September 9, 2025 • 56 mins
🎙️ Episode S5E24 –  Finding Your True Value as a Musician with Elaine Ryan
 In this episode of Musicians Tip Jar, hosts Chris Webb and Dave Tamkin sit down with Elaine Ryan — singer-songwriter, author, and founder of Unicorn Sync — to explore how musicians can discover, communicate, and confidently set their value in today’s music industry.
Elaine shares her inspiring journey from gigging in Maui to building a thriving sync licensing agency in San Francisco, helping indie artists land placements in TV, film, and ads. She opens up about balancing creativity with income, launching her nonprofit Sync Music for Change, and writing her upcoming book Living a Music-Centered Life. 👉 Whether you’re a gigging musician, songwriter, or building your sync career, you’ll learn:
“For me, it’s always been being able to create songs that I care about and get them heard by other people.”
📌 Nonprofit of the Week: Maui Music Mission – bringing music education to kids and communities in need. 🔗 Don’t miss this conversation full of practical advice, inspiration, and a reminder that your music has real value.
Elaine's
website: https://www.elaineryan.ca/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/mselaineryan
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/musicians-tip-jar--4698023/support.
Visit MusiciansTipJar.com for more resources and tools to empower your financial journey.
Intro & Outro Music Donated by: The Magi https://www.themagimusic.comÂ
Intro Read by: David “DJ” Lee of The Magi
https://soundcloud.com/rockababyrockÂ
Pictures by: Kit Chalberg https://kitchalberg.com/
 In this episode of Musicians Tip Jar, hosts Chris Webb and Dave Tamkin sit down with Elaine Ryan — singer-songwriter, author, and founder of Unicorn Sync — to explore how musicians can discover, communicate, and confidently set their value in today’s music industry.
Elaine shares her inspiring journey from gigging in Maui to building a thriving sync licensing agency in San Francisco, helping indie artists land placements in TV, film, and ads. She opens up about balancing creativity with income, launching her nonprofit Sync Music for Change, and writing her upcoming book Living a Music-Centered Life. 👉 Whether you’re a gigging musician, songwriter, or building your sync career, you’ll learn:
- How to define your unique value in music
- Why setting your rates matters (and how to do it without guilt)
- Tips for navigating sync licensing opportunities
- Strategies to balance fulfillment with financial stability
“For me, it’s always been being able to create songs that I care about and get them heard by other people.”
📌 Nonprofit of the Week: Maui Music Mission – bringing music education to kids and communities in need. 🔗 Don’t miss this conversation full of practical advice, inspiration, and a reminder that your music has real value.
Elaine's
website: https://www.elaineryan.ca/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/mselaineryan
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/musicians-tip-jar--4698023/support.
Visit MusiciansTipJar.com for more resources and tools to empower your financial journey.
Intro & Outro Music Donated by: The Magi https://www.themagimusic.comÂ
Intro Read by: David “DJ” Lee of The Magi
https://soundcloud.com/rockababyrockÂ
Pictures by: Kit Chalberg https://kitchalberg.com/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the show that explores the methods and strategies
on rocking the financial side of your music business. With
over forty years combined experience, here are your hosts, Chris
Webb and Dave Tamkin.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Welcome to you, musicians, Tip javerhe We talk about musicians
and money. We believe in creating both a great life
and a great career. I'm Chris Webb, joined by my
co host Dave Tamkin, also known to his nephew nieces
as Great Uncle Captain Dave.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
It's only a bad title to have when you're in
metaverse for Facebook and your nephew gets on and it's
being followed by someone called Great Uncle Captain Dave, and
then there have to be like, yes, there's a young
boy in the metaverse right now being followed around by
(00:51):
Great Uncle Captain Dave. And then all of a sudden,
my brother's account just went down. They just shut him
out of there. Yeah. So, and I had a mustache
in there too, which is not always a good look
in the metaverse.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Maybe we could throw out the picture you sent me
so everyone can get context of Captain Dave.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
All right, I was so happy my nephew got me
that Captain Hat felt really good about it.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
It looks good. I'm not saying that well. Today we
sit down with Unicorn Sink Agency owner, musician and now
author Elaine Ryan. We discussed balancing the phases of creating,
why she started a sink agency, and how to find
your win win win ideas. Today's quote comes from our
(01:41):
guest Elaine. She said, for me, it's always been being
able to create songs that I care about and get
them heard by other people.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Today's nonprofit is Malimusicmission dot com. At Maloi Music Mission,
they're dedicated to breaking down the barriers that prevent children
from accessing quality music education. Their vibrant after school and
music club provides a joyful, immerse experience where students explore
you lately piano, percussion, voice, and music theory, all while
building essential life skills. Learn more at mauimusicmission dot com.
(02:14):
If you find this information useful, everyone, please rate and
subscribe to the podcast and also slam that like button
if you're on YouTube, so we can help keep you
up on the finance side of your music business.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Elene Ryan is a musician and sink agent who has
made her living in music for over fifteen years. She
has toured throughout Canada and the US and Europe. She
has released four full length albums and EP and numerous singles.
Her songs have been featured in ads and on TV
shows airing on NBC and Amazon. She is the founder
of SYNC licensing agency Unicorn Sync, where she's helped a
(02:47):
growing network of indie artists land placements in film and television.
She also co founded SYNC Music for a Change, a
nonprofit initiative connecting musicians with SYNC opportunities while raising money
for chairitable and progressive causes. Elene is a member of
the Recording Academy. She lives in the San Francisco Bay
area with her husband, her journal, and her guitar. Most recently,
(03:09):
she's about to release her first book, Living a Music
Centered Life, A guide to balance, fulfillment and paying the bills.
We really enjoyed our time with Elaine Ryan and know
that you will get a lot out of this too,
So let's go Elaine Ryan, thank you so much for
(03:39):
being here with us. I'm musicians Tip jar I appreciate
you spending some time here with us.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure so.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
I just kind of wanted a preface with the fact
that you and I have met only briefly a couple
times at the Durango expos over the years, although I
have been aware of your projects with Unicorn and the
other stuff you've been doing for a while because of
being there, and you guys wear those fantastic helmets for
a while, so those are really smart marketing tactics. And
(04:07):
so I think I want to start with kind of
giving you a chance to kind of give us your backstory,
a little bit about how you got into music and
how you got to this kind of point where you're
kind of putting in this content that you're making now.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
Sure. Yeah, So I have been a singer songwriter for
many years, since my early twenties. Just at the beginning
start was focusing on my own writing. I did some
tours in Canada and a West Coast tour in the US,
and then I moved to Maui, Hawaii to be with
(04:42):
my now husband and sort of pivoted to earning my
income as a musician there because there's just so many
resorts looking for live music. So I was able to
do that like four nights a week on Maui and
then wanted something more challenging. You know, I had created
an album and I sold a thousand hard copies of that,
(05:04):
you know, it was a goal of mine to sell
them at my shows. And then I ended up creating
like a website to help people find live music on Maui.
And then then we moved to the Bay Area for
a couple of different reasons. But one of the reasons
was to see if I could have it have that
website work elsewhere. So I did that for a while.
(05:25):
Covid hit and live music events was not a thing anymore,
so I kind of wrapped up that project. It's still
on Maui. It's still like their events calendar there, which
is cool.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
That's great.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
And yeah, and then I started getting into music licensing.
I took a course on sync licensing online. I met
a whole bunch of people co writers, first online and
then in person in LA and then that kind of
led to a nonprofit initiative, Sink Music for Change, and
that led to Unicorn Sync, which is the licensing agency
(05:56):
that I run. And yeah, I'm still writing songs and yeah,
just I had a viral hit that I co wrote
that just went viral a few months ago, which was
the kind of like first first for me. And that
was interesting too.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
That's amazing. Congrat And what did it go viral.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
On on Instagram and Facebook? Basically the reels it got
put it got used in like over a million reels
on Instagram and Facebook just as like a background.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Excellent. Yeah, yeah, we'll share that and I link at
the bottom of this.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Do you still introduce your husband as your current husband?
Speaker 4 (06:29):
He's still my current husband.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Okay, yeah, okay, just make you he was.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
My then boyfriend, that's why. That's why it is my
current husband.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
And living in Maui and then switching over to sand Fan,
did you feel like the economy that you experienced from
one kind of a destination location to more of a
functioning city changed your ability to continue being a performer.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
So it's funny I thought that I would. I thought
that I was kind of giving up the like playing
cover gigs thing when I moved to San Francisco, because
Hawaii is such a driven economy that you can really work.
You know, you could work six nights a week there
if you wanted to, and I knew people who did.
But then when I moved to the Bay Area. I
realized there's just there's a lot of corporate gigs and
(07:11):
weddings here, and so I basically like increased my rate,
decreased my shows, and kept income fairly steady. So it
wasn't that was that was the main I mean, And
it's the type of thing where I could still be playing.
I could be playing the hotels and the hard rock
cafe and all that stuff, and I have done some
of that here, but I'm just it kind of burns
you out after a while. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
So yeah, yeah, you gotta find that sweet spot that
keeps you motivated, right.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Do you feel like most of the time when someone
says they moved to sanfran I would say, oh, that
must have been a lot of a price increase, you know,
for the cost of living. But coming from Maui, maybe
that was a wash.
Speaker 4 (07:46):
No, yeah, it was. Well, I mean, I mean, rent
is a bit more expensive here for sure, but it's
pretty pricey on Maui too. And and cause food is
super expensive, everything has to be shipped to the island,
so food got cheaper. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
You mentioned burnout for having a music career longer than
fifteen years now, do you have some habits and routines
that are critical for you to avoid that burnout?
Speaker 4 (08:13):
Yeah, well, I mean it's I mean, honestly, the burnout
comes more from playing cover gigs too many nights a week,
you know, and there's only so many times, so many
new songs you want to play, and it's yeah, you
really have to balance it, especially if it's like a
what I call a wallpaper gig where you're the background
music and you've been playing these songs over and over
(08:34):
like and I wouldn't even say so much it's like
burnout like which I associate more with working too many
hours and not getting out of sleep and that kind
of thing. It's more just like boredom or lack of
challenge and needing to find new like I think what
I basically, if you're like talking of habits, it's just
always checking in with myself and trying to find things
(08:55):
that I will find, you know, engaging and exciting. And yeah,
so that that happened, you know, And so I did
that website and then I did this same music for
change and the licensing agency and songwriting I never get
tired of.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
So, yeah, do you feel like you put a certain
amount of schedule to keeping up on your songwriting in
the midst of all these other things you're doing, or
is it feels still organic to you that you just
can't you impulsively have to write.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
So during the pandemic, I definitely I had, like I
write a song a week habit that I was doing.
And then I got to this stage where it felt
like I have all these songs and I want to
record them. You know, you can, like you can write
so many songs, but it takes budget to record good
quality songs, and so I kind of put a pause
(09:42):
on the writing, shifted to writing the book, and on that.
I was doing half an hour to an hour a
day writing the book, editing the book, promoting the book, publishing.
That's a lot of work too, So I kind of
just have always my thing is to put half an
hour to an hour into creative stuff per day, whether
that songwriting or recording like a work tape for a
(10:05):
song I want to record, or working on the book.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
I think ninety minutes is a good goal.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
Thirty thirty to sixty, yeah, but I mean ninety is great.
It's it's I think, like, so I read this book
Atomic Habits by James Clear. Have you guys heard of
that one?
