Daniel Cepeda Gonzalez

Student ID 1014831

BA (Hons) in Music Production

3rd Year

2014/ 2015

Personal and Business Development

Harry Leckstein

Assessment 2

REFLECTIVE ESSAY

WORD COUNT: 2812

1

Introduction.

This reflective essay explains how I have used what I learned in this class during my

degree. It is constituted by two main points: The business models utilized during these years,

and how I have applied what we covered in the Music Business class.

Several business models were taught during our classes, and even though I put into

practice all of them, I used two in this paper; The SWOT Analysis, and the Traffic Light Time

Management System. These models are the ones that I use all the time and found more helpful

in relation to my project.

The second part of this essay guides the reader through the explanation of how I applied the

knowledge acquired from the lectures to my musical business ventures, school and future

projects. We will lightly cover my recording and writing sessions, the short film I produced the

music for, creating music for mobile phone games, and how making a website, flyers and

business cards helped me getting collaborative work both outside and inside the university.

I now remember my first music business class, it was almost three years ago. We were

all very excited about the other lectures, but not so much about this one. Once inside the

classroom, I couldnt stop asking myself: Is all this boring stuff really necessary?

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1. - Business Models

During the current academic year two models have helped me improve my

business skills; SWOT Analysis and the Traffic Light Time Management System.

Before studying these two models I used to struggle organizing myself. I felt like I was

missing something in between the time that I came up with an idea and the time that I

was actually executing it. This stage in between was the organizational part of the

project, a key element of every successful venture.

The SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis has

aided me in finding the basic components of my projects, showing me crucial points

such as what I should improve or what problems I would be facing during the

implementation of my scheme. Ever since this model was taught to us in class I consider

the SWOT analysis the first step I must take after coming up with an idea.

The second step would be creating a Traffic Light Time Management System chart, or

as I like to call it, my what to do and not to do list. Applying the TLTMS to my

undertakings has provided me a clear notion of the roles and their priorities that I must

work on.

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The following SWOTs and Traffic Light Time Management Systems were made

to help me analyze possible future businesses after school. The YouTube Channel

SWOT was part of my other assessment, and the project is intended to be launched in

my home country, Spain, but theres a possibility that it will be done in London (the

models reflect the analysis in Spain) The competition for a YouTube Channel based on

live recordings is greater in London, but it could be done to gain some contacts and

experience in the field while maybe getting some income.

The Music for Games Production Company is a project being developed at the moment.

Fellow BIMM London student Rob Mummery and I are currently composing, sound

designing, mixing and mastering audio for a small independent mobile video game

company based in Spain that uses Build Box as its game engine. However, our plans

are projected to greater things, having in our minds the dream of working for a big video

game company that uses either Unity or UE4 (the most popular video games engines at

the moment) or their own tools (only used by the industrys top developers).

The Traffic Light Management Systems employed in this paper might vary

slightly from the original one. When I wrote these models I considered the system more

like something to tell me what I should do, and what I should not do based in the

urgency of each task in the list as in the original TLMS- but in a more straightforward

manner. I didnt want to categorize things by their importance and then choose, I wanted

to know what to do based on specific project tasks. Therefore, we could consider these

models some kind of to do and not to do list. When creating these systems for the

Music for Games Company and the YouTube channel, things unrelated to the project

(like using Facebook; a not important and not urgent thing, consequently something to

toss in the trash) were not included. However, some of these time-wasters such as

browsing Facebook were incorporated in the school projects TLMS as I considered that

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these projects are more general and highly dependent of our day to day life. Perhaps

because I saw the YouTube Channel and the MFG company as something in the future.

Music for Games Production Company SWOT

Internal

Strengths Weaknesses

1. Strong musicianship by the composer;

Studied classical music, Jazz, Guitar, Saxophone, Vocal technique, Choir and Music Production.

2. Affordable equipment produces industry standard results.

3. Both composer and sound designer have credits in several mobile video games available in the Play and Apple stores.

4. Unrequired funding. 5. Great Location. Many top game

developers operate in the United Kingdom.

6. A multicultural team will allow the company to deal with customers in two of the most spoken languages in the world (English and Spanish)

1. Company new in the business 2. Lack of personnel to deal with more than

one project at a time. 3. Having a small team means that the

individuals will have to deal with more load of work.

