Thursday, January 22, 2015

10 Essential Skills You Need as a Travel Writer

*****

This is an excerpt from "30 essential skills for travel writers".

*****

10 essential skills you need as a travel writer


1. Being an active observer


Active observation is consciously looking for connections between what’s visible in someone (their expressions, clothes, what they’re doing) and invisible (their histories, upbringing, dreams, desires). This is key, because within the gap between what’s visible and invisible is often where the deepest, most credible, and most interesting stories are found.


2. Recognizing patterns / bias in the way you observe people


While it’s important to be an active observer, at the same time there are also common ways of looking at people that can mislead readers. Some examples of this:

  • Romanticizing someone else’s life (Ex: A mountain guide in Ecuador)
  • Making assumptions based on cultural heritage
  • Attributing the emotions someone made you feel (especially if you’re observing them from a distance instead of interacting) back to them (Ex: “The carefree Cuban woman”)
  • Seeing people exclusively through the filter of strictly held philosophical, religious, or artistic beliefs / aesthetics
3. Being aware of how you look at place

In a similar way, people often haven’t considered the ways they may conceptualize or view place and how this affects their travel writing. Become conscious of this and always challenge your preconceived notions.


4. Being aware of marketing language / constructions in your writing


Marketing constructions, such as the “casual imperative,” the “hypothetical,” and the “hey-let-me-show-you” may unintentionally end up in travel writers’ narratives, weakening them.


5. Being aware of codification and/or commodification


Codification and commodification are ways of expressing place, culture, and people as salable commodities, and are fallacious but very common in travel writing. Example:



“Art lovers know there’s nothing that tops a free exhibit on a warm summer day.”

Codification begins when a narrator suggests something without actually declaring anything or referring to anything that exists in concrete reality (concrete reality being the real world in time/space). For example, “art lovers” is only a suggestion, not an actual group that exists (as opposed to, say, “the sophomores at Savannah College of Art and Design.”)


Codification and commodification, like fallacious arguments, are patterns that writers need to be aware of.


6. Constructing scenes


Scene-building is the central skill for writing strong narrative essays.


The easiest way to create scenes is to decide on a simple and single event to use as a narrative framework. This is the ongoing “story-line” to which you’ll add the facts, ideas, and information you want to convey.


The most obvious events already have a kind of inherent dramatic structure built in, like climbing a mountain or going on a date. Or, simply using the chronology of a day (“a day in the life”) or night, following the hours, the position of the sun / moon and other environmental factors, can be an easy and natural way to create scenes, especially for beginning writers.


7. Using anecdotes


Sometimes you have a minor character or incident that doesn’t fit well in the plot, but which, if included, would add a particularly rich detail or reinforce the story’s overall theme. This is when you need to use anecdotes.


8. Being aware of common usage errors


There are dozens of English language words commonly misused, like the ones in this article.


9. Finding original ways to express things


For some travel writers, this is just about learning to recognize and avoid cliches. Challenge what you write. Is it something that truly came from you or are you regurgitating something you've read dozens of times?


10. Knowing how to communicate with editors


Most of the time it comes down to not wasting the editor's time and getting your idea across quickly and efficiently.


* The above is an excerpt from 30 essential skills for travel writers. Click through for more.


~ The MatadorU team

10 Essential Skills You Need as a Travel Writer


*****

This is an excerpt from "30 essential skills for travel writers".

*****

10 essential skills you need as a travel writer


1. Being an active observer

Active observation is consciously looking for connections between what’s visible in someone (their expressions, clothes, what they’re doing) and invisible (their histories, upbringing, dreams, desires). This is key, because within the gap between what’s visible and invisible is often where the deepest, most credible, and most interesting stories are found.

2. Recognizing patterns / bias in the way you observe people

While it’s important to be an active observer, at the same time there are also common ways of looking at people that can mislead readers. Some examples of this:
  • Romanticizing someone else’s life (Ex: A mountain guide in Ecuador)
  • Making assumptions based on cultural heritage
  • Attributing the emotions someone made you feel (especially if you’re observing them from a distance instead of interacting) back to them (Ex: “The carefree Cuban woman”)
  • Seeing people exclusively through the filter of strictly held philosophical, religious, or artistic beliefs / aesthetics
3. Being aware of how you look at place

In a similar way, people often haven’t considered the ways they may conceptualize or view place and how this affects their travel writing. Become conscious of this and always challenge your preconceived notions.

4. Being aware of marketing language / constructions in your writing

Marketing constructions, such as the “casual imperative,” the “hypothetical,” and the “hey-let-me-show-you” may unintentionally end up in travel writers’ narratives, weakening them.

5. Being aware of codification and/or commodification

Codification and commodification are ways of expressing place, culture, and people as salable commodities, and are fallacious but very common in travel writing. Example:


“Art lovers know there’s nothing that tops a free exhibit on a warm summer day.”

