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                                               the sound of emotion

Soundtrack: DEAD TO ME ( NETFLIX ) Season 1 Playlist

9/28/2019

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Have you seen Dead To Me?  

Dead to Me  is a fantastic dark comedy created by Liz Feldman which premiered on May 3, 2019 on Netflix.  The series stars Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini as grieving women who bond during therapy.  If you are a fan of the show, like me, you will be pleased to hear that it has been renewed for a second season!  Sweet!  Recently, at the 71st Primetime Emmy Awards, Christina Applegate received a nomination for outstanding lead actress in a comedy series, which is well deserved because she is brilliant in this series.  If you've seen it, you know what I am talking about, if you haven't seen it, I highly suggest it, and I'm not working for Netflix or anything, I'm just a music lover, and yes of course, I really like the sound track. The music is fantastically curated by music supervisor Tricia Halloran.  Listen to the playlist I made on here and please follow    Magnetic West Music on Spotify.
 Thanks!     Mike
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Music Performance Agreement Guide + Form

2/18/2019

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       It's important to have a Music Performance Agreement between you and the venue so the terms are clear and there's no gray area to figure out during or after the gig.  Send this form ahead of time to the booking agent, talent buyer or music coordinator at the venue if they don't send you one first. 
    On the form you will of course include all of your Contact Information.  If your act has multiple members then this is a good way to have one member be the point person.  It is very important to have a phone number that the talent buyer can use to reach you easily for updates to the gig or contact when you are on the road. 
   The performance Date is helpful to keep clear for scheduling, travel and information for publicity and obviously showing up on the right date for your gig and making sure the venue doesn't double book you.   Pinpoint the location / address of the venue to plug into your maps app.  so you can arrive in a timely manner and plan your travel time.  If your venue is in your home town and you play there a lot then maybe mapping it out isn't important but this contract is still important.  If the Event has a name, like if it is part of a certain music festival, a series, showcase or something along those lines, it is helpful for publicity to indicate that.   All of these items ensure that you and the venue are on the same page. 
  The Services section covers a lot of useful information to the venue so they are clear about what to expect: what services you are providing / your genre, band members, or any notes about what you are delivering, so that the venue isn't expecting a full band when you show up solo.  The Performance Details are often filled by the venue and can include: the performance order and where you're placed on the bill, how long your sets are, breaks, if there's more than one act performing, what time you're expected to arrive and load in and do sound check.   You can ask about these details in this section if they haven't been previously arranged. 
   It's good to have the venue write down PA / Equipment Details so you know what you need to bring and what the venue has.  You can also put your tech. / stage plot requirements here. 
  Payment: this is good to clarify your compensation,  wether it's a guarantee, percentage of the door cover or ticket sales.  Does it include food & drink?  A
re you getting paid a portion of the money upfront (“deposit”), and if so, what is that amount, and when is it due to be received?  Are you being paid before or after the show?  How are you getting paid – cash or check?  There are a lot of variables in how artists are compensated so it is good to get those details taken care of before the gig. 
  Seems like I may have forgotten something, right? Other Info. to include could be an agreement as to what happens if you are sick or the event gets rained out or anything else that is unique to the performance. 
   After you and the talent buyer sign and date it, and you get their contact info. so you can text them when you get to the venue, you'll have taken care of business and you'll be able to focus on the performance.  Download the complimentary form below! Have fun!

chime in  :  Do you you already have a form you use? How does it differ from mine? Have you noticed using a Performance Agreement helps ? How often do you use them? 