4. The shortage of state-of-the-art equipment makes the company unqualified for certain jobs, most likely for triple A (AAA) video games.

5. Different projects will pay different fees even when the same amount of hours have been employed.

External

Opportunities Threats

1. Currently expanding market with great

opportunities for both big and small companies.

2. Ability to create a global company, delivering music and sound design for game developers outside the UK borders.

3. The company will offer affordable prices for indie developers, which will help the production company build an extensive portfolio.

4. New close markets such as the mobile video game one are also expanding and therefore theres a great demand for music and sound design for this kind of video games.

1. Established film composers are moving

to this field, creating competition for emerging companies.

2. New similar companies are surfacing quickly taking advantage of the booming game market.

3. Big companies might reduce their prices to compete against the emerging ones.

4. The possible loss of key staff (company has two initial employees) could be catastrophic.

5. The best-selling video games are launched seasonally, if the company fails to get a contract with a developer, might be forced to wait several weeks until a new offer arrives.

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Live Recordings YouTube Channel SWOT

Internal

Strengths Weaknesses

1. Experienced crew producing live

recordings 2. Innovating product in the national territory 3. Anyone with an internet connection can

access the product 4. Free access to recording facilities 5. YouTube is the worlds biggest music

streaming service

1. New in the business 2. Lack of sponsorship 3. Dependence on advertising 4. The first intended audience wont be

worldwide 5. The need of getting subscribers to have a

steady amount of plays per video

External

Opportunities Threats

1. Increased demand from musicians to

have music videos in their portfolios 2. Undertake work for radio stations, record

labels and artists based on the channels popularity

3. Expanding the channel to English speaking countries

4. Creating new music content 5. Selling the recorded music on iTunes and

other online digital music stores.

1. Equipment renewal 2. New emerging music streaming services 3. Decreasement of money received by

ads. 4. End of the free studio deal 5. Lower market demand

6. Loss of key staff

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Traffic Light Time Management Systems:

Video Game Music and FX Projects

Important

Not Important

Urgent

Send game to sound designer

Create a harmonic progression

Compose rhythm Section

Compose melody line

Mix music

Mix and master music and sound design

Promote game developer in Twitter

Check next video game demo

Send game for feedback to peers

Look into the developers YouTube channel for peoples opinion on the game, music, FX, etc.

Not Urgent

Write task progress in Kanbanflow Send music to sound designer and

developers for feedback Check mix in different devices Arrange royalty contracts

Composing alternate harmonies

Remixing the music and FX

Over playing the game to help the developers find bugs

General School Projects

Important

Not Important

Urgent

Research genre of songs to compose

Research other important fields

Create a work timeline

Employ business models

Write lead sheet / essay structure

Record, mix, master / Write essay

Review finished work

Practicing an instrument not to be played in the nearest projects

Writing songs not related to school subjects

Opening Pro Tools sessions that have been already submitted

Remixing finished work

Not Urgent

Ask classmates for feedback

Read / listen similar work

Review the written material

Consider reharmonization techniques / Use dictionary of synonyms

Ensure files are in the right format

Avoid social media

Dont play video games Not getting involved in more projects

that I can handle

Dont go out when theres important work to do

Over watching TV shows / films.

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Live Performances YouTube Channel

Important

Not Important

Urgent

Contact bands and artists

Get video producer and equipment

Get an sponsor to fund project

Record at least 3 bands per studio session

Edit, mix and master one video a week

Over researching similar channels

Re-listening to demos marked as not valid when new material is available to record

Remixing finished videos

Trying new instruments in the uploaded material

Not Urgent

Promote channel in social

media

Promote channel in high schools with flyers

Reconsider budget and try to make it more efficient

Meet new artists in search of emerging talent

Help new artists promote themselves and the channel

Spend money in unnecessary equipment

Listening to demos with unrequested genres

Working with people unable to commit

Answering to emails that have already been dealt with (some people keep asking for a chance)

Forgetting to include a business model in your project core scheme seems to me

now as a rather mindless choice. Even though some more models such as the Yohari

Window have been used in several of my projects, both SWOT analysis and Traffic Light

Time Management System have become imperative in the development of my business

and school undertakings, and they will stick with me until my heart stops me from being

a musician.

