana Advertising
I asked a friend to write some words for an ad we will place in Global Rhythm Magazine and maybe some other publications. Here is the beginning of our dialog:
But... the Ad... how many words? 3 or 4 sentence paragraph? Or longer? Say 3 paragraphs?
"OL is a new millennium mariachi, rooted in flamenco, yet wandering the continents... etc. Born in Cologne, resident in Santa Fe, etc. Or do we need bio?
I like that first sentence.....I don't think we need bio...I think we are selling a fleeting moment, a sound in time, a feeling - they can find the bio on the web site, if that's what somebody wants...Don't know, maybe 2 or 3 paragraphs. We'll do a full-page ad.
Is it more:
"La Semana, the latest recording by Ottmar Liebert, reveals both his faith in acoustic tradition and techno innovation, etc..."
Or should it be less factual and more poetic... I mean, some of those liners for Paco's CDs are very, very prosaic... archaic even, like Spanish velvet and burnt pine. Some like it, tho... usually an ad should be concise yet convey a feeling, a sense...
I think poetry conveys more of a feeling or a sense than facts could ever hope to. I feel that I have to get to the root of why I make music, which is that I enjoy the expression. In order to enjoy having to deal with advertising, the advertising has to become a similar expression. Maybe that's the only way it can work anyway, if the ad contains enough of THAT feeling to entice a person to bother to check out the web site or store...
7:20:59 AM  Permanent Link 2 this Entry  

Advance CD go out to the press about a month before a CD is released, because by May most magazines are already working on their August or September issues. Some of the people who receive such CDs are less honorable than others and now we have Ebay, where we can sell everything.

Remember the Christmas of your youth, and the delicious torture of having to wait. In just a week or two we will have the official release available. In fact the DigiPak edition could be for sale next week, while the Limited Edition will have to wait another week after that - I have to sign and number the whole edition and then it has to be taken to Albuquerque because nobody has the facilities to shrink-wrap the box in Santa Fe....

My advice to you is this: save your money and don't bid on this item. The only person making a buck here is the seller.

Thanks to Eric for pointing this out to me.

PS: Wouldn't it be nice if I could have these advance CDs made to self-destruct within two weeks! Paper CDs....

PPS: After we get rid of CDs altogether, this won't be a problem anymore.
7:18:37 AM  Permanent Link 2 this Entry  


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