How to break into the Music Industry

Most students have taken up an instrument or joined a band at some point. But how do you progress from playing in a friend’s garage to a professional music career?

Some students have no idea what they want to do after university, but Michael Hyman has been on a set career path since he was little. As a talented pianist, cellist, guitarist and singer, he hopes to make it big in the music industry. But he is more than the average X-Factor contestant, and has spent his life studying both classical and modern music.

Now he has been offered a deal with Atlantis records, and will write dance songs for radio stations Kiss 100 and Radio 1. He has also produced music scores to accompany animated films at the National Gallery, London, and has two upcoming gigs at venues in London.

Michael, from Redbridge, North East London, started learning the piano at six and took up the cello at eight. He joined the Redbridge Music School, spending most evenings and weekends playing in the orchestra. He progressed quickly from the junior orchestra to the intermediates, joining the full symphony orchestra at fifteen. At sixteen, Michael broke away from his classical roots, to form a rock band with his friends.

“It was called Peroxide Dyed,” he said. “We entered a regional song writing competition and won, then we got the chance to record a song demo. It wasn’t the days when you could make a demo in your room, it was a big deal at the time.”

Two years later, following a string of gigs at popular music venues including the Hope and Anchor, Islington, Peroxide Dyed split up. “I’m not going to talk about the break-up,” he said, with the practised melodramatics of a pop star. “It was my first experience of pop music, and an important experience as it shapes what I do now. “Unfortunately we broke up too soon, we broke up just as we were starting to do quite well – we had a core of people in the local area, we were starting to play more regularly.”

Still chasing his dream of becoming a musician, Michael turned down a place at Cambridge University, and spent three years studying Music at Nottingham. There he formed another rock band, Electric Candlelight. He took the role as lead singer and keyboardist, and the band played songs inspired by Franz Ferdinand, the Killers and Maroon 5.

In his free time, he wrote more songs, and created a MySpace site for other users to sample his work. He made CDs of his music and distributed them to fellow music fans, hoping to build up a steady network of useful contacts. “It’s all kind of a community, I met people who are going to be useful to know along the line,” he said. “Eventually you know enough people that you strike it big.”

Now Michael is a second year Masters student at the Royal College of Music, studying music composition for screen. Through his contacts he has been invited to write music scores for films, television programmes and animations. Last summer he wrote the musical accompaniment to a film called After London, shown at the Cornwall Film Festival, as well as music for a London Film School production, The Piano Player.

Now, in a joint project with Goldsmiths, University of London, he is writing the music for a film, Love Noir, which will be screened at the Curzon cinema in Soho. “It’s not about the amount of money you get for the film, you need stuff for your CV,” he said. To write a film score, Michael watches the film and notes down any initial feelings he gets, as well as listing buzz words and the personalities of any characters. He then composes an initial music score on the piano, before experimenting with different instrumental sounds on a keyboard.

If the budget will allow, he likes to include some live music. “They can call me up and say they need something in three days, then I’ll be working until 1am every morning to get it done,” he said. “But sometimes there are a few months to make the music.” Now he is getting more work Michael feels he has started to crack the tough shell of the music industry. “I have certainly started to move more quickly now that I am back in London,” he said. “I might have to move to L.A. to do film scoring at the highest level. Ideally I’d like to film score in Hollywood.”

From his experience, Michael has gained some useful advice about breaking into the music world. “You have got to be out there,” he said. “Have loads of tracks and a good demo. It shouldn’t just be your mum buying it – people should want it because it’s good. “Print cards with a website address on them and hit the streets, you want to meet as many people as possible. You could have the best music but no-one gets anything from sitting in their room all day. You need to build up a community of people you know, and be your own manager.”

Michael will be performing at Monkey Chews, Camden Town, on Tuesday Jan 29 (tickets are free) and the Blag Club, Notting Hill (tickets £4). To preview his songs visit www.myspace.com/michaelhyman

Pianist Oscar Peterson London Gigs

 

On a weekend when events elsewhere are paying tribute to Oscar Peterson, it’s a chance to recall London ties to his story.

The great Canadian jazz pianist played one of his first concerts outside Montreal and Toronto here in 1946. He played many times at the old Campbells (or Campbell’s) on Dundas Street in the 1950s and took his trio through practices in the wee hours there. Peterson also played house parties and private events decades ago, Centennial Hall and Alumni Hall in the 1970s and UWO’s Althouse theatre in the 1980s. He even played at the opening of the RBC’s branch at White Oaks Mall in June, 1981.

Peterson died Dec. 23 at age 82 with musicians and dignitaries helping pay tribute Friday and yesterday at Toronto events.

Duke Ellington would call Peterson the “Maharajah of the keyboard.” The Free Press of 1946 said “Peterson can rightly be called the King of Canadian Boogie Woogie.”

He did play boogie at Beal.

“He was a boogie woogie piano player and he had a fabulous left hand. That was his schtick then,” says London drummer Bill Vize who played with Peterson at a packed Beal secondary school auditorium on April 30, 1946. Peterson, just 20, was already a star in Montreal.

In 1993, Peterson suffered a serious stroke that weakened his left side and sidelined him for two years. He resumed playing to acclaim. Vize, having seen him in his majestic youth, found it “painful” to watch the recovery.

London bassist Bob (Doc) Livingston, who was the other accompanist at Beal, recalls that Peterson arrived without much fanfare. “He came in the afternoon and we practised for a little while at Beal,” Livingston says.

“Bob and I played conservatively,” Vize says. ” ‘I know both of you can play,’ ” he recalls Peterson telling them.

That 1946 concert has been the subject of a previous column. The Londoners did not accompany when he played works by Chopin, and other classical composers, on the program. Other tunes, such his trademark Oscar’s Boogie, Flying Home and Sheik of Araby, gave plenty of opportunity for the young star’s power and flash.

More than a decade later, London musician and educator Phil Murphy was a guest, at the invitation of the great Ray Brown, longtime Peterson bassist, at a rehearsal at Campbells, likely in the early 1960s. (I would be fascinated to hear from fans who were at Campbells, too.)

“If you make a noise, Oscar’s going to throw you out,” Brown warned Murphy. Peterson took those early morning rehearsals seriously.

“Oscar would play eight bars over and over and over,” Murphy recalls. At points, the pianist would ask for a change. “I want a G in there. Don’t play a D,” he would tell Brown.

A few days later, Murphy was at Campbells and heard the tune, now polished to perfection. Brown smiled and asked how he liked it.

After the night’s shows at Campbells were over, Peterson often visited the homes of Londoners he knew. His friendship with George and Ruth Robinson and early morning visits to their home at 960 Wellington St. were the subject of a previous column.

Also part of London lore is Peterson’s time at the Gibbons Park-area home of the late R.H. Reid, a former London Life president. Among the guests one night when Peterson and Brown played there was London pianist John Noubarian.

At one point, Peterson got up from the piano bench. After a lot of good-natured coaxing from those around him, Noubarian sat down and played. Brown took up his bass and played, too.

“He was my first idol,” Noubarian says of Peterson. “I was doing my damnedest (to emulate Peterson’s style).”

Peterson returned to hear Brown and Noubarian holding forth. “Then, Oscar came in and shoved me off the piano bench,” Noubarian says with a chuckle.

A friendly shove was not out of character for the great man. I remember his quick answer — a solid shove — when I asked Peterson a few years ago when he thought he would stop playing.

He didn’t know, he said. Abruptly. End of shove.

Now, we know we are lucky Oscar Peterson spent so much of his time playing for us.

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