​kindly, Mike Caruso ( MAGNETIC WEST MUSIC ) 
DOWNLOAD Perofrmance Agreement
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exploring the sound of Backwater with Justin Gordon

2/13/2019

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I met with my friend, singer/songwriter Justin Gordon and we ​talked about his new album Backwater. Early on in the conversation he stated :
“you compartmentalize some part of your identity and, for me, I’ve always been committed to making records. It’s how I’ve arbitrarily chosen to mark the eras of my life. ”
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With what Justin communicates in his music, he believes the listeners to be " the presumed perpetrator of bad culture, which is in fact, the person who is just like you or me or anybody else, doing their best. ” In addition, he describes the album as "a query to be answered by O yea, I understand what you are saying... I feel that way all the time. It’s a call for reassurance. " He continues to illustrate this reciprocity one might have with his music as “I heard that song and I really connected with it because I feel the similar feeling of alienation or something along those lines " and then he " connects with that person over that feeling.”
Furthermore, of the material that floats in the mirror pool of Backwater, he says " some of them are just love songs or songs of lost youth. ”
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We examined the element of songwriting where you decide to include or leave out specific place names and Justin said " certain songwriters use that to great effect. You think it might be putting people on the outside - well I’m not from Jersey - or something like that but it’s almost an intimacy , it can be like you are getting let in on this person’s geography, like an inner circle." The album's songs feel rooted in the geography of southern backwater reflecting a warm desert glow, but the songwriter sites locations spanning from Maine to Southern Oregon, from Athens, Ohio and the Lost Coast of California, and as far as Mexico and Columbia.
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    From the first tones of the acoustic guitar on the opening track, Folly of Youth, you  can hear the carefree character of Justin’s $10. guitar that has appeared in many recordings (including the 2006 album entitled Ten Dollar Guitar ) .  On this track, that has some of his signature chord structuring,  comfortable vocals deliver a confident melody and the final moments of the song are enchanted with the chiming notes of piano.  On the track that follows it, Cabin Life, the buttery growl of Justin’s Harmony Rocket , a semi-hollow body guitar with gold foil pickups, churns under his poetics.  Then Possibilities shows up to celebrate with a fun retro style.  Riohacha, which appeared on 2016 album Home Fires as a reverb soaked acoustic track ( which I coincidentally played on accordion on)  got released in it’s full glory brewed in the smokey Backwater which is the original version of the song , how it is played live, with Dave Hampton on drums and Jeff Fretwell on bass.
The album , like Justin’s other work , is full of captivating melodies to hum , or whistle, like he does in Wilderness, which, if you’ve heard his song Me & Chuckles, you might recognize the melody (Wilderness was actually partially written while in Guatemala in 2009. Me & Chuckles came later and took over some of that melody . ) Simple Man is a tune that I could hear spinning in the background of a party, cascading good vibes into the air. The playful marimba sound comes from an 80’s Casio keyboard which he feels is a portrayal of a “simple melody played in someone’s bedroom , a lack of polish, a counterpoint of clean tone” to balance out the warm lo-fi recording. “I like combining those things” he adds. Stones , the fifth track on the album is a beautiful deep dive into emotional territory. Elders, which delivers an elegant sense of the sonic field of the album and The Beach , which brings you right there to that sandy location with an easy going rhythm and relatable lyrics, are two personal favorites for the songwriter. When I asked Justin to elaborate on Elders, which is my favorite too, he said “ I was looking at chords that I had written out years ago with the first verse of the song, there was a scribbled out chord and the scribbled out chord looked like a letter C. I played the progression and I was like, That’s not right, but I like it. It was a strange place to start a verse or a song but I was like oh, this is going someplace already.” He continued with “most songwriters are either embracing their structure or trying to find new ways to get out of their tendencies or chord progressions. I don’t make any great effort to get out of my chord progression tendencies but I certainly try to think of every possible angle that I can go on a key...there are no rules”.

