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Maria Grever: The Most Famous Unknown Person You Know

 

Around two years ago, I discovered Maria Grever. She was a Mexican composer whose career started around the early to late 20s and continued up until her death in 1951. If you google her, you will find the same impressive stats. She composed around 800 songs (some places say 1000). Not only contemporary songs for the big movie houses – Paramount, MGM, Fox, but she wrote musicals, operas, and here’s where the light bulb will go off for some of you: She is the composer of “What a Difference a Day Makes”  Is your mind blown yet? Mine was. What a Difference a Day Makes is one of my favorite songs, so why didn’t I know a woman, a Mexican woman, had composed this song in 1934? And so I began a quest to learn everything I could about her.

It was very random how I happened upon Mrs. Grever. My son who at the time was two years old was Face-Timing, my mom, a lot during the pandemic. She was singing this lullaby whose melody was familiar to me, but I don’t ever remember singing it. My son has this crazy ability to retain melodies and lyrics, so I had to dig around the internet for the lyrics so I could sing them with him. I eventually found it, Te Quiero Dijiste aka Muñequita Linda – music and lyrics by Maria Grever. I remember being excited it was a woman, but Grever didn’t automatically say Latina to me. When I realized she was Mexican, I became obsessed. If you’ve been following along with my blogs, you’ll know that my parents immigrated from the Dominican Republic. So that whole, “If you can see it, you can be it?” Right there! A Latina in NYC with two kids in the early part of the 20th century. What a discovery!

So who was Maria Grever?

Maria Joaquina de la Portilla Torres was born in 1885. (You’ll find various dates online, but according to official sources and public records, this is the most accurate). She was half Spanish and half Mexican and spent most of her childhood traveling back and forth between Spain and Mexico. She was a child prodigy. It’s documented she wrote a simple Christmas carol at the age of four. Nothing official, but it showed she had talent from a young age. She studied with Claude Debussy and Franz Lehar; her parents were supportive of learning from the best. They were a wealthy family, so they had the means for her to travel. Once her father passed, the family moved permanently back to Mexico. Maria Joaquina was about 15 years old.

In 1907, she married Leon Grever, an American businessman, and they had four children, only two of which survived past childhood. Maria Grever was writing some music in Mexico, but in 1916, everything changed as she took her two children to New York City. Leon stayed behind for work. This is right in the middle of the Mexican Revolution, so you can imagine it was a difficult moment in history to travel. The Mexican Revolution was primarily a civil war, but the United States got involved. So there was a lot of tension between the U.S. and Mexico. Nevertheless, Maria Grever arrives in the big apple, an immigrant, a woman, and a single mom (sort of).

Remember this is 1916, women still didn’t have the right to vote. And even when they did in 1920, Maria Grever was still an immigrant. If you do some digging, her leaving Mexico is documented as having fled due to political instability during the Revolution. But New York City isn’t a random target as an artist – especially a talent like Maria Grever. You went to New York City because you want to make it here. Because that’s where Tin Pan Alley was. Because that’s where the record companies were. Because everything was happening here. There was no internet then; you had to be physically here. So as I began to research, I started to piece together so much more. I’ll get to that a little later.

For now, here are some more facts on Maria Grever

She started performing in NYC fairly quickly. The earliest Newspaper clipping I found was from 1919 in the New York Tribune. It’s a review of a performance at the Princess Theater.

Newspapers.com Spanish Soprano plays Recital

 

She’s getting her name out there, not really performing her music just yet, but as anyone who is a musician knows, the best way to get heard is to make a name for yourself. And that she did. According to a book written by Maria Luisa Rodriguez Lee titled Maria Grever: Poeta y Compositora, she was writing between 1920-25, but the manuscripts have been lost. The first song to really make international headway, is a bolero titled “Jurame” published by G. Schirmer in 1926. Getting your song published was a big deal back then, since sheet music ruled the industry. It was basically the MP3 or LP of the day.  The song gets picked up at a music shop by a famous Mexican tenor, Jose Mojica, and he releases his recording of the song in 1927 which fully establishes Maria Grever.

https://archive.org/details/78_jurame_jose-mojica-maria-grever_gbia0034799a]

From there she begins to get published with more frequency. She wrote “Cuando Vuelva A Tu Lado” in 1934 which was translated into English by Stanley Adams as “What A Difference A Day Makes.” This gets recorded by some of the biggest artists of the time – even artists like Bing Crosby

At this point, she joined ASCAP in 1935 and was a very active member according to newspaper clippings. Here she collaborated with some of the biggest lyricists of the day to translate her songs. Lyricists like Raymond Laveen. (Note just for translation! Maria Grever wrote all of her music AND lyrics!) Her biggest hit was “Ti pi Tin” released in 1938 translated into English by none other than Raymond Laveen.

 

 

It spent 6 weeks on Your Hit Parade which was that time’s Billboard Hot 100.

NYPL Horace Heidt sensation

Ti pi tin is actually fascinating because despite the success Maria Grever already had at that point, the publishers didn’t want to publish it. So Maria Grever created her own publishing company, Portilla Music publishing. What do you do when someone says no? You do it yourself. In the book by Rodriguez Lee Maria Grever is quoted as having said:

I had such a strong faith in the song, but the publishers thought I was crazy. I have been 20 years before an audience, and as a sensitive artist, I feel the vibrations of the public. I knew this song would be a success. So I published it myself (Lee 59)

Courtesy of New York Public Library. NBC Research Clipping Files, Maria Grever.

At this point, Maria Grever was everywhere. She’s sought out by the big movie houses and starts composing for them. She’s getting radio play all over the country.

Radio Transcripts

She’s performing at Carnegie Hall, and in 1941 she writes the music for a Broadway Musical called “Viva O’Brien” The producers spent something like $80,000 on this musical – which in inflation translates to $1.5 million, but the play bombed. It was not open for long. The only thing that didn’t bomb was the praise for the music.

