nah, three reasons:

1.) it changes parts of the license (vocals and music are usually owned by different publishers/songwriters), so although it doen’t complicate my current arrangement licenses, it just creates a possible obstacle down the road.

2.) it wouldn’t sound “natural” over my arrangements.

3.) a lot of my fans prefer only the melody because they don’t speak the song’s native language (i fall under this category too). like, i don’t know the words to any Kpop songs, so melody-only allows me to relate to them more.

4.) if i did vocals then it would only be for an opera, which I’m strongly considering in the most awesome way possible. i actually have a few vocalists in mind and the music in my head.

Thanks Jim! I love you too. I hope my cover of FEZ ‘Adventure’ by Disasterpeace sounds awesome. Don’t expect a simple chilled back piece though like the original. It’ll have beautiful melodic parts, but it’s going to be pretty heavy at certain moments.

ok, so I guess you could say it’s technically 12/8, which the trio is implied in the compound time.

3/4 would be more of a rock feel, in my opinion. And the straight eighth notes in a 3/4 measure would be the differentiating factor between 3/4 and 9/8. However, when I hear of songs like Journey ‘Open Arms’ I usually say that’s in 6/8 (although some have said it’s in 3/4, which I disagree with). I don’t approach 6/8 as the same exact thing as a swing feel in 4/4.

I just usually feel that 4/4 scherzo trio was the most accurate description for my arrangement of Daft Punk this week.

Then again, now as I’m writing this, 4/4 isn’t a trio. So maybe it IS a 12/8 time signature!

My friends and I had some amazing heated arguments about this in college (although more geared toward music technology).

I need to sleep.

Yea I saw your comment earlier. I know what you’re talking about.

I couldn’t because I sliced off a beat (3/4 vs 4/4). The melody with the lyric at the end saying “Get Lucky” was too long and the word “Lucky” had to get fragmented. I must have played around with that problem for a half day until I realized the only solution would be to make the song in 6/8. The problem with that is that it slowed the tempo down by half, killed the uptempo vibe, and created WAY too much space between each word.

I still wanted to see how it would turn out, and kind of thrilled with it. That said, I may release an orchestra version in 4/4 that is based more on the original. We’ll see, but right now I’m arranging FEZ ‘Adventure’ - another super tricky piece to do.

It’s super thick, which is partly why I can’t wait to cut it (it’s fun for a bit, but really getting long now).

In 2 more months it’ll be long enough to donate again, which is just before I’ll be in my best friend’s wedding!

It’ll be a 3 bedroom house in Portland that is $1200 month, and that’s with utilities included. Split 3 ways, so my share is $400 a month ($13 a day, not bad). Up until this time I paid $300 a month while living with my parents because:

1.) I couldn’t stand NYC and had to get out ASAP
2.) I needed time to stop, take a breather, and rethink which city I belonged in
3.) My dad had emergency triple heart bypass surgery, so I wanted to make sure he was OK (he is!) and just spend quality time with my parents. It was long overdue, and I’m so glad I did.

When I lived in NYC the rent was $4,500 and I lived with 2 other people. I paid $1,200 a month (my room was the smallest of the 3), plus another $200 for utilities.

It’s a sliding scale though, when I moved to NYC I lived in Midtown because all of my sponsors and more were right there. I worked at The Independent Music Awards (The IMAs), Revision 3, UstreamTV, and was making great money, so it made sense to be a few blocks from all my business clients or music studios. Sure, my rent was more than a home mortgage, but I didn’t want to buy a car or a house yet.

However… when I got laid off from the IMAs and my Music Show then the sponsors dried up due to the economy (all within a 2 month span), so that’s when things got U-G-L-Y because I had signed a longterm lease and had other commitments. So with no income (and nonexistent music sales) I was sinking - fast. I even wrote a 4 page feature about living on unemployment over here, and how it was one of the scariest moments of my life. My Kickstarter failed, I was spending 6 hours a day sending out my resume, thinking my music dreams were crushed, bills and debt quickly piled up, and my entire life was falling apart.

TIP: you can survive on $3 a day, I did it. In fact, a big reason for the success of ‘ForOrchestra’ is due to me being poor and having my back against the wall. My lowest point was this one night when I had to eat straight chicken gravy for dinner because it’s all I had - so I knew there was nowhere to go but up.

Over the years and struggles, I’ve learned that we can do anything if we put our minds to it. The dark times make the bright times brighter - and there’s nothing brighter than waking up and writing music for a living for you. If you really want, just save the money for a ForOrchestra T-shirt or something down the line. Some people can afford the music, and others can’t - so it makes sense to make it free, no big deal.

Just enjoy the music, be inspired by it, and never lose the drive to change the world in whatever you do.

Forever.

Yea but I’m not too worried about it. I live a pretty minimal life, here’s my monthly breakdown:

$400 rent
$200 food
$200 health insurance
$200 music licensing and distribution
$200 recreation and hanging with friends
$50 phone and internet

At this time last year I had just made over $700 a month which was an insanely huge amount of money for me at the time. I always said that if I made it over “the tipping point” then I would give my music away and just keep doing this for everyone, close my eyes and see where it takes me. “If it scares you, do it” - so sure, I’m scared I may have cannibalized my income, but I’ll know in 3 months if I’m stupid or if my community will make sure I don’t go away.

Here’s where your dollar goes when you purchase my music. I have two lines of income that have been just enough for me to survive:
1.) my Youtube music lessons here
2.) my orchestra music here.

I also want to start a monthly accounting blog update on the first of every month so everyone can see what I made, where the money went, and future plans. As an internet junkie I’m big on transparency, but this is also about the structure of what I want this to be:

I see you as my employer, and me as the employee. So you should know the finances anyway, in my opinion.

That being said, t-shirts are coming out soon, so they’ll have higher profit margins than a digital download. I’ve been so busy the past year arranging that I haven’t gotten around to it - but expect it in a few weeks at most.