ORPHIC ENDEAVORS

"Gonna be some changes made"

(-Bruce Hornsby)

Yes. I'm making some changes. And some of you may not like them... Sorry.

I've been making music for many years now and earning absolutely nothing, not one dime, for the effort. In the past this has been okay because I always believed that one day something big would come along and make up for all the years of working for nothing. I had dreams of a recording contract or a major movie studio coming along and picking me up. While most of the projects I've been involved in have been great, and many of them are on-going, I am in a position now where I need to make very clear what I expect as a musician and what a film company needs to expect from me.

First of all, while I do offer music for free, nowhere do I say you can use my music in any project without notifing me or expecting to follow standard procedure. I expect everyone who wants to use one of pieces to contact me via email and let me know both what tunes you want to use and what the tunes will be used in and what I will receive in return, whether it's just a credit and my own copy of the production, a flat fee, or 2% or whatever. In the past a contract has usually not been necessary as I've kept printed copies of all correspondence regarding the use of my music. Now, however, things must change. Next month I am applying to ASCAP. I need representation and better knowledge regarding contracts. Though I have had some experience with contracts with some of the bigger and better known productions, there is still much I don't know and easily I could make a small mistake that could cost me and my family so much down the road. So, to be on the safe side, beginning next month, all contracts will come from me unless your contract is standard. I am familiar with a standard "Synchronization License" and a "Master Use License" and I will have both on hand to be filled out by any producer/director/film company interested in using my music. If you would like more information about what I am talking about, please visit these links:

for musicians:
http://www.ascap.com/filmtv/movies-part1.html
and for filmmakers:
http://www.ascap.com/filmtv/faq.html.

If for any reason ASCAP doesn't approve me as a member, I will still have the contracts on hand. I am buying a legal kit just for the purpose.

The bottom line is that there are those out there who apparently assume that if you give away your music for free, you must let them use it for free as well and this is wrong. I gave away free downloads to get my foot in the door. I wanted to build a big enough audience that once a big project did come along I would be bringing to that project my own fanbase as well as my music. Unfortunately, I have seen the other side of that lofty idea and I have to rethink my approach. As I mentioned before, another musician once said to me that if I wanted to be taken seriously I needed to stop giving my music away for free. At long last, I think I understand what he meant. So, the changes...

I am in the process of setting up a store. I am going to have, to start, three brand new Orphic Endeavors songs available for purchase at $0.99 each through Paypal. This will hopefully be up and running as soon as tomorrow evening. Each of the tunes I will be putting up for sale will be available as stream only at CNET with just a quick 50 second sample here on the site. They will all be in MP3 format but at a super high 320kbps. Most music download sites only offer music in 128kbps or 192kbps. I will also take advantage of the free service at Soundclick and have these same tunes available for sale there, but they will not be the full 320kbps (they only allow 128kbps as I only have a free account there) so I will adjust the price accordingly. I will still occassionally give away a tune for free and all the existing tunes on the site will remain free, though I do plan to offer for sale as many as I can of the older tunes at 320kbps.

I hope that this won't change everything too much and all of you will continue to listen and download...

Please email me if you have any questions or recommendations.

Thanks so much for downloading and listening...
-Bonnie

PS- Here are the first links to the pay only tunes... These are just the 128kbps versions. http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandID=323559