The new and outstanding personality of the production appears to be Marie Grever who wrote the music… Her dance numbers are lively and original and I suspect you will be hearing a good deal from her songs. [New York Daily News October 10, 1941]

In 1944, her song, Te Quiero Dijiste, the lullaby I discovered, was picked up for a movie called Bathing Beauty starring Red Skelton and Ester Williams. The tune, renamed as Magic is the Moonlight, is used throughout the movie as the theme, not just a part of the soundtrack, and it was a commercial success. She translated songs for Cole Porter. She even developed a program to teach singers Spanish through song – helping them with their diction. Maria Grever really did it all.

Courtesy of New York Public Library. NBC Research Clipping Files, Maria Grever.

At the end of the 40s, she suffered a stroke which left her paralyzed on one side. She traveled to Mexico in 1949 to receive honors, the medal of Civil Merit, and the Medal of the Heart of Mexico. She remained active until her death in 1951 and in 1952 was declared Woman of the Americas by the Union of Women of the Americas. Mexico made a biopic about her in 1954 starring a very famous Latina actress of the time, Libertad Lamarque whose album in 1956 titled Libertad Lamarque “Canta Canciones de Maria Grever” or Songs of Maria Grever was a huge success. In 1959, Dinah Washington recorded her most famous cover of “What A Difference A Day Makes” and that earned a Grammy for Best R&B Performance that year. It was Washington’s first top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. Maria Grever also has a scholarship named after her in Mexico City.

But who was she really? What I learned through my research

As a person, Maria Grever is somewhat of a mystery. In working on her story for PRX’s Latino USA, I was able to locate her family which was in and of itself a journey to find a living relative who would have enough information to speak about her.

“She was sort of a mystery … But even then, comparing stories that my father understood with stories that my tio understood, there were either gaps or completely different stories,” Stuart Livingston

Stuart Livingston, her great-grandson, works in the music industry. He told me that the family lore was that a well-known group of entertainers came to Mexico and convinced her to move to New York City. This tiny piece of information regardless of documentation or not changes her trajectory quite a bit. In the early 20th century, it was known that people traveled to other countries to mine talent, so it is possible that it’s true. The Maria Grever narrative then becomes, an aspiring composer leaves for New York City with her kids to make it in the big apple. Regardless of if her husband supported her endeavors, or what kind of support he may have given her in the early years. Once she was in NYC, she did it alone.

“You know, she had left Mexico, she left her husband behind. She was a single mother in a time where that was certainly not who you were supposed to be. And she was pursuing a career which was not the perceived right way for a woman to act,” Stuart Livingston

Maria Grever never reunited with her husband. Stuart says it was clear there was a separation. And in my research of public records, they very clearly never lived together again. So for someone like Maria Grever to achieve everything you read above, imagine the hustle she had to do. There are newspaper clippings from The Brooklyn Daily Eagle which say “Maria Grever is the busiest woman in all New York.”

She had to be in order to survive because if you know New York City, it really hasn’t changed all that much and she had two kids to feed. This was 100 years ago, when wiring money wasn’t a thing. Where it would’ve been very difficult for Leon Grever to send her money. So it was up to her to make ends meet.

“She oftentimes sold her music as opposed to keeping ownership and collecting royalties. It was due to her genius that she was able to make it work” Stuart Livingston

Maria wrote so much music that is not tied to her name because she did buyouts. That is why the number you find across the internet is so vast. According to Stuart, they have only about one-seventh or one-tenth of her music in her catalog that collects royalties.  Nevertheless, it’s still an impressive body of work.

Her family is also quite impressive. Her son, Charles Grever, created Grever Music Publishing which became Grever International and housed a huge Mexican music catalog. It was because of the weight of Maria Grever’s name that they got that catalog. Her grandson, Bob Grever, was known as a Tejano music giant and was one of the biggest players in the Tejano music scene. He signed Selena Quintanilla when she was 12 years old (yes that Selena). His company, Cara Records, eventually joined Zomba records in the aughts, which was part of the powerhouse that brought you all your favorite boy bands – yes I mean Nsync, Backstreet Boys…oh yea and a young Britney Spears. Stuart Livingston was a partner of the label that took over the Fania records catalog, the Motown of salsa records. Her legacy and ear for music lives through them.

Why she is important

Maria Grever is important because she reminds us that women really can do anything. We all know how hard it is to work in the music industry today, and Maria Grever did what she did in a time when she had one sliver of the freedoms and rights we enjoy. She not only dealt with difficulties as a Mexican in New York but as a woman on top of that in an industry notoriously dominated by men. Men like Irving Berlin, Gershwin, Ernesto Lecuona from Cuba, and Carlos Gardel from Argentina. She was the first Latin American woman to receive international acclaim in the early part of the 20th century. We need to see people like her – people who have an accent, who left home, and who became one of the top composers of her time. Maria Grever’s story needs to continue to be told, and the only way that’s done is by keeping it present through the generations. If the stories of men in this business throughout history can be told, then we can certainly find the space to continue to keep Maria Grever’s legacy alive.

Working on this story connected a lot of dots for me. When I first moved here, I was doing a lot of archiving and restoration. So one of the first places I went to piece together her story was my old boss. He specializes in really old restoration projects – analog tape,  lacquer discs, even metal discs. We had conversations about RCA/Victor, how the old recording industry worked, the classical music industry at the time, and what it was like at the beginning of the 20th century in NYC. And that wasn’t the end of my overlap. Towards the end of my production, I was looking for permissions for a song that ended up being owned by Sony/BMG. The song was on this album that my husband found a mint condition LP of (because he’s really good at finding that sort of thing).

A lot of Maria Grever’s catalog is owned by Universal Music Group (all of that is searchable through ASCAP or on allmusic.com), but this particular version of the song, “Cuando Vuelva A Tu Lado” was not. I started checking out the liner notes and details and realized it was RCA/Victor, and I had a vague memory of it becoming part of Sony. So I called up my old boss because we used to do (and he still does) tons of projects with Sony. And the person we used to interface with was in the department that works with licensing! When I emailed he had said he had recently wondered what I was up to, so it was a pretty big full-circle moment. It just goes to show that you really never know where you’ll end up. Sometimes it’s not the job you thought you’d end up doing, but you have to trust that in the end, the dots will connect.

