TruSource Technology DL2 Integrated Digital Mixer

INDUSTRY PROFILE
SCORING FACE-TIME IN A ONE-ON-ONE SESSION
By Dan Kimpel
How do you hotwire your songwriting and composing career in
a quick 15 minutes? If you plan on attending the 2013 ASCAP “I
Create Music” EXPO, April 18 - 20, in Los Angeles, CA, you should
know that among the noteworthy opportunities offered in this threeday,
career-boosting confab are One-on-One Sessions—face-to-face,
15-minute meetings between participants and pre-selected music industry
experts.
“This is the perfect opportunity to get feedback from a pro who could
conceivably help you with your career,” says Lauren Iossa, ASCAP’s
Senior VP, Communications & Media. “When people say, ‘If I could only
get 15 minutes with…’ then a One-on-One Session is their 15 minutes.
We try to guide them, and to help them to make the most of it.”
The EXPO, now in its eighth year, is three packed days of classes,
panels, workshops, performance opportunities and master sessions
with legendary songwriters and trending hit makers. Past guests have
included Quincy Jones, John Mayer, Ludacris, Bill Withers, Justin Timberlake,
Carly Simon, Jackson Browne, Randy Newman, Tom Petty,
Bruno Mars and Dr. Luke.
“Walking around the ASCAP EXPO must be like the ideal high school
experience,” marvels Oscar, Grammy and Golden Globe winning, Hall
of Fame songwriter Paul Williams, ASCAP’s President and Chairman
of the Board. “I get very ‘Jiminy Cricket’ with this feeling that we’re all
attached, that we can make a living and create something as composers
and songwriters, and are now surrounded by people with that same enthusiasm.”
There are 500 One-on-One Sessions, requiring an additional $30
processing fee for EXPO participants, available on a first-come, firstserved
basis. Attendees specify with whom they would like to speak in
a One-on-One Session—i.e., a music supervisor, a record executive, a
songwriter, a composer, a music attorney or an ASCAP executive. There
is a limit of one Session per person. Every year they have sold out.
In its EXPO guide, ASCAP explains the process of aligning the
participant with a corresponding industry counterpart: “If you want a
session, you will have a chance to answer questions about your Session
preferences. The answers you give will be used to match you—as best
we can—to an industry professional. We can’t honor specific industry
professional requests or requests for specific times. A week before the
EXPO, you will be emailed a tentative session time, day and name of the
industry professional you are likely meeting with. At the EXPO when you
pick up your badge at registration, you will be given your session time
and the name of the industry professional that your session is with. Short
biographies of the person you are meeting with can be found in the EXPO
Program Guide.”
At the Session, attendees can choose to ask questions, create a dialogue,
or to play music for feedback and critiques. Matching attendee to
mentor is done by the questionnaire, according to Iossa. “This is not a
random matching. We ask, ‘What type of career advice do you need?
What feed-back? To what level do you aspire?’ Then we work to match
the registrant to the appropriate industry guest.”
"When people say, ‘If I could only
get 15 minutes with…’ then a Oneon-One
Session is their 15 minutes."
—Lauren Iossa, ASCAP
It is also an ideal opportunity, urges Iossa, to meet ASCAP staffers and
songwriters who bring a wealth of experience and contacts to the sessions,
“These include board members and ASCAP executives in membership;
typically, heads of the genre areas. They have very broad knowledge, so
they’re often the perfect people to guide songwriters and composers to
whom they should be meeting, both at the EXPO and outside the event.”
For her One-on-One Session, singer-songwriter Neara Russell tells
MC that she requested a meeting with a music publisher to determine
if the songs from her CD Noise and Silence would be suitable for film
and television placements. She was paired up with publishing executive
Mark Friedman, who’s currently Senior VP of Creative for Verse Music
Group, and a former executive at RSP and Chrysalis Music. “I came it
An EXPO attendee poses a question to legendary
songwriter and performer Desmond Child.
62 December 2012 www.musicconnection.com