Identify yourself..................................................................................
Make sure that anything you leave with anyone — be it a CD, resume, cover
letter, or whatever — includes your contact information. Your name, phone
number(s), email, and address need to be on every item. If your resume is
more than a page long, put your contact info on all pages. Put it on the CD
label and on the jewel case. Often pages get separated, and CDs get left out of
the case. You don’t want to make people search for your information if they
want to contact you.Invest in quality ..................................................................................
All this information assumes that you have recordings of your work, of course,
or can have some recordings made. The usefulness of demo recordings cannot
be overstressed, but a poor recording or a poor performance can often do
you more harm than good. If you are going to invest your own money in your
dreams of becoming a recognized music composer, the best investment is to
somehow procure professional quality recordings of good performances of
your work. If you can do it yourself, great. But most often, the wise choice is
to concentrate on the music and let a professional help you with the technical
side. At the end you will at least get to hear your completed work, and that is
really the main point of writing it in the first place, isn’t it?Copyright it .........................................................................................
One last thing: Be sure to register a PA (performing arts) copyright form with
the Library of Congress before sending your stuff around (see earlier sidebar
on this). Most professionals in this business aren’t interested in stealing your
material, but in the age of the Internet, publishers are wary of works that
have not been copyright protected. The fear is that you may have put your
music out on the Internet, and someone else could have easily filed a copy-
right using a download of your music. Publishers and record companies don’t
want to risk being sued for copyright infringement, so show them that you
have been careful; copyright your compositions.230 Part IV: Orchestration and Arrangement