Working on the Maria Grever story was so much more than just telling her story; it was an opportunity to really pull all of the pieces of everything I’ve worked on since I arrived in NYC together. As a mom in New York City, who oftentimes feels overwhelmed in this industry, it made me feel super proud to see another Latina who may have walked the same streets I have. I saw her running around to sell her sheet music, trying to get published, trying to have someone hear her out.

I’m so thrilled to share her with you. You can read more about her life in Maria Grever: Poeta y Compositora by Maria Luisa Rodriguez Lee. And I encourage you to check out the podcast on latinousa.org and hear from her family, more about her life and her legacy.

 

Audio Education – That Doesn’t Break The Bank

I’d love to go back to school for audio, but I owe a lot of money to the federal government. Okay fine, it’s student loan debt. For a long time, I felt like that huge and haunting sum meant that I could never pursue an education beyond the degrees I already hold. Debt, lack of funds, an overabundance of responsibilities: they all present very real barriers for many of us wishing to acquire new skills. But we can access the internet. And thanks to some incredible free and low-cost organizations that exist to empower women/gender non-conforming folks and allies in the recording industry, I have been learning to competently record and mix music for myself and others, no FAFSA needed.

Women-led organizations

 

Women’s Audio Mission

Women’s Audio Mission (WAM) was the first resource I encountered when I began looking to grow my skills in audio, and it remains dear to me. A nonprofit based in San Francisco/Oakland founded by Terri Winston, WAM offers courses, internships, an afterschool program called “Girls on the Mic,” recording/mixing/mastering services at their women-owned and run studio, and more. I’ve studied all of their on-demand online curriculum, from the science-based SoundChannel content to their YouTube channel WAM Everywhere. Most of the gear that I own I’ve purchased upon their recommendation. The virtual and in-person conferences I’ve attended have introduced me to new perspectives and, in some cases, new-to-me creative fields within audio. Perhaps more importantly, they’ve introduced me to others with similar goals who have become both friends and collaborators since. There is a small annual fee associated with membership, but it’s more akin to the cost of a t-shirt than a textbook, and the perks more than justify the expense.

Omni Sound Project

After having taken classes through WAM, Lisa Machac became inspired to form a community for women+ in Austin, TX, where she lives, and Omni Sound Project was born. The pandemic brought that effort to the virtual sphere, and they now host online one-hour Intro Courses as well as three-hour Workshops. They also offer Signal Gain, a week-long event held in November consisting of panel discussions and other learning opportunities. Omni Sound Project’s classes and events are either no cost or inexpensive, and membership itself is free. Additionally, course attendance may even bring you into possession of a fine piece of equipment courtesy of an Omni sponsor — I myself have been the recipient of a Lauten LA-220 microphone, which I treasure. The real gift at Omni, though, is the highly approachable and experienced faculty. I’m proud to say that one core faculty member, Jam Phelps, has both mixed songs for me and mentored me as I’ve been learning to mix on my own.

Mix Like a Girl

Other than Jam, I have found an excellent mix mentor in Mix Like a Girl founder Caridad Espinosa. During periodic and affordable hour-long sessions with Caridad, I have learned what to listen for in a mix and how to improve the quality of my own recordings through her honest, specific feedback. In addition to private lessons, Mix Like a Girl has offered group courses, including their Summer Boot Camp, Vocal Production Course, and The Art of Film Scoring and Post. They are currently working on a comprehensive guide, created entirely by women, that will explain recording, mixing, beat making, and mastering in beginner-friendly terms.

SoundGirls

It would be ridiculous to write a blog about affordable education in audio in which I don’t mention the very organization I’m blogging for: SoundGirls, co-founded by Karrie Keyes and Michelle Sabolchick Pettinato! You need only click around a bit to see what an amazing resource SoundGirls is, from its newsletter to its virtual conference to articles my fellow bloggers contribute to this website. Really, that just scratches the surface of what it offers. There is so much more. And if you’re reading this but hesitating to commit to membership, there’s no need — it’s free!

Editors Note – Michelle Sabolchick Pettinatio has developed an online course Mixing Music Live and SoundGirls members received 50% off, email us for a discount code. soundgirls@soundgirls.org

This is by no means a comprehensive list, but it’s a worthy start. At the very least, it’s a bit of direction in the rudderless realm of the internet. At best you’ll embark upon a path, follow it with ever-increasing satisfaction, and look back to see that each step has brought you where you’ve always wanted to go: into mastery and the arms of an affirming audio community. And with far less debt.

You can find more options for audio education here

Breaks are Important

 

When the events industry finally reopened last August and work came flooding in, I found it very hard to say no to anything. Although I already know that I am not a person who can work for weeks straight without any time for myself, and am usually very careful about that, it was very tempting to try and build my bank account back up as quickly as possible by pushing myself as far as I could go. As freelancers, we are responsible for our own schedules, and no one but ourselves is going to step in and say hey, maybe taking all that on isn’t a great idea. The instability caused by the various COVID variants circulating also made it extra tempting to overbook myself and say yes to everything – it was unclear many of those shows would end up actually happening.

I have coworkers who go weeks or months without a single day off, but I already know that working like that is simply not sustainable for me. The short-term benefits would not outweigh the massive burnout I would end up feeling.

The strategies I have found that work best for preserving some time for myself when working are the following

I’ve started putting days off into my calendar in the same way that I put workdays. Sometimes I list them a specific activity like ERRAND DAY, sometimes I just leave it as DAY OFF. Having it in writing makes me less likely to change it. 