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Oh yeah, you just had our last guests bring it up.
Speaker 4 (10:20):
Yeah, it's awesome. And I really think that the consistency
is way more important than the duration each time. You know,
so even if it's fifteen minutes, if you can do
it on a daily basis, the games are you know,
I'm trying not to skip more than one day kind
of thing. It's super powerful.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
You brought up in Mali that you can play six
nights a week, and I'm sure you had a tight
group of musicians there that knew each other because of
that community. How did that change for you when you
moved and also how did you re establish starting over
for networking in your new town.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
Yeah, so I don't know that I would say that
the network the community was that tight on Maui. It
was just people who I'd see coming and going from
the hotels, and you know, I had I had definitely
had a few musician friends, but the vibe was less felt,
less around creating original music and more around performing music.
(11:17):
And that was creating music was what I was keen on.
But when I moved to the Bay Area, I had
this website who plays which was and my goal was
to try to get it running in San Francisco and
so getting musicians to sign up and post their shows
like I had. I took like some courses on software engineering,
and you know, it was a whole thing with the
database behind it, and and so that really motivated me,
(11:39):
and I got out, went out to a bunch of
jams and started connecting with like soul musicians, soul jazz
people more here and doing some like busking on the street.
And it was easier actually to find people who were
kind of I don't know, just in the scene. I guess,
I guess because it's a city, there's more. There's more
like open mics and jams and all that kind of
(12:00):
stuff happening, although I did do some of that on
Maui too. And then I kind of built community online,
like my songwriting partners I've met mostly through Facebook groups
and courses on sync licensing, and then through that met
them in like La and Nashville, and then through those
people there connected to other people. Yeah, so now I
(12:22):
feel like my community is more online.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Yeah. It's interesting how, especially after COVID, the everyone became
more comfortable with relying on the internet for so many
things like networking and creating opportunity that perhaps we kind
of were maybe a little more hesitant to really give
it a full chance. I mean, just like streaming performances,
it became so much more normal and comfortable for people
(12:46):
to do. I had a hard time adjusting to playing
to a microphone into a camera, yeah, versus the stage.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
You know, me too, I tried, so I had. I
did a few shows on Twitch, and I always felt
so like empty afterwards, you know, like because you're used
to performing in front of an audience. Then the show's
over and then you go hang out and you have
a drink and you chat and you you know, there's
like a connecting component to it, and this just felt
(13:12):
like singing into a screen and you get little like
comments popping up. But yeah, that's not really like what
I'm in it for, you know, totally.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Yeah, it roboticizes it in some weird way. That's Yeah,
is that a weird But if it isn't, it should be,
because it's it's like taking the romance out of it, yeah,
and the robot into it.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
Yeah, totally.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Chris and I started this during the pandemic and talk
about singing and performing into a camera, talking into a
camera or even just a microphone, and not being used
to it. I would get that same feeling of being
a little nervous, wanting to perform, well, speak clearly, don't
use my arms, show up for Chris, and away. And
(13:54):
then afterwards we'd get off and I'd have that same
adrenaline like you would after a show, and I have
nowhere to put it, and it was very frustrating.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
Yeah, I mean, it's nice to have a partner in it.
I remember doing like listening sessions for the nonprofit we
have some music for a change, and I started it
with my friend Justina, and like we'd hang up and
I'd like text her immediately be like, so how do
you think? What do you think of? How did it go?
You know, because you want to just have that feeling
of a moment to debrief about it, you know.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Yeah. But it's like as we go through all this,
we kind of figure out, you know, maybe ways that
were good at something that we didn't realize, you know.
I think that's what artists really should allow themselves to
do so often, is explore all these different ways that
you feel like doing it, because usually it's like an
instinct to say, hey, I think you'd enjoy this, you know,
m hmm. And it's still so many ways. I think
(14:45):
I relate to how you have grown in your path
in your career because I think you just allowed yourself
to try these different things and gone with what felt
like something you wanted to do right and that you
were interested in putting your time into. So I want
to follow that up with a question and of like,
as you've done all this, how would you define a
music career now? And how can someone make sure that
(15:05):
they're on the right track.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
Yeah, So it's funny the word career implies that it
implies money basically, right. The reason that I named the
book Living a Music Centered Life is because I want
to emphasize the vocation aspect of it, that you're the importance.
If it is important to you to be a musician
and to have music be a big party of your life,
(15:30):
then you can choose to do that in many different ways.
So music career can mean that you are focused on
earning your living doing music or music related things, or
it can mean that you are working to have music
be like the central hub of your life and then
(15:53):
finding ways to earn a living around that. So having
a successful music career, I think it really depends on
your own value system and what it is that you want,
you know. I think for me it's always been being
able to create songs that I care about and getting
them heard by other people. And I feel like the
(16:15):
getting them heard by other people, it's like it can
be a sort of like a quantity or quality thing.
You know. Sometimes you write songs that really deeply resonate
with a small group of people, and sometimes you write
songs that widely kind of like are heard by a
huge number of people, but don't necessarily land in any
(16:35):
way other than like, oh, there's a beat that I'm
interested in. So yeah. So there's the there's the getting
your music out there component of a music career, and
then there's the earning money aspect of a music career.
And I think in our time it's for me, at least,
it's the getting the music out there bit is more
important to how I like derive meaning, and it's there's
(16:58):
it does feel like unfair that you can really get
your music out there and not be compensated for it,
but that's kind of the world we are in as musicians,
and I just I just think it's really important for
people to like go into music with kind of a
clearheaded understanding that your worth is not defined by how
(17:19):
much money you happen to make from music or music
related things, even though there are definitely paths to do that.
The like the you know, the gigging path the sink
licensing path are the two main funds, but how much
money you make from them doesn't necessarily line up with
how much how much you are personally deriving meaning from
(17:40):
what you're doing.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
So maybe would you say that to be right on
track in this case would be to feel that you're
doing what it is that's satisfying you.
Speaker 4 (17:51):
Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean it's because it's like
like for my own personal experience, I've you know, I've
I've written songs that I've gotten placed in TV shows
that I'm proud that they got placed in the show.
It's exciting. It's like, oh yeah, I got a placement,
but they're not you know, when I reflect on what
(18:12):
I'm most proud of in terms of artistry, those don't
happen to be the songs that I feel like, oh
that was really like that song's made a difference in
the world. You know, I feel like that song helps
helps a picture say what I needed to say at
the time, and I'm glad it was useful, but it
doesn't necessarily make me feel like I'm about them on
the path, you know what I mean, Whereas other songs
(18:34):
that I just play live for a group of people,
they might not even be recorded, and people come up
and say how much that touched them.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Like you mentioned, you had a goal of before COVID,
of selling a thousand hard copy CDs, what obviously now
would be hard to do just because many people don't
even have something to play a CD on. Would you
say sync licensing was an answer to compensating for that
monetary thing that you had before. Did that come during
(19:02):
COVID or did you already start that while you are
on the journey of you know, we're all selling hard goods.
Speaker 4 (19:08):
So the selling the hard goods was way but it
was MAUI So that would have been around like what
twenty fifteen to twenty I don't know, around that time,
and the people buying the CDs were generally older tourists
who because the younger people we are like, can I
stream it already? Right?
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (19:23):
But definitely. Like the not being able to sell hard
like CDs at shows is a huge that's really hard
for artists because that was like a really good supplementary
stream and sync licensing, Yeah, it's it's a different, totally
different kind of stream and not as consistent as selling merch.
I think. I think merch is really important, like not
(19:45):
if you don't have CDs, it's great to have something else,
you know, with even like yeah, a thing with a
QR code on it that links to the streaming that
connects to the streaming thing to your music, but that
they can buy just to support you. But sync licensing
is is really different because it's very shot in the dark.
I mean, there's a consistence you need to use, but
(20:05):
you never know when a song will land, and it's
saturated and it's very relationship based, networking based.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
So I'm curious then with now the way you approach shows,
how many would you say that you are you're aiming
to play, like, say per month at this point, like four? Okay,
So with four, like do you set, okay, I need
to make this much money or this show isn't worth doing,
or do you just say I'm going to do this show?
(20:35):
And it's not about the money, like where are you
at with that whole kind of mentality.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
So for the corporate wedding stuff, it's like definitely all
I would say, like all about the money, yeah, like
it needs to be well paid or I'm not interested
in doing it. And for the personal like songwriter show,
it's more like I want to play a show like
four times a year to people who are willing to
come out, and that's not about the money. It's about,
(21:02):
you know, sharing my music with people.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Because perhaps you see that there's a greater result than
just the monetary moment of the evening when one.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
Hundred percent yeah, I think I maybe haven't. I mean,
I think you can. There will be other musicians who
are more perhaps younger, but are are just more dedicated
towards building a personal fan following, and I haven't put,
at least in recent years, much effort into that because
I just I don't know, I haven't. I find that
(21:34):
it's really hard, I'm and it requires a certain type
of personality. The type of person that can bring people
out to events generally is this particular type of personality.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
There's also there's also a particular type of social situation
you want to put yourself in day in and day out.
I think back to just what it took to bring
people out at a certain age where you were out
all the time, you went to go see your friends play,
you were at gatherings, picnics, barbecues, bars, whatever it may be,
(22:07):
and it was easy to say, hey, come check this out.
And when you're not doing that anymore, because maybe you
have different priorities as far as maybe writing for SINC.
Or being creative in other ways in your evenings than
going out and just trying to yeah, as respectful as possible.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
Yeah, I mean I don't have I don't have kids,
but a lot of the people who would come to
my shows, do you know if this show needs to
be like it needs to be between I think five
thirty and six thirty PM for them to be interested?
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Yeah, the hour? Yeah right. Well let's talk a little
bit then about how as you kind of created this
SINC source of income and how that spawned into creating
your Sink agency. Can we just kind of get a
little bit of how that all kind of occurred. I
know that you were starting to write with SYNC, just
kind of dabbling, and how did that turn into getting
(23:02):
these placements and starting a engagency.
Speaker 4 (23:05):
Yeah. So in twenty nineteen, it took a course online
around sync licensing, and then I spent about a year
like every day I emailed people, I think one or
two emails a day. Email.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
That was an online course.
Speaker 4 (23:19):
It was an online course.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
It's amazing. I love that.
Speaker 4 (23:22):
Yeah, and I just did a whole bunch of research,
sent my music, you know, got my music together, had
had some quality songs, and then emailed like a music supervisor.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Every day.
Speaker 4 (23:35):
I got some people downloading, a couple of people like thanks,
you know, but then but nothing and I was just like,
how is this possible? And I just you know, like
I had faith, but I was starting to, you know,
question whether it was real. Like the music licensing was
like a possibility for me. And I went on a walk,
you know, as one does during COVID and thought about
(23:57):
like what could I do. That's a bit different. And
I've always been into activism, you know and charity stuff,
just kind of like that's something I care about. And
in the course, the woman who taught the course was like,
never be political. Always keep politics out of it. You know,
you never want to, like because like Coca Cola doesn't
want to deal with your political views. It's like a turnoff.
(24:20):
But I noticed on social media that the music supervisors
that I followed were totally political. They were really like,
you know, into activism. And I thought, well, you know what,
why don't I just give this a try where I
do a listening session with music supervisors, raise money for something,
and you know, try to make it a win win win.
So I started sync Music for a Change, which is
(24:42):
every month or two, we do a listening session on Zoom.