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The warm, inviting recording , which was originally supposed to be captured directly to 1/4” 4 track reel to reel tape, was actually recorded digitally and then mastered to tape. The melodies are engaging and the well crafted lyrics rise throughout the album like delicate desert flowers or gasoline fumes packing a pungent punch. It is truly gritty and honest Americana poetry at its finest. Backwater reaches new landscapes in its effort to remove itself from the mainstream but it is certainly not a departure from Justin's well seasoned creative persona. The achievement catches my senses. It is firmly rooted in honesty and it feels good to listen to. About the title's theme Justin says " Backwater is a place where things don’t change, they haven’t been modernized. I wanted to convey reclusion or trying to achieve some remoteness, a getting away, an escape from feeling crowded, which coalesced on a trip to the Lost Coast. I think this collection of songs is like the Lost Coast. It's about appreciating the old ways. "
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Caruso’s Wicked Light+Crispy GlutenFree ​Pizzelle Recipe:

1/16/2019

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  I know this is my blog about music but it was just a matter of time before I wrote about food. I grew up snacking on traditional Italian pizzelles ( ha, my computer says I am spelling pizzelles wrong and it is trying to auto-correct it to Pirellis but no, I didn’t grow up eating car tires. )  Anyways, my Nonnie made light and crispy pizzelles that were anise flavored.  Usually around the holidays they would start stacking up on the countertops and the sweet buttery crispy cookies shaped in beautiful designs would be a comfort and delight, and an occasional giggle-fest when someone would mispronounce anise. What flavor?!   
   So, don’t tell my Nonnie, but this recipe is for gluten-free pizzelles, and you can flavor them however you want.
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    Mike Caruso’s Wicked Light + Crispy Gluten Free ​ Pizzelle Recipe:


  3 eggs  ( chicken eggs work best )
  3/4 cup sugar ( I use fine organic cane sugar )
  3/8 teaspoon salt
  1 teaspoon vanilla
        

    The Flour:
   You need 1 and 3/4 cups : you can use 1 3/4 cups of whatever gluten free flour(s) you want but just make sure to use mostly rice flour.  I tried using all coconut before and they were wicked crumbly and tiny crumbs would get stuck in your throat and when you would try and talk to people while eating them you would just end up coughing and your eyes would water and they would ask “ are you ok?”  and when you couldn’t respond they would just kinda walk away. I don’t want that to happen to you, that’s not really what we are going for here.  Here’s what I like to use:


        11/4 Cup of Bob’s Red Mill GF 1to1 Baking Flour ( or something similar )
           ( it’s a blend of two different rice flours/potato starch,
                         sorghum flour and tapioca flour and xanthan gum  )
        1/4 cup of fine coconut flour
        1/4 cup of fine almond flour
        2 teaspoons baking powder
        10 tablespoons of melted butter
        1 extra bit of butter for greasing your Pizzelle iron ( you have a Pizzelle iron right ? )


    powdered sugar for dusting
    1 teaspoon of flavor ( almond, anise, etc ) extract


INSTRUCTIONS
melt the butter  in a little pan on the stovetop while doing the next step:

Beat the eggs, sugar, salt, and vanilla until well combined.

Stir in the flour and baking powder, mixing until smooth.
Add any additional flavors ( I like almond extract. there’s always anise, and even lemon perhaps, I may be just imagining it but I think I had some butter-rum flavored ones too that were pretty scrumptious.
 
Add the melted butter, again mixing until smooth; the batter will be thick and soft.

Heat your pizzelle iron. Take a pad of butter and rub it on your hot pizzelle iron - don’t burn your fingers! especially if you play guitar and have a gig that night.
As the iron heats, the batter will stiffen, and the children will start circling around and dipping their fingers in the powdered sugar.

Cook the pizzelle according to your iron. In general, they'll take somewhere between 45 seconds and 2 minutes cook. Mine has a little light that goes off when they are done. Take them out quick before they get too brown, just a light toasted color is good.

Remove the pizzelle from the iron with a spatula or something, it will be soft and wicked floppy, lay it on a cooling rack and make some more.

 fun idea :  While they are all bendable you can roll them up and make ice cream cones or cannolli shells.

They cool and harden very quickly and then you can trim the edges to make them all pretty.  you can feed the edges to you dog or kids or trash can.
    
Dust cooled pizzelle with powdered’ sugar

Enjoy !
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Musically Speaking: Dissonance.