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2. - How I have used what I have learnt.

A. Recordings and performance collaborations.

During my first year at Tech Music School I learned about the main royalty

collection societies in the United Kingdom. Where I am from there is only one main

group that collects for all artists; songwriters, producers, film composers, video games

composers, as well as TV and film script writers. In the UK there are several, what was a

little bit confusing at first, but ended up making total sense how they were divided.

In our first year right after learning the societies and some other important topics related

to contracts, merchandising, etc. I started doing some serious collaborations with other

Tech performers from the production, songwriting and performance degrees that

extended thought-out our second year as well. It was the music business classes and

events what motivated me to create collaborative projects with students outside my

degree. The goal was, not only to gain some contacts and practice my rusty

performance skills, together with my newly acquired production ones, but also putting

together a set of pictures and audio masters that I could use as portfolio, in my personal

website and in some of the most popular social media sites.

The first collaborations were in MI7 recording studios, where we recorded several

songs together with students from the performance and songwriting degrees.

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Recording session with songwriters, performers and production students:

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Editing in Pro Tools:

It was a great experience to be able to produce and perform in the session

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All these meetings provided me enough connections to pursue recordings in my

styles of preference the next academic year. It would be a new challenge taking place in

Fulhams new recording studios.

The new facilities did not disappoint, and as soon as we put together some

artists, we hit the studio to record some new tracks. One of the sessions I enjoyed the

most was working with The Rountree, a band made of students from the songwriting

course. With them we recorded both at Techs new recording studios

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and also a 12 hours recording session at Ealing Studios.

Unfortunately most of the studio sessions werent documented with pictures, as

suggested during a band promotion class. However, in the studio slots used with solo

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artists and bands during the last term of the second year and this current academic

course, various business techniques discussed in class were applied to make sure that

the sessions would run smoothly. Creating a timeline for rehearsals, studio slots, mixing

and mastering sessions was probably the most helpful of them all.

Timeline for a Jazz studio album with horn section written by the producer (20 week

example based in 6 minute songs, which include solos)

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B. Music for a short film.

During our business class we were encourage all the time to make connections

with people dreaming alike. Using Twitters popularity for getting connections in the

music and film industry, I started writing random independent film directors and asking if

they were in need of music for their films. After some weeks writing people like my life

depended on it a young indie film director, who used to record the girl band I was playing

guitar for by the time, offered me the opportunity to compose the music for his first horror

short film called Little Jessie.

The period that I was supposed to compose the music clashed with the time I have to do

my assessments for school, so I created a timeline and used the Traffic Light Time

Management System to be as effective as possible in the task. Unluckily, the director

decided to push the release date a couple of weeks when I had made only half the

music. I missed some school lectures in an attempt to finish the entire soundtrack on

time, but it was impossible, so I had to peacefully abandon the project, otherwise I

wouldnt have been able to finish my assessments.

Despite not finishing the project, it was a great experience to compose in a genre

totally new to me. In addition, I felt that my time management and interpersonal skills

were tested almost to their limits, which resulted in another great experience to throw in

the practical knowledge trunk.

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C. Creating a website, flyers and business cards.

State Agents Savills study in 2014 named London as the most expensive city in

the world, overtaking Hong Kong. For a student this may cause money problems in

levels never experienced before. Just after losing my steady job, I decided to invest

some of the money earned in creating a website and ordering flyers and business cards

to teach some guitar lessons and help promote my skills for future projects.

Throughout our years studying music business at Tech I had never considered

using a website, flyers or business card to this purpose, but I thought it wouldnt hurt to

give it a try. Weve been always encourage to do stuff ourselves (DIY) so I designed the

website in Wix.com, created cards and flyers myself and ordered them in a popular site

dedicated specifically to this. The creation of the website turned out to be really helpful to

show someone my current projects, but also my trajectory as a musician, which gives a

more detailed information about the kind of musician that I am. At the moment I am

working on a new version that I think focuses more in what I want to do next.