People donate to a cause that a music supervisor cares about,
and in exchange for donating, they submit a song. Like
they don't donate to me directly, they send me the
receipt of their donation to Red Cross or whatever it is.
Collect all the submissions, listen to all the songs, pick
like fifteen that I think the music supervisor will connect with,
(25:05):
send all of them. Whoever donated, all of them get
sent to the music supervisor. And then that was just
a way for me to connect directly with music supervisors,
for them to know who I am, to start to
build a relationship. It was a way to raise money
for a bunch of good causes and then help the
musicians in my community to like get their songs heard,
(25:25):
and so that that was cool that right away that
went well. It was like sometimes you feel like, oh,
I got to really keep working, keep working, but sometimes
when something works, like it works right away, you get
immediate feedback that like, this is a good thing. So
that that was great. And I was doing it with
Justina Chandler, who's also a songwriter and was a co
writer of mine. And then pretty much like immediately the
(25:48):
people we had on were like, oh, we need like,
how can we clear all this music through one person
because it's too much to have to go back to
each different musician to see if we can use their music.
And so Justina and I were like, should should we
just make an agency? Should we do it? And so
we decided to give it a shot, and then Unicorn Sinc.
Was created and that's sort of how that all went.
(26:10):
I think this The places that I've had personally haven't
come through my agency. They've come through other Sink agents
that I've signed my songs with, and I met those
agents through conferences and through co writers.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Mainly, do you feel like now when you represent the
Unicorn agency, the Sink agency that you feel like it
has more of a Why you guys laughed, I didn't
see that. Sorry. Do you feel like it represents something political?
Do you think that it represents maybe an opinion? Do
(26:46):
you want or do you I guess what I should
say is do you put that stuff forward to help
create a brand or an identity that sets you apart?
Speaker 4 (26:55):
I mean I think, yeah, I don't know. I don't
I think that unicorn sync represents anything particularly political, although maybe,
I mean it kind of has progressive vibes. I mean,
unicorns are also a symbol of the gay community, which
I'm an ally but I'm not part of. And you know,
(27:16):
because it's connected to seeing music for a change, I
mean probably progressiveness is generally the vibe.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
And it's all woman owned, correct it is?
Speaker 4 (27:24):
Well, yeah, it's woman owned right now. I currently have
a partner who is a guy, Pete Davis, who's a
music supervisor. But we're just kind of starting out with
the partnership and haven't gotten into the details about ownership
and that kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
Yeah, how did you meet Pete Davis?
Speaker 4 (27:43):
How did I might meet him? I met him because
another music supervisor used one of our songs and then
posted it on Instagram and he reached out to me
saying he needed songs for a reality TV show, and
then we started an email correspondence and then I went
to La and we went out for dinner and we've
been connected ever since.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
About networking, yes, And the other thing about this too
is that I feel like what makes sync work nowadays
is that it can help bring you to that audience
that normally you wouldn't be exposed to. It can then find,
like you said, if maybe the song itself wasn't your favorite,
it can at least get them channeled to your website,
(28:24):
which you must have right, and then create an opportunity
for them to really dive into your music that you're
proud of.
Speaker 4 (28:30):
Total.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
I was thinking of Joel Ansett. Do you know Joel
from He comes to the Durango sometimes, but he's another
He's a fantastic artist and he has been for decades, right,
but not had that many placements. He recently got a
placement on a nine to one one ton of drama.
Cool yeah, and immediately the shizam you know, went exploding
(28:54):
on his account, and then all of a sudden, his
song turns up on iTunes you know, in the top
ten and like just overnight, just overnight from this one
and that song was from an album I think four
albums ago. Yeah, you know. Yeah, so just amazing how
that can kind of work in synchronicity.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
Yes, with you the artist, Yeah, absolutely, yeah. It is
one of those things where the even more than the
fee for whatever you get for being on the nine
to one one show, is the is the I mean,
there are like royalties and stuff, but there's people. This
is when people sirzam the song, they get to see
all of your everything you have up on Apple or Spotify,
(29:35):
and that is like a huge way to build recognition
and build a fan base, especially if your sound has
been consistent and it's yeah, yes, yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
And that is something that I think a lot of
people struggle with, is they make albums that kind of
go all over the place, and then it makes it
harder to brand when we see them.
Speaker 4 (29:54):
Yeah, I mean, because then if people chazam you and
the song that they hzamed that they like it has
other songs that are similar, than they're going to be
more likely to follow you.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
How would you say that being a songwriter has helped
you or hindered you? When it's come to sync licensing,
the creative mindset of being able to switch from songwriter
to now business and having to look at songs that
would create a momentum within that say TV show or movie,
(30:23):
relative to just having a piece that has its own mission.
Speaker 4 (30:28):
Yeah, honestly, Like, yeah, I think getting into sync licensing
strengthened my songwriting because it's just learning about structure. Like,
I think that the key thing in SYNC that you
need to keep in mind is the lyrics. Is to
not be overly specific with your lyrics, because then you
(30:48):
want to be able to convey an emotion rather than
a detailed story for a song. That works for sync
licensing because the picture itself is the story and your
song is helping people to all the feelings that go
along with the story. And just like learning how to write,
like listening to what works for music licensing has helped
(31:09):
me write better songs, don't. I don't know, you just
they have to be really good to land and they
can't be too on the nose, like they can't be
telling people what they want to hear. I used to
write a lot more folky stuff, you know. I grew
up listening to Annie DiFranco, who is like all about
the convoluted lyric.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
She is my idol.
Speaker 4 (31:30):
Yeah, she's amazing.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
She's the reason I started playing music the way I do. Actually,
I'm a huge fan.
Speaker 4 (31:36):
Yeah, she's great. I love her. I saw her a
few months ago at the film More Here So. But
her lyrics for a lot of her songs are like
very specific, you know, like and so you know. I'm
sure she has some songs that are less like that
and could be licensed easily, but the ones that are
very specific are probably harder to license, which is another
like like you're whether or not your song were well
(32:00):
for synkle. Licensing doesn't really have to do with how
good the song is, you know, or whether it has
a place in the world, or because Ani Franco is amazing.
But yeah, Like, in terms of being a songwriter and
a business owner, I think I just am. My brain
is ambidextrous. I can kind of go into detail and
analytical mode, and I can also go into creative mode. Probably.
(32:23):
I mean, I know that there are other creative people
who are a lot more talented than I am in
the songwriting space, who are maybe not as good in
the running a business space.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
Nice to know she's with her current husband. I thought
that was very important.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Semantics. So what do we start with this?
Speaker 4 (32:59):
You know?
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Well, the thing for me was thinking, I've thought often
about can I relocate? You know, which we could easily
make into a whole section of discussion, because people and
sometimes you kind of get stuck living in an area
that you've built a business. It's kind of I'm not
saying I'm stuck, but maybe that's the too strong of
a word, but you're, you're kind.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
Of you're you're saying you can, you can get stuck.
You can yeah by mountain surrounded saying you are, but
surrounded trapped by living in red rocks, you know.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
So I like this discussion about how can you just
pick up and move? Now You've done this twice over
the years, but I've never really done that. I mean,
I guess I did it once, but it doesn't really
count because when I moved to Colorado, I was twenty
years old and I really had built only a name
for the band that I was in, not myself. And
(33:59):
so it's really fun to talk with other people because
you do realize that markets, they do have a lot
of things that repeat themselves. You know, there's a lot
of things that if you can build it in one
prosperous community, whatever it is you're trying to build, then
you're likely to be able to do that again somewhere else.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
Yep, and probably even better because you've learned so much
from the first time you've done it.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Yeah. Well, instead, she went into the locals, the networking.
She went in to make sure that she was doing
the things that she needed to do to be and
meet the people that would help her get established quicker.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
And she had a great idea too with creating that
calendar and Maui and I related to that as far
as when I moved to Colorado the first time, I
built head above music dot Com, which was just somewhere
where musicians could answer questions and help other musicians out.
And through that you had ad marketing, got to reach
(34:55):
out to local businesses, helped with promoting stuff, and from
there I was able to connect with a lot more
musicians in town because I had something to offer them,
which I think for any musician moving to a new
town doing something like that, whether it's building a website
just for open mics or for your niche in music
or discussion or songwriting, or like she did with events.
(35:19):
I'm sure every town could use more of that to
have a community to share with each other.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
I mean that's a pretty interesting idea like that, if
you're going to relocate. Maybe the big advice here out
of both yours and Aline's experience is that go with
something to offer, right, go with something that you can
immediately offer everyone else. Is how you're going to bring
value to the community.
Speaker 3 (35:44):
Yeah, And it's an easy ask. What's someone going to say, No,
I don't want to help my community, yeah, you know,
it puts you in a pretty good spot.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
Or no, I don't want your free help that you're offering, Yeah,
to make my life better? Yeah, No, that's a great point.
Speaker 3 (35:59):
It gives you some kind of just I don't know,
like you know they say when you look in the
mirror and give yourself a super superperson pose, just to
build that self confidence. If you're helping out your community,
that's just some built in self confidence that you can
let negative things roll off you a lot easier.
Speaker 4 (36:18):
Right. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
When I feel like now that we say that out loud,
thinking back to a few people that we've talked to
before or that we know that have done this relocation
thing too. A lot of them did this too. They've
built some sort of offer that they can bring with
them and improve the new market that they're entering. And
like you're doing and you're gonna be here this week, right,
(36:40):
you're flying back and you can expand. Essentially now you're
using two markets.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
Yeah, and it's been fun. And I appreciate Colorado in
a way that I might have gotten used to over
the last fifteen years, just like when I came back
to Chicago and now the Midwest, I was able to
appreciate it. So it does open up a lot of
opportunities on both ends. For sure. I guess I wanted
(37:05):
to talk about the ability to generate income when moving
to a new town. She did something pretty awesome by
not only reaching out to other musicians, but that website
can provide previeum subscriptions. It could build traffic for her,
build her email list. You're connecting with other musicians and saying, hey,
(37:28):
let's reach out to other venues and say we can
put it on this website. These shows. It's just a
great marketing position for yourself when moving to a new
town on so many different levels. Being the gatekeeper to
that puts you in a position to meet a lot
more people then you probably wouldn't be able to otherwise.
(37:49):
So I wanted to just talk about that a little bit,
which I think we did.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
Another thing that stood out to me was avoiding burnout
versus boredom. I think that's actually a pretty healthy distinction
to make sure you're aware which one you're feeling when
you're in these situations or because you could also be
feeling both. Yeah, absolutely, and I think there are times
(38:14):
that I can say I've noticed I felt both. But
it can be also just a better way to guide
you to know what to do next if you distinguish
which one you're actually feeling, because burnout really should have
a different follow up with what how to handle it right,
Like burnout could mean that you need to take a
break from what you're doing or change what you're doing.
(38:37):
Boredom sometimes is sort of like I mean with my kids,
they if they say they're bored, my new reaction is like,
so figure it out, you know, like do something for yourself.
No one's going to come and fix that for you.
And so I think boredom sometimes it can be taking
a break from it, but more often it means maybe
doing something differently.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
Or putting your energy into one more than the other
to give that thing a little rest for a while.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
I know we've been busting our butt for quite a
few months now on this season, and we're already talking
about what we're going to be doing on the downtime
to build up for next season. But I am looking
forward to taking some of these notes that we've learned
from our guests over these last few months and start
(39:24):
working on those things to start playing out more and
so I could come back to this with some new vigor.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
Yes, And I think we we also tend to be
more productive if we follow what we're motivated to do. Right, So,
boredom give you a sign that you're also not you're
not being very productive because you're bored.
