Heart-warmed By My Fans

There was a post recently on reddit.com. Someone mentioned something about Civilization IV's music, and then all these people started chiming in about the new album. I had a nice boost in sales that evening. All in all, a happy moment for me.

But what I really found heartwarming was the fact that there was a genuine, concerted effort on the behalf of all those people to help support my music by buying my album, and encouraging others to buy it as well. There was actually one person who posted an illegal filesharing download link of my album--and when I saw that, I have to admit, my heart broke a little bit. But then his post was quickly deleted, and he was shouted down by several other posters who came in and suggested that people support my music.

I was touched. (Thanks Kardionoc, RedSnt, APeacefulWarrior and petawb.)

Many music fans don't realize this, but a lot of artists are severely emotionally attached to the work they do--myself included. And when people just post an album that you spent four years of your life perfecting onto some pirate site, it just kills us.

Format Sales: From NY Times

Fascinating graphic from the New York Times!

Did you know that in 2008, vinyl overtook cassette sales for the first time since the 80s?

Headline: "RIAA Copyright Fine Totals $192 Million"

Whoa. Regardless of your views on the issue, I don't think there's any doubt that this is a huge tactical blunder for the RIAA:

eWeek: "RIAA Copyright Fine Totals $192 Million"

It's terrible press from the RIAA, and isn't doing anything to sway public opinion on the notion of the big bad record company.

Here's where I stand on the issue. File sharing is not a bad thing. I've discovered many a band because someone sent me an MP3, at which point I subsequently went out and bought their album. However, if you get enjoyment out of music, you really ought to help support the artist who created that music. That doesn't just mean buying the album, however: you can also help by spreading the word about their music and helping promote it amongst your friends (which, ironically, may involve file sharing).

The problem is, however, that if you think that music should simply be free, with no obligation to help the artist, then the artist you like will soon be forced to stop making music because they can't pay the bills. And once that happens on a wide scale, the independent music scene will crumble, leaving us in a world devoid of anything outside of major-label mainstream pop (heavily supported by product placement). For an example of such a market, turn to China: no one makes a living doing music there without heavy corporate sponsorship.

So support indie artists!

(On that note, tonight I'll be attending a concert by Chinese American singer/performance artist Jen Shyu, a multi-talented old friend of mine from Stanford.)

Congrats to Gloria Cheng!

I'm very, very, very behind on blogging. The holidays rolled around, I traveled around Asia for three weeks, I got food poisoning...lots of things conspired to keep me from updating this blog. Consequently, there are lots of things to update, including recording sessions with Sussan Deyhim, Omar Faruk Tekbilek, and a trio of young Japanese pop stars. (Stay tuned for posts about those sessions, as well some more sneak peaks at my album.)

In the meantime, however, I thought I'd update the Grammy situation. As expected, I came NOWHERE close to winning anything whatsoever. I didn't even make the final five (I was beaten out by, oh...Peter Gabriel...Alan Menken...you may have heard of them.) But the good news is that my extraordinary pianist friend Gloria Cheng won a Grammy for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (Without Orchestra) for her album Piano Music of Salonen, Stucky and Lutoslawski. The compositions may not be everyone's cup of tea (although I think they're fantastic), but there's no denying her extraordinary touch and skill. Here she is accepting her Grammy:

I've had the good fortune of having her record two of my piano pieces for me. One was my Nocturne No. 2 for the low-budget vampire romance movie The Insatiable:

The second is a lullaby called 'Night Sings Its Songs', written for the US theatrical premiere of celebrated Norwegian playwright Jon Fosse's play of the same name.

As you can tell, my pieces are quite different from Esa-Pekka Salonen, Steven Stucky and Witold Lutoslawski (far fewer notes!), but Gloria brings out the beauty of every piece she performs, whether it be modern and dissonant, or traditional and melodic.

Congrats, Gloria!

Christopher Tin on the Preliminary Grammy Ballot!

I got an interesting email last Friday, from a New Age pianist named Michael Dulin last Friday. It read like this:

"Hi Christopher,

Congratulations on making it to the first ballot of the Grammy Awards for your song, Civilization IV Medley. I wish you the best of luck. You certainly deserve a place at the big table this year!"

My response was: "Huh?"

Upon further investigation, I discovered that indeed, in one form or another, I was listed not once but TWICE on the Preliminary Grammy Ballot for the 51st Grammy Awards:

Best Song Written For Film/TV/Visual Media: Civilization IV Medley - Christopher Tin

Best Classical Crossover Album: Video Games Live: Vol. One

So what does this all mean? Let me take you though what happened, and how the Grammy process works.

