Ben Newhouse has worked as a music supervisor and composer on dozens of television shows, films, and stage productions for media corporations including ABC, FOX, MTV, and Disney. He has arranged movie themes, sixties pop music, Broadway shows, and scored for several full-length feature films using Digital Performer.
Learn more about Ben and his online courses at Berkleemusic.com.
Pinar Toprakis a composer with an impressive number of credits (27 scores in the last five years), including the 2010 film “The Lightkeepers” (starring Richard Dreyfuss, Blythe Danner, and Bruce Der) for which she has been presented with the International Film Music Critics Association Award for Best Comedy Score in 2010. She is an instructor of Berkleemusic’s online course, Orchestration 1. We recently sat down with Pinar to talk about her background, the IFMCA award, and what it is like to teach orchestration online.
Tell us about your background.
I was born in Istanbul and began studying music at five years old. I got my degree in Classical Guitar from Istanbul State Conservatory but my main passions were always in composition and film. After several years of studying piano and jazz theory in Chicago, I applied to Berklee and moved to Boston at 17 years old.
At Berklee, I combined my two greatest passions: music and film, and finished my bachelor’s degree in film scoring within two years. After graduating Berklee, I finished my education with a Master of Music degree in composition and my thesis was commissioned by California State University and performed by the CSUN Symphony Orchestra.
My goal was always to intern with Hans Zimmer. For one month straight, I called his studio asking for an interview. My persistence paid off and I was finally given the opportunity to join the Media Ventures team as his programmer.
Although it was an incredible experience, I wanted to begin pursuing my own projects and so I made the decision to leave the studio. Following this transition, William Ross, a famous orchestrator, worked with me on five or six projects including video games and feature films. These eventually led to me being asked to compose music for the film “The Lightkeepers.”
You won the IFMCA Award for “The Lightkeepers.” What was the process like?
I had about two weeks and two days to compose over one hour of music that would be used for the film. Even though I faced a lot of pressure, I sincerely loved the entire experience; everything from working with the director, to the creative control I was given, to the music that resulted from the project. After I finished I felt instant gratification; I was extremely proud of the work I accomplished.
What is it like to study online?
Studying online makes the entire classroom experience so much better. Not only is it highly accessible, but it also is the most efficient way of studying. You customize your own learning experience down to when, where, and how you want to do it.
Students are able to learn from one another and interact freely; the exchange of music and conversation is incredible. It’s the quality yet the practicality of it all that makes it the best way to get a music education.
What is it like to teach Orchestration 1 online?
Since I live in LA and work directly in the film industry, I am able to share with my students the most up to date and relevant information out there. I prepare them in a realistic way for the industry they are up against, whether or not they are directly experiencing it. I want my students to connect with their education in a deep way and to do that you have to go above and beyond traditional classroom protocol.
I have the pleasure of teaching individuals from all over the world, from all walks of life, with all different talents that have one common thread of wanting to study music with a top-notch institution.
Who is Orchestration 1 designed for? How can someone use this course advance his/her career?
Really, anyone is suited to take Orchestration 1. I’ve taught students on all different levels, including those that knew nothing about orchestration and sequencing to those that were extremely well versed in both areas. I’ve even taught individuals looking to improve their writing and notation chops. That’s the beauty of teaching music online; I am able to work on a more private basis with my students to help them meet their personal goals, and not just meet the collective goals of the classroom.
There was one student who started my course with very little knowledge of the basics, but she had a great attitude and strong determination, which I appreciated. Through engaging in discussions, reaching out to me with questions, and learning from the work of her classmates, she was able to submit a very impressive final project that consisted of a fully orchestrated and well produced three minute piece that could be used in a feature film. Watching my students grow like this in their own way is a very special thing and probably one of the most rewarding aspects of teaching.
By the end of my course, students fully understand the process of orchestration and how to be successful in the field. I want them to take away both technical and practical information that will be valuable to them across any discipline they choose to pursue. Studying online with Berklee is worth every bit of the time and money that my students invest in it, and that’s something that isn’t true for all institutions.
Berkleemusic’s online summer term begins June 27, 2011.
Each term, Berkleemusic recognizes sixteen of our best and brightest online students for outstanding performance in our certificate programs. These students are awarded a $1,300 scholarship in the name of a renowned music education champion.
Congratuations to our Summer 2011 scholarship winners:
Berklee, Midem, and Harvard hosted the first-ever Rethink Music conference here in Boston last week. Berkleemusic was behind the scenes, interviewing some music industry heavy-hitters to share with our community.
