CATRESE WEST AKA “MISS MINI” RECEIVES SONG REVIEWS FROM TAXI by Catrese West

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CATRESE WEST AKA “MISS MINI” RECEIVES SONG REVIEWS FROM TAXI
by Catrese West

Catrese West (Miss Mini) is a budding songwriter in Rocky Mount North Carolina. She was a professional singer for 20 years before she finally decided to begin a songwriting career. This career began only about two months ago. In those two months, she learned how to build a home studio, how to use songwriting software, wrote a couple of songs and has now received reviews for two of her songs from TAXI, her independent A&R Company.
The first step in this journey was to build a studio. She researched the task on the net and found a blog called Ultimate Songwriting. This blog gave her step by step instructions to the equipment and set-up she would need to create a home studio. Her home studio consists of a laptop, studio software, an audio/midi interface, a condenser microphone, studio monitors. The musical equipment was purchased from Zzounds.com. This website has very competitive prices on musical equipment and price was a factor in the building of the studio. Specifically, the list of equipment is as follows:
Gateway T3200 Laptop
Sonar Home Studio 7 Software
TASCAM US-144 Audio/MIDI Interface
CAD GXL2200 Condenser Microphone
Samson Studio Dock USB Monitors
Next she needed to learn how to use songwriting software. After searching the web for a product that suited her needs, she purchased Sonar Home Studio 7. Since the only instrument Mini can play is her vocal cords, she needed software that had all the necessary instruments built in and would allow her to incorporate her vocals. The software is relatively easy to use and has very good online support. Although learning the software is an ongoing process, she is becoming a better engineer with each song she records.
Her very first attempt at songwriting was a song called “Who She Is”. The song is about a woman who becomes suspicious when her significant other has secret cell phone conversations. Miss Mini has also written 3 other songs entitled “Slow”, “Can’t Stop” and “Compelled” all of which can be heard on Electronic Press Kit at Sonicbids.com. “Slow”, was the second effort with “Can’t Stop” being the third and “Compelled” the most recent. When listened to in that order, one can hear the technical improvements.
After she wrote “Who She Is” and “Slow”, she submitted them to TAXI for review. It took about a month to receive the reviews. The review for “Who She Is” follows below.
“GREAT CONCEPT!!!! I really like this song idea, but this song has so much room to be strengthened. You have a cool melody, but you need to add more rhythm and creative style to it. This song is very ruff, so you have plenty of time to build off of it. Lyrically your story develops well, your point definitely comes across, but you’re leaving too much space in your verses where that space would be filled in with lyrics. Your structure should be an 8 bar verse that progresses into an 8 bar chorus.”
Here is the review for “Slow”.
“Lyrically I like your story line. You want to work more on your melody on this song. I’m not hearing that addicting melody that will make come to hear more. That’s the affect you want to create melodically. Give the listener something that sticks in their heads for a while.”
There was also an overall critique of which the results appear below.
“Catrese, Thanks for your submission to Taxi. I can hear your song writing potential, you just need to be guided so that you understand the basics of song writing. Let me recommend a book, Shortcuts to Hit Song writing. This will give you an understanding of structure. As well if you were to use more melody styles in your songs that will give your song a sense of change. You don’t want to keep the same melody throughout the entire song. The listener will grow tired from hearing the repetitive rhythm”.
With these reviews in mind, Miss Mini is in the process of re-working both songs. She is very appreciative of the constructive criticism and has already purchased the recommended text. What is most important to her is that this professional in the music industry heard her potential. For that she is extremely grateful. That statement alone confirms her raw talent and gets her excited about her future in the field. Miss Mini’s goal is to become one of the premier songwriters of our time and based on these reviews, she is on the right track.

Author's Biography:

Miss Mini is a singer/songwriter living in Rocky Mount, NC. In such a remote area it is difficult to find music industry contacts so she has turned to the internet to connect with people. She seeks to have her songs licensed and recorded by other artists. You may listen to her work at www.sonicbids.com/MissMini. You may also follow her on her blog at http://missminimusic.wordpress.com.

Posted on: January 31,2010

Email: catresegreen@embarqmail.com
Website: http://missminimusic.wordpress.com