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7/15/08 -- Biting Flies At NJ Shore Pave The Way To The Olympics For Over 75 SongU.com Member Songs

SongU.com member songs are headed to the Olympic games!! Our members had outstanding success with our exclusive pitch to the company in charge of providing the music library for all NBC network sports and upcoming Olympics coverage. In the past three months, this NY based sound branding and design company has chosen over 75 songs from our members for the NBC Sports Music library!

The strangeness of how this SongU.com pitch came about is as interesting as the success it has spawned for our members. It begins a little over two years ago when my wife, Sara, and I decided we would book a few days at the NJ shore after visiting family with our then 3-year old daughter, Mia. She was still a little leery of the ocean so we were hoping this trip to our old Jersey shore stomping ground would change her feelings about going to the beach. It was a hot day in July 2006 when we arrived at our hotel by the shore. We all hurriedly put on our bathing suits and walked the two blocks to the beach. But as fate would have it, a rare weather pattern made it a perfect environment for a mass of biting flies to install themselves along the shore for a few weeks. As we approached the beach, the bubble of excitement floating in the air suddenly burst as Mia let out a piercing scream (as only 3-year old girls can) and the biting flies forced us to make a hasty retreat back to the indoor pool at the hotel.

While we were at the pool, Sara struck up a conversation with a woman named Audrey who was at the pool with her nephew. As they talked, we learned that Audrey ran a cutting edge music company in NY with a staff of several composers that licenses music for sporting events like major league soccer on ESPN. We told her about our songwriting and the educational site we now run, SongU.com. We found it strangely coincidental that we all had the music industry in common at this little NJ shore hotel. Over the next few days, we continued to bump into each other in the hotel lobby, the indoor pool or on the boardwalk. Before we returned home to Nashville, we exchanged phone numbers and email addresses and said we'd stay in touch with each other and perhaps someday we would find a way to all work together. Audrey mentioned that she had a project in the works that might be a good fit for us. But as with most things in the music industry, it was not definite and quite a ways off from being realized.

Usually the story would conclude at this point by saying something like "we emailed each other once or twice but then stopped corresponding after a while". However, this story has a different ending. After returning home to Nashville, Sara and Audrey kept in correspondence every few months checking in with each other. As 2006 rolled into 2007, SongU.com was growing with more members, courses, coaches, faculty and upgrades -- and Audrey's NY-based company was getting some great press being heavily involved in the Microsoft Zune rollout providing and licensing music in addition to landing placements with ESPN and other sporting events. As another year went by and 2007 drew to a close, Audrey wrote in an email that they were closer to finalizing the project that she had mentioned to us back at the NJ shore some 18 months ago. And in early 2008, an email arrived from her saying that her company had landed the contract to overhaul and license the entire NBC Sports music library. One of the main projects on their front burner became seeking songs and music for the upcoming Olympic games. Audrey said she would be working with the major publishing companies she previously had relationships with as well as her staff of composers. But she also wanted to give SongU.com members a shot at this (we had previously let her hear some of their songs and she had been impressed by the level of writing from our members). So Sara set up a listening page for her in our online "My Pitching" area and Audrey and her staff began listening to our members songs on a regular basis. In the past three months their company has now accepted over 75 songs for inclusion in the NBC Sports Music library.

I guess the moral of the story is that you never know where, when, or how something is going to happen that will affect the trajectory of your songwriting career. Often, it involves some amount of luck. The "luck" in this case came via Mother Nature and our timing at the NJ Shore. But like most things in the music industry, nothing happened immediately. Sara nurtured a relationship over 2 and 1/2 years with Audrey. Audrey worked for well over two years to secure the exclusive NBC agreement. Our members kept improving their craft and their songs, taking classes and working with our faculty and coaches so that when this opportunity presented itself, they were ready for it. Amazingly, all the stars lined up correctly and everyone's hard work paid off.

They say that the race is not always won to the swift, but to those who keep on running and never give up. And with that, I'd like to extend a round of applause to all our SongU.com members who keep on running and make us proud. The following members have signed licensing agreements for the use of their songs or music in the NBC Sports Music library. Way to go guys!

That's all for now. For those of you who've been thinking about joining SongU.com -- we'd love to have you "on campus" with us. As always, our subscription fee includes unlimited SongU.com courses for no additional cost as well as our pitching opportunities. I'll include details on our current promotion below my signature for those that are interested.

Wishing you the best with your songwriting.

-Danny
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Danny Arena
www.SongU.com
Courses, Coaching, Connections

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