I’ve been in this industry long enough to know that in regular times, I need time to recharge after working 5 days straight. When scheduling work, I try not to go past blocks of 4-5 days on, 1 day off, or 6-2 at most. Obviously, this isn’t a hard-and-fast rule, but it also helps me mentally to know I am planning some breathing room into my schedule if it’s a really busy month.

I’ve often felt conflicted and reluctant about blocking off time for vacations, family events, etc. far in advance when I don’t know what my work opportunities for that time period look like yet. But in the scheme of things, there will always be more shows, there will always be more opportunities, and it won’t be the end of the world if I miss one. 

As I said above, the rules I have for myself aren’t unbreakable. But for me, it helps to have a clear reason why I am going to push myself beyond what is healthy for me. Maybe there’s a show I really, really want to work on that extends a string of shows from six days to seven. Maybe my venue is offering overtime when it usually doesn’t, and I want to take advantage of that. Maybe it’s an opportunity with a new company that I can’t pass up. Maybe I need the money. Knowing that there is a concrete reason I am overworking myself and that it is only temporary helps me stay focused and get through the work at hand.

 

An Introduction to Classical Music Production

Many classical musicians have been dedicated to their craft since childhood: they’ve spent thousands of hours perfecting their playing technique, studying theory and harmony and history of music, taking lessons with awe-inspiring (and occasionally fear-inducing) professors, and developing a richness of sound that can fluctuate deftly between dramatic passion and subtle nuance, to make even the most hardened of hearts shed a tear of emotion at such sonic beauty! How do we capture in audio the complex compositions of classical music and the natural resonance of these acoustic instruments, and do justice to the sound that classical musicians and singers have worked so hard to create? Goodbye overdubs and hardcore effects processing: classical music recording and production is generally all about finding the most flattering acoustic space to record in, and capturing the musical instrument or voice in a way that best brings out its natural sonic qualities.

Recording session with chamber music ensemble Duo Otero.

Pre-production

One of the most important aspects when planning a classical music recording is finding a space with acoustics that will cradle the music in a glorious bath of reverb – not too much and not too little. When recording many other genres, we’re often striving for a dry-as-a-bone, deadened studio acoustic that will give us the most control over the sound so we can shape it later. Classical music, on the other hand, doesn’t require overdubbing, and so it’s in our best interest to record it in a nice-sounding space. For example, when listening to a live choral performance, isn’t the experience made so much better by those epic cathedral echoes? We also need to find a quiet place without too much external noise – there’s nothing more annoying than having to stop recording five times because five fire trucks have decided to pass by just at that moment! It’s important to do some research on the instruments and the music to be recorded, to be able to prepare an appropriate recording setup. Whether it’s a solo instrumentalist or a full opera production with orchestra will affect our choice and placement of the microphones, and the number of inputs needed.

Recording

Our aim is to capture a performer or ensemble playing together in a great-sounding acoustic – so the workflow is more linear or horizontal than it is vertical. We’re not overdubbing and layering new sounds on top, but we can capture several takes of the same music and then join the best takes together until we have the whole piece, so it sounds like one performance. Because of this way of working, it’s essential that the performer is as well-prepared as they can be, as we can’t make detailed corrections of pitch or timing as we can in other genre recordings (autotune is a no-no!). As we’re recording natural acoustic sounds that can’t be “fixed in the mix” (did I mention no autotune?), it’s important to choose microphones and pre-amps that will do an excellent job of capturing that audio faithfully without colouring the sound too strongly. When placing microphones, we should think about how and where the sound of an instrument is generated, and how it resonates in the acoustic space. A common basic technique is to use a stereo pair of microphones to capture a musician or a whole ensemble within its acoustic, and then to add “spot mics” – microphones placed closer to individual instruments – to capture more details. If there’s the luxury of an abundance of microphones, we might sometimes add an extra pair of microphones even further away from the sound source to capture more of the acoustic space, and then we can blend all of these microphones together, to taste.

Post-production

Mixing classical music usually involves finding a pleasing balance between the recorded channels (for example, the stereo pair, spot mics, and ambient mics), applying suitable panning, noise reduction, and light EQ, and limiting as necessary (perhaps compression for overly-excited percussion or other highly dynamic instruments). If it’s a large ensemble recording, we might use automation to bring up solo parts if they are shy and need a little help, or to highlight interesting musical details and textures. Often using a touch of digital reverb can add a smooth and satisfying sheen. Especially if a perfect-sounding recording space is just not available (it often happens): some epic digital reverb can help to glow up a flat and boring-sounding space.

Aside from live concert recordings, a lot of classical music post-production lies in the editing: often there’ll be several takes of the same material, and the challenge is to select the best performances and stitch it all together in a seamless way so that the transitions can’t be heard – while maintaining the original energy and pacing of the performance, and not going overboard on crazily detailed editing, as that’s kind of cheating (see TwoSetViolin’s hilarious video 1% Violin Skills 99% Editing Skills)! It is an advantage – and probably essential in some situations – to be able to read music scores. It’s really helpful to follow the score as the musicians are playing, to write notes on the best (and worst) takes, to guide them and suggest what they might like to repeat, change or improve, and to make sure that all parts of a piece have been recorded.

In summary

The world of classical music production is an exciting space where audio engineers, producers, and musicians collaborate closely together to immortalise wonderful compositions in audio so that a wider audience can hear and enjoy them. If you’d like to get into classical music production, there’s no better way than to learn by jumping in and practising doing lots of recordings – try different mics and positions in different acoustic spaces, listen to lots of classical music recordings, read up on the different instruments, and use your ears as your most important tool. You’ll soon be Bach for more!

 

 

2022 Leading Women in Audio

The Sound of Strength Conference

On a surprisingly mild February weekend, I attended the 2022 Leading Women in Audio (LWIA) conference at Elon University in Elon, NC.  The theme for this year was The Sound of Strength focusing on the voices that one can hear in performances and the silent voices that create the art.  In the current era of COVID-19, this conference was held as a hybrid event of in-person panels and live-streamed attendance options.  Panels and presentations were recorded for future viewing opportunities.