Codification begins when a narrator suggests something without actually declaring anything or referring to anything that exists in concrete reality (concrete reality being the real world in time/space). For example, “art lovers” is only a suggestion, not an actual group that exists (as opposed to, say, “the sophomores at Savannah College of Art and Design.”)

Codification and commodification, like fallacious arguments, are patterns that writers need to be aware of.

6. Constructing scenes

Scene-building is the central skill for writing strong narrative essays.

The easiest way to create scenes is to decide on a simple and single event to use as a narrative framework. This is the ongoing “story-line” to which you’ll add the facts, ideas, and information you want to convey.

The most obvious events already have a kind of inherent dramatic structure built in, like climbing a mountain or going on a date. Or, simply using the chronology of a day (“a day in the life”) or night, following the hours, the position of the sun / moon and other environmental factors, can be an easy and natural way to create scenes, especially for beginning writers.

7. Using anecdotes

Sometimes you have a minor character or incident that doesn’t fit well in the plot, but which, if included, would add a particularly rich detail or reinforce the story’s overall theme. This is when you need to use anecdotes.

8. Being aware of common usage errors

There are dozens of English language words commonly misused, like the ones in this article.

9. Finding original ways to express things

For some travel writers, this is just about learning to recognize and avoid cliches. Challenge what you write. Is it something that truly came from you or are you regurgitating something you've read dozens of times?

10. Knowing how to communicate with editors

Most of the time it comes down to not wasting the editor's time and getting your idea across quickly and efficiently.

* The above is an excerpt from 30 essential skills for travel writers. Click through for more.

~ The MatadorU team

Saturday, January 17, 2015

Structure of a Song


*****

Structure of a Song:

(http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1997_articles/oct97/arranging1.html)


THE INGREDIENTS


THE VERSE: We all know that a verse is the part of the song which tells the story. Most songs have no more than four verses, which would include repeating the first verse at the end. Bob Dylan has written songs with dozens of verses, but none of those ever became hits. Of course, you can get away with only one verse repeated over and over again, if you want. The Red Hot Chilli Peppers, with 'Roller Coaster of Love', and Nirvana, with 'Something in the Way', are two that did.

THE CHORUS: The chorus is the part of the song which you want people to be singing along with by the end of the song -- the first time they hear it. One easy, effective and sure-fire killer way of making a chorus lift to maximum hit-ability is to find the highest root note string sound you can and have it simply playing all the way through. It sounds corny, but just try it. It could be one of the elements that makes your track a worldwide smash hit. Ask the Pet Shop Boys what they think of this idea.

THE BRIDGE OR TAG: This is a section that links the verse and the chorus together. That music shop favourite 'Wonderwall', by the mighty Oasis, has a perfect example of a bridge, if a little long and unadventurously used ("And all the roads we have to walk are winding..."). The song also has the 'two verses at the beginning' trick (see next section).

THE MIDDLE EIGHT (or, as James Brown would shout, "Take it to the bridge") is a third melodic part, usually placed after the second chorus to break up the song pattern. It's called a middle eight because it's usually eight bars long, but there's no law saying it has to be that length or even there in the first place -- whatever feels good and fits the bill. No-one has ever done a study on this but I would hazard a guess that 50% of records have a middle eight, and of those, 50% are eight bars long. Michael Jackson used this device for effect in 'Billie Jean' ("People always told me, be careful what you do..." -- which, by the way, is eight bars long).

A KEY CHANGE: Why? Because it can lift a song at that difficult 'two-thirds of the way through' stage, where the listener's interest is beginning to waver. The usual key change is to move up a tone (from A to B, for example). It's advised, for maximum effect, to build into this with a huge drum break or a dramatic pause. Key changes down are seldom, if ever, used, because they give the opposite effect of uplift. And note that more than one key change per song can be more annoying than exciting. There's a classic example of a key change in the Whitney Houston hit 'I Will Always Love You'.

THE CODA is a cool way of ending a track. It's either the chorus hook repeated continuously, or a new section used to tail off a track. One of the most exciting codas used in popular music is the end of Elvis Costello's 'Accidents Will Happen' -- the bit that repeats the words "I Know", ad infinitum.

Top 10 Most Famous Photographers of All Time – PictureCorrect


*****

Top 10 Most Famous Photographers of All Time – PictureCorrect


*****

Sunday, January 11, 2015

5 Steps to Prepare For Licensing Your Music


*****

or


https://musicclout.com/contents/article-294-5-steps-to-prepare-for-licensing-your-music.aspx?utm_source=Potential+Members&utm_campaign=9afad41f01-5_steps_to_prepare_Article_1_9_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4bb296eccb-9afad41f01-304002741

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Open Letter to Venues


*****
Open Letter to Venue
This is one very important letter for entertainment venue owners to read.

or

https://www.musicclout.com/contents/article-422-open-letter-to-venues.aspx?utm_source=Potential+Members&utm_campaign=9852397e31-Open_Letter_to_Venues_Article_12_30_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4bb296eccb-9852397e31-304002741