Check out some short video clips we’ve posted from pros at EMI, Topspin, Next Big Sound, and more. It’s useful content for any future-focused musician or music business professional.
* Peter Gotcher, Chairman of Dolby and Topspin
* Jim Eno, Producer and Drummer from Spoon
* Tod Machover, Professor of Music and Media, MIT Media Lab
* Ian Rogers, CEO Topspin
* Nancy Baym, Professor of Communications Studies at University of Kansas
* Maggie Martin, Manager EMI Publishing
* Alex White, Founder of Next Big Sound
We captured more than six hours of video from the conference. Stay tuned—there’s more to come.
Fast-Growing Audio Platform To Power Berklee’s New Online Community
Berkleemusic, the online continuing education division of Boston’s renowned Berklee College of Music, and SoundCloud, the fast-growing audio platform, have joined forces to provide over 75,000 Berkleemusic members with an easy way to upload, share, and solicit feedback on their music.
“This relationship with SoundCloud is part of Berkleemusic’s continuing efforts to identify and integrate the most current technologies into our online school and associated online community,” said Berkleemusic CEO Dave Kusek. “Many of our online courses cover the best practices associated with using best-in-breed music and marketing software, and it’s a natural fit to integrate SoundCloud’s forward-leaning audio technology into our growing online community.”
SoundCloud, with its unique waveform player, is a leading tool for artists to share original content online. The platform allows artists, labels, music professionals and other audio creators to upload, record, promote and share sound across the web. It also enables user feedback, download and play counts, and can enable sharing between friends, classmates or the whole world. With over three and a half million registered users, artists from every genre—including house, electronica, classical and jazz—use SoundCloud to preview and share music with fans and peers on a daily basis.
Alexander Ljung, SoundCloud’s founder and CEO, says: “We’ve been working hard to create the best possible platform for sound creators, and that includes helping third-party developers build amazing integrations using our API. Through this partnership, Berkleemusic.com is demonstrating its leadership in understanding and employing new technologies to benefit people in education. We’re also excited to offer our premium members special access to Berkleemusic’s extensive online music courses and certificate programs.”
Berkleemusic continues to be at the crossroads of technology and education in music. Most recently, Berkleemusic teamed with Grammy®-award winning guitar virtuoso Steve Vai to set the Guinness® World Record for the world’s largest online guitar lesson; 4455 students were certified as taking part in the lesson. Berkleemusic also announced a donation of $7000 — one dollar for each student who signed on for the lesson — to the Steve Vai Online Scholarship Fund at Berkleemusic.
Berkleemusic’s spring term is enrolling throughout the week of April 4th.
It’s Official! Guinness Certifies Berkleemusic and Vai Following Live Online Event For Worldwide Guitar-Playing Audience
March 3, 2011—Steve Vai and the Berkleemusic Team at Livestream’s Studios in New York (L-to-R: Video Producer Jesse Borkowski, CMO Stefanie Henning, Steve Vai, Director of Marketing Mike King, and Web Software Developer Niall Burkley.) Photo credit: Andy Alt
After several weeks of careful tabulation, it’s now official: Berkleemusic, the online continuing education division of Boston’s renowned Berklee College of Music, and Grammy®-award winning guitar virtuoso Steve Vai, have set the Guinness® World Record for the World’s Largest Online Guitar Lesson. This first-of-its-kind initiative, held at leading streaming media platform Livestream Studios in New York City on March 3rd, brought together almost seven thousand members of the international guitar community in a celebration of online music education. Guinness certified the world record based on Berklee having recruited 4,455 students over the first 15 minutes to the lesson. Berkleemusic also announced a donation of $7000—one dollar for each student certified as taking part in the lesson—to the Steve Vai Online Scholarship Fund at Berkleemusic. The fund rewards and assists outstanding students studying in Berkleemusic’s multi-course certificate programs.
“I am very happy and proud to announce that Berklee College of Music was officially awarded the Guinness World Record for the world’s largest online guitar lesson,” said Berkleemusic Chief Marketing Officer Stefanie Henning. “This was an amazing collaboration of all the teams here at Berkleemusic with tremendous support from Berklee College of Music President Roger Brown, the College faculty and students, and, of course, the day’s guest of honor, Steve Vai.”
Berkleemusic and Steve Vai have also co-authored a new twelve-week online course: Steve Vai Guitar Techniques. This online course, nearing the end of its first session, presents students with the chance to gain a deep understanding of Vai’s death-defying playing styles, repertoire, techniques, and musical concepts from anywhere in the world, and to incorporate their learnings into their own playing.