In changing the face of audio, the LWIA conference focused on High School and College students.  Students were invited to attend a studio tour, a conference dinner added to the ample networking opportunities for presenters and students to mingle, and there were panels for alumni and early career professionals to bridge the gap between dreams and starting out in audio.  In the past I have attended student-centric summits while enrolled in college, but this time I went as a guest of Christa Giammattei, both a presenter and vendor at the conference, to help out her Command + S Apparel booth.

Sabrina Smith, a sophomore from Elon University, who volunteered as the Public Relations Director for the conference, helped me gain insight into the event.  While it was also her first time attending the event, this is the LWIA’s 4th year.  Smith noted that it’s empowering to bring a variety of women in demographics and industry together to push through the stereotypes and to see what we are capable of in highlighting our contributions.  The panels that caught Smith’s eye were Jasmine Battle’s “DJ Techniques” and Marcella Araica’s “Mixing Vocals.”  Networking was also important to Smith, both with peers and panelists.  In the future Smith wants to DJ and to give back to her local community in Charlotte, NC.  Just like the people she grew up with, Smith wants to show people there’s always a way for you to belong.

In many of the conferences I have attended before (the exception of the SoundGirls conference) the only all-women panel was also the token diversity panel.  At LWIA the “Diversity, Equity & Inclusion” panel was less about how hard it is to be a woman in the Audio Industry, but instead how to thrive in a positive environment.  The entire career arc was covered from having a day job and leaving a toxic workplace, to defining success and avoiding burnout.  However few work alone and as panelist leader, Aurelia Belfield stressed, “You heard of the boys club?  Make a new club.”  There’s plenty of work to go around, recommend your peers who are better for a certain job.  Have each others’ backs, our failures, and successes happen as a team.  LWIA gave me lots of hope for the future of Audio.  We are in this together, let’s help each other up.

An Introduction to Sync Licensing

As a musician, you have most likely become aware of the word “sync”. Perhaps you have researched and feel you have a pretty good understanding of the basics. Maybe you’ve even had sync placements. This blog is going to cover the basics for those who are just hearing the term, but more importantly, I want to help you figure out if sync is for you. In my opinion, there are two clear pathways for a musician to take when it comes to seeking out sync licensing opportunities. Hopefully, this will help you determine if one of those paths is right for you.

First, some definitions

Sync is short for “synchronization” or “synchronization licensing” which is referring to the license music creators need to give to folks who want to “synchronize” video of any kind to recorded music.

Music Supervisor is the person who chooses music for every moment of a film or show. Sometimes the composer and the supe are the same person (lower budget films, usually)

A Music Library is like a library of music. People searching for music can search the database, filtered by various features, such as mood, tempo, genre, female vocal, male vocal, instrumental, and so on.

A Sync Agent is a person (can be independent or work for an agency) that is like the go-between for music supes and musicians. They will often take a cut of the sync fee and might also work in a percentage of the master use.

Production Music is the common term used for “background music”, but may have vocals. Music libraries will often compile “albums” of production music by theme, a specific mood or genre, etc. The licensing is already handled with the creator, which makes it much easier for music supes to quickly select a song without having to wait for agreements, approvals, etc.

What are “songs” that “work for sync”?

When music supervisors are looking for music, they are looking for a certain type of energy, a mood, a feeling. Surprisingly, a good sync song may not necessarily be a “hit” song and a “hit” song may not necessarily work for sync. Once in a while, a hit song is also a great sync song, but that is not the norm. Either way, when the perfect song is found for a particular scene or ad, magic can happen.

The best way to really understand what sync is all about is to do a little observation exercise. You are simply going to observe your normal day of Netflix watching or whatever way you watch your shows. Only today, pay attention to the music being played in conjunction with whatever you are watching. Whether it be a movie, a documentary, a reality show, a TV show from the ’80s, pay attention to the music. How many snippets of songs do you hear in each episode? Do any of the songs sound like “radio” songs? How many are instrumentals? Now, what about the ads? I don’t watch regular TV anymore but I do have a few shows that I love to watch on YouTube. So I still see ads quite regularly. How about you? What kind of music are you hearing in the ads?

Every piece of music you heard was composed, written, performed by a person or people. Each piece of music supposedly has a proper license. A cue sheet was also submitted to a songwriting organization so that the songwriters and publishers can be paid a royalty. The value of that piece of music varies from a penny to hundreds of thousands of dollars and everything in between. The amount paid is based on numerous factors; is it background or under dialog, is it playing on the radio or jukebox on screen, is it with vocals, without vocals, how much of the song is played, where in the film, such as opening credits, montage scene, etc., and is it a well-known song or major artist or an indie? Sooooo many factors play into the “value” of that placement. Some songs are paid an upfront sync fee in addition to the songwriting/publishing royalties. Some are not. Some of the songs (especially background, instrumental music) are composed by someone who might work directly for the company creating the show/movie, or the composer may work for the publisher or library that licensed the music. It’s a complex biz.

So, what about the two paths?

I landed my first sync placement back in 2006 ish and it was sort of a fluke. The long story short is that a co-writer/co-producer and I wrote the song specifically for a small, independent film after reading the film synopsis. The song made it into the movie, which aired on ABC Family (and is still streamed regularly on a variety of platforms). Then we shopped it to some music libraries and a music publisher. One of the libraries secured multiple placements for that song, plus several other songs we had already written. In recent years, I’ve tried to dive deeper into creating specifically for sync but seem to have no time for that. I’ve become crazy busy as a full-time music producer for artists. This has helped me clearly see the two paths.

Path one: you are a creator of hundreds of songs, beats, tracks and are pitching almost as much as you are creating. In this path, it is a numbers game. It’s all about quantity. The more “content” you have, the better your chances of getting a sync placement. This scenario is ideal for you if you;

On this path, you can start out by pitching to music libraries but the ultimate goal will be to network to the point where you are receiving briefs from sync agents and production companies directly. This path can take a lot of time before you begin to see the fruits of your labor. Time is needed to make connections, to find good collaborators, and to earn the trust of sync agents and libraries.