Speaker 3 (39:46):
Can you say the last time you were bored? I
mean knowing how many things or how many dishes you're
spinning in the air.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
I think the way i'd say it is I can
get bored in moments, like in moments of doing all
the things that I'm doing, I'll hit a moment where
I'm like, I'm just It's not that I say to myself,
I bored you know, I just think, like, I don't
feel like doing this.
Speaker 3 (40:10):
That's a whole conversation too.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
Yeah, you know. And it's so like, if I was
just put this into the context of playing one of
those as she calls them, wallpaper shows, and which I
certainly know I'm familiar with, and if I'm feeling if
I have that moment, I'm like, I have this. This
(40:34):
is just what works for me. I have to find
something that makes me interested. Like I'm gonna be like, oh,
I'm gonna play a song that I'm really uncomfortable with
right now, because then then I'm going to force myself
to focus and to distract myself from the fact that
I don't feel like doing this. And and if I
can do that in a way that can reignite some
(40:54):
sort of entertainment for myself, you know, then I think
I'm gonna be okay, and then the night goes faster,
right because if you're having fun, the night always goes faster.
That's always the truth. The day goes faster that way too.
But so I don't know, I don't mean to say bored.
I'm like, I'm never gonna say that my life is boring.
I don't feel that way ever. But those things, those
(41:17):
little things you sometimes get tired of taxes.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
Okay, that I would be bored doing. Yeah, yeah, especially
because you and I talk about looking at our numbers
so much during the month, you know. Yeah, I think
by the time that comes, I mean, it is more
data entry than having to go through everything else.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
Well, and that's the that's the concept, right that that
you you learn like, I don't like doing this. This this,
I mean bords kind of feels like a weak word
for all this. But this bores me. So next year,
I'm going to be more diligent about all the extra
stuff I can do to avoid this taking a long time.
Speaker 3 (41:57):
Yeah, And you know that's where she in the book
Atomic Habits, which is now the second time that book
has come up because Johnny brought it up. The things
that make taxes boring are because of the habits that
you create to make sure you have all your numbers
in the right place, that it is only data entry
by the time you get there. And then now for creativity,
(42:19):
she was talking about taking fifteen or thirty minute blocks
throughout your day to work on different things such as
songwriting or recording or now writing and editing this book.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
That is no small feat, right, And we'll talk about
the book itself later, but just to finish something like that,
you know, there's she has no problem obviously. I feel
like anybody that could finish your book, they're not the
kind of person that is struggling with being bored, you know.
I know she doesn't feel it. I feel bored and
like that in that term either. So I think all
(42:52):
of this is really healthy for us to remind yourself
that it's okay. First of all, to feel those little
moments where you're like demotivated. Is that a better word
than boredom?
Speaker 3 (43:03):
Yeah? I like that.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
And to recognize if it's actually burnout, because burnout can
show itself sort of like actual depression, right like in
a way that you can't control it, right, Like it's
it's it's a symptom, you know. So it's important just.
Speaker 3 (43:21):
To be aware, especially when you're relocating, because you can
feel like there is so much to get done that
it is very easy to burn out. Again, going back
to the Atomic Habits book and what she was talking about,
you take away that intensity by just nipping things in
the bud fifteen twenty minutes at a time, and that
beats the intensity. It creates momentum without the burnout.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
Yeah. Well, and when you find those things that are
motivating you and you keep following them, you tend to
not deal with these things as much. Right, this book
came about sounds like because it kept coming up and
she was like, Okay, I'm gonna listen to that. You know,
we didn't really talk that, but it kind of felt
that way that she was saying that. And to me,
that's part of the gift as artists that we get
(44:07):
to define that music career, that we get to find
our career as a whole. And like we've touched on
a few times here is during this interview that you
don't have to only do music. That is in fact,
most musicians that are successful also have other interests. You know,
and so do you, and so do I, and so
(44:27):
do all of everyone's listening. We all have other interests.
You should incorporate them, you should embrace them, You should
do them too. Right, This is important that you enjoy
all the things that you are interested.
Speaker 3 (44:40):
In, and that's what makes you successful. To going back
to the burnout, because you could follow some things that
you might just be passionate about but also makes you money,
and you're not looking at your creative world as something
that you're just chasing money for. So it's not always
just about money.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
Yeah, well, and chasing money, mate, I've noticed this, Okay,
Now this is me being real time. I noticed that
the phase of my life where I was super motivated
by making money is starting to end, and I'm grateful
that it lasted as long as it did and it
came when it did. Now that doesn't mean that I
(45:21):
don't value money or want to keep making money, but
I'm noticing that it's not what motivates me at the moment.
And I think we all, I think plenty people have
never even felt like money motivates them. And that's okay.
I mean I get it because I'm in that phase
now where I'm just like, I want to do meaningful
things in a different way. I mean, money has to
(45:42):
be a part of it in order to sustain myself
and my family, but it's still just not the thing
that I'm like, I'm gonna I'll stay for six hours
and beform although I'm doing that on Saturday again and
I don't want to. But it's also about my my job,
and I still wanted to show up and do a
(46:02):
good job of what I'm supposed to do. And the
reason that I get these opportunities because I can say
yes to those things.
Speaker 3 (46:08):
And you've also detached yourself from income being your self worth,
which just makes you able to go do that and
enjoy six hours for something for different reasons. Having to
do that within the same field of music, you know,
you're focusing on meaning connection, defining your own version of success.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
And yes, that's freedom totally. That is freedom money. Money
doesn't bring happiness, but happiness brings money. And I don't
know if that's the right way to say it, but
it is something like that because every time you tend
to follow what you really care about, money does tend
to follow behind it because you're creating value, you know,
(46:49):
and you tend to be good at what it is
that you're trying to do.
Speaker 3 (46:52):
One thing she emphasizes is writing for different purposes, which
also can be fun. So, especially when she brings up
sync that I'm sure you're getting some prompts that you're
writing for that, but also writing for yourself and having
to express yourself and put emotion into it, not just
(47:14):
for a commercial pitch.
Speaker 2 (47:15):
Yeah, that's one hundred percent true. And they also always
say at those conferences that as soon as you start
trying to write for sync, your music doesn't hit well.
It's so it's so difficult to be like, write something honest, now,
follow these rules, but don't follow these rules as too hard,
because we want it to be real music. We want
(47:37):
it to be good. Yeah, we don't want it to
be artificially created just for this, but you know, right
for we need these things to happen in order for
this to worry. And it's like it just always kind
of walks that line. But there are people, as she said,
there are people that that is what they're good at
and and that's okay, Like, but if it's not you,
(47:59):
then that it's also okay. Like you don't need to
feel that you constantly have to try to be that,
so that's not who you are.
Speaker 3 (48:07):
What did we say? It was like stinking thinking, so
could we come up with if if you write for
sync it could if you write music for sync, it
sometimes tends to sink. What I don't know that that's
my that's my quote, Chris, who's never done any of that.
Speaker 2 (48:34):
Well, I don't think that sink should be as intimidating
as it is, and she said the same thing. It's
you know, it's it's getting to be more saturated hundred percent.
But it's also the doors are wider for more people
to give it a shot. If you just make your
music and do it well, likely there's a place for
your music in sync.
Speaker 3 (48:55):
Well, you said you don't starting to get saturated. I'm
sure there's plenty of age two. So she really did
something special with Unicorn Zinc. To have that nonprofit aspect
to it. And then you know, if what do they
say at the front door is closed, build a side door.
He tried to you know what I say, Chris, the
(49:18):
front door is closed, build a side door. You know,
solve the problem for others, and opportunities will follow. We'll
fall back to you. So she did something. She put
her neck out there. She's like, I'm not getting the
response I want, so I'm going to do it on
my own and I'm going to do a spin that
helps out other people again, which we were talking about
at the beginning of this podcast.
Speaker 2 (49:41):
And I do think that it's such a great example
of going with what you're interested in because it sometimes
it's leading you to that solution that brings you back
to where you wanted to get to, right, I mean,
if that's the win win win here, right. That is,
she helped others that needed the help by making this nonprofit.
The nonprofit then attracted other people that perhaps she couldn't
(50:02):
have attracted otherwise. And those connections then gave opportunity for
her clients, her musicians to get sync opportunities that would
never have had those connections otherwise. Everybody's winning. I just
love when stuff like that happens because we don't sometimes
realize that in good business, in business, when it's good,
(50:24):
everyone can win. Right. So often you think that there's
a winner and a loser, or somebody who's getting a
better deal, and that doesn't have to be the reality.
And so often these kind of things do occur and
they need to be highlighted so the rest of us
can see these are the ways that we can do that.
Speaker 3 (50:40):
And having a good business background will always help you.
If you can develop both the creative muscles and the
business muscles, you can switch modes to make your career
more resilient and versatile in today's industry, and so many
times musicians might not want to focus on how to
make the money, but make the money, but they're spending
(51:02):
all their time making the music, which I wish I
had more time to make the music or that was
more that was driving me more lately, you know. But
you move and you have different focuses, and like you said,
you had a point in your career where you were
working towards the money and now you can focus on
(51:22):
music differently. So having both of those skill sets I
think is very important, and she seems to be doing
a fantastic job at both.
Speaker 2 (51:31):
It's almost like you're honoring yourself right, Like you're like,
I'm worth doing what it is that I love doing,
and whatever that is right now is what I should
use to motivate me to do the things that I
can do. And hopefully I mean the other end of
that too, I like to highlight is that we always
(51:52):
want to give more than we're getting. Right in business,
that is usually the way to succeed. I think offer more,
and we talked about that a little bit then is
expected or give such value that people can't deny that
you're the best choice they made, you know. And this
(52:13):
in the same realm of that by doing something like
a charity. Doing something like a nonprofit is also giving
to humanity, giving to the world, given to the causes.
That is giving more than people could ever ask of you, right,
And that to me again gives so much power in
(52:34):
just your what is your dharma? Right, like your your
feeling of purpose and your feeling of how easy it
is to do hard things because they feel right. There
was an example of that that I heard some of it.
It's like dharma is like when your kid, Like if
somebody's got a gun and they're pointing it at you,
and you're obviously you know, what are you gonna do?
(52:54):
You're gonna do what they say. Right, as soon as
somebody points a gun at your kid, your tax them,
you know what I mean, You're doing whatever you need
to do without fear, even though you might be afraid,
but you're doing it because it's right. That's sort of
like the Diarmite or that's just a dramatic example, but
here too, it's like you're doing the things that feel
(53:14):
right even though they're hard. Creating what she's created, this
incredible stature of ways for her to not only be
an artist but help others is because it all felt right,
even though it's not easy stuff to do well.
Speaker 3 (53:28):
I can't wait to get my hands on that book.
I know we're going to talk about more of that
now in the next episode. Yeah, yes, what's our action step?
What are we doing this week?
Speaker 2 (53:40):
So this is appropriate for us then to say, our
action step this week is to try looking for your
when opportunities, your ideas, and how you might find ways
to help yourself while helping others. I even should say
this differently, I should say help others and provide a
service while helping yourself, because all of that is a
(54:04):
win win win, and it does exist all the time
around you, and it's prevalent in the music industry when
you look for it, and it's always looking there's always
ways to do it in your own interpretation. We know
your time is valuable and we appreciate you spending this
time with us and being a part of this community.