Building on the renowned guitar curriculum that Berklee has offered to students for decades, the course is now open for enrollment for the school’s spring term which begins on April 4th, 2011. For more information regarding the course, registration information, and to sample an online guitar course, visit Berkleemusic.com.
Vai, who is currently finishing a new solo album and preparing for an extensive world tour to coincide with its fall release, is a Berklee alumnus with a devoted fan base in over seventy countries. He is a passionate advocate for music education and exploration. “I hope this record encourages players to continue to cultivate their own unique style and spirit on the guitar,” Vai says. “I think this record really showcases the interest that exists in guitar education worldwide. It was a true pleasure working with an institution like Berkleemusic, who share my interest in helping to bring more skilled musicians into the world.”
Fans can view the archived online lesson, chat and question transcripts, as well as Spinal Tap’s Nigel Tufnel’s pre-lesson promotional videos, at berkleemusic.com/vai-live.
BERKLEEMUSIC AND VAI HOST A LIVE ONLINE EVENT FOR GUITAR PLAYERS OF ALL LEVELS WORLDWIDE
Berkleemusic, the online continuing education division of Boston’s renowned Berklee College of Music, along with Grammy®-award winning guitar virtuoso Steve Vai, today announced a call to action for guitarists around the world to join forces and set the Guinness® World Record for the largest online guitar lesson on March 3rd, 2011. This first-of-its-kind initiative will bring together the worldwide community of guitarists in an unprecedented online celebration of music education.
Vai, who is currently recording a new album and preparing for an extensive world tour, is a Berklee alumnus with a devoted fan base in over seventy countries. Although he is not a guitar instructor, Vai is a passionate advocate for music exploration and hopes the event will encourage players to continue to cultivate their own unique style and spirit on the instrument. “This online event, and the larger efforts Berkleemusic is making to teach students around world, is a great example of the collaboration that happens at Berklee,” says Vai. “Whether you’re in Boston, Bombay, or Brussels, we’ll all be together on March 3rd.”
The World’s Largest Online Guitar Lesson is a one-time event that takes place Thursday, March 3rd, 2011 at 1:30PM EST. Berkleemusic has partnered with Livestream, the pre-eminent live streaming video platform, to host this event in their New York City studio. Participants can learn more about the online lesson at www.berkleemusic.com/vai-live.
Vai’s free online lesson will last 30 minutes, and will provide a look into Steve’s technique with a focus on how guitarists can develop and gain insight into their own playing. In order to further engage with his fans, Steve is also encouraging participants to submit questions to him online, which he will answer onstage at the conclusion of his online lesson. Interested participants can submit questions to Steve on the event’s web page, located at www.berkleemusic.com/vai-live.
As a gesture of its commitment to music education, Berkleemusic will donate one dollar for every person that joins the online lesson to the Steve Vai Online Scholarship Fund at Berkleemusic, which is designed to reward and assist outstanding students studying in Berkleemusic’s multi-course certificate programs.
“Steve Vai is one of the most popular guitarists on the planet, and deservedly so,” says Dave Kusek, CEO of Berkleemusic. “We’re thrilled and honored to partner with Steve for this unique online guitar lesson, and excited to play a part in exposing a record-setting number of guitarists from around the world to his ‘otherworldly’ techniques.”
Berkleemusic and Steve Vai have also partnered to author a brand new 12-week online course: Steve Vai Guitar Techniques. This online course presents students with the chance to gain a deep understanding of Vai’s death-defying playing styles, repertoire, techniques, and musical concepts from anywhere in the world, and incorporate their learnings into their own playing. The Steve Vai Guitar Techniques online course builds upon the renowned guitar curriculum that Berklee has been providing to students for decades. The course is now open for enrollment for the school’s spring term which begins on April 4th, 2011. For more information regarding the course, registration information, and to sample an online guitar course, visit Berkleemusic.com.
Berklee alum Bryan Beller has maintained a frenetic, multi-faceted career as a bassist, composer, writer, and clinician for nearly twenty years. Beller has played with everyone from Dweezil Zappa to Steve Vai to animated metal band Dethklok, in addition to establishing himself as a respected solo musician. Berkleemusic recently talked to Beller about his career and what it is like to play with a legend like Vai.
Beller released his debut solo album, the jazz/rock-flavored View, in late 2003 to widespread critical acclaim, earning the monthly feature review in Bass Player. His second album, Thanks In Advance, a deeply personal narrative set to advanced jazz/rock compositional confidence, was released in late 2008, again to rave reviews (Bass Player’s Chris Jisi called it “a bonafide entry for bass album of the year”).
