I am a longtime studio singer — spent 25 years singing jingles — and because I live and work in Dallas where the jingle scene sort of dried up with the closing of three major production houses where I was on staff (and creative commercial director of one of them — TM Productions — thru 1992), I took my studio career to voiceovers which I had always done simultaneously with studio singing. Actually voiceovers were so much “cleaner” money-wise and easier because we have agents who book us and take care of all the money stuff whereas jingle singers are “on their own” and I got stiffed on money quite often and was always “chasing it” dunning producers who would simply stop using the singers they owed and use new ones who were not “wise” to these problems yet.
Yes, the jingle scene was political, backbiting, tinged with “who did you party with” or “who has the best parties” or “I’ll grease your palm and you grease mine” and not enough about talent. I sang in several vocal groups where one or more of the singers were there because they were somebody’s girlfriend or wife and truly should not have been muddying up that group! But, that’s true of all fields of work, I guess.
The article you wrote from sources you interviewed was absolutely on-target. Great work. I congratulate you. I just wanted to log in here and add my voice as a studio singer for decades.
Today, the four to seven voice groups are mostly gone away. Today, producers favor solo singers and country and rock and rap are big. Jingles always FOLLOW the recording industry, the chart tune stuff, never do they LEAD. Thus, in jingles, what’s popular, what’s selling as songs is what jingles reflect, and many times, jingles are copies of hit songs or artists, just close enough to prevent a lawsuit! Also, rather than write a jingle and produce it in the studio, an advertiser, an advertising agency, a producer just buys the rights to some popular song and uses that song in the commercial.
I should also mention here that I also was a jingle writer many years and a lyricist to some of the biggest writers in the business too and was an RCA recording artist and songwriter for six years. I had to get out of my contract because frankly, it was costing me too much money — the money I LOST not being here in Dallas and getting paid to do studio work!
As a member of National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) I have been selected to present a workshop in studio and jingle singing techniques for singers and coaches at the international NATS conference to be presented in Nashville at the Opryland Gaylord Hotel there on June 29, 2008. My workshop that day is at 9am. The conference lasts from June 27th to July 1st. I also will present a voiceover workshop open to the city of Nashville and its actors while there. People interested may contact me through my website below. I am a pro audio engineer and own a recording studio in Dallas. I’m also a Simon and Schuster author, reader, audio producer. I train actors and singers, mass media singers, or studio singers only — no classical.
Bettye Zoller Seitz
www.voicesvoices.com
Voiceovers/Audio Recording/Education
Bonnie Gillespie is living her dreams by helping others figure out how to live theirs. Wanna work with Bon? Start here. Thanks!
Originally published by Actors Access at http://more.showfax.com/columns/avoice/archives/000791.html. Please support the many wonderful resources provided by the Breakdown Services family. This posting is the author’s personal archive.