Path two: you are an artist who is focusing on building your artistic brand, creating songs that connect with your fan base, creating music that you love and intend on performing. OR you are like me and love producing with and for artists to help them build their career as artists. This path is ideal for you if you:

If this is the path for you, pitching to a sync agent or a manager or producer who has connections to sync agents or music supervisors may be your best bet. If your genre is very current, it may have a short shelf life so get going on that pitching asap. This path requires that you focus on the main goal (building your music business as an artist and/or producer) and perhaps spend a few hours a week on pitching, emails, metadata, and contracts.

If you are on path two, you can try your hand at creating a song or two that are “you” as an artist and could be released on an album or as a single but would also work for sync. There’s nothing wrong with that approach! How do you know if your song would work for sync? Remember the statement above about songs for sync needing to capture a mood, etc? This is very important. What is also important is that there are no lyrics that are about a specific time, location, person, etc. Once in a while, a song with specific lyrics can work perfectly for a scene but it’s better to keep the lyrics “generic” enough to increase your chances for placement. Generic doesn’t mean boring! This is the actual struggle! Writing lyrics that are genuine, interesting, engaging but not specific is actually the hardest part.

Important Companies, Contacts and Resources:

If you are wondering if your songs are “sync ready”, I’m happy to give them a listen and throw my opinion at you. 😉 Send me up to 3 songs and put “Sync Songs?” in the subject line, to becky@voxfoxproductions.com

 

Shop Prep 101

 

One of the biggest things I had to learn about when I moved from working in regional theatre to working in NYC was the process of shop prep (also called “shop build” or just “build”). It’s a phase of the production process that is kind of particular and unique to doing theatre here, and there is a lot to learn and money to be made doing this kind of work. Almost everyone who works as an A1, A2, or audio stagehand in NYC takes shop calls from time to time, sometimes for shows that they are mixing or A2ing, and sometimes as an additional hand on another show’s shop prep. It’s not uncommon for a sound stagehand to be building one show during the day and running another one at night (though “double-dipping” like this can get exhausting quickly). So, for this blog, I thought I would provide some basic information about shops and shop prep: what it is, who will be there, what goes on there, and a few other things that I wish I had known before showing up more or less clueless at my first shop build in January of 2019.

Part 1: Definitions

What is shop prep?

Shop prep is the part of the production process where all the audio gear that the designer has specified for the show is assembled, labeled, and tested. It takes place before the load-in period, and the goal is to get the sound design package ready to be installed in the theatre.

Why do NYC shows do shop preps?

Unlike most regional theatres, Broadway (and many off-Broadway) houses do not own any gear of their own. Everything the show needs from every department is brought in on a per-show basis and spec’d by the respective designers, especially for use on that show. Rather than purchase expensive new gear for every new Broadway show that comes to town, practically all the audio gear (including cable) is rented from one of the 3 major NYC-area audio rental shops for a weekly fee that is paid to the shop by the producers. Prior to shop prep, the sound designer, production manager, and producers will often go through a bidding process to see which of these 3 shops can fulfill the order closest to what the designer wants and what the producers have budgeted for.

Does every show do a shop prep?

With very few exceptions, every Broadway show and most touring shows will do a shop prep process. Many Off-Broadway shows do a shop prep as well, though some own enough gear that the sound designer can put together the desired system using the venue’s “rep system” or gear that the venue already owns. Some regional productions will also do a shop prep, particularly if the show that they are mounting is a “pre-Broadway Tryout” aka a show doing a run out of town before hopefully moving to NYC. In both Off-Broadway and regional theatre, sometimes a venue’s existing gear will be supplemented by a shop rental, which may or may not be complex enough for the show to need to send a team of workers for a proper shop prep. This is often the case for venues that do mostly plays and therefore might not own the gear that they need for musicals, such as a large-format mixing console and wireless microphones.

What are the “Big 3” shops, and where are they located?

The “Big 3” shops that supply the audio gear for most Broadway and Off-Broadway shows are Masque Sound, Production Resource Group (PRG), and Sound Associates Inc (SAI). Masque and PRG are both in northern New Jersey, and Sound Associates is in Yonkers, NY, just north of The Bronx.

Part 2: Know Before You Go

Ok, I’ve booked my first ever shop prep! Where is the shop and how do I get there?

DISCLAIMER: this travel information is current as of March 2022, so check with a knowledgeable friend in case things have changed since then!

Masque Sound

Address: 21 E Union Ave, East Rutherford, NJ 07073

How to get there from NYC: If you don’t have a car (or a friend with a car), the NJTransit 163 bus from Port Authority Bus Terminal is the easiest way to get there. The bus lets out right by the Staples store on Union Avenue in East Rutherford, and the shop is just down the street from there.

IMPORTANT NOTE: for the morning commute, not every 163 Bus stops at the Staples! You must be on the one that leaves at either 7:40 am or 8:10 am. Look for other sound folks with Pelican cases at the bus station, and they will help you get to the right place.

How to get back: The bus is also an option for returning to NYC, but it’s much easier to walk to the East Rutherford train station and take the train to Secaucus. From there you can transfer to a train to Penn Station.

PRG

Address: 915 Secaucus Rd, Secaucus, NJ 07094

How to get there from NYC: Take the NJTransit 129 bus from Port Authority, Gate 314. You’ll want to make the 7:50 am bus if your build starts at 8:30 am. The bus stops right outside of PRG!

How to get back: The same bus will take you back to Port Authority from the same stop where you got off. But check the schedule because if you miss it the next one might not be for a while!

Sound Associates

Address: 979 Saw Mill River Rd, Yonkers, NY 10710

How to get there from NYC: A friend with a car will be your best bet here. Often shows will rent a car for the Production Audio to get to the build, so reach out and see if you can ride with them. There is a Metro-North train that goes from Grand Central Station to Yonkers (also you can take the subway most of the way there), but neither of these options leaves you within reasonable walking distance, so you will still have to take a cab or rideshare from there to the shop.