As a sideman, he’s earned a reputation as a uniquely talented yet supremely tasteful hired gun bassist for adventurous rock guitarists and singer/songwriters alike. He was Steve Vai’s choice on bass for the live CD/DVD, Sound Theories—a collaboration with Holland’s renowned Metropol Orchestra—and toured worldwide with Vai throughout 2007, resulting in the 2009’s live CD/DVD, Where The Wild Things Are.
Showing his range, Beller is also a member of the live “band” Dethklok, a tongue-in-cheek extreme metal band borne of Cartoon Network’s hit Adult Swim show Metalocalypse. His work with Dethklok includes a track on The Dethalbum II and three nationwide tours (one co-headlining with Mastodon).
He’s also been a musical partner of freak/genius guitarist/composer Mike Keneally (Frank Zappa) for fifteen years, eleven albums, countless tours, and millions of notes. Other sideman experiences include tours with Wayne Kramer (MC5) and Dweezil Zappa, as well as more intimate duo performances with Keneally and, more recently, his wife, Nashville-based R&B/soul singer/songwriter Kira Small.
Beller’s work as a freelance writer includes cover stories on bass luminaries such as Justin Chancellor (Tool), Christian McBride, and Chris Wolstenholme (Muse), as well as interviews with Jonas Hellborg, Victor Wooten, John Patitucci, Lee Sklar, Neil Stubenhaus, Jay DeMarcus (Rascal Flatts), Justin Meldal-Johnsen (Beck, Nine Inch Nails), Bill Laswell, Jimmy Haslip, Stefan Lessard (Dave Matthews Band), Matt Garrison, Adam Nitti, Oteil Burbridge, Dave LaRue, Miroslav Vitous, Billy Sheehan, Emmy-award winning television scorer W.G. “Snuffy” Walden (The West Wing), and myriad others.
As a pure player, a master class clinician (sponsored by Mike Lull Custom Guitars, SWR Amplification, and D’addario Strings), a Contributing Editor for Bass Player, and a former Vice-President of SWR Sound Corporation, Beller brings a global perspective to the world of bass, and sits at the intersection of many of its current pathways. After thirteen years in Los Angeles, he now lives in Nashville, TN with his wife Kira (and their cat Lucian), and continues to travel often.
By the sheer volume and nature of your work with such varying artists, mainly putting your ego aside and holding it down, you have gained a reputation as the working man’s bassist. What has been the key, if any, to having such a multi-faceted bass career?
Honestly, I never thought I was going to be the kind of bassist I’ve become in terms of the Bass Player magazine kind of guy. I was always more interested in bringing support to the music I was playing, rather than being a standout or a featured part of it—that’s why I chose bass in the first place. When I was 22 and done with Berklee, I was just weeks away from moving to the NYC area to be in an original blues-rock band. Then I got a call from Dweezil Zappa, and three weeks later, I was in L.A. playing some pretty wacky music. So I thought, “Well, I’ll just do what I do in this new context”—and the rest just took care of itself, no matter how intense the material got from that point on.
As you know, Berkleemusic.com is launching a new online course called Steve Vai Guitar Techniquescourse in January. How did you originally land the gig with Steve?
Photo by TJ Lambert/Stages Photography
It’s a long story, but the bottom line is that Steve became familiar with me because of the work I was doing with Dweezil Zappa, and also Mike Keneally, who was in Dweezil’s band with me, and was also in Frank Zappa’s last touring band. I actually auditioned for Steve’s live band back in 1996, on a referral from Keneally, but I didn’t get it. He did like my playing, though, so he asked me to do a few studio tracks for him—some stuff from The Ultra Zone record, and more a few years later. After that, he asked me to do these gigs he had planned with the Metropol Orchestra in Holland, which was his classic material rearranged for full orchestra with a rock rhythm section. That resulted in the Sound Theories DVD he eventually released. Finally, in 2007, he wanted to change the lineup in his live touring band, and I auditioned again and got it, 11 years after the first time we played together. If at first you don’t succeed… well, you know the rest.
What skills are required when preparing to work with and really fit in with Steve and his sound?
You have to have really good ears. Really good. You need to be able to pick up stuff quickly. You have to have stamina as a player—his rehearsals are long, his sound checks are long, and his shows are 2.5 hours long. You have to be consistent—he wants things a very specific way, and once you’ve got it that way, he prefers you to really nail it like that night after night. You also have to be open to new techniques and ideas, because sometimes he wants something played in a way that you would never play it, and then you have to just go outside your comfort zone and do it the way he’s imagining it in his head. Finally, you have to sound like a rock bassist—no matter how proficient a player I might have been, if I sounded like a jazz or fusion guy, he wouldn’t have hired me for the band. He wants rock guys to push the limits of what rock guys normally do.
