Reactions to Matt Noble

Matt Noble was our guest speaker that came in to the class to talk to us about the music industry in general and answer questions we had in response to our discussion. Matt is a multi platinum recording engineer and producer. His engineering credits include Rihanna, Shontelle, and Rod Stewart. Matt also writes, produces, arranges songs, and also plays guitar and keyboard. He works at The Loft in Bronxville, NY. We discussed numerous topics abut the music industry, but the two that I thought were the most interesting were about songwriting and copyright.

Songwriters can perform the songs they write themselves or they may choose to write a song for someone else to perform. No doubt to be a song writer it requires time, patience and a lot of hard work. People who sing their own songs are called singer-writers/composers, however it might be more common for songwriters to record their songs by a variety of artists and then deciding who is most suitable for a that particular piece. Another big thing that Matt spoke to us about was how most songwriters these days are becoming their own music publishers and owning their own record label in a way of maximizing profits from their work instead of letting it go to an outside record label. He also explained how staff writers are directly employed by by the music publisher to write songs for them, and mostly common on pop music. Although he said most country music artists are singer-composers in their own right.

When it comes to copyright, legally speaking, songs can only be copied or performed with permission of the authors. It is governed by copyright law, however the legal power to buy or grant permission, may be bought, sold or otherwise transferred. Matt discussed how publishing and songwriting royalties can be a considerably large source of income, particularly if a song becomes a big hit.