IMPORTANT NOTE: if you are driving to SAI from NYC, put “Star Auto Spa” (999 Saw Mill River Rd, Yonkers, NY 10710) in your GPS, not Sound Associates itself! The shop is literally right next to exit 9 on the northbound side of the Saw Mill River Parkway, but you must get off one exit earlier (at Exit 7 – Tuckahoe Rd) to actually get there. Otherwise, you will arrive at the off-ramp for exit 9 only to find that you are on the wrong side of the fence, and Google/Waze will think you have arrived at your destination when in fact you’ve gone too far.

IMPORTANT NOTE WHEN TRAVELING TO ANY OF THE SHOPS: many productions (particularly Off-Broadway) will reimburse your travel costs, so ask your Production Audio if this is the case on your show, and be sure to save your tickets and receipts!

Who all will be there?

On the show side, your team will likely consist of some combination of these people:

On the shop side, your main players are

What tools should I bring?

Most of what you need can be provided either by the production or by your fellow shop hands, so definitely don’t feel like you have to go spend all your money on nice tools before you’ve even gotten your first shop paycheck! That said, once you do a few builds you may find it nice to have your own tools for certain tasks. A great way to carry them is in a Pelican case, and you will see many sound folks bringing theirs into the zone on the first day of a build. But do whatever works for you and your budget. Perishables such as tape, tie line, and zip ties will be purchased by the production; there is no need to bring your own.

Here is a list of the tools and other accessories that I like to have on hand for shop use: screw gun (plus a variety of bits); multi-tool; crappy knife for cutting electrical tape without gunking up your good knife; good knife for non-electrical tape jobs; tape measure; crescent wrench,; headlamp; flush cutters for cutting zip ties; scissors; screwdriver; a good pair of work gloves; Allen keys; jeweler’s screwdrivers or other precision bit set; pens/pencils, P-Touch label maker; cable tester; BNC tool; and my personal favorite: knee pads (for when you’re stuck on the ground building a rack or holding something).

 

Here’s the inside of my Pelican case with most of the above-mentioned tools in it! My label-maker is in the red bag off to the side.

 

Part 3: Let’s Get to Work

Ok I’m at the shop! Now what?

Rather than describe the tasks of shop prep based on how much time they take, I find it helpful to think of the prep process in phases. Shop preps can vary drastically in duration, depending on the show’s budget, how big the rental package is, and how many crew members are available. Typically, a Broadway show or 1st national tour will spend 3-4 weeks in the shop, but some builds may go for even longer if there is a lot of specialty equipment and assembly needs. Smaller Broadway shows and off-Broadway shows might spend between 2 days and 2 weeks in shop prep, so it totally depends. But in most cases, there are some universal tasks that will need to be done, and usually, they go in this order:

Phase 1: Bundling, Labeling, Rack Building

When you arrive in your zone on the first day of your show’s prep, you will likely find a smattering of gear, some empty rack boxes, and lots of cable. To make the load-in process smoother and more efficient, a set of cables that runs from point A to point B (for example, from ampland to front of house) will be loomed together into a bundle. Every single cable will have a specific label, and most designers (or associate designers) will include spare runs for anything fragile like network and video cables. XLR runs will typically be done using G-block multi-cables, which come in varieties from 3-pair all the way up to 19-pair. The associate designer will have put together some version of a piece of paperwork called a “bundle sheet” which tells you the name of the bundle, what cables go in it, and, very importantly, which ends need to be grouped together so that no cable is run backwards! The associate designer will also sometimes generate cable labels using a database program such as FileMaker Pro. Many production audio people and associate designers have spent years putting together their databases to make this process easier for themselves and to avoid having to start from scratch on every new production they do.

A new-ish development in post-pandemic shop work is that show build crews are often doing the actual bundling of cables themselves. Some shows may pay to have the shops do the bundling for them, but this has not been the norm in 2022 in my personal experience. The act of bundling is done by flagging all the ends that begin at one origin (such as ampland) with colored gaff tape, then wrapping friction tape around the entire “girth” of the cable bundle every 3-ish feet, so that all the cables in the bundle can then be easily coiled up and run out together as though they were one very thick cable. It’s gonna feel like major “arm day” by the time you’re done, so prepare yourself. I personally recommend wearing long sleeves and gloves for when you’re laying out 250’ of cable and inevitably getting various dirt and schmutz all over yourself!

Here are some of the completed bundles for the Broadway production of “A Strange Loop.” This is a relatively small Broadway musical, but it still had 70+ bundles!

 

In most cases, the ends of a bundle will find themselves getting plugged into racks. Racks of gear will be designed on a per-show basis by the designer and associate designer and be articulated in a series of rack drawings. These can be made in software such as Vectorworks, Excel, OmniGraffle, or sometimes just sketched out by hand in a pinch.

Building racks means wrangling up all the gear that goes into that rack, screwing it into the slots where the drawing indicates that it should go, then elegantly labeling, running, and connecting the gear’s power supply (if applicable) and short cables known as interconnects that go between the front of the rack (where most of the gear is) and the back of the rack. On the rear side of the rack, you will usually add some sort of panel mount or Stek (brand name) panel with connector barrels on it that merge the bundle ends to the interconnect ends. That way once the crew in the theatre gets the bundles, all they have to do is plug the labeled ends into the back of the rack at the labeled ports without having to dig around inside the rack to find the right port for each connection.

“L: the rack drawing for the Deck Automation rack for the Broadway production of “A Strange Loop”. C&R: the finished rack viewed from front and rear! Rack drawing by Sam Schloegel.”