Did your time at Berklee help prepare you for the world of professional bass?
Absolutely. Regarding the curriculum and the teachers, I learned a lot about theory, jazz, reading, and music notation that still helps me to this day, even though I’m mainly a rock guy—or maybe more accurately: because I’m a rock guy who deals in complicated music, the theory background allows me to converse with other musicians in a concise and direct way when talking about the details of that kind of music. I also learned a ton from the other students about playing. Sometimes there’s no substitute for just watching someone else do something, and then having the light bulb go on, like, “Wow, that’s so simple, why didn’t I think of that?” And finally, and most importantly, it taught me how to network, because being at Berklee is like being a part of a microcosmic music scene. Not only did I learn how to organize my own gigs, and be a sideman for the first time, I met the guy (Joe Travers, current drummer for Zappa Plays Zappa) who got me my start in my current career path as a bassist and musician. So I hit a home run at Berklee.
What are some things you were able to learn from Steve?
I learned a lot about rehearsal discipline from him. I thought I was pretty rigorous about learning and practicing material until I rehearsed with him for eight hours a day, six days a week, for a month, in preparation for the String Theories tour. I also learned a lot about putting on a show—not just playing everything right and staring at your feet, but really getting on stage and putting on a show for the audience. I’ve often said that the most impressive thing Steve does isn’t what he writes, or even what he plays. It’s that he can play the impossible stuff he’s written for himself onstage while dancing.
How was the experience of being among the chosen musicians to be in the Vai band and share his creative vision?
Well, it was an honor and a privilege, of course. We all felt that way, even though the band I was in was made up of people from radically different backgrounds. You had Ann Marie Calhoun, a classically-trained violinist who was crossing over to pop before playing with Steve; violinist Alex DePue, a competition-winning fiddler who was an improvising maniac; guitarist Dave Weiner, who’d been in the band for ten years and knew Steve’s repertoire inside and out; and Jeremy Colson, a pure rock drummer who was way more into Hatebreed and Lamb Of God than anyone else in the band. It was a really amazing group of people Steve put together, and he shaped us into what I think ended up being a very unique sounding band, the one that was eventually captured on the Where The Wild Things Are DVD.
You are also a known columnist and clinician. Do you sense that there is a strong hunger out there for music education?
Yes! Sometimes, when I’m doing a clinic, I can almost palpably feel the desire for knowledge in the audience. Most musicians I encounter in the educational environment want two things: one, they want to know how to become a better player on their instrument; two, they want to know how to have a more successful career as a musician. The answers to those questions are universal in some ways, and very specific and unique to the individual in others, and they show up for different musicians differently, revealing themselves over time. That said, I believe that the right educational environment can speed a dedicated musician’s development significantly.
Billy Sheehan was the former bassist for the Vai band and is known for his signature sound. What setup did you use to be able to support the legendary guitarist?
Well, it starts with my bass, a Mike Lull Custom Modern 5. It’s essentially a souped-up 5-string active jazz bass, but the key to it, I think, is that is has a little extra midrange content, and a little extra aggression that makes it uniquely suited for rock bass tone among jazz basses. I’m also using a few pedals, most notably the Xotic Effects BB Bass Preamp for my main overdrive. Whenever I wanted to simulate the sound of a bass being played with a pick through an Ampeg rig—the classic rock bass sound that Steve digs—I would engage this pedal and strike the string with a little more force and windup to get the right attack and tone. From there it goes to a massive SWR rig—the SM-1500 amp driving (2) Goliath III 4×10 speaker cabs, and a single 8×10 Megoliath speaker cab, for a total of sixteen 10” drivers. It was huge, warm and clean when I needed it to be, and when I wanted some dirt in the sound, I got it from the pedals. The SM-1500 also had a 6-band semi-parametric EQ that Steve and I tweaked together until we found settings that stayed consistent from night to night. I also always used D’addario Pro Steels for strings—they had the right chime and brilliance to them.
I’ll tell you this—I never had to worry about keeping up volume-wise with Steve on stage, and his guitar rig was pretty loud up there. In fact, he wasn’t shy about telling me to turn down a couple of times.