1/10/2019

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​     When I am working with filmmakers and other creatives and we are talking about the music that is involved with a project I've noticed that there can be a tendency for them to add in a disclaimer like 
"I don't know if this is the best way to describe it" or "I don't know the musical term" or "I'm not very musically literate"  and that has inspired me to write this new section:
                              
Musically Speaking...

One word that often gets used by people who claim to not know how to speak about music is dissonance so I though I would clarify that term:
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     Musical Dissonance. You've heard it before, like a baby banging on many keys of a piano at the same time , can be a clashing and harsh sound but also,  done well,  it can  express conflict or tension.

   
Simply put, Dissonance is a clashing of notes, associated with unpleasantness, whereas  Consonance is a harmony, associated with sweetness + pleasantness.

For the purposes of being on the same page when we talk about music for a creative media project I don't think it's necessary to go into the specifics of what notes sound good together to create consonance and what notes clash to create dissonance, you know it when you hear it. 

Consonance, in general, refers to a pleasant sound, something that is comfortable to your ears. Dissonance, on the other hand, refers to tension and instability, and also you get the sense that the music needs to go somewhere to be resolved back to consonance. 
​ 

​Can you come up with any examples of dissonance in music? 
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Your Wedding Day Music Guide

3/14/2018

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​Your Love Story
   Music is always an important part of every story.  Your wedding is a celebration of  your love story, the pages past and the ones yet to come,  so your music should accompany that. Was there a song playing in the background somewhere on your first date? Are there songs that you shared with each other when you first met? What songs have you realized together that you both really like? What songs do you associate with your love? Start writing down that list and hold on to it. As you start to plan the soundtrack to your night's itinerary, notice where each song might fit best. It is important to place the right song at the right time to maximize the emotional support music offers to each moment.
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Bridal Party Entrance
   The processional is enhanced by beautiful melodies, elegant and joyous songs.   You can
choose an uplifting song that represents the family members as they enter and then pause and switch to a song to signify the bride’s entrance.  Sometimes even a bit of humor in the music is a great way to help the bridal party and guests relax into the ceremony time a bit.

Ceremony
  The ceremony is a very intimate part of a wedding, so you’ll want to choose songs that set the right tone and support the emotions of your ceremony. An acoustic guitarist, vocalist, string section of cello and violin, a singer/acoustic guitarist, perhaps an elegant harpist or a combination of any of those types of musicians will deliver non-obtrusive,heartwarming and pleasing melodies to weave around your vows and officiant’s words. If you have special meaningful songs for your ceremony, you can have a singer/guitarist perform a rendition.   Another option, if you want to go without live musicians, is to ask your DJ to arrange a pre-recorded set of your song selections.  Often, ceremonies have special moments, like sand ceremonies, where there are no words spoken and music can weave in and out of these to support the moment and fill the silence.
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Recessional 
   Here's a moment to turn it up a notch, it's time to celebrate!  This should be a fun, positive song, meaningful to you as your first song walking forward, hand in hand as a married couple.
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Cocktail Hour Music
   Often you can use the musicians from your ceremony for this time before dinner.  A string quartet  makes for nice mingling music and a singer/songwriter is a great way to entertain guests. They often come with their own love song based repertoire to blend in with your requests. 

Dinner
   Dinner music is about creating a comfortable ambiance, a soft background soundtrack for social conversations.  Find some mellow (but not boring) music and create your own playlist, or have your live musicians or DJ provide this light dinner music.  Often this music fades in and out with various stories being told and speeches being made in honor of the newly married couple.

