Ep. 48: Upcoming Improvements to MyScore with Liam Thomas (JW Pepper, Day Two)

Liam Thomas, welcome to the podcast.

How are you doing?

Great, Garrett.

Thanks for having me.

It’s a pleasure.

For our listeners’ sake, this will be airing after the episode we just did in the conference room, the Get to Know You with the MyScore team.

We’ve already covered the basic Get to Know You icebreaker type questions.

I think we’ll just jump right in and talk about the future of MyScore and the exciting things that are coming down the pike.

You, of course, are the new MyScore team lead, and that in and of itself is a big change.

But also, we have talked about some really exciting things that I’m sure you are excited to share with our listeners.

So why don’t we start with the new, what are we calling it?

The new backend of MyScore?

What’s the correct terminology here?

The new user experience, I think, is the real kind of the phrase that we’ve been using on day-to-day basis.

Yeah, we’re absolutely thrilled to kind of talk about and share with you the latest updates to the experience, which is going to be…

It was made to help the independent composer and make selling your music easier and allow that opportunity for you.

So these updates are going to focus on giving you control and help you grow your brand and just kind of streamline what, if you’re a current MyScore composer, what you’ve already been working with or just streamline new and emerging composers who are just getting started as well, and streamline that process.

And I know it’s really great to talk about stuff like this in an audio format, but I’ve seen it, it looks fantastic.

Why don’t you describe the biggest things users will notice?

Sure.

I can go down the list here, I guess.

So the biggest thing is we’re just expanding and redefining the user experience as a whole.

So the whole new website and the uploader and everything is going to have a new look to it with a new brand for it as well.

I guess, different colors and a lot more user-friendly profile experience.

So like with user branding and profile pages, we’re going to be getting composers more tools to personalize their profile, such as a refresh design.

The updated profile pages are going to be easier to manage and just look better in general and give composers a more professional experience and then to enhance their online presence.

And then also be able to have easier access to their catalog, their sales reports, and just their profiles in general is really the main key part here.

Yeah, and I think we should point out that this is going above and beyond the new uploader which went live last year.

I mean, last time Isaac was on the show was talking about the new upload experience and that portal is still there.

But now all of the other stuff around it has been updated as well.

So composers, when they log into MyScore, they’ll see this whole new visual redesign and all of these tools that you’re describing are more for the composers use as they’re branding themselves and putting their music out there.

So this is including that new uploader, but then adding additional features.

Yeah, absolutely.

So right now when you log in, you have the same experience that it’s been for a while with just your profile and adding all your information and updating your profile.

And then once you go to upload a new piece of music, you’re getting the latest experience there.

So as soon as you click upload, it kind of redirects you into this new experience where you have the ability to upload your music, your parts and describe all your music and go through that.

But now once we add this new experience, it’s all going to be really streamlined and not even redirect you anyway.

That’s just going to be part of the main website.

And I suspect these changes will be helpful for a lot of composers, especially those that are not writing a huge quantity of music, and maybe don’t have enough music to justify the expense of creating their own website.

But this gives them sort of a more, I guess, professional landing page to share with potential customers.

Yeah, definitely.

So it’s going to make all of that easier.

It’s going to be friendly for both groups of people, people that are composing a small amount of music or just arranging.

They’ll have a really easy access into doing that and creating a profile for themselves.

But also, we’re going to be able to make the process more streamlined for people who have larger catalogs as well, especially with our new featured items and collections feature, which is going to be a main part of the experience in general, which will allow you to feature items much easier.

And then now you’ll be able to create collections as well.

So you’ll be able to personalize custom lists of your works that you can share, display in a profile based on categories that you feel is necessary.

And from what I saw, and this episode will air after everything’s available.

So if you’re listening, you can go check it out, once you’re finished with the episode.

But from what I saw, it also makes edits to pieces a lot easier to do.

And the sales reports, I mean, just all of that sort of back end stuff has been revamped in a really nice way.

Yeah, definitely.

Thanks.

We are looking to make it really easy for composers to access their sales report, their catalogs and everything without having to do too much gigging through.

Like I was mentioning before, composers with really large catalogs right now pretty much have to scroll through an entire list with no way to organize that.

And with the new experience, they’re going to be able to do that really easily.