In the end of the day, I just have to do whatever it is that I do. Billy Sheehan is an amazing player with a very unique sound, but it wouldn’t make any sense for me to try and even emulate it. I just try to be myself, while at the same time bringing tools to whatever gig I’m doing to most appropriately fit the music.
You have been the physical “real world” embodiment of one [Dethklok bassist] William Murderface. What does it truly take to fill in the shoes of such an “animated” bass icon?
The good news is that I don’t really have to be him, because that would be tough to be with. My job is to make him sound good live, which is hard enough. I have a Mike Lull T-Bass (a Thunderbird-style axe) and a halfway decent metal power stance, and I just try to honor Murderface’s bass lines by playing them in such a way that you can actually hear them. The way Brendon Small (fellow Berklee grad, by the way) puts it is apt: we’re just the pit orchestra for Dethklok. Our job is to make them sound good, so that they don’t kill us. I’m also very relieved that I don’t have to play his bass solo (inside joke for show watchers).
In all seriousness, I do alter the bass lines from the recorded versions of the songs so that the bass sometimes acts like a third guitar—because there’s layers and layers of guitars on the record, and live there’s only two guitars, so I need to take up more space to maintain the right level of overwhelming sonic brutality. I have several overdrive and distortion pedals in my arsenal for just such an occasion.
You have recently been doing house tours with your wife Kira Small. How is the difference to you between the feel of giant auditoriums with Dethklok and Steve, versus a living room?
It’s a very different energy, as you can imagine, but it’s no less enjoyable. Kira is a singer/songwriter/keyboardist who writes original soul/R&B material, and the two of us are a duo that plays the modern singer/songwriter circuit—house concerts, listening rooms, coffeehouses, and smaller, more intimate venues in general. Because we’re just a duo, my role is to be not just the bassist, but also to imply percussion elements, and sometimes even play a guitar-type solo on bass. So I support her musically in a much different way than I would, say, Dethklok, but I’m always looking for the right way to support whatever artist I’m playing with. If that’s just sitting back and playing a simple bass line, great. If it’s adding additional elements, like I do with Dethklok and for Kira, that’s fine too. Whatever serves the music best for the live setting, that’s what I’m going to do.
As for the feel of the large vs. small rooms…listen, I love playing to a packed hall of screaming metalheads with Dethklok, and there’s a “dream come true” aspect to that kind of experience. But there’s also something really magical about playing to 30 people in a very small room. It allows for the kind of interaction between an artist and an audience that’s just not possible in a larger venue. In fact, once of the most interesting things about this tour with Kira is the mix of people at the shows. Many of them are fans of Kira’s music, but some are also folks who know me from Dethklok, or Steve Vai, or Mike Keneally, or even my own solo material, who can’t believe that they can just go to someone’s house or a tiny little coffeehouse and see us play from five feet away. Ideally, I get to do it all, and have a nice balance between the Enormodomes and the theaters and the clubs and the more intimate venues.
Do you prefer the unconventional bass gig over the more generic?
I don’t really have an all-things-being-equal preference for “weird” or out-of-the-mainstream gigs. I dig that stuff when it’s done in a way that’s interesting to me, but just because I play some complex and unorthodox stuff doesn’t mean I don’t like keeping it simple and conventional on other occasions. If the music is cool and authentic and compelling, I’m up for it. Sometimes it’s more fun to play well executed and brilliantly conceived “mainstream” music than it is to play haphazardly assembled “strange” material. It’s all about the song in the end of the day.
Well, first I’d just say, you’re all very brave people! But if you’re up for expanding your technique, and really getting inside the head of one of the most important guitarist/composer/innovators of the past 30 years, you’re in for a treat. Just remember, though, that when Steve practices a riff or lick, he slows it down—way down—and forces himself to play it correctly ten times in a row before he allows himself to speed up the metronome. It’s an extremely rigorous practice regimen, but one that’s obviously paid dividends. So just get ready to get serious about your practicing, because that’s what it takes to play like him, and play with him as well.
But more importantly, I think, is this: Take advantage of every opportunity you have to play with other musicians who share your musical interests! If you want to do a show or recital of Vai tunes, don’t put it off—get it together and go for it. Even if it doesn’t go perfectly, you’ll learn more from one gig (and that gig’s rehearsals) that you will from hours of sitting in your room playing along with the records (even though that’s valuable in the learning stage). This is especially true while at a music school, because everyone’s doing it for free. Once you leave school, if you want to put something together according to your musical vision, whatever it is, you’ll need to pay people. And believe me, that changes things. So go have fun, work hard, play what you love, take advantage of this unique time you have, and the rest will take care of itself.
