Momentum...

I always find myself typing these things when it's late at night...I guess when I don't feel like sleeping and it's time to go to bed, I inevitably become introspective enough to write somehow.  And it seems lately that I have a lot to talk about and a general desire to report but I'm reluctant to do so because so much of it is up in the air.  As unsuperstitious as I can be, I still do believe there's such a thing as a jinx.

I guess I can talk about some of it.  A month or so ago, I was contacted by a licensing agency in New England who was interested in potentially using my music in a documentary.  I talked about it briefly in this entry.  I waited the precursory one week to return contact after I submitted my music for their client to review (it's not like dating where you wait three days), and I didn't hear anything back for a while.  That's pretty standard so I just assumed the director had decided to go in a different direction.  Which is exactly what they said when they finally did contact me last week.  However, they also said they'd still be interested in including my music in their non-exclusive licensing catalog.  This is actually a pretty good thing.  I had thought about submitting my music to one of the many sound library websites out there many times, as early as 2008 before I even moved here.  But I either never got around to it or talked myself out of it because I wasn't ready to produce anything I felt was up to the caliber of the other stuff up on those sites and I was overwhelmed at the prospect of putting my stuff out there and hoping it would stand out somehow.  Now, I'm having someone coming to me soliciting music for such a venture and it actually makes me a little proud of how far I've come. And of course, ten times more confident.   

There's still work to be done, though, and lots of it.  My latest batch of electronic beats and compositions are in various stages of completion at the moment.  I've been told to take my time looking over the contract and in the meantime, I hope to be pushing some of these through to the mastering stage and completing the others that are still half composed.  And also deciding what among my existing catalog is close enough to that stage to submit.  Oh, and also finding a good entertainment/music lawyer. 

It's all very exciting but I'm trying to keep a level head.  There's still the lawyer to hire, the contract to sign, the copyright and ASCAP registration to take care of.  There's still the waiting period between when I submit and when someone comes along and actually requests to license a track or two and then the wait until I'll get paid.  But it is nice to know that that will be a possibility now.  That right there is a musician's bread and butter, sync licensing and royalties.  Oh yeah! 

On to voice over, because I guess I can talk about that too.  I'm finally ready, or as ready as it takes to be able to just start putting myself out there.  Online auditions are wearying me and I'm ready to submit my demos to production houses and talent agencies in order to get more exposure and hopefully more auditions, perhaps even some in person ones since I do, after all, live in New York @#$%ing City.

The significance of all this to me is that I'm finally betting on myself.  In a way, though, I'm actually getting a confidence boost from the attention to my music so I'm trying to apply that new found confidence to my voice over ventures, because even though, I've only had a handful of gigs this year, I've had 8 times as many as I did last year.  Perhaps I have a reason to be confident there as well.  I certainly see an upward trend in both areas.  That's how I choose to spin it as it's not so much of a stretch to say that I'm doing exponentially better this year compared to last year.  So exciting to have momentum again. 

On that note, you guessed it, I have to go to sleep. It's almost 1:30pm and I still have some of this cider left to drink and a little more unwinding to do.  So, good night and wish me luck on everything.