Thursday, August 8, 2013

Introducing “First On Da Floor Band”


We are the “First On Da Floor Band”, a contemporary 12-piece band specializing in top 40 favorites. The band’s repertoire also includes music from the 70’s to the 90’s, Broadway Show tunes, Country and Western, and indigenous folk favorites. We also provide function music for birthdays, weddings, corporate events, christenings, or any other special occasion. The band consists of local professional musicians and music teachers from the local area. Because of the variety of musical talent within the band, we are able to provide ensembles ranging from a three-piece ensemble up to and including a 17piece swing-style big band.


We are available for bookings through Big Grin Music at:


Look forward to hearing from you,

Maurice Williams
Big Grin Music

Introducing “Big Grin Music”


I would just like to introduce myself, Maurice Williams, and my independent music publishing company called “BIG GRIN MUSIC”.  I specialize in reasonably priced charts for singers wanting to be guest artists on cruise ships or other venues that require professional arrangements that will be performed by live musicians.  

Most of my arrangements are actual transcriptions of the original versions, be they big band or commercial versions.  A lot of singers want arrangements that sound like the original recordings. So, they just buy what I have already. Some singers want arrangements that are custom fit to their requests. As rule, I don’t resell a custom arrangement, that’s why I charge a higher price for custom versions or medleys of several tunes in one chart. 

I also provide stock arrangements that I have sold to several singers (stock arrangements mean I just push the button and print what I have done already).  I have sound bites of a lot of my charts.  A lot of the sound bites I have are midi generated. Contact me at biggrinmusic758@gmail.com if you think you might want to take advantage of my services.

Look forward to hearing from you,

Maurice Williams
Big Grin Music
biggrinmusic758@gmail.com

A Discussion of Some Inherent Issues involved When Opening a Music Publishing Company


The professional music publishing industry has existed since the mid-15th century, when it’s main purpose was to provide for the printing of music, the concept of copyrighting music and the enforcement of artists’ performing rights when their product is used commercially. Nowadays, the industry has realized that there are certain problems associated with publishing online music because of streaming music, diminishing revenue growth rates of online music, and bands or singer/songwriters writing and publishing their own music online. 
Streaming Music
The first problems in this discussion that publishing companies have is through the streaming of music online. It is more convenient to be able to tap your finger across a track pad or click a computer mouse in order to obtain music than it is to walk to your neighborhood record store and purchase CDs’. Streaming services such as Spotify, YouTube, and Pandora allow users to download a large selection of music thru the Internet free of charge or by subscription. Although this might seem to allow for a large number of activities, according to David Kusek (2012), Industry Consultant with digital media analysis company Digital Cowboy, online music is a still a small percentage of the overall market.
Michael Robertson (2012), CEO and founder of MP3tunes.com writes, “With most other sbusinesses, if a supplier makes unreasonable demands, a retailer can turn to other providers. Since copyright law gives record labels and publishers a government-granted monopoly, no such option is possible...” It has become fact that the industry has to except the laws, or they will not be able to add songs to their library. Pandora has succeeded in obtaining such a license from Congress that was specifically designed for online radio services. This practice certainly prevents publishing companies from controlling how music is presented to the public but the publishing companies, according to an article written Greg Sandoval (2013), have decided to fight this practice by taking back their digital rights from performing rights organization such as BMI and ASCAP. Again, it’s a matter of economics and how the profits are shared across the board thru all parties involved.
Streaming has also introduced the practice of online piracy when music can be swapped via peer-to-peer networks like Napster. Again, this is a practice that removes control and revenues from established publishing companies.

Diminishing Revenue Growth Rates
Another problem the music publishing companies encounter is the diminished revenue growth rate because of an increase in royalty revenue from online music services. According to The Wall Street Journal (2012), during the period from 2010 to 2011 online streaming player such as Spotify and Pandora grew revenues 140 percent with a paid-subscription base of 4 million users. According to Greg Sandoval (2013), in his article published in The Verge magazine, “Revenue sales from – in the double-digit percentages for most of the past decade - increased last year by 6 percent”. This has certainly taken a large percent of profit from publishing companies. Independent music labels, independent music publishers, and artists themselves have certain terms in their favor such as minimum payments, per-play costs, and percent of total company revenues. Music publishers have always represented the composers and songwriters who make their royalties from CD and download sales, but these formats have begun to decline in sales. According to Kusek (2012), negotiating deals on a global scale is extremely hard.
In the past you could find yourself spending on average $100 a month buying CDs’ and digital downloads. Nowadays you can buy the same amount of tunes for an average of $10 a month. Pretty much anything can be downloaded over the web for free or at a very low cost.  Another example is the 2007 online music provider called “LALA”, who allows people to pay $.99 to download one song or $.10 for a web-hosted song that can be accessed from any Web-connected PC. This practice diminishes the amount of profits publishing companies take in. In the world of online music the majority of revenue collected has come thru advertising, subscription, purchases of download ringtones, ticket sales and merchandising sales. Most streaming services pay an extremely small amount to record companies and publishers each time a song is played.
Bands and Singer/Songwriters writing and publishing their own music  
The fact that bands and singer/songwriters are writing and publishing their own music creates another problem for the professional music publishing industry. Too many separate interests are fighting for a piece of the publishing pie. For most bands writing their own songs and publishing them is where the money is. The only requirement being that the person who wrote the song must be the copyright owner and the band must be aware of such issues as synchronization and print licenses. Although these licenses will bring in less money, they will bring in something. According to Ben Sisario (2013), in his article posted in the New York Times, “…as the companies behind these digital services swell into multibillion-dollar enterprises, the trickle of money that has made it’s way to artists is causing anxiety at every level of the business”. This practice of licensing eliminates the publishing company’s ability to control and collect its profits from the artistic work of bands and singer/songwriters. Most publishing companies access a large fee, which means that anytime the song is played the publishing company can receive up to half of the profit. The fact that the bands now have the ability to collect 100 per cent of their profit should be a concern to the publishing companies.   
In conclusion, the professional music publishing companies will have to re-think their values as to whether the real issues are a desire to make music played from venues such as computers and mobile phones, more accessible to the public computer users while still being able to collect a respectable amount of revenue, while at the same time the publishing companies must respecting the artistic value and desire for individual control of the music created by the bands and or singer/songwriters.


During my time teaching in England, I received a grant to form a community music group, under the direction of world-renowned saxophonist Andy Hamilton (Member of the Order of the British Empire) called "The Notebenders".  This group was comprised of community members that range in age from 10 to over 50 years of age who want to learn to read music and perform in an ensemble setting in front of live audiences. The group is still in existence as of today. 

This research into this topic is valuable to me as a professional musician who wants to function as a songwriter, bandleader, music creator and provider of music that will be used by the community to enrich the cultural life of the community and its participants. In my opinion it proves that there is still a long way to go before all participants, the music publishers, bands, singer/songwriters come to an agreement that will make providing music to the consumer relatively inexpensive, so that most fans will find any digital medium relatively easy to obtain and enjoy.