Ken Krongard is an A&R rep par excellence. His specialty—honed over decades of working with artists from Def Leppard to Avril Lavigne—is “to find superstars who can sell a lot of records.” Since 2001, Krongard has been taking an entrepreneur’s approach to making the most of this particular gift through the company he founded and now runs, Major Label Scout. Through Major Label Scout, Krongard maintains a network of 200 well-trained and dedicated talent scouts across North America, all scouring the basements and backstreets for the next big thing and queueing the best of the best for presentation to major label executives. And before those scouts hit the bricks in search of talent, they all go through an intensive training program run by Berkleemusic.
Multi-platinum artist Avril Lavigne and MLS Founder Ken Krongard
Krongard first hatched the idea for Major Label Scout in 2000 (before MySpace, before bittorrent), when he was working as an A&R rep at Arista Records. A contact outside Arista made him aware of a 17-year-old Canadian singer named Avril Lavigne. As Krongard tells it, “Avril was a girl in Napanee, Ontario, a town of 3000, who’d never played a real show, never had an album, never had a song on the radio. The only way to find her was by finding someone who knew her.” Krongard brought Lavigne to New York, where she impressed Arista head L.A. Reid into immediately signing her to a three-album deal.
The experience left Krongard convinced that unknown talent existed in other tiny towns across North America, and when he left Arista in 2001, he founded Major Label Scout to try and turn his idea into a sustainable business venture.
“[Major Label Scout] was an idea for a scouting network,” explains Krongard, “that was kind of a combination of an A&R community and a means of tapping into the talent of tastemaking young people who were looking for the next big thing, and who wanted to learn the A&R business from a mainstream major-label perspective. “I’m looking for a scout who knows everything that’s going on in his hometown,” explains Krongard. “And I want to know about the kid down the street in his basement with a ProTools rig who is a genius and who nobody knows about.”
This talent is discovered in a process that works like so: every scout must submit two songs by an unknown artist each review cycle (a period of about six weeks). An automated system then randomizes the tracks, and sends them to ten other scouts. These scouts listen to each track once anonymously, and then are given information about the artist so they can research further. Based on their findings and their opinion, the listeners then rate the tracks. These findings are aggregated into a chart which is then reviewed by senior staff The top-charting artists are then considered for management or publishing agreement with Major Label Scout itself, and shopped to the A&R departments of the major record companies.
MLS Recording Artist Joe Brooks (Lava/Universal), MLS Founder Ken Krongard and MLS Recording Artist Jason Reeves (Warner Bros.)
As it turns out, Krongard was right about where unknown talent was to be found. As with Avril Lavigne, Krongard’s goal was to find the talent anywhere, “even,” as he put it to a colleague, “in Iowa.” And on the very first chart report his scouts produced, the #2 artist was Jason Reeves, an Iowa musician who has gone on to multiplatinum success with his own records and as a songwriter for Colbie Caillat and others, as well as a record deal with Warner Bros. where he was signed by American Idol judge Kara Dioguardi.
Krongard is also sure to lavish as much attention on his scouts as they do on the music they champion. Many music companies are content to hire eager and inexperienced warm bodies and then wring every ounce of effort they can out of them, investing relatively little in the individual’s career growth and long-term prospects. By contrast, to become a Major Label Scout, applicants must submit an exhaustive six-page application and pass a grueling round of interviews, all designed to ensure that new hires have the drive, talent, and mindset to tirelessly seek out new mainstream talent. And before a new scout can hit the streets, they are sent through a training and orientation process that includes course content provided by Berkleemusic.
“I’ve done a lot of internships in my life,” explains Krongard, “and the best internships I’ve ever had were where I really learned something, so we wanted to make sure we gave our scouts a positive learning experience. We try to structure it so our scouts have access to something they don’t get anywhere else, and Berklee was part of that.”
“We thought about who these people are—the music executives of tomorrow—and felt it’s important that we give them guidance and information on the music business. So, where better to go than the #1 online music program? Fortunately, Berklee was very receptive to us and gave us some great content to build out the training system. That has been hugely helpful and the partnership just makes sense. A huge number of our scouts have gone on to take Berkleemusic classes, and it’s been a classic win-win.”
In fact, Krongard is quick to acknowledge that many of his scouts remain with Berkleemusic long past the required orientation phase. “Some of our scouts are really interested in A&R, but some people are just curious about the music business in general,” he says. “Berkleemusic exposes them to a number of different areas; after the introductory lessons… they can branch out and take classes on their own in the areas that benefit them most.”
