Saturday 9 February 2013

Best Laid Plans of Men and Mice

The following is an extract from an email I sent to the Humpty Dumpty Foundation, which provides you with some insight to my thought process.

I wrote 'Shine That Light' at the piano and as I came up with the melody and the first verse through to the chorus, I thought the song would be really apt for the Humpty Dumpty Foundation. The entire process took a couple of months to put together from composing it, writing it to Sibelius which is a scoring software, programming the drums and bass and recording all the parts including the keyboards and guitars, vocals and the children, mixing and then mastering.

The song is written from the context of the child and I have incorporated lyrical references to Humpty Dumpty such as 'Whenever I fall down, you always pick me up again, put together all the pieces, help me get back on the mend' and 'I just feel so broken'. The emotional context is very strong and the people I have played it for, all agree that the music and the lyrics are very powerful and emotive. Helen Reizer said it sounded great and was looking forward to it being released. Parents will immediately relate to the song as all children suffer from illnesses or sickness of some kind and being a father myself, I feel for all the parents whose children have to spend time in hospital or just waiting for clinical breakthroughs. 

The song features over 30 children from the Warringah Performing Arts School and over 20 schools are represented by these children. They are very excited about being involved in this song, and once the artwork has been finalised I am going to get in touch with all the schools to promote the song and the Humpty Dumpty Foundation. I would like the schools to do a piece on the song in their newsletters referencing the pupils that performed on it and providing the web link to the song. The aim is to gain as much exposure for the song as possible so that it becomes synonymous to the Humpty Dumpty Foundation. That is why the Cover art is important and the use of the Humpty logo will solidify that. Most children and adults have iPods, iPhones, Smartphones, iPads and therefore accessibility to songs has never been easier. For less than the cost of a fizzy drink or coffee, they can download the song which is better for them and will benefit the Humpty Dumpty Foundation.

The song will be released globally via Tunecore (a US distributor) to all major digital outlets such as iTunes, Zune, Amazon, etc and will be available as a digital download from the agreed Release Date. There is a one-off charge of US$9.99 to upload the song plus artwork and then they charge an annual fee of US$9.99 to keep the song available in all outlets. By removing the record companies from this process, artists get to keep all the profits less the sales commission of the digital outlets which is 30% of the retail price. If the song is downloaded in the US then 70% of the 99 cents will be deposited into the Artist's Tunecore account. Artists can then transfer the money in their Tunecore Account to their own bank accounts via PayPal. The maximum single transaction amount is US$10,000. Sales are reported to Tunecore two months after the actual song is sold for all outlets except eMusic which is quarterly. Those sales will then show in my account. With charitable donations being 100% tax deductible, I can then donate all the download sales monies to the Humpty Dumpty Foundation. 

Paul, Clare and I agreed that the song being released in August to coincide with the publication of Afterburn would be the perfect time. An article in the magazine about the song would be written providing readers with the link to the song. A link would also be placed on the Humpty Dumpty website. That means the first sales will show in my Tunecore account in October. A weekly report from iTunes is available after the song is released and will show any songs sold and the country where they were sold during the previous week. That way we can keep a track on how things are progressing. Only iTunes provide this so any sales on other media outlets will only show on the monthly sales reports. 

Paul Francis was keen to state that all profits from the songs sold within Australia went to local hospitals with all international sales used to support the East Timor X-Ray machine. Radio play would also increase the exposure of the song and the charity and with Paul's contacts this would be another way to maximise awareness.

Please join me for the next installment of this blog.

I am a songwriter

Guy Simons

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