With all the song-writing I’ve been doing, I started thinking about licensing and monetization options potentially opening up to my writing. So I submitted my two IP releases to a company called Pump Audio, which is owned by Getty Images, *the* humongous stock photo company. I was not surprised to just find out that one of my submissions was rejected (and I’m sure the other will be) as being essentially unsaleable in their current form. From their form letter:

Below are some of the reasons why your music may not be accepted.

1. Sound quality - Our major broadcast clients require recordings of the highest sound quality.
2. Performance - while Pump Audio does not look for hit songs from our submissions, our clients do require high quality performances regardless of the style or genre.
3. Musical Composition - The song structure and form are not consistent with the material that we are currently placing.

Please keep making music and stay in touch with us at Pump Audio!

I rather agree with and was anticipating such a response on all three counts. I’m fairly well-aware of and honest with myself about where I’m at musically. I’m off the ground, but I’m not yet floating in the clouds. Over-all, I’m not emotionally wounded by a rejection such as this. I’ve been writing long enough and submitting random things to random places that I’m used to it at this point. Any time you submit anything to anything, it’s always a very long gamble that you’ll be accepted, let alone see some large benefit from it. I’ve begun seeing it more as a technical problem: how to improve each of the above points so that I can open up that portion of my skill set as a viable way to bring in income over the long haul. I don’t see such things as a matter of selling out - especially since I got into making music again exclusively for myself - but as a matter of mastering and perfecting your inputs and outputs. Be all you can be, that sort of stuff.

In any event, I’m more or less over (for now) the “Big Elk” sub-character I created for myself as a psycho-aesthetic sort of costume or raft to explore emotional, social and musical issues. I’ve learned so much from the process of looking at the world through that lens that I feel as though I’ve integrated those lessons and am ready to branch off into some new direction, some newer, stronger experience-experiment - one which has been strengthened and clarified by what I’ve already gained. So that’s where I’m at now: bigger and better. More technical and structural strength. Getting the job done, getting paid and getting out of there.