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Guitar lessons flyer:

Everyone seemed to like the flyers, but just after I created them I got another job, so I

never got the chance to see if they worked. Nonetheless, as the flyers did caught

peoples attention, I decided to create some business cards offering classes and also

trying to promote myself as a film composer, producer, etc. I thought that it could help,

and it did! I noticed that people perceives you as more professional having some cards

to hand out, not to mention that some of the possible future customers will require you to

have a place online where they can check the worked that you have done.

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Business cards:

Front

Back

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Using this old-school promotional techniques ended up working pretty well. Some of

the people that I produced after creating the business cards, were friends with the

students that I handed my business cards, and they actually told me that they had seen

them and they made them think that I was a serious producer. Am I really more serious

for having a small piece of paper with my name and skills printed? Maybe so, maybe no.

But the important thing is that it worked!

Heres a couple of songs that I recorded with artists contacted by the business cards and

I uploaded to Sound Cloud afterwards.

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D. Music for mobile video games.

After having achieved some success contacting people directly in Twitter I

thought that I could try the same approach to find some independent game developers in

need of music for their mobile video games. I followed composers, indie game online

magazines, etc., until I was lucky enough to find someone to work with.

During term 2 of my third year of school we made the music and sound effects

for a Mario Kart 8 video. I uploaded this video to my YouTube channel and share it with

several indie game developers. Some of them were more interested in listening to the

music by itself so I created a cover photo using Photoshop and upload the composition

in Sound Cloud.

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Once I found a game developer that needed some music and sound effects I

contacted my classmate Rob Mummery to see if he wanted to create the FX, as I

couldnt handle everything myself. It is always good to involve your friends in some

projects that theyre willing to do.

This was a challenging new project so I had to put several of the music business

techniques that we had learnt during these years. The developer added me in

Kanbanflow, a website to create some kind of schedule where we write what were doing

and we set a deadline for it. I wrote that info in the website and then created a timeline in

my notebook, together with a Traffic Light Time Management System chart. This helped

me greatly in attaining my goals; composing the music, sound designing, mixing and

mastering the soundtrack. Once again, my interpersonal skills were tested, as no one in

the game team knows about music and sometimes is hard to understand what exactly

they are looking for.

Nonetheless, so far weve created and published one game called Magnetium and

were already making the second one. Were planning on doing 3 game titles getting

paid based on the games revenue (that probably wont be much, if any) before actually

charging a fee for the audio. We are doing this because both the sound designer Rob

Mummery- and I need some game credits to apply for bigger game companies. This

developing company is pretty new in the business so I have been recommending some

ways to promote the games, like creating Facebook and Twitter accounts, something

that they should have been doing for a while.

Despite the game company being new in the business, they have proven to be

hard working people and having some excellent ideas for the future. This experience has

been great so far and we hope to keep working alongside them in the coming months.

Some things could have been done better probably from both sides- but we have

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amassed some important experience developing these games, and more importantly, it

has been so much fun.

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Conclusion.

Using business models have greatly improved my effectiveness delivering a project.

Even better, it made me create superior products in far less time. At the moment, I cant picture

myself making a new musical business decision without including a SWOT analysis. I cannot

carry out any production without using a timeline. And I definitely cant multi task several

projects adequately without the aiding of the Traffic Light Time Management System.

The insistence of Harry Leckstein and Liam Devine really ended up paying off. Collaborating

with other fellow students in the studio, writing, composing, mixing, etc. immensely made me

evolve as a producer and musician. I gained knowledge from other peers from this experiences,

but most importantly, friends that now I can count on in and out of the studio.

To some people, trying new experiences can be a real turn off. It is in fact most of the times

challenging, but in this business is virtually a requirement to be adventurous. Working alongside

a film director and a game developer was one of the most challenging experiences during this

time at school, but certainly one of the finest. In the studio the musicians can easily

communicate with you through jargon. However, when the person that needs to tell you what to

do has no knowledge of your field, it can be frustrating at times. Nonetheless, working hard and

making an effort to truly understand whats expected from almost certainly will end up things

with a happy ending. If not, hand them your business card anyway and try your best with the

next customer.

Finally, after three years of music business classes, I can rightly answer the question

that kept popping in to my head during our first lecture; all that boring stuff really was

necessary.

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