And then on top of that, just being able to click right in and showing quarter to date sales is going to be a new feature of the sales report, which composers have that ability to do now.

But they kind of have to think about the range that they’re going to be wanting to look at when, with the new experience, you’re going to be able to click right in and see that quarter to date sales range, which in a lot of cases, composers want to focus on writing their music.

And if the business side of it is going to be stressful, that’s something we want to update and make easier for them.

And I mean, it’s a good problem to have, right?

You have so much music, you have so many sales that they had to redo the whole website just to make it easier, right?

Definitely.

I’m curious of your insight as somebody who is new to the company.

How was MyScore described to you?

How is it looked at within JW Pepper?

So it’s looked at as being the tool that composers can use when they want to keep their copyrights and it’s really still focused on that.

We describe it right up front.

I mean, that’s really what it is through and through, I think.

So composers who are wanting to remain independent and create a business for themselves and a brand for themselves is really what we’re looking at here.

And I think showing the world that composers can make professional looking music as well is something that we like to make easy for composers to do that want to get started and put themselves out there.

And since I’m a composer as well, having this experience and learning about what I can do with my music is something that I think is important, especially in today’s day and age where everyone has access to the internet and ways to put themselves out there.

This is just another tool.

Yeah.

And one of the reasons I bring that up is, the music industry, especially the publishing industry, it’s a little bit cloak and dagger, right?

Like everyone’s kind of coy about the sales figures and the numbers and the use.

I mean, it’s not easy to go and find how much MyScore music has been sold by composers, compared to a traditional publisher.

If you’re trying to look at it from that angle.

But I think the fact that Pepper saw the need and felt that it was worth investing the time and the energy into revamping this user experience is sort of a tell, at least that things are going in the right direction.

Definitely.

And I think having this tool for composers is, we want composers to get a name for themselves and grow and get picked up by publishers.

We like to see that happen.

And so MyScore in a lot of ways can be a step for a composer in their career, but also it will always be there for when they write new music and they want to put it out there.

It isn’t picked up by publishers as well.

Yeah.

And that’s one of the interesting things that I’m seeing happen right now is that self-publishing has kind of turned into, I don’t want to call it the minor leagues, because there’s a lot of really impressive composers that are independent.

But I’m seeing more and more publishers sort of using that as the proving ground and picking pieces and picking composers out of that pool, so to speak.

And I think it just goes to show how the industry has sort of gradually been shifting more and more.

Because there is still, I think, an impression, I know I just interrupted myself, but I think there is still sort of an impression that independent music is not as good as published music, right?

And I think that’s not a blanket statement that you can make anymore.

certainly, there is some independent music that doesn’t quite stand up to the published works by traditional publishers.

But I think just the way the internet is going and the way the business side of things is going, that part of the industry is only going to grow.

Yeah.

And I think it’s a good thing for composers to be able to have that knowledge of what their music should look like and how to make a professional score.

It’s definitely a great skill to have.

Well, let’s shift gears and talk more about that.

From your vantage point, what are the biggest things you see that independent composers are not doing that they ought to be doing in terms of how their music is presented?

Just from my experience looking through the MyScore catalog, I think something that I’ve been trying to do and trying to grow a little bit is the quality of audio recordings.

I think is the biggest necessity that a composer should be looking to have.

Ultimately, when people are looking to purchase your music or want to look at your music in general, they want to hear an audio recording.

Ultimately, music is something that is an aural experience, something that people are going to end up listening to.

Yes, you are looking at the music as the performer or as the conductor, or as the ensemble director, you’re looking at the sheet music.

But ultimately, sheet music is a tool to bring the music to the ears of the audience that are coming to see your performances.

So an audio recording is, I think, the first line of defense I get.

That’s not the right term.

Line of offense, if anything.

Yeah, line of offense that is showing what your music can do, is ultimately, is the audio recording.

So I think along with the MyScore experience, the next thing to come is ways for composers to make good audio recordings.

That’s certainly true.

I mean, I work with a lot of choral directors and all of them have basically said, I don’t have time to look at it if I can’t hear it.

And I’ve also had the experience of submitting music to someone, and then having them not be interested, and then going and making a live recording, or a group performs it and I get a recording, and all of a sudden the perspective completely changes, and it’s an instant yes.

