Tougher than You Think.
I think the most surprising thing we’ve come across during our 25 years of Jingle and Original Music Branding experience is finding out through trial and error, session after session, that great world class singers often times do not make great jingle singers. Who knew, right? I mean you gotta figure someone with a four octave range and the ability to bring an arena, church, or even a bar to a standing ovation can go to studio and totally own the vocals on a commercial jingle or radio jingle. Of course on some commercial jingles, not many, if the music is written for THAT singer it usually works out great. But if it’s something that requires extreme control of pitch and tone in a very short window with no time to really establish style, feel or originality, it’s often a “No… No… You sound great! Let’s take a break and… you know, let’s take a break for and live with it for a day or two. I’ll text you if we need to re-cut anything. Thanks so much for doing this! We’ll Venmo you.”
Not a pretty picture. Our singer doesn’t feel good. We don’t feel good. If our dogs are in the studio, they don’t feel good. My stomach doesn’t feel good. I have a headache. I mean… How could this happen?!! I’ve heard this male/female singer many times… I just heard her singing around the studio. She sounded great! The thing is… To be a great Jingle Singer you have to have what we call in the biz “Vocal Notches”. Literally. Like physical pitch notches on your vocal chords. Most of the time, a Jingle singer doesn’t have any extra time to build up to a hook and use their own little tricks to make it happen. Their hair has to be on fire from the first note. No run ups. No caressing. No nothing. And if you haven’t done it before, that can be very demoralizing. That makes us sad in the moment. I mean we LOVE great singers! Great Vocals are what we’re all about. So what have we learned here? Killer jingle singing requires great talent plus experience, with a little dash of even more experience. We’ve done both… We’ve had to execute live during 10 years of touring, we had to execute in the studio doing OUR songs that we wrote for US, and we had to learn to deal with the very different experience of executing jingle vocals. It really is tougher than you think. Who knew?
What’s the Magic?
How do we create the magic between us and our clients? What are the questions most asked by them? Okay, 2nd question first. Simple: “How do we know we’ll like it? Will you keep working on it until we’re happy? What if we don’t like it?” Well, once you’re familiar with the entire Jingle Creation Process (JCP),everything becomes simplified. What is the Jingle Creation Process (JCP)? Now THAT is a great question. Here are our 7 steps to completing the Creative Mills Jingle Creation Process successfully:
1. YOU CONTACT US and indicate you’re interested in having us create a custom jingle for your business.
2. WHAT’S BEST FOR YOU? We discuss the kind of Jingle package that will drive your customers through your doors, on to your site, and into your world to use your product or service. (:30, :60. Sing In, Sing Out, Mini Jingle?). Along the way we’ll lay out our very negotiable pricing structure.
3. ONCE YOU DECIDE on the kind of Jingle Package you want, we send you the JCP Prep sheet along with our Music Agreement, which we’ll both fill out completely and sign.
4. YOU SCHEDULE A JCP CONFERENCE CALL with our Executive Producer, Client Services Director, and your company’s decision maker(s), at which time we discuss, in depth; the target demographic, musical style, lyric content, general tone and direction, and deadline.
5. WE BEGIN COMPOSING and producing your Custom Jingle. Only when it’s complete and broadcast ready will we present it to you. When it comes to musical and vocal production we set a very high bar, so you won’t be getting any “rough versions” during the process.
6. YOU (the Decision Makers) LISTEN TO THE JINGLE. We’ll address any concerns and make changes/revisions if required.
7. ONCE WE HAVE A FINAL PRODUCT (a jingle that kills!), we’ll create the many different versions or “mixouts” of your Jingle that are included as part of your package.
There it is. 7 Steps to a whole new Branding Tool for your Company. Literally 95% of our Jingle clients are thrilled after no more that 1 revision. THAT is a direct result of the JCP sheet and Conference Call. Sometimes it requires a few times re-working things. Whatever it takes. If you’re not happy, our business is not sustainable. If you have more questions, reach out to us. . . we’d love to talk.
A Day in the Life.
So this is what it’s come down to. I am now going to write a blog about what I did today as a husband, father, dual dog owner, musician, composer, voice actor, and CEO/Executive producer of Creative Mills productions. I could’ve spent this time with a therapist of my choice over Zoom, but I think this will be much more helpful to my overall sanity.
I woke up today, showered, got some coffee, and went out on the deck, where my wife (and business partner) was already In full Creative Mills operational mode. I caught myself up on the normal morning stuff, then went down to the main studio to record and produce a high energy Voiceover for a recent jingle client. One of our sons, who happens to be in the biz, FaceTimed me to catch up, and we had a good, in-depth discussion about how totally screwed up the music business is. (bored yet?) I requested some vocal tracks from him to help finish up his latest single. At this point I made some egg whites and toast which I enjoyed on our deck with the dogs.
My wife and I spent majority of the rest of the day recording sparkling vocals for… Yes… A radio station jingle package. Very workman/woman like stuff. I had lunch and went out on the deck to enjoy the day for a bit… Then I’m back in the studio doing mixouts for a recent Jingle project while listening to a podcast. Kind of go on auto pilot for these kinds of tasks. 45 minutes of cardiovascular, write a blog and shut down work for the day. It’s somewhat bizarre. This pandemic really hasn’t altered our day-to-day ops. But we try to never take for granted how lucky we are to create music, commercials, and voiceovers for a living. It’s a day in the life of Creative Mills.