It's our hope that you feel that sense of community
here at musicians tip Jar and that you'll help spread
(54:26):
the word to make us all stronger. If you'd like
to get a hold of us or Elaine Ryan, what's
the best way to do that?
Speaker 3 (54:33):
Check out musicians Tipjar dot com for tools, resources and
discounts built specifically to help keep you up on the
finance side of your music business. And reach out to
us anytime at musicians tipjar at gmail. We'd love to
hear your story. If this episode resonates with you, share
it with a friend, leave a review, or hit that
like button. If you're on YouTube, helps us scroll the
community and support more music like you. If you want
(54:55):
to check out Elaine Ryan Instagram, it's at Elaine Ryan
Music website is Elaine Ryan dot CAA and for her
website for sink Sync Music for a Change dot com.
Speaker 2 (55:07):
As always, thank you for joining us, and remember there
is already enough for everyone. You just need to know
how to get Until next time on Behalf of Dave
Tamkin and myself Chris Web, stay happy, healthy and wealthy.
You are enough as you are. That's it. This is
Musicians Tip.
Speaker 1 (55:26):
JARB Somebody somebody.
Speaker 5 (55:35):
Nothing on this show should be considered specific personal or
professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, business, financial
professional for individualized advice. Individual results are not guaranteed, and
all discussed strategies have the potential for profit or loss.
The host is not operating on behalf of museum's Tip
jar LLL exclusively, you
Speaker 1 (56:00):
Have all had a tript you sa
Welcome to the show that explores the methods and strategies
on rocking the financial side of your music business. With
over forty years combined experience, here are your hosts, Chris
Webb and Dave Tamkin.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Welcome to you, musicians, Tip javerhe We talk about musicians
and money. We believe in creating both a great life
and a great career. I'm Chris Webb, joined by my
co host Dave Tamkin, also known to his nephew nieces
as Great Uncle Captain Dave.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
It's only a bad title to have when you're in
metaverse for Facebook and your nephew gets on and it's
being followed by someone called Great Uncle Captain Dave, and
then there have to be like, yes, there's a young
boy in the metaverse right now being followed around by
(00:51):
Great Uncle Captain Dave. And then all of a sudden,
my brother's account just went down. They just shut him
out of there. Yeah. So, and I had a mustache
in there too, which is not always a good look
in the metaverse.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Maybe we could throw out the picture you sent me
so everyone can get context of Captain Dave.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
All right, I was so happy my nephew got me
that Captain Hat felt really good about it.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
It looks good. I'm not saying that well. Today we
sit down with Unicorn Sink Agency owner, musician and now
author Elaine Ryan. We discussed balancing the phases of creating,
why she started a sink agency, and how to find
your win win win ideas. Today's quote comes from our
(01:41):
guest Elaine. She said, for me, it's always been being
able to create songs that I care about and get
them heard by other people.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Today's nonprofit is Malimusicmission dot com. At Maloi Music Mission,
they're dedicated to breaking down the barriers that prevent children
from accessing quality music education. Their vibrant after school and
music club provides a joyful, immerse experience where students explore
you lately piano, percussion, voice, and music theory, all while
building essential life skills. Learn more at mauimusicmission dot com.
(02:14):
If you find this information useful, everyone, please rate and
subscribe to the podcast and also slam that like button
if you're on YouTube, so we can help keep you
up on the finance side of your music business.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Elene Ryan is a musician and sink agent who has
made her living in music for over fifteen years. She
has toured throughout Canada and the US and Europe. She
has released four full length albums and EP and numerous singles.
Her songs have been featured in ads and on TV
shows airing on NBC and Amazon. She is the founder
of SYNC licensing agency Unicorn Sync, where she's helped a
(02:47):
growing network of indie artists land placements in film and television.
She also co founded SYNC Music for a Change, a
nonprofit initiative connecting musicians with SYNC opportunities while raising money
for chairitable and progressive causes. Elene is a member of
the Recording Academy. She lives in the San Francisco Bay
area with her husband, her journal, and her guitar. Most recently,
(03:09):
she's about to release her first book, Living a Music
Centered Life, A guide to balance, fulfillment and paying the bills.
We really enjoyed our time with Elaine Ryan and know
that you will get a lot out of this too,
So let's go Elaine Ryan, thank you so much for
(03:39):
being here with us. I'm musicians Tip jar I appreciate
you spending some time here with us.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure so.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
I just kind of wanted a preface with the fact
that you and I have met only briefly a couple
times at the Durango expos over the years, although I
have been aware of your projects with Unicorn and the
other stuff you've been doing for a while because of
being there, and you guys wear those fantastic helmets for
a while, so those are really smart marketing tactics. And
(04:07):
so I think I want to start with kind of
giving you a chance to kind of give us your backstory,
a little bit about how you got into music and
how you got to this kind of point where you're
kind of putting in this content that you're making now.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
Sure. Yeah, So I have been a singer songwriter for
many years, since my early twenties. Just at the beginning
start was focusing on my own writing. I did some
tours in Canada and a West Coast tour in the US,
and then I moved to Maui, Hawaii to be with
(04:42):
my now husband and sort of pivoted to earning my
income as a musician there because there's just so many
resorts looking for live music. So I was able to
do that like four nights a week on Maui and
then wanted something more challenging. You know, I had created
an album and I sold a thousand hard copies of that,
(05:04):
you know, it was a goal of mine to sell
them at my shows. And then I ended up creating
like a website to help people find live music on Maui.
And then then we moved to the Bay Area for
a couple of different reasons. But one of the reasons
was to see if I could have it have that
website work elsewhere. So I did that for a while.
(05:25):
Covid hit and live music events was not a thing anymore,
so I kind of wrapped up that project. It's still
on Maui. It's still like their events calendar there, which
is cool.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
That's great.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
And yeah, and then I started getting into music licensing.
I took a course on sync licensing online. I met
a whole bunch of people co writers, first online and
then in person in LA and then that kind of
led to a nonprofit initiative, Sink Music for Change, and
that led to Unicorn Sync, which is the licensing agency
(05:56):
that I run. And yeah, I'm still writing songs and yeah,
just I had a viral hit that I co wrote
that just went viral a few months ago, which was
the kind of like first first for me. And that
was interesting too.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
That's amazing. Congrat And what did it go viral.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
On on Instagram and Facebook? Basically the reels it got
put it got used in like over a million reels
on Instagram and Facebook just as like a background.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Excellent. Yeah, yeah, we'll share that and I link at
the bottom of this.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Do you still introduce your husband as your current husband?
Speaker 4 (06:29):
He's still my current husband.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Okay, yeah, okay, just make you he was.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
My then boyfriend, that's why. That's why it is my
current husband.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
And living in Maui and then switching over to sand Fan,
did you feel like the economy that you experienced from
one kind of a destination location to more of a
functioning city changed your ability to continue being a performer.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
So it's funny I thought that I would. I thought
that I was kind of giving up the like playing
cover gigs thing when I moved to San Francisco, because
Hawaii is such a driven economy that you can really work.
You know, you could work six nights a week there
if you wanted to, and I knew people who did.
But then when I moved to the Bay Area. I
realized there's just there's a lot of corporate gigs and
(07:11):
weddings here, and so I basically like increased my rate,
decreased my shows, and kept income fairly steady. So it
wasn't that was that was the main I mean, And
it's the type of thing where I could still be playing.
I could be playing the hotels and the hard rock
cafe and all that stuff, and I have done some
of that here, but I'm just it kind of burns
you out after a while. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
So yeah, yeah, you gotta find that sweet spot that
keeps you motivated, right.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Do you feel like most of the time when someone
says they moved to sanfran I would say, oh, that
must have been a lot of a price increase, you know,
for the cost of living. But coming from Maui, maybe
that was a wash.
Speaker 4 (07:46):
No, yeah, it was. Well, I mean, I mean, rent
is a bit more expensive here for sure, but it's
pretty pricey on Maui too. And and cause food is
super expensive, everything has to be shipped to the island,
so food got cheaper. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
You mentioned burnout for having a music career longer than
fifteen years now, do you have some habits and routines
that are critical for you to avoid that burnout?
Speaker 4 (08:13):
Yeah, well, I mean it's I mean, honestly, the burnout
comes more from playing cover gigs too many nights a week,
you know, and there's only so many times, so many
new songs you want to play, and it's yeah, you
really have to balance it, especially if it's like a
what I call a wallpaper gig where you're the background
music and you've been playing these songs over and over
(08:34):
like and I wouldn't even say so much it's like
burnout like which I associate more with working too many
hours and not getting out of sleep and that kind
of thing. It's more just like boredom or lack of
challenge and needing to find new like I think what
I basically, if you're like talking of habits, it's just
always checking in with myself and trying to find things
(08:55):
that I will find, you know, engaging and exciting. And yeah,
so that that happened, you know, And so I did
that website and then I did this same music for
change and the licensing agency and songwriting I never get
tired of.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
So, yeah, do you feel like you put a certain
amount of schedule to keeping up on your songwriting in
the midst of all these other things you're doing, or
is it feels still organic to you that you just
can't you impulsively have to write.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
So during the pandemic, I definitely I had, like I
write a song a week habit that I was doing.
And then I got to this stage where it felt
like I have all these songs and I want to
record them. You know, you can, like you can write
so many songs, but it takes budget to record good
quality songs, and so I kind of put a pause
(09:42):
on the writing, shifted to writing the book, and on that.
I was doing half an hour to an hour a
day writing the book, editing the book, promoting the book, publishing.
That's a lot of work too, So I kind of
just have always my thing is to put half an
hour to an hour into creative stuff per day, whether
that songwriting or recording like a work tape for a
(10:05):
song I want to record, or working on the book.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
I think ninety minutes is a good goal.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
Thirty thirty to sixty, yeah, but I mean ninety is great.
It's it's I think, like, so I read this book
Atomic Habits by James Clear. Have you guys heard of
that one?
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Oh yeah, you just had our last guests bring it up.
Speaker 4 (10:20):
Yeah, it's awesome. And I really think that the consistency
is way more important than the duration each time. You know,
so even if it's fifteen minutes, if you can do
it on a daily basis, the games are you know,
I'm trying not to skip more than one day kind
of thing. It's super powerful.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
You brought up in Mali that you can play six
nights a week, and I'm sure you had a tight
group of musicians there that knew each other because of
that community. How did that change for you when you
moved and also how did you re establish starting over
for networking in your new town.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
Yeah, so I don't know that I would say that
the network the community was that tight on Maui. It
was just people who I'd see coming and going from
the hotels, and you know, I had I had definitely
had a few musician friends, but the vibe was less felt,
less around creating original music and more around performing music.
(11:17):
And that was creating music was what I was keen on.
But when I moved to the Bay Area, I had
this website who plays which was and my goal was
to try to get it running in San Francisco and
so getting musicians to sign up and post their shows
like I had. I took like some courses on software engineering,
and you know, it was a whole thing with the
database behind it, and and so that really motivated me,
(11:39):
and I got out, went out to a bunch of
jams and started connecting with like soul musicians, soul jazz
people more here and doing some like busking on the street.