 

Phase 2: Testing

Once most of your racks and bundles are built, it’s time to move on to testing! Basically, this will involve setting up a mock layout of your show’s ampland in your prep bay, then running out all your bundles between ampland, Front of House, and the other various rack locations. Simultaneously, your A1 will likely be setting up a mock-up of the mix position, both building FOH racks and setting up the basic console file. Just about everything in your bay should be tested before being brought to the theatre in as close to “show conditions” as you can get it. So, for example, to test the conductor camera, you will plug it in near your mock band area, run the bundle that goes between it and ampland, run out any other bundles out from ampland that carry the conductor image to its various destinations, then plug in every video monitor to make sure you see the image. To keep things neat and clear, a common trick when testing cameras is to stick a post-it in front of the lens labeled with what the shot should be, that way when you have 4 monitors all next to each other you can easily diagnose which camera is “MD” vs “FOH IR” vs “LADDER 3” etc. Additionally, all wired inputs, band mics, monitor mixers such as Avioms, wired and wireless com, and program feed sends will be tested, plus any other equipment that is pertinent to your show’s design.

 

A big stack of com racks for tech rehearsals all ready to be tested!

 

Phase 3: Packing and Pushing

Finally, your build is coming to an end, and it is time to prepare the gear to be transported to the theatre for load-in! Racks will get packed into foam-lined rack surrounds with wheels so that nothing gets damaged on the journey. Hardware, such as mic stands and speaker yokes will usually get packed into gray road cases known simply as “greys.” Cable will get packed into road cases. Then your Production Audio will advise on where everything should be packed so that each road case can get pushed to the most relevant location upon arrival at the venue, and you aren’t carrying cable from one location to another excessively. Every box will have a box label with a box number, the contents of what’s in the box, and, for large shows, which truck the box goes on. This also helps streamline the load-in process so that things you need first, such as feeder cable, arrive before things you don’t need until later, such as spare cable.

Depending on the shop schedule, the shop may ask you to leave your boxes packed and labeled in your prep bay, or you may push them to the loading dock yourself before leaving on your last day. Whatever the case is, hopefully, you have set the show up for success so that when the truck arrives for the first day of load-in everything is ready to go!

 

Truck 3 for the Broadway production of “A Strange Loop” is lined up at the dock and ready to get packed!

 

I hope this article will help you feel less overwhelmed than I did at my first shop prep! Please feel free to reach out with any additional questions you have about this process. If there is interest, I would be happy to dive deeper into any aspect of shop prep in a future blog entry.

 

Mixing Music Live Course Discount

Looking for a quick start in Live Sound? Need to improve your mixing skills? Check out MixingMusicLive.com Created by veteran concert sound engineer and Soundgirls.org co-founder Michelle Sabolchick Pettinato, MixingMusicLive.com offers online video courses where you’ll learn the fundamentals of live sound with Mixing Music Live and real-world techniques for creating great-sounding mixes with LISTEN!

Soundgirls members receive a 50% discount email us for the discount soundgirls@soundgirls.org

Mixing Music Live course:

Mixing Music Live is an intro to live sound and mixing. Through this online video course, you’ll learn the fundamentals like signal flow, gain structure, microphones, dynamics, and effects, how to set up and operate a soundboard, and much more.  Created by veteran concert sound engineer and Soundgirls.org co-founder Michelle Sabolchick Pettinato, MML will teach you the essentials you need to get out there and start mixing live sound. Find out more here:

https://www.mixingmusiclive.com/mixing-music-live-course

SoundGirls members receive a 50% discount on courses email us for a discount at soundgirls@soundgirls.org

LISTEN!

Learn how to create great sounding mixes with LISTEN! Created by veteran sound engineer and Soundgirls.org co-founder Michelle Sabolchick Pettinato, LISTEN! is an online video course that teaches Michelle’s proprietary HIT production process.  You’ll learn how to really hear what’s going on with your mix, how to identify what needs to be adjusted in the mix, and how to tweak it to get the professional results you want.  Find out more here: https://www.mixingmusiclive.com/listen

SoundGirls members receive a 50% discount on courses email us for a discount at soundgirls@soundgirls.org

FIX THE MIX

SoundGirls, together with other leading music industry organizations (We are Moving the Needle, shesaid.so, and Change the Conversation is launching FIX THE MIX, an initiative that seeks to streamline the process of finding and connecting with recording industry professionals who identify women and GNC.

To enable this connection, Jaxsta, the platform powering FIX THE MIX, pledges to prioritize the inclusion of gender pronoun identifiers as well as foster opportunities aimed at creating parity. Jaxsta is the world’s only official music credits database, home to more than 220 million credits by 13 million creatives: producers, songwriters, engineers, artists, and musicians. Those creators who identify as women or non-binary are encouraged to claim their Jaxsta profiles and add their pronouns. All recording professionals who are credited on released music automatically have a Jaxsta profile compiled from metadata that is sourced from Jaxsta’s official Data Partners (Record Labels, Distributors, Publishers, The Recording Academy, RIAA, and more).

Jaxsta will be the first music industry credits database of its kind with gender identifiers, through which the industry will be able to search and connect with engineers, producers, mixers, and songwriters who are women or non-binary. FIX THE MIX is hopeful that this resource will lead to increased work opportunities for SoundGirls.

We recommend you search and claim your profile on the world’s ONLY official music credits database, Jaxsta.com. It’s FREE to claim and verify your profile. If you have been a part of creating music that has been released, you will already have a Jaxsta profile in the database. Once you have claimed your profile you can add a link to SoundGirls as well on your profile.

If you search for yourself and find multiple profiles in your name or variations of your name, simply email support@jaxsta.com and their friendly team will merge them for you. If your credits are missing or incorrect you can fill out a support ticket to resolve the issues and If you do not have credits YET,  sign up here. Jaxtsa will be in touch when they can enable you to publish yourself for opportunities.

As part of the FIX THE MIX launch, Jaxsta’s CEO and Co-Founder, Jacqui Louez Shoorl, is offering a limited-time offer to all SoundGirls members.

Use code FIXTHEMIX2022 for SIX MONTHS FREE access. More details here

Join the movement and together we will FIX THE MIX!

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