July 19, 2016
Here I was still in the last week of the mourning phase from my father’s passing and I was reading the accordion forum. I found an interesting post… it was about a man was looking for someone to create two or three 30-45 second German Polka style “original” or “public domain” jingles for a book/DVD about a US-based beer company.
I just posted that it would be fun for someone to do something like this, I was not even thinking about me doing it as I was still in mourning and didn’t have an idea as to how I would feel about playing afterwards.
Well, the gentleman contacted me via private message and asked me if I could do it. I thought about it for a few minutes and just made up my mind to try and committed to the project… not even very sure that I could, but I would give it a shot. He mentioned that with this book there is a DVD with interviews and what not and the music would be used as intros/exits to interviews and what not, hence, why only 30-45 seconds in length are needed.
A week later, the mourning process was over, and I gave some thought as to how I would proceed. The new Mackie mixer was in place and made it quite a bit of fun to produce, and with about 4 hours of playing around and I had the 1st jingle out! The second one came the next day and only took me 2 hours and on top of it, is IMHO a better effort and was also double in length/time!
My 3rd was even easier, because I thought about it and instead of looking within myself for several hours, I found 3 public domain songs and took aspects of each to make the last jingle. I completed it on July 19, 2016 and then emailed the songs to Paul, the gentleman to whom the project belongs.
Now, I know that normally one gets paid for doing such work, and paid fairly well. I know about this because as a professional photographer, I’ve had several magazines offer to credit me and send me free magazines in return royalty-free copies of my works and the result was the same each time… I turned them down. I did that because the value I place on my work is worth much more than a simple credit in a magazine and a copy of it and because obviously, the magazine is made better from my works and THEY profit from it, so morally (and yes perhaps legally too), I should profit just a little as well, even if it is in some small matter…. but in this case I did it for almost nothing.
I needed this small challenge and am actually enjoying it. I won’t be working totally for free.. I asked for 3 copies of the book/DVD and this was agreed to, so, there is something more than a credit and magazine as payment (but credit in the book will be there both by name and email address).
I am both appreciative and happy to do this and have thanked Paul for the challenge! So…
Are the jingles short? Yes, they’re jingles!
Are they funny? Maybe not funny, but fun!
Are the songs cheesy? Most assuredly!
But it was FUN and I get credit in the book they come with, so what the heck… it’s my welcome back present into the accordion world! BTW, I am not adding these songs to my audio page as I don’t really consider them full songs, just jingles.
Here are the 3 jingles that I made:
Jerry’s Polka #1:
Jerry’s Polka #2:
Jerry’s Polka #3:
August 2, 2016: I received a small surprise in the email today, the man had a vocal accompaniment added to my song, which really made me chuckle and put a big smile on my face.
Jerry’s Polka #3 also known as: “Leinies Polka”!
Enjoy!