First Dance
   This song should have a special meaning to you as a couple, and be a slower, sweet and intimate song. Perhaps you will have danced to it many times before and have choreographed your moves.
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Reception
   If you can find one that can deliver the right music for your reception’s dancing and celebration, a live band is always a great option.  Your other option is recorded music, either you or a family member can have that run a playlist through the PA or you can hire a DJ.  DJs arrive on the scene to create a solid beat to keep all the guests moving but the dance floor tunes don’t have to be an hour-long mega-mix, you can pull together your own playlist that the DJ can be inspired from.  A week before the ceremony you can jot down a list of your ‘must play’ songs, or even your ‘must not play’ songs.   A DJ will only need about 7 tracks here to get an idea of the vibe you’re going for. ​
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   What else would you include in this guide to selecting the perfect soundtrack to
your special wedding day?
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Technique: creative CD PACKAGING in 3 steps

11/24/2017

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​Here's an easy way I have found to manufacture low-cost, nice looking independent CDs using creative techniques for packaging. 
Step 1 - Put the Music on CD.   
​  While one could simply burn CD-R discs on their computer and write their band name on them with Sharpies, I prefer a more professional look.  I like to order a spindle of Bulk CDs with a nice thermal printed image from Discmakers. 

​    The design on the CD face incorporates the on-disc template that Discmakers provides.  I create the on-disc design myself using Photoshop but if you need assistance then you can contact a freelance designer like BoatRide Design. 
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bulk CD spindle
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Arigato pack
 Step 2 - Order the blank packaging.
​       
I regularly use Stumptown Printers SP BLANKS site to order my blank packages. My favorite is the Arigato pack.  They come in an assortment of colors. They also have paper CD sleeves that fit inside the Arigato Pack. 

Step 3 - Apply Design.  I have done this a few ways.  One way is to print stickers and apply them directly to the covers.  A less expensive version would be to print the graphics on paper and paste them on with a glue stick. 




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Sticker graphics
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pasted paper label
A third option,  which I think looks great,  is to order custom made stamps
from a place like 
rubberstamps.net and a raised pad ink pad
​ like the ones sold by 
Yellow Owl Worksop. 
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stamping cover art
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stamping cover art


   so there's an easy, fun and affordable way
​                       to make your own CDs !


I followed these steps to make
 my newest Son Ravello CD. 
          (check it out here) 
  

What creative techniques have you found for manufacturing your CDs? Comment Below!
     

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music from Blindspot Season 3 Episode 4

11/17/2017

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​ 

 music from  BLINDSPOT ( NBC ) 
 season 3 / episode 4   ( airs 11/17/17 )
" Little Night Lights " by M.Caruso

click "buy" below to download 


​
LITTLE NIGHT LIGHTS
  
Michael Paul Caruso : composer, 
            guitar, piano, vibraphone

Nancy Martin : cello

an instrumental version of
​"Constellations" by M.Caruso
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M.Caruso ( photo by Lora Wilde )
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Music in Motion - Workout Tunes  -

10/9/2017

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Here is a collection of some unique songs for working out, running and fitness motivation. 

 
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listen to this playlist on Spotify :

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PLUS :  here's an excellent fitness article
​ from  BUFFEDD  > > > 
​
​https://buffedd.com/what-is-the-best-hiit-workout/
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new Son Ravello single - Hang On Tight

4/25/2017

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Hang On Tight is the new single by  Son Ravello.
Son Ravello is the name adopted by singer/songwriter Michael Caruso, who is affectionately known by his friends as "Mysha" . 
Hang On Tight was recorded by Caruso and delivers a lush arrangement of acoustic guitar, vibraphone and electronica.  This recording features the vocals of Manda Bryn Severin,  who fronts the Americana project The Meriwethers, a band which also includes Mysha himself, as well as Manda's husband Ezra and actor/ writer Nell Geisslinger.   The Meriwethers perform Hang On Tight in their Lewis & Clark inspired shows. The song speaks to working together and having the support of others to get you through challenging times. 
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    Author

    Mike Caruso
    writes with a fascination of sound + music, it's emotional connection to life and the convergence of music to  media + lifestyle.

    THE SOUND
    of EMOTION
     
    -----------

    M U S I C
    M A K E S
    T H E 
    M O M E N T



     #MusicMakesTheMoment
     #TheSoundofEmotion  #MusicisLove
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