#46) Fifteen More Minutes of Fame

Hello, and welcome back to "Always Be Better" with Mel Windham.

In this installment, I will continue my Fifteen Minutes of Fame story where I literally had fifteen minutes of fans surrounding me, asking for autographs, and all that good stuff. If you haven't seen it, I strongly recommend giving it a view. If you skip this first story, you might not get the full effect of the follow up I'm about to deliver.

I'll give you 5 seconds to think about it. Here's some random whole-scale mood music while we wait.

<5 seconds of random whole-scale mood music>

Okay, here we go -- for those of you who have already watched, here's a quick summary. I went to the Georgia Governor's Honors Program. Mr. H told me I was the worst composer to ever grace the program. I proceeded to compose a violin/piano Fantasy, which received the ONLY standing ovation in all recitals of the whole six week program. Then Mr. H stopped my piece from being played in the Honors Recital, but the students protested and got the music teachers to put us on the program. And then we got an even bigger standing ovation and fifteen minutes of signing autographs and other craziness.

Even after all that, Mr. H said to me on the last day: Mel, don't go into music. You don't have what it takes. The jerk!

So what came next? I went into music. And this is where the story continues.

I went to BYU, majoring in Music Composition. And I had a blast. I learned the skills I needed to learn. There were good teachers who inspired me and pointed me in the right direction. I had a killer senior recital where Dr. S told me, "Mel, you're going to go places." I was on my way to be a famous composer.

But before going on, let me pause and rewind a bit. Mr. H wasn't the only one telling me not to go into music. My father expressed similar concerns. At first I didn't listen to him, but he kept bugging me, saying I really needed a backup plan. I had to earn money. So, I made a deal. I added a major in Mathematics, adding 1.5 years to my college career. I also got a masters in music, but then decided it was time to go out into the real world.

I put together a demo tape, and sent it out to a few places. I applied to Disney -- never heard back. I tried to get the attention of some other composers to help me out, but I never heard back. And let me show you this -- one of my prized possessions. 

I approached the William Morris Talent Agency, and a few weeks later this is what I received. My own package returned to me. It looks like they opened it up, but then look at what they stamped here: UNSOLICITED. And not just once. Here it is in writing, and three more times stamped. RETURN TO SENDER. And I looked at the tape inside -- it hadn't advanced at all. They didn't listen to it, and they didn't look at the music I had sent.

BTW, this music you're hearing now is from that same demo tape.

And that's when I finally learned a valuable lesson. The music industry sucks. It's rigged. Talent has little to do with it. Agencies are already flooded with "adequate" composers. And that's why most of our show background music is filled with parallel fifths and otherwise bad writing. Well -- there are some composers out there with real talent, but most of what we hear today -- not really. Did you know that most popular songs are written by the same small group of composers? Ever wonder why most music produced today sounds the same?

And how many non-singers do we have out there today with pretty faces and not much else, thanks to the wonders of auto-tuning? When can we get back the ugly singers who actually had talent?

It's not what you can do, but who you know, and I knew nobody.

So, yeah -- my backup plan kicked in. I became an actuary and ended up making more money than I could ever imagine getting as a composer.

So, yeah -- my father was right. And in a sense, Mr. H was right. He knew how terrible the music industry was. Perhaps he had his own struggles. I tried to Google him, and can't find him anywhere. He was probably frustrated with people not realizing his talent. Perhaps he thought he was sincerely doing me a favor -- saving another poor sap like me from death by obscurity.

And life kept on going. Actuarial exams helped to put a stop on most of my musical progression. And then came depression. When you're not composing, it's really difficult to start back up. I felt down on myself. I felt that what everyone had been trying to tell me was true: I wasn't a true composer.

But then about a decade ago, this urge to compose started me going again. And get this ... my couple of decades doing math and learning all kinds of programming and business stuffs were not in vain. It helped build up talents I'm using now to run my own music business, Melkim Publishing. Evidently, automation turns out to be very useful in managing a business and keeping expenses down. I'm told that I'm already a step above some other publishing companies, because I do a better job of keeping track of royalties and paying them. (And I'm thinking -- how hard can that be?)

Either way, I'm composing again -- even collaborating with some moderately-big-name artists. These last seven years building up a publishing business have been a blast -- forcing me to get out of my shell and network with other artists.

And get this ... in a few months, I'm going to have my first big gig. One of my orchestral pieces is going to be played in Seattle's Benaroya Hall. (I'll learn how to pronounce that soon.) We're still waiting for details to be ironed out, but I'm looking forward to it. It's the beginning of what's going to come next, and it's not going to stop.

It's taken me a couple of decades to get here, but at least I know now: yes -- I'm going places.

So, what do I want you to get out of this? Think about your own Mr. H's -- all the naysayers holding you down. And don't lose hope. It may take decades, but with determination, you can get there. Losers can't hold you down forever.

Thank you for watching, and keep pushing forward. We can "Always Be Better."