And it was easier actually to find people who were
kind of I don't know, just in the scene. I guess,
I guess because it's a city, there's more. There's more
like open mics and jams and all that kind of
(12:00):
stuff happening, although I did do some of that on
Maui too. And then I kind of built community online,
like my songwriting partners I've met mostly through Facebook groups
and courses on sync licensing, and then through that met
them in like La and Nashville, and then through those
people there connected to other people. Yeah, so now I
(12:22):
feel like my community is more online.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Yeah. It's interesting how, especially after COVID, the everyone became
more comfortable with relying on the internet for so many
things like networking and creating opportunity that perhaps we kind
of were maybe a little more hesitant to really give
it a full chance. I mean, just like streaming performances,
it became so much more normal and comfortable for people
(12:46):
to do. I had a hard time adjusting to playing
to a microphone into a camera, yeah, versus the stage.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
You know, me too, I tried, so I had. I
did a few shows on Twitch, and I always felt
so like empty afterwards, you know, like because you're used
to performing in front of an audience. Then the show's
over and then you go hang out and you have
a drink and you chat and you you know, there's
like a connecting component to it, and this just felt
(13:12):
like singing into a screen and you get little like
comments popping up. But yeah, that's not really like what
I'm in it for, you know, totally.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Yeah, it roboticizes it in some weird way. That's Yeah,
is that a weird But if it isn't, it should be,
because it's it's like taking the romance out of it, yeah,
and the robot into it.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
Yeah, totally.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Chris and I started this during the pandemic and talk
about singing and performing into a camera, talking into a
camera or even just a microphone, and not being used
to it. I would get that same feeling of being
a little nervous, wanting to perform, well, speak clearly, don't
use my arms, show up for Chris, and away. And
(13:54):
then afterwards we'd get off and I'd have that same
adrenaline like you would after a show, and I have
nowhere to put it, and it was very frustrating.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
Yeah, I mean, it's nice to have a partner in it.
I remember doing like listening sessions for the nonprofit we
have some music for a change, and I started it
with my friend Justina, and like we'd hang up and
I'd like text her immediately be like, so how do
you think? What do you think of? How did it go?
You know, because you want to just have that feeling
of a moment to debrief about it, you know.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Yeah. But it's like as we go through all this,
we kind of figure out, you know, maybe ways that
were good at something that we didn't realize, you know.
I think that's what artists really should allow themselves to
do so often, is explore all these different ways that
you feel like doing it, because usually it's like an
instinct to say, hey, I think you'd enjoy this, you know,
m hmm. And it's still so many ways. I think
(14:45):
I relate to how you have grown in your path
in your career because I think you just allowed yourself
to try these different things and gone with what felt
like something you wanted to do right and that you
were interested in putting your time into. So I want
to follow that up with a question and of like,
as you've done all this, how would you define a
music career now? And how can someone make sure that
(15:05):
they're on the right track.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
Yeah, So it's funny the word career implies that it
implies money basically, right. The reason that I named the
book Living a Music Centered Life is because I want
to emphasize the vocation aspect of it, that you're the importance.
If it is important to you to be a musician
and to have music be a big party of your life,
(15:30):
then you can choose to do that in many different ways.
So music career can mean that you are focused on
earning your living doing music or music related things, or
it can mean that you are working to have music
be like the central hub of your life and then
(15:53):
finding ways to earn a living around that. So having
a successful music career, I think it really depends on
your own value system and what it is that you want,
you know. I think for me it's always been being
able to create songs that I care about and getting
them heard by other people. And I feel like the
(16:15):
getting them heard by other people, it's like it can
be a sort of like a quantity or quality thing.
You know. Sometimes you write songs that really deeply resonate
with a small group of people, and sometimes you write
songs that widely kind of like are heard by a
huge number of people, but don't necessarily land in any
(16:35):
way other than like, oh, there's a beat that I'm
interested in. So yeah. So there's the there's the getting
your music out there component of a music career, and
then there's the earning money aspect of a music career.
And I think in our time it's for me, at least,
it's the getting the music out there bit is more
important to how I like derive meaning, and it's there's
(16:58):
it does feel like unfair that you can really get
your music out there and not be compensated for it,
but that's kind of the world we are in as musicians,
and I just I just think it's really important for
people to like go into music with kind of a
clearheaded understanding that your worth is not defined by how
(17:19):
much money you happen to make from music or music
related things, even though there are definitely paths to do that.
The like the you know, the gigging path the sink
licensing path are the two main funds, but how much
money you make from them doesn't necessarily line up with
how much how much you are personally deriving meaning from
(17:40):
what you're doing.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
So maybe would you say that to be right on
track in this case would be to feel that you're
doing what it is that's satisfying you.
Speaker 4 (17:51):
Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean it's because it's like
like for my own personal experience, I've you know, I've
I've written songs that I've gotten placed in TV shows
that I'm proud that they got placed in the show.
It's exciting. It's like, oh yeah, I got a placement,
but they're not you know, when I reflect on what
(18:12):
I'm most proud of in terms of artistry, those don't
happen to be the songs that I feel like, oh
that was really like that song's made a difference in
the world. You know, I feel like that song helps
helps a picture say what I needed to say at
the time, and I'm glad it was useful, but it
doesn't necessarily make me feel like I'm about them on
the path, you know what I mean, Whereas other songs
(18:34):
that I just play live for a group of people,
they might not even be recorded, and people come up
and say how much that touched them.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Like you mentioned, you had a goal of before COVID,
of selling a thousand hard copy CDs, what obviously now
would be hard to do just because many people don't
even have something to play a CD on. Would you
say sync licensing was an answer to compensating for that
monetary thing that you had before. Did that come during
(19:02):
COVID or did you already start that while you are
on the journey of you know, we're all selling hard goods.
Speaker 4 (19:08):
So the selling the hard goods was way but it
was MAUI So that would have been around like what
twenty fifteen to twenty I don't know, around that time,
and the people buying the CDs were generally older tourists
who because the younger people we are like, can I
stream it already? Right?
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (19:23):
But definitely. Like the not being able to sell hard
like CDs at shows is a huge that's really hard
for artists because that was like a really good supplementary
stream and sync licensing, Yeah, it's it's a different, totally
different kind of stream and not as consistent as selling merch.
I think. I think merch is really important, like not
(19:45):
if you don't have CDs, it's great to have something else,
you know, with even like yeah, a thing with a
QR code on it that links to the streaming that
connects to the streaming thing to your music, but that
they can buy just to support you. But sync licensing
is is really different because it's very shot in the dark.
I mean, there's a consistence you need to use, but
(20:05):
you never know when a song will land, and it's
saturated and it's very relationship based, networking based.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
So I'm curious then with now the way you approach shows,
how many would you say that you are you're aiming
to play, like, say per month at this point, like four? Okay,
So with four, like do you set, okay, I need
to make this much money or this show isn't worth doing,
or do you just say I'm going to do this show?
(20:35):
And it's not about the money, like where are you
at with that whole kind of mentality.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
So for the corporate wedding stuff, it's like definitely all
I would say, like all about the money, yeah, like
it needs to be well paid or I'm not interested
in doing it. And for the personal like songwriter show,
it's more like I want to play a show like
four times a year to people who are willing to
come out, and that's not about the money. It's about,
(21:02):
you know, sharing my music with people.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Because perhaps you see that there's a greater result than
just the monetary moment of the evening when one.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
Hundred percent yeah, I think I maybe haven't. I mean,
I think you can. There will be other musicians who
are more perhaps younger, but are are just more dedicated
towards building a personal fan following, and I haven't put,
at least in recent years, much effort into that because
I just I don't know, I haven't. I find that
(21:34):
it's really hard, I'm and it requires a certain type
of personality. The type of person that can bring people
out to events generally is this particular type of personality.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
There's also there's also a particular type of social situation
you want to put yourself in day in and day out.
I think back to just what it took to bring
people out at a certain age where you were out
all the time, you went to go see your friends play,
you were at gatherings, picnics, barbecues, bars, whatever it may be,
(22:07):
and it was easy to say, hey, come check this out.
And when you're not doing that anymore, because maybe you
have different priorities as far as maybe writing for SINC.
Or being creative in other ways in your evenings than
going out and just trying to yeah, as respectful as possible.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
Yeah, I mean I don't have I don't have kids,
but a lot of the people who would come to
my shows, do you know if this show needs to
be like it needs to be between I think five
thirty and six thirty PM for them to be interested?
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Yeah, the hour? Yeah right. Well let's talk a little
bit then about how as you kind of created this
SINC source of income and how that spawned into creating
your Sink agency. Can we just kind of get a
little bit of how that all kind of occurred. I
know that you were starting to write with SYNC, just
kind of dabbling, and how did that turn into getting
(23:02):
these placements and starting a engagency.
Speaker 4 (23:05):
Yeah. So in twenty nineteen, it took a course online
around sync licensing, and then I spent about a year
like every day I emailed people, I think one or
two emails a day. Email.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
That was an online course.
Speaker 4 (23:19):
It was an online course.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
It's amazing. I love that.
Speaker 4 (23:22):
Yeah, and I just did a whole bunch of research,
sent my music, you know, got my music together, had
had some quality songs, and then emailed like a music supervisor.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Every day.
Speaker 4 (23:35):
I got some people downloading, a couple of people like thanks,
you know, but then but nothing and I was just like,
how is this possible? And I just you know, like
I had faith, but I was starting to, you know,
question whether it was real. Like the music licensing was
like a possibility for me. And I went on a walk,
you know, as one does during COVID and thought about
(23:57):
like what could I do. That's a bit different. And
I've always been into activism, you know and charity stuff,
just kind of like that's something I care about. And
in the course, the woman who taught the course was like,
never be political. Always keep politics out of it. You know,
you never want to, like because like Coca Cola doesn't
want to deal with your political views. It's like a turnoff.
(24:20):
But I noticed on social media that the music supervisors
that I followed were totally political. They were really like,
you know, into activism. And I thought, well, you know what,
why don't I just give this a try where I
do a listening session with music supervisors, raise money for something,
and you know, try to make it a win win win.
So I started sync Music for a Change, which is
(24:42):
every month or two, we do a listening session on Zoom.
People donate to a cause that a music supervisor cares about,
and in exchange for donating, they submit a song. Like
they don't donate to me directly, they send me the
receipt of their donation to Red Cross or whatever it is.
Collect all the submissions, listen to all the songs, pick
like fifteen that I think the music supervisor will connect with,
(25:05):
send all of them. Whoever donated, all of them get
sent to the music supervisor. And then that was just
a way for me to connect directly with music supervisors,
for them to know who I am, to start to
build a relationship. It was a way to raise money
for a bunch of good causes and then help the
musicians in my community to like get their songs heard,
(25:25):
and so that that was cool that right away that
went well. It was like sometimes you feel like, oh,
I got to really keep working, keep working, but sometimes
when something works, like it works right away, you get
immediate feedback that like, this is a good thing. So
that that was great. And I was doing it with
Justina Chandler, who's also a songwriter and was a co
writer of mine. And then pretty much like immediately the
(25:48):
people we had on were like, oh, we need like,
how can we clear all this music through one person
because it's too much to have to go back to
each different musician to see if we can use their music.
And so Justina and I were like, should should we
just make an agency? Should we do it? And so
we decided to give it a shot, and then Unicorn Sinc.
Was created and that's sort of how that all went.
(26:10):
I think this The places that I've had personally haven't
come through my agency. They've come through other Sink agents
that I've signed my songs with, and I met those
agents through conferences and through co writers.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Mainly, do you feel like now when you represent the
Unicorn agency, the Sink agency that you feel like it
has more of a Why you guys laughed, I didn't
see that. Sorry. Do you feel like it represents something political?
