Gabriel Messuti

Last Thursday I was invited by a mentor, to attend a panel which was featured at the CMJ 09 Music Marathon & Film Festival (CMJ.com if your interested). 

 

PANEL DETAILS:

 

Life As A Modern Day Professional (Really Professional) Producer   

The roll of "The Producer" has changed greatly.  More records are being made with less budgets.  Grammy winning producers are staying busy but in different ways.  This top-tier panel (Camus Celli, Kato Khandwalla, Janice Brown, Mike Watts and Tony Black) discussed the current state of affairs concerning modern music production. This hour and fifteen minute discussion took place in Room 905 / 907 at NYU’s Kimmel Center (located at 60 Washington Square S.) on Thursday, October 22nd at 12:30pm.

 My interest in attending this panel stemmed from a few questions. How can you get a check off of this music business today? Are these guys really going to share how to cash a check off the music business today? These are highly decorated producers, engineers, and/or musicians, I couldn't wait to hear their secrets! My secondary questions were work flow, where the project/money was coming from, and how the record was being made, down to sales and marketing. Here is my summary of what I got out of it...  

 

So what was the big ground breaking information? This was the secret? Hustle. Literally, that was their answer to me sitting two rows back as they looked me dead in the eye and said "hustle".  Like anything else in life timing is everything. Every panelist has made money in a different way, with a different studio set up, and with different techniques, in all aspects from recording to their approach on the business. The grammy winning producer on the panel is talented, gifted, etc..and has worked, really worked, with our icons growing up from Elton John to Jay-Z and Michael Jackson to Biggie to name just a few.. impressive? Lucky? There was a time in music history when no one wanted to work with "Scary Rappers", but having an innovative spirit , guts, intelligence, talent, and hustle enabled him to be in the right place at the right time. Look at Mozart, talking about sex, and a brothel in an opera? Slavery ends and country music mixes with slave hymns?  Flannel shirts and distortion? People want new and refreshing. Today there is nothing that hasn't been done, its just how its re-presented, mixed, and fused so it is fresh to the palate.

With the changing time the game has changed and so have the rules and the players. Record Companies, which used to have large budgets, employing a secretary, studio staff, engineer, are collapsing. Feeling the ripple effect are the producers, artist, and even the fed ex man. The reason for this change? Technology. So what do you do? You guessed it, hustle! There is still money to be made in music! It may not be a fortune, but if your doing what you love, to me is worth more than any money in the world!  Today you must be a producer, engineer, song writer, musician, record company, teacher, and business man all rolled into one. Cut out the over head, use your talents, believe in yourself and make music! It's on you, its on your hustle…. 

 

If you would like more details please feel free to contact myself or look up any of the panelists mentioned above and reach out. 

 

 

after the events that took place Friday October 9, 2009 I felt compelled to post this. I am not the author.

Everything in nature is made up of patterns, structures, designs from the smallest atom to the crystal of water to the stars. Each of nature's creations reveal to us the nature of that object and its own energetic vibration. Thus every creation has a unique vibratory frequency. The interaction of all the vibratory frequencies found in creation show us the intrinsic unity of the part to the whole. Together we find what some call the Music of the Spheres. This inseparability reminds us of the sacredness and connection we have to everything and everything to us. 

 

 

listen...(pun intended)

 

i hear a lot of talk out there and a lot of hype...if you have purchased a computer, some type of daw, m box, or any type of music software/interface and can get an audio signal into your computer and some how bounce it to an mp3, it does not make you a producer!

 

if you have radio play, placements, maybe even a grammy, then i think it is safe to give yourself this title.

 

i am lucky enough to be an under study of some of the best in the game and i still won't bring myself to throw around the term when i describe what i do. i do production and a hell of a job at it. however i will not yet call myself a producer. soon, but not yet. it is a title that is earned, not bought at guitar center, sam ash, sweet water or whatever your local music conglomerate of choice may be.

 

copy and paste this link to your browser or check out the links on this site to give yourself an idea of the requirements before titles get printed on business cards...

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_producer

 

if you are reading this than you have obviously taken the time to check out my new site. thank you! i look forward to sharing my journey with you...