Your Role in Your Success
Lawyers, orthopedic surgeons, tech developers, optometrists, engineers, brain surgeons, elite composers/producers, and yes, even plumbers have a masters degree. I know what you’re thinking. Plumbers have a masters degree? Hard to swallow when you have that much student debt and spent that much time becoming an engineer. But while you were spending that much time becoming an engineer, an excellent plumber is spending more time than that going through an intense internship and massive training. Once they’ve been on the job for about 20 years, they’ve got their masters. So, there are two ways to look at this:
1. When the time comes, that piece of paper you get that says "Masters Degree" on the front of it instantly gives you worldwide credibility.
2. The body of work by a vendor, say a plumber, with a slew of satisfied clients really stands out. Their wealth of experience and ability to interact with clients in a way that won’t make their head explode about a subject you personally know very little about. . . well, they have to prove themselves over and over again day after day after day.
As a company who easily slides into that second group, we’ve seen this scenario play out over and over again, costing us thousands of dollars while working on just one project. I would say this has been the singular most frustrating aspect of running our business. There are basically two products that generate most of our income: High quality male and female voiceovers and top-shelf jingles with a LA/Nashville sound. We also write and produce custom music and song parodies for corporate and other events, as well as spots for social media and yes, radio. . . . good old terrestrial radio that still exists somehow.
How were we successfully able to slide into that two slot? We’ve managed to stay together for a long time and learned all of the lessons that needed to be learned together. Yes, we had the talent to start the long haul, but we put in the work. We were in a nationally touring band called One-Eighty all the way through the '80's. During that time we also sang background vocals, performed sax solos and other parts for the R & B group Champaign and Columbia Records. During that time one of our songs got the attention of Earth Wind and Fire's producer and. . . he loved it! Unfortunately, he did not love it for us… he loved it for Champaign, who we were working hard with every day, getting our collective masters in writing great songs and hooks. So here we are. Having played and sung six days a week 48 weeks a year in the 80s, while grinding away learning about engineering, producing, and the fine art of getting a singer to dig down deep and give you something that he doesn’t yet know he has. One-Eighty rolled on.
At the same time we're also getting a ton of experience singing in the studio. Way different than singing live. In addition, how to process the vocals onto tape. (I know. I just heard about 400 35 year-old aspiring producers’ minds explode with the throwback tech reference.) Sorry about that.
When our baby number one came along in '88, I put my radio shock jock hat on and started my first radio gig doing mornings in LaSalle/Peru Illinois. Soon after, moved on to Lansing Michigan, followed by Virginia Beach for a priceless education at Studio Center. Finally, after having 3 kids in 3 different states, we finally settled in Cincinnati Ohio. We formed Creative Mills Productions LLC around 1995 and have been out here slinging mind blowing jingles, voieovers and radio spots ever since.
So here’s the problem: Many of our clients, want to be in control of the project. That happens for a lot of different reasons. Some of the obvious ones are: fear, lack of knowledge, wanting to prove themselves as marketing directors to their boss, having such easy access to Spotify and all the music they love, they feel that they in some way know music the same way experienced and talented Composers/Producers and Plumbers do.
And here’s the solution: You obviously need to your due diligence when hiring a vendor, in this case to create a jingle that will have maximum impact on your business. Once you make the choice, trust the process and trust your plumber. Because after all, what the hell do you know about Plumbing?
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?
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.