Multi-platinum recording artist Colbie Caillat and MLS Founder Ken Krongard
In recent years, Major Label Scout has begun directly publishing and/or managing some of their finds, thereby diversifying their business from being a pass-through company funneling talent to labels, to being a revenue participant in some artists’ career. When asked why he chose to diversify, Krongard replies that “all the major companies, whether labels, management companies, live entertainment companies, are all morphing into all-around full-service companies. Whether the major labels in the future will still be called major labels or… just music companies, some are going to be bigger and more successful than others, and some are going to be smaller and make very fine livings at it.”
As for whether there will still be major labels in a few years for MLS to shop talent to, Krongard muses, “clearly the ascendency the major label has been over for a long time, but the ones that survive are the ones getting into other areas. One thing we’re all watching very carefully is how this 360-degree model plays out, where labels acquire all assets, not just recorded music assets but they now have revenue streams from publishing, merchandise, and touring and anything else. So in a sense the [major labels] are not really record companies anymore, because they’re not just about records, but about commissioning revenue from 360 degrees [of an artist’s output]. The ones that succeed are the ones that hire the right people, move into the right areas, and learn those areas the quickest. The ones that don’t do this will be gone.”
When asked where a company like Major Label Scouts fits into the future of the business, Krongard muses, “great talent is great talent—it just needs to be discovered. And I think that’s true now more than ever, since there’s a glut of artists; there are seven million bands on MySpace at last count. Someone’s got to go through them all and find the diamonds in the rough, and I still think the ability to perceive something special is a skill you can learn. There will always be a place for people that can discern talent, period. “
Moreover, says Krongard, it always makes good business sense to see out what millions of people want to buy, and remaining focused on that fact might just give Major Label Scouts an edge. “There seems to be this attitude in the music business where everyone tries to be cool,” he says, “where everyone tries to find the hippest band on Pitchfork on this week. But those bands come and go, and the people that love these artists tend to be on the poles of taste, and on the coasts. And there’s a huge market of people between the coasts who buy their music at Wal-Mart and think Nickelback is a great band. And you know what? Who are we to say that they’re wrong? Nickelback have sold millions and millions of albums.”
MLS Founder Ken Krongard, Chad Kroeger of Nickelback, MLS Recording Artist Joe Brooks (Lava/Universal)
“It’s music, and music is subjective, and I reject the argument that one person’s opinion is better than another person’s opinion. At the end of the day, Nickelback have sold a hell of a lot more records than name-your-hipster-band. As an A&R guy, my job has been to find artists that will sell. Whether or not people think they’re cool is not a problem for me. Everyone should fall in love with the music that reaches them, but in terms of the business itself, our approach is to find superstars who can sell a lot of records. And obviously in the new model, it’s not all about records, but we need to find superstars who are going to appeal to a massive audience.”
For the foreseeable future, the world will need large music companies, and Ken Krongard is betting that those companies will continue to need the services of Major Label Scout. By selecting the right people, and training them using Berkleemusic’s award-winning course materials, he hopes to give his scouts the edge they need to make that bet a certainty.
The University Continuing Education Association (UCEA) has awarded Berkleemusic.com, the online extension school of Boston’s Berklee College of Music, with its 2010 Best Online College Course Award for Professor Stephen Webber’s Music Production Analysis course. This is Berkleemusic’s sixth national award, having received the honor each year since 2005.
The award is the highest recognition possible for online curriculum from UCEA, a membership association that promotes excellence in continuing higher education. The competition judges courses from all colleges and universities nationwide, representing all disciplines. Online courses are judged on lesson content, assignments, student assessment, course layout, design, and the use of multi-media elements.
“Music Production Analysis is a visually engaging, beautifully designed, and masterfully constructed course. The instructional videos are stunning,” said Kay J. Kohl, Chief Executive Officer & Executive Director of UCEA.
“We’ve taught over 25,000 students from around the world, from arena rock stars and music industry executives to hobbyists and developing musicians, and everyone in between,” said David Kusek, VP of Berkleemusic. “We’ve been changing musician’s lives for the past 8 years, and it’s fantastic that UCEA has continued to recognize the depth and content of our online music courses.”
SoundCloud, with its unique waveform player, is a leading tool for artists to share original content online. The platform allows artists, labels, music professionals and other audio creators to upload, record, promote and share sound across the web. It also enables user feedback, download and play counts, and can enable sharing between friends, classmates or the whole world. With over three and a half million registered users, artists from every genre—including house, electronica, classical and jazz—use SoundCloud to preview and share music with fans and peers on a daily basis.
