This week, professional singer/songwriter, voice actor & co-founder of Silverthorn Studios recording, Taylor Abrahamse joined us in the studio at SongTalk World Headquarters. Taylor was a Top 40 finalist on Canadian Idol, has performed on stages across Ontario, has also written & produced musicals, and music for animated series and viral internet music through Corus, DHX & Super Planet Dolan.
Taylor is on the verge of a breakout moment in a promising career. After creating a spontaneous performance opportunity on the conference floor of Canadian Music Week, Taylor was contacted by Grammy-winning producer and engineer Eddie Kramer (Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, Carly Simon, David Bowie, Michelle Branch & many more), who wanted to produce & develop Taylor. Now close to the release of his debut record of original songs, Eddie describes Taylor as ‘A true artist, and songwriting genius’.
We were very excited to have Taylor drop by so we could catch up and hear his talent for ourselves.
Stark Naked and Eugene Ripper of Stark Naked and the Fleshtones joined us to talk about their heyday in the early 80s as an awesome live band in Toronto.
This week SongTalk welcomed our pal Matthew Reid to our studio to talk about movie soundtracks.
We chose our favourites and talked about why they made the cut and what were the runners up.
We talked about:
what are the criteria of soundtracks – are they a collection of songs from other sources, are they custom music made specifically for the film project or is there a grey area in between?
how soundtracks are created
the avant guarde composers used in soundtracks
Here are our selections and other items we discussed
Greenway is a film composer, singer/songwriter and pianist from Pickering, Ontario. He has written music for film, worked as a session player, orchestrator and arranger, released his own original album “Great Expectations” and wrote the score to the international documentary The Secret Life Of Frogs, which won a Nature award at the Cannes Media and TV festival.
We talked with Jeff about:
his evolution from singer/songwriter to film composer
how to work with directors and producers
the workflow for creating soundtracks for other people’s projects
This week SongTalk welcomed Robert Cross to our studio.
Robert Cross was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. He started playing guitar at 14, just so he could learn how to write songs. Cross is the singer and guitarist of the original rock band Satin, who released their first album Drop Dead Gorgeous in 2019. Cross has branched out into other musical genres as well, having written songs for other southern California acts such as the pop-punk band Aim for the Heart and Country-rock artist David Bucci.
We talked with Robert about:
starting a song with the title
writing in your car
making the most of your “orphans” – leftover song fragments
how to communicate your musical ideas to your backing band
how the sound of words can lead to creating melodies
Vel Omazic of Canada’s Music Incubator explains the ins and outs of Music Royalties and how to make sure you are getting what you should as a songwriter and/or a performer in Canada. Put simply, if someone is making money or conducting business based on your work, you’re entitled to a royalty. There’s tons of info in this episode – be sure to take notes!
We talked about:
how Canadian Music Incubator supports the professional development of artists
understanding the different royalties for
public performance (radio, streaming, live)
mechanical royalties (CDs, downloads), and
sync licensing (syncing with video including movies and TV)
how you should know your rights to receiving royalties
We talked tips and tricks for beginner songwriters. Our producer Vanessa and techie Micah also joined in the conversation. Some of the stuff we covered included:
This week SongTalk welcomed Matthew Reid to our studio. Matthew is a critically acclaimed, award winning composer for film, television, games and theatre. His funny songs have delighted almost a million people during his tenure as composer for Toronto’s world famous Second City comedy theatre. His comedic musical, The Second City Guide to the Symphony was has been performed by top orchestras across North America since 2014.
As a film composer, he recently won several awards as a composer collaborating with Tim Burton’s producer, Derek Frey on the multiple award-winning film, Green Lake.
Currently he’s completing the score for the 9/11 feature doc, No Responders Left Behind, constantly creating production music tracks and finding a little time to compose classical chamber music.
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