APRAP WEB June 2005..

Tessarose is a successful small business in the niche market of preschool
children’s music. Co-owners Tessa Grigg and Brian Ringrose
started with one album about 15 years ago and now have 18 Tessarose
retail albums, 20 franchise albums and have collated several albums
for other people. Sales are well over 250,000 units – that’s the equivalent
of over 16 platinum albums in as many years!
Incredibly, Tessarose is an entirely in-house production. Based in
Christchurch, Brian and Tessa record the songs, manufacture, market
and distribute the CDs in Australasia and beyond – including to
Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea, Finland, Dubai, England and the USA.
They compose many of their own songs (over 150 songs) and license
the rest through AMCOS or direct: “Without the help and advice of
APRA we would certainly have got into trouble
over several legal matters – mainly through
ignorance. In the early days we ended up making
a visit to APRA in Auckland and from that point
have enjoyed a great relationship.”
Here Brian Ringrose shares some of their
business experiences from along the way:
“When our business first started we were full
of good ideas and perceived ideas about how
the market worked from my experience of 30
travel and accommodation costs were around $1000 and we grossed
something like $8000 – we then realised that people had to hear and
see the music being used by the end user (the children and
caregivers/teachers) to make up their mind to purchase. For that was
the marketing dilemma: the end user – the child – was not the purchaser.
We needed to get these adults to like the music so that they would buy
for their children. We also quickly found that children’s music in
general was not purchased through record shops but specialty
education stores.
“I was adamant that every CD/cassette we sold should have a very
obvious name plate so that anybody who heard our music would know
how to contact us. Every tape/CD is a business card. This has been the
one substantial factor that has created our
overseas sales and given us exposure to
customers in places we have never heard of.
We usually approach these customers as a lead
to their area and away we go. In recent years
we have spent quite a bit of our efforts directing
people to our website. This has taken a while
to catch on but is starting to show returns. Our
trips to the USA and Australia usually give good
net activity for some time after the visit.”
odd years at that point in the pop and general
Brian also attributes Tessarose’s success to
(L TO R): BRIAN RINGROSE AND SAMUEL, COLIN THE KIWI, JEANNA
music business.” (Brian was in The Invaders RODGERS AND CASSANDRA, TESSA GRIGG.
their focus on making a quality product. Through
with Ray Columbus, worked for 15 years as a
Tessa Grigg’s background in early childhood
session musician for TVNZ in Christchurch, wrote jingles for Radio education and her involvement with GymbaROO – an Australian-based
Otago and has helped produce and record many young artists – including movement and music-based programme – Tessarose’s music is created
Kylie Harris).
specifically with children’s developmental needs in mind. This means
“We found quite quickly that we have a very isolated market. In fact songs are simple, repetitive and slow enough to allow for the young
we knew exactly how big it was – the Department of Statistics can tell listeners to understand and then respond to. They are also recorded
you each year how many babies are born – add a few years and you at a higher pitch, as this is what children respond to best!
know the size of the NZ market. We tried all sorts of marketing ideas: “We have focused on quality music from an arrangement,
direct mail; magazine advertising; TV; radio; and live performance. We instrumentation and vocals point of view. We consider why we are
joined Canterbury Business Grow and even had a mentor.
making this music and what is it designed to achieve more than how
“A big let-down for us was advertising in a major magazine. It cost much money can we make. If the product is good and you are having
over $2000 and we got about 10 sales. We then organized to do some fun the funds take care of themselves.”
live workshops for parents and children in Hamilton over 3 days. Our www.tessarose.co.nz
Willow Macky
APRAP June 2005
10
Now in her ’80s, Willow Macky is one of New Zealand’s great, but largely
unheralded songwriters. It would be unusual to have attended an end of year
school assembly in New Zealand in the last 40 years and not have sung her
work “Te Harinui – A New Zealand Carol”. Of her prodigious output of over 113
songs and 92 lyrics, Willow wrote mostly folk songs, even a folk opera called
The Maori Flute.
She is a strong exponent of writing about local experiences, history, people
and places, including Maori legend and tradition. In fact the reason she started
writing songs was because while she had collected many folksongs from
around the world, she couldn’t find any about Auckland. This led to “Waitemata
Harbour”, and later “Tamaki Moonlight”. Singing about her own city seems to
have received a mixed reaction – in interview in 1994 she remembered people
laughing when she sang the line “I love to go down to old Mission Bay” in
“Tamaki Moonlight” because of the strangeness of hearing a local place
mentioned in a ballad.
One of Willow’s ‘breaks’ was meeting Swedish-American balladeer William
Clauson on his visit to NZ in 1959. He was looking for local works, and recorded
five of Willow’s songs, including one she wrote specially set to a melody he
particularly liked – it was a tradition for each country he visited to supply
different words to the same tune.
The great bass singer Inia Te Wiata praised Willow’s songs as “the only New
Zealand composer besides Alfred Hill who can capture the authentic Maori
atmosphere.” Willow’s career spans the time when issues of cultural
representation were coming to the fore. By 1990 she had revised her 1964
composition “Waitangi Anthem”, because she found
“as time went on I began to realise that the words
of the anthem did not adequately reflect, in
these changing times, the feelings of the
Maori community about the Treaty.”
Willow’s life and work are a valuable part
of the story of New Zealand music. As Willow
observed over 40 years ago “we have
something to sing about – a land as
beautiful, interesting and worthy as any
other… we wish to pay [New Zealand]
a tribute which is long overdue and
give pleasure to our people and
all others who wish to hear.”