- As you all probably know, Video Games Live performs a medley of my music from Civilization IV, consisting of 'Coronation' and 'Baba Yetu'. Earlier this year they struck a deal with EMI Classics to release a collection of selections from their show, including my songs; they titled this album Video Games Live: Vol. One. Right away the album was a hit, and shot up to #8 on the Billboard Classical Crossover charts.

- October rolls around: the time when all the major record labels submit all their artists, songs and albums to The Recording Academy for Grammy consideration. EMI Classics submits Video Games Live: Vol. One for consideration in a number of categories. It's the Recording Academy's job to sift through every single song, artist and album submitted, and eliminate the ones that are ineligible. In the case of the Video Games Live CD, every single submission got eliminated except for two: their submission for 'Best Classical Crossover Album', and 'Best Song Written For Film/TV/Visual Media'.

- The Recording Academy then sends out a ballot listing all the artists, songs and albums that made the cut into the Preliminary Ballot. As mentioned before, I made the cut in the Film/TV/Visual Media category, and the Video Games Live CD made the cut in the Classical category. These ballots go to every single voting member of the Academy. Each member gets to cast a single vote in each of the four big categories (Record Of The Year, Album Of The Year, Song Of The Year, and Best New Artist) and gets to cast up to nine more votes in any of the 31 fields on their ballots.

- The Recording Academy tallies up the votes, and sends a final ballot to its members, containing the five finalist 'Nominees' in each category. Again, each member can vote in the four big categories, but this time they're limited to eight votes in any of the 31 fields.

- The winners of this final round of balloting are announced at the Grammy Awards.

Because I'm sure some of you are curious, there are 110 categories grouped into 31 fields. The fields are pretty broad ranging, and roughly correspond to genres: Folk, Gospel, R&B, etc. Some fields defy explanation: there's a Polka field, with a single category in it ("Best Polka Album")--only around 20 albums get entered into consideration each year, so if you're really hungry for a Grammy, you should consider buying an accordion.

Other fields, understandably, are massive. The biggest categories (like Song Of The Year) get over 700 entries, and it's somehow the responsibility of the voting membership to narrow that down to 5 nominees. (This is when things like marketing come into play.)

As for the categories/fields that I'm listed under, the Best Song Written For Film/TV/Visual Media is pretty stacked, with some heavy hitters such as Alan Menken and Diane Warren, Jack White, Regina Spektor and Peter Gabriel, as well as a gaggle of songs from Camp Rock. So it, uh, doesn't look particularly good, especially since, as far as I can tell, I'm the only one on the list for a song from a video game.

The odds are looking better in the Best Classical Crossover Album category, however. A subset of the 'Classical' field, there are a little over 40 entries on the ballot; and Video Games Live: Vol. One already has some chart cred. There are certainly some big names, such as André Rieu and Libera--but the numbers aren't as overwhelming as the other categories.

So there you have it! Let's hope that I have some good news, and have another reason to blog about this sometime soon.

The Record Industry's 20 Greatest Screwups

For some reason I take perverse pleasure in reading disaster stories about the record industry. It's not that I have any sort of deep-seated hatred towards them; it's more about taking comfort that mistakes get made up to the highest levels of the industry, and if I wind up making a few of my own, it's still comforting to know that I'm not the guy at Decca who passed on the Beatles. (The #2 all-time worst mistake.)

Anyway, read the whole Blender article here.

A Quote By David Geffen

"The music business, as a whole, has lost its faith in content. Only 10 years ago, companies wanted to make records, presumably good records, and see if they sold. But panic has set in, and now it's no longer about making music, it's all about how to sell music. And there's no clear answer about how to fix that problem." - David Geffen

There was a time when the consumer could righteously declare that they hated the economics and questionable business practices of the record industry. Since the advent of filesharing, however, that moral center has shifted back against the consumer. Every year, the record industry is seeing a 15% drop in profits--soon it will implode. While that may level the playing field and herald the dawn of the indie era, at the same time it's killing creativity on all fronts: musicians are spending more time worrying about how they're going to make a living in the industry, and less time on actually making good music. And what's causing all this? Piracy.

Geffen's right to say that the soul of the major labels has been forcibly removed by piracy--their very own lives are at stake, and they no longer have the luxury of focusing on releasing good music. Instead, their focus is simply on survival: meaning, focusing on selling music, not on making quality music.

On the contrary, my focus with Calling All Dawns is in making as good of a product as possible, but at the same time, my greatest fear is that it's going to be financially disasterous for me. The mindset that kids these days have is that music is free--and while an artist like Christina Aguilera can afford to see her album sales cut in half, she'll still make a bundle of money on tour. Indie artists such as myself, however--particularly those of us who do complex, expensive orchestral/choral/world-music collages, are going to suffer first.

(Quote taken from New York Times article The Music Man.)