[Fmpro] Composing vs. sound design

[Mark Northam]

If true, this represents even more corruption of the performing rights
system. I wonder how many "friends of the PROs" are permitted to file this
kind of cue sheet, draining what may be massive amounts of money away from
legitimate performances under the guise of six second "background vocals"
that are in fact drum rolls. Amazing.

And of course, it represents yet another hazard of assuming everything
marked "background vocal" is deserving of a feature performance simply
because Marilyn and her friends have decided that lyrics are king and
instrumental music should be relegated to the back of the royalty bus when
looking at the royalty rate for a one minute cue on television.

No wonder the PROs won't release cue sheets... Can you imagine the skeletons
that may be hiding in those closets?

Mark Northam


On 10/6/06 11:31 AM, "kirbyko3 at aol.com" <kirbyko3 at aol.com> wrote:

> I remember seeing music cuesheets for
> the original Star Search series, and every single drumroll and cymbal
> crash had a title and was listed on there as a composition -- each
> drumroll registered $$ with ASCAP or BMI!  I always imagined those
> cuesheets to be all of 1 or 2 pages long, basically just reflecting the
> competition performances.... imagine my surprise to see that each one
> was several pages, and had listing after listing after listing of a :06
> Background Vocal use, which was a drumroll.  Whoever wrote that stuff
> was one smart cookie.

---------------------------------
Mark Northam - Publisher
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The Professional Voice of Music for Film & TV
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