Do you think that it represents maybe an opinion? Do
(26:46):
you want or do you I guess what I should
say is do you put that stuff forward to help
create a brand or an identity that sets you apart?
Speaker 4 (26:55):
I mean I think, yeah, I don't know. I don't
I think that unicorn sync represents anything particularly political, although maybe,
I mean it kind of has progressive vibes. I mean,
unicorns are also a symbol of the gay community, which
I'm an ally but I'm not part of. And you know,
(27:16):
because it's connected to seeing music for a change, I
mean probably progressiveness is generally the vibe.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
And it's all woman owned, correct it is?
Speaker 4 (27:24):
Well, yeah, it's woman owned right now. I currently have
a partner who is a guy, Pete Davis, who's a
music supervisor. But we're just kind of starting out with
the partnership and haven't gotten into the details about ownership
and that kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
Yeah, how did you meet Pete Davis?
Speaker 4 (27:43):
How did I might meet him? I met him because
another music supervisor used one of our songs and then
posted it on Instagram and he reached out to me
saying he needed songs for a reality TV show, and
then we started an email correspondence and then I went
to La and we went out for dinner and we've
been connected ever since.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
About networking, yes, And the other thing about this too
is that I feel like what makes sync work nowadays
is that it can help bring you to that audience
that normally you wouldn't be exposed to. It can then find,
like you said, if maybe the song itself wasn't your favorite,
it can at least get them channeled to your website,
(28:24):
which you must have right, and then create an opportunity
for them to really dive into your music that you're
proud of.
Speaker 4 (28:30):
Total.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
I was thinking of Joel Ansett. Do you know Joel
from He comes to the Durango sometimes, but he's another
He's a fantastic artist and he has been for decades, right,
but not had that many placements. He recently got a
placement on a nine to one one ton of drama.
Cool yeah, and immediately the shizam you know, went exploding
(28:54):
on his account, and then all of a sudden, his
song turns up on iTunes you know, in the top
ten and like just overnight, just overnight from this one
and that song was from an album I think four
albums ago. Yeah, you know. Yeah, so just amazing how
that can kind of work in synchronicity.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
Yes, with you the artist, Yeah, absolutely, yeah. It is
one of those things where the even more than the
fee for whatever you get for being on the nine
to one one show, is the is the I mean,
there are like royalties and stuff, but there's people. This
is when people sirzam the song, they get to see
all of your everything you have up on Apple or Spotify,
(29:35):
and that is like a huge way to build recognition
and build a fan base, especially if your sound has
been consistent and it's yeah, yes, yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
And that is something that I think a lot of
people struggle with, is they make albums that kind of
go all over the place, and then it makes it
harder to brand when we see them.
Speaker 4 (29:54):
Yeah, I mean, because then if people chazam you and
the song that they hzamed that they like it has
other songs that are similar, than they're going to be
more likely to follow you.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
How would you say that being a songwriter has helped
you or hindered you? When it's come to sync licensing,
the creative mindset of being able to switch from songwriter
to now business and having to look at songs that
would create a momentum within that say TV show or movie,
(30:23):
relative to just having a piece that has its own mission.
Speaker 4 (30:28):
Yeah, honestly, Like, yeah, I think getting into sync licensing
strengthened my songwriting because it's just learning about structure. Like,
I think that the key thing in SYNC that you
need to keep in mind is the lyrics. Is to
not be overly specific with your lyrics, because then you
(30:48):
want to be able to convey an emotion rather than
a detailed story for a song. That works for sync
licensing because the picture itself is the story and your
song is helping people to all the feelings that go
along with the story. And just like learning how to write,
like listening to what works for music licensing has helped
(31:09):
me write better songs, don't. I don't know, you just
they have to be really good to land and they
can't be too on the nose, like they can't be
telling people what they want to hear. I used to
write a lot more folky stuff, you know. I grew
up listening to Annie DiFranco, who is like all about
the convoluted lyric.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
She is my idol.
Speaker 4 (31:30):
Yeah, she's amazing.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
She's the reason I started playing music the way I do. Actually,
I'm a huge fan.
Speaker 4 (31:36):
Yeah, she's great. I love her. I saw her a
few months ago at the film More Here So. But
her lyrics for a lot of her songs are like
very specific, you know, like and so you know. I'm
sure she has some songs that are less like that
and could be licensed easily, but the ones that are
very specific are probably harder to license, which is another
like like you're whether or not your song were well
(32:00):
for synkle. Licensing doesn't really have to do with how
good the song is, you know, or whether it has
a place in the world, or because Ani Franco is amazing.
But yeah, Like, in terms of being a songwriter and
a business owner, I think I just am. My brain
is ambidextrous. I can kind of go into detail and
analytical mode, and I can also go into creative mode. Probably.
(32:23):
I mean, I know that there are other creative people
who are a lot more talented than I am in
the songwriting space, who are maybe not as good in
the running a business space.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
Nice to know she's with her current husband. I thought
that was very important.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Semantics. So what do we start with this?
Speaker 4 (32:59):
You know?
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Well, the thing for me was thinking, I've thought often
about can I relocate? You know, which we could easily
make into a whole section of discussion, because people and
sometimes you kind of get stuck living in an area
that you've built a business. It's kind of I'm not
saying I'm stuck, but maybe that's the too strong of
a word, but you're, you're kind.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
Of you're you're saying you can, you can get stuck.
You can yeah by mountain surrounded saying you are, but
surrounded trapped by living in red rocks, you know.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
So I like this discussion about how can you just
pick up and move? Now You've done this twice over
the years, but I've never really done that. I mean,
I guess I did it once, but it doesn't really
count because when I moved to Colorado, I was twenty
years old and I really had built only a name
for the band that I was in, not myself. And
(33:59):
so it's really fun to talk with other people because
you do realize that markets, they do have a lot
of things that repeat themselves. You know, there's a lot
of things that if you can build it in one
prosperous community, whatever it is you're trying to build, then
you're likely to be able to do that again somewhere else.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
Yep, and probably even better because you've learned so much
from the first time you've done it.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Yeah. Well, instead, she went into the locals, the networking.
She went in to make sure that she was doing
the things that she needed to do to be and
meet the people that would help her get established quicker.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
And she had a great idea too with creating that
calendar and Maui and I related to that as far
as when I moved to Colorado the first time, I
built head above music dot Com, which was just somewhere
where musicians could answer questions and help other musicians out.
And through that you had ad marketing, got to reach
(34:55):
out to local businesses, helped with promoting stuff, and from
there I was able to connect with a lot more
musicians in town because I had something to offer them,
which I think for any musician moving to a new
town doing something like that, whether it's building a website
just for open mics or for your niche in music
or discussion or songwriting, or like she did with events.
(35:19):
I'm sure every town could use more of that to
have a community to share with each other.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
I mean that's a pretty interesting idea like that, if
you're going to relocate. Maybe the big advice here out
of both yours and Aline's experience is that go with
something to offer, right, go with something that you can
immediately offer everyone else. Is how you're going to bring
value to the community.
Speaker 3 (35:44):
Yeah, And it's an easy ask. What's someone going to say, No,
I don't want to help my community, yeah, you know,
it puts you in a pretty good spot.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
Or no, I don't want your free help that you're offering, Yeah,
to make my life better? Yeah, No, that's a great point.
Speaker 3 (35:59):
It gives you some kind of just I don't know,
like you know they say when you look in the
mirror and give yourself a super superperson pose, just to
build that self confidence. If you're helping out your community,
that's just some built in self confidence that you can
let negative things roll off you a lot easier.
Speaker 4 (36:18):
Right. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
When I feel like now that we say that out loud,
thinking back to a few people that we've talked to
before or that we know that have done this relocation
thing too. A lot of them did this too. They've
built some sort of offer that they can bring with
them and improve the new market that they're entering. And
like you're doing and you're gonna be here this week, right,
(36:40):
you're flying back and you can expand. Essentially now you're
using two markets.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
Yeah, and it's been fun. And I appreciate Colorado in
a way that I might have gotten used to over
the last fifteen years, just like when I came back
to Chicago and now the Midwest, I was able to
appreciate it. So it does open up a lot of
opportunities on both ends. For sure. I guess I wanted
(37:05):
to talk about the ability to generate income when moving
to a new town. She did something pretty awesome by
not only reaching out to other musicians, but that website
can provide previeum subscriptions. It could build traffic for her,
build her email list. You're connecting with other musicians and saying, hey,
(37:28):
let's reach out to other venues and say we can
put it on this website. These shows. It's just a
great marketing position for yourself when moving to a new
town on so many different levels. Being the gatekeeper to
that puts you in a position to meet a lot
more people then you probably wouldn't be able to otherwise.
(37:49):
So I wanted to just talk about that a little bit,
which I think we did.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
Another thing that stood out to me was avoiding burnout
versus boredom. I think that's actually a pretty healthy distinction
to make sure you're aware which one you're feeling when
you're in these situations or because you could also be
feeling both. Yeah, absolutely, and I think there are times
(38:14):
that I can say I've noticed I felt both. But
it can be also just a better way to guide
you to know what to do next if you distinguish
which one you're actually feeling, because burnout really should have
a different follow up with what how to handle it right,
Like burnout could mean that you need to take a
break from what you're doing or change what you're doing.
(38:37):
Boredom sometimes is sort of like I mean with my kids,
they if they say they're bored, my new reaction is like,
so figure it out, you know, like do something for yourself.
No one's going to come and fix that for you.
And so I think boredom sometimes it can be taking
a break from it, but more often it means maybe
doing something differently.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
Or putting your energy into one more than the other
to give that thing a little rest for a while.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
I know we've been busting our butt for quite a
few months now on this season, and we're already talking
about what we're going to be doing on the downtime
to build up for next season. But I am looking
forward to taking some of these notes that we've learned
from our guests over these last few months and start
(39:24):
working on those things to start playing out more and
so I could come back to this with some new vigor.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
Yes, And I think we we also tend to be
more productive if we follow what we're motivated to do. Right, So,
boredom give you a sign that you're also not you're
not being very productive because you're bored.
Speaker 3 (39:46):
Can you say the last time you were bored? I
mean knowing how many things or how many dishes you're
spinning in the air.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
I think the way i'd say it is I can
get bored in moments, like in moments of doing all
the things that I'm doing, I'll hit a moment where
I'm like, I'm just It's not that I say to myself,
I bored you know, I just think, like, I don't
feel like doing this.
Speaker 3 (40:10):
That's a whole conversation too.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
Yeah, you know. And it's so like, if I was
just put this into the context of playing one of
those as she calls them, wallpaper shows, and which I
certainly know I'm familiar with, and if I'm feeling if
I have that moment, I'm like, I have this. This
(40:34):
is just what works for me. I have to find
something that makes me interested. Like I'm gonna be like, oh,
I'm gonna play a song that I'm really uncomfortable with
right now, because then then I'm going to force myself
to focus and to distract myself from the fact that
I don't feel like doing this. And and if I
can do that in a way that can reignite some
(40:54):
sort of entertainment for myself, you know, then I think
I'm gonna be okay, and then the night goes faster,
right because if you're having fun, the night always goes faster.
That's always the truth. The day goes faster that way too.
But so I don't know, I don't mean to say bored.
I'm like, I'm never gonna say that my life is boring.
I don't feel that way ever. But those things, those
(41:17):
little things you sometimes get tired of taxes.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
Okay, that I would be bored doing. Yeah, yeah, especially
because you and I talk about looking at our numbers
so much during the month, you know. Yeah, I think
by the time that comes, I mean, it is more
data entry than having to go through everything else.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
Well, and that's the that's the concept, right that that
you you learn like, I don't like doing this. This this,
I mean bords kind of feels like a weak word
for all this. But this bores me. So next year,
I'm going to be more diligent about all the extra
stuff I can do to avoid this taking a long time.
Speaker 3 (41:57):
Yeah, And you know that's where she in the book
Atomic Habits, which is now the second time that book
has come up because Johnny brought it up. The things
that make taxes boring are because of the habits that
you create to make sure you have all your numbers
in the right place, that it is only data entry
by the time you get there. And then now for creativity,
(42:19):
she was talking about taking fifteen or thirty minute blocks
throughout your day to work on different things such as
songwriting or recording or now writing and editing this book.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
That is no small feat, right, And we'll talk about
the book itself later, but just to finish something like that,
you know, there's she has no problem obviously. I feel
like anybody that could finish your book, they're not the
kind of person that is struggling with being bored, you know.
I know she doesn't feel it. I feel bored and
like that in that term either. So I think all
(42:52):
of this is really healthy for us to remind yourself
that it's okay. First of all, to feel those little
moments where you're like demotivated. Is that a better word
than boredom?
Speaker 3 (43:03):
Yeah? I like that.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
And to recognize if it's actually burnout, because burnout can
show itself sort of like actual depression, right like in
a way that you can't control it, right, Like it's
it's it's a symptom, you know. So it's important just.
Speaker 3 (43:21):
To be aware, especially when you're relocating, because you can
feel like there is so much to get done that
it is very easy to burn out. Again, going back
to the Atomic Habits book and what she was talking about,
you take away that intensity by just nipping things in
the bud fifteen twenty minutes at a time, and that
beats the intensity. It creates momentum without the burnout.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
Yeah. Well, and when you find those things that are
motivating you and you keep following them, you tend to
not deal with these things as much. Right, this book
came about sounds like because it kept coming up and
she was like, Okay, I'm gonna listen to that. You know,
we didn't really talk that, but it kind of felt
that way that she was saying that. And to me,
that's part of the gift as artists that we get
(44:07):
to define that music career, that we get to find
our career as a whole. And like we've touched on
a few times here is during this interview that you
don't have to only do music. That is in fact,
most musicians that are successful also have other interests. You know,
and so do you, and so do I, and so
(44:27):
do all of everyone's listening. We all have other interests.
You should incorporate them, you should embrace them, You should
do them too. Right, This is important that you enjoy
all the things that you are interested.
Speaker 3 (44:40):
In, and that's what makes you successful. To going back
to the burnout, because you could follow some things that
you might just be passionate about but also makes you money,
and you're not looking at your creative world as something
that you're just chasing money for. So it's not always
just about money.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
Yeah, well, and chasing money, mate, I've noticed this, Okay,
Now this is me being real time. I noticed that
the phase of my life where I was super motivated
by making money is starting to end, and I'm grateful
that it lasted as long as it did and it
came when it did. Now that doesn't mean that I
(45:21):
don't value money or want to keep making money, but
I'm noticing that it's not what motivates me at the moment.
And I think we all, I think plenty people have
never even felt like money motivates them. And that's okay.
I mean I get it because I'm in that phase
now where I'm just like, I want to do meaningful
things in a different way. I mean, money has to
(45:42):
be a part of it in order to sustain myself
and my family, but it's still just not the thing
that I'm like, I'm gonna I'll stay for six hours
and beform although I'm doing that on Saturday again and
I don't want to. But it's also about my my job,
and I still wanted to show up and do a
(46:02):
good job of what I'm supposed to do. And the
reason that I get these opportunities because I can say
yes to those things.
Speaker 3 (46:08):
And you've also detached yourself from income being your self worth,
which just makes you able to go do that and
enjoy six hours for something for different reasons. Having to
do that within the same field of music, you know,
you're focusing on meaning connection, defining your own version of success.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
And yes, that's freedom totally. That is freedom money. Money
doesn't bring happiness, but happiness brings money. And I don't
know if that's the right way to say it, but
it is something like that because every time you tend
to follow what you really care about, money does tend
to follow behind it because you're creating value, you know,
(46:49):
and you tend to be good at what it is
that you're trying to do.
Speaker 3 (46:52):
One thing she emphasizes is writing for different purposes, which
also can be fun. So, especially when she brings up
sync that I'm sure you're getting some prompts that you're
writing for that, but also writing for yourself and having
to express yourself and put emotion into it, not just
(47:14):
for a commercial pitch.
Speaker 2 (47:15):
Yeah, that's one hundred percent true. And they also always
say at those conferences that as soon as you start
trying to write for sync, your music doesn't hit well.
It's so it's so difficult to be like, write something honest, now,
follow these rules, but don't follow these rules as too hard,
because we want it to be real music. We want
(47:37):
it to be good. Yeah, we don't want it to
be artificially created just for this, but you know, right
for we need these things to happen in order for
this to worry. And it's like it just always kind
of walks that line. But there are people, as she said,
there are people that that is what they're good at
and and that's okay, Like, but if it's not you,
(47:59):
then that it's also okay. Like you don't need to
feel that you constantly have to try to be that,
so that's not who you are.
Speaker 3 (48:07):
What did we say? It was like stinking thinking, so
could we come up with if if you write for
sync it could if you write music for sync, it
sometimes tends to sink. What I don't know that that's
my that's my quote, Chris, who's never done any of that.
Speaker 2 (48:34):
Well, I don't think that sink should be as intimidating
as it is, and she said the same thing. It's
you know, it's it's getting to be more saturated hundred percent.
But it's also the doors are wider for more people
to give it a shot. If you just make your
music and do it well, likely there's a place for
your music in sync.
Speaker 3 (48:55):
Well, you said you don't starting to get saturated. I'm
sure there's plenty of age two. So she really did
something special with Unicorn Zinc. To have that nonprofit aspect
to it. And then you know, if what do they
say at the front door is closed, build a side door.
He tried to you know what I say, Chris, the
(49:18):
front door is closed, build a side door. You know,
solve the problem for others, and opportunities will follow. We'll
fall back to you. So she did something. She put
her neck out there. She's like, I'm not getting the
response I want, so I'm going to do it on
my own and I'm going to do a spin that
helps out other people again, which we were talking about
at the beginning of this podcast.
Speaker 2 (49:41):
And I do think that it's such a great example
of going with what you're interested in because it sometimes
it's leading you to that solution that brings you back
to where you wanted to get to, right, I mean,
if that's the win win win here, right. That is,
she helped others that needed the help by making this nonprofit.
The nonprofit then attracted other people that perhaps she couldn't
(50:02):
have attracted otherwise. And those connections then gave opportunity for
her clients, her musicians to get sync opportunities that would
never have had those connections otherwise. Everybody's winning. I just
love when stuff like that happens because we don't sometimes
realize that in good business, in business, when it's good,
(50:24):
everyone can win. Right. So often you think that there's
a winner and a loser, or somebody who's getting a
better deal, and that doesn't have to be the reality.
And so often these kind of things do occur and
they need to be highlighted so the rest of us
can see these are the ways that we can do that.
Speaker 3 (50:40):
And having a good business background will always help you.
If you can develop both the creative muscles and the
business muscles, you can switch modes to make your career
more resilient and versatile in today's industry, and so many
times musicians might not want to focus on how to
make the money, but make the money, but they're spending
(51:02):
all their time making the music, which I wish I
had more time to make the music or that was
more that was driving me more lately, you know. But
you move and you have different focuses, and like you said,
you had a point in your career where you were
working towards the money and now you can focus on
(51:22):
music differently. So having both of those skill sets I
think is very important, and she seems to be doing
a fantastic job at both.
Speaker 2 (51:31):
It's almost like you're honoring yourself right, Like you're like,
I'm worth doing what it is that I love doing,
and whatever that is right now is what I should
use to motivate me to do the things that I
can do. And hopefully I mean the other end of
that too, I like to highlight is that we always
(51:52):
want to give more than we're getting. Right in business,
that is usually the way to succeed. I think offer more,
and we talked about that a little bit then is
expected or give such value that people can't deny that
you're the best choice they made, you know. And this
(52:13):
in the same realm of that by doing something like
a charity. Doing something like a nonprofit is also giving
to humanity, giving to the world, given to the causes.
That is giving more than people could ever ask of you, right,
And that to me again gives so much power in
(52:34):
just your what is your dharma? Right, like your your
feeling of purpose and your feeling of how easy it
is to do hard things because they feel right. There
was an example of that that I heard some of it.
It's like dharma is like when your kid, Like if
somebody's got a gun and they're pointing it at you,
and you're obviously you know, what are you gonna do?
(52:54):
You're gonna do what they say. Right, as soon as
somebody points a gun at your kid, your tax them,
you know what I mean, You're doing whatever you need
to do without fear, even though you might be afraid,
but you're doing it because it's right. That's sort of
like the Diarmite or that's just a dramatic example, but
here too, it's like you're doing the things that feel
(53:14):
right even though they're hard. Creating what she's created, this
incredible stature of ways for her to not only be
an artist but help others is because it all felt right,
even though it's not easy stuff to do well.
Speaker 3 (53:28):
I can't wait to get my hands on that book.
I know we're going to talk about more of that
now in the next episode. Yeah, yes, what's our action step?
What are we doing this week?
Speaker 2 (53:40):
So this is appropriate for us then to say, our
action step this week is to try looking for your
when opportunities, your ideas, and how you might find ways
to help yourself while helping others. I even should say
this differently, I should say help others and provide a
service while helping yourself, because all of that is a
(54:04):
win win win, and it does exist all the time
around you, and it's prevalent in the music industry when
you look for it, and it's always looking there's always
ways to do it in your own interpretation. We know
your time is valuable and we appreciate you spending this
time with us and being a part of this community.
It's our hope that you feel that sense of community
here at musicians tip Jar and that you'll help spread
(54:26):
the word to make us all stronger. If you'd like
to get a hold of us or Elaine Ryan, what's
the best way to do that?
Speaker 3 (54:33):
Check out musicians Tipjar dot com for tools, resources and
discounts built specifically to help keep you up on the
finance side of your music business. And reach out to
us anytime at musicians tipjar at gmail. We'd love to
hear your story. If this episode resonates with you, share
it with a friend, leave a review, or hit that
like button. If you're on YouTube, helps us scroll the
community and support more music like you. If you want
(54:55):
to check out Elaine Ryan Instagram, it's at Elaine Ryan
Music website is Elaine Ryan dot CAA and for her
website for sink Sync Music for a Change dot com.
Speaker 2 (55:07):
As always, thank you for joining us, and remember there
is already enough for everyone. You just need to know
how to get Until next time on Behalf of Dave
Tamkin and myself Chris Web, stay happy, healthy and wealthy.
You are enough as you are. That's it. This is
Musicians Tip.
Speaker 1 (55:26):
JARB Somebody somebody.
Speaker 5 (55:35):
Nothing on this show should be considered specific personal or
professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, business, financial
professional for individualized advice. Individual results are not guaranteed, and
all discussed strategies have the potential for profit or loss.
The host is not operating on behalf of museum's Tip
jar LLL exclusively, you
Speaker 1 (56:00):
Have all had a tript you sa
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