You know what I mean?

So that recording is certainly the most persuasive tool that you have to get listeners interested in the music.

I think it can even go the other way too.

I’ve seen some ensembles buy music of mine that was maybe a bit more than they could chew, just because they loved the recording so much and they wanted to do it.

You definitely get a different impression when you’re looking at a score versus just listening to it.

Yeah, definitely.

And I think that’s a good problem to have, maybe making performers and ensemble directors want to buy your music, even if it turns out to be a little bit too difficult, or not exactly what they were hoping for or something, but having that audio recording is really going to show what the music is.

And MyScore, we offer that opportunity for composers.

Most of the works in the catalog have full audio previews, and it’s just going to make people want to buy the music more.

This is a soapbox I’ve gotten on before, so I will let you do it this time.

But what would you say to people that are still so afraid of showing a full preview of their work?

I see comments all the time, how I wouldn’t dare show all of the pages, or I need to have a watermark, or this or that, because it’s going to get stolen, and there’s just such a fear around displaying the music.

Yeah, I think that there’s always a worry there, that your ideas and your music and the sheet music is going to get copied and stolen, and there’s no real way to completely police that, and completely stop that from happening.

But I think with an audio recording specifically, I mean, there’s less of a reason to steal it.

So I think having a full audio preview is really a good thing to have.

And with the sheet music side of things, I mean, we do as much as we can to try to prevent it from being copied and everything.

But ultimately, it is up to the composer again.

I think full previews though, coming from my perspective, are a good thing for people to be able to see.

So composers do have the option then of how much they want to preview their piece on MyScore?

Yeah, there are certain pieces that we have met with the composer and talked with the composer and they wanted to have things limited in the previews and that is certainly possible.

The previews are able to be edited.

So I think that will make some people feel better, although I think really y’all need to be displaying previews of your music.

I mean, it’s just what people expect at this point.

Absolutely, and I think to leave off on that point, I mean, it’s very difficult, I think, to market your music without being able to display it and preview it.

Yeah, and maybe if you have an amazing record, especially if it’s a video, if you have a video of a performance with great audio, you can use that as the main front of previewing the piece.

But even then, most people, I think, are going to want to look at it before they buy.

So, let’s dig into the technical side of things.

What kind of gear do composers need to have to make good audio recordings?

Yeah, you’ll really send me down the rabbit hole with this one a little bit.

Because there’s so many things that can improve the quality of the recordings.

First and foremost, live recordings are always ideal, but they’re not always possible, of course.

So, I mean, with that, it’s just a matter of having a good quality microphone rather than just recording on the phone or something like that.

But to make high quality audio recordings, you’ll want to, if you can have access to a DAW, which is how a lot of film composers will create their music.

But this is the way that you can use plugins and use different kinds of recording techniques to really make your music sound realistic.

It gets more difficult when you get into the choral music side of things, because there’s very little, or if any at all, MIDI or electronic recording processes to interpret the text, which is ultimately one of the most important things with choral music.

But there are plenty of resources out there.

All you have to do is just do some research online and search for some things to find the right instrument samples and everything that can help you.

In a lot of cases, they’re affordable to help you make a quote unquote mock up of what your music would sound like if it was performed.

Yeah, and that can be a podcast episode all on its own, and it probably should be.

I should start working on that.

But I think there’s definitely more acceptance on the instrumental side of things that demo recordings are going to be MIDI, and that’s fine.

Depending on the type of music you do, you might be able to use a note performer, or maybe there’s one or two sample libraries that you rely on the most.

I mean, you don’t have to break the bank to do it.

If you’re composing primarily piano music, you just have to go buy a good piano library, or a good piano virtual instrument.

You don’t have to go buy a ton of stuff necessarily.

I think for a lot of people, the hybrid approach works really well.

For me, a lot of my choral stuff, I’ll record humans singing, but I’ll have the instrumental accompaniment be a MIDI, and that gets the job done in a lot of situations.

Of course, I’ll have to relearn to do all of that now with finale going away, but that has already been another podcast episode, and we won’t dredge that up today.

So audio recordings, I think we’ve driven that point home.

Super important.

What else can composers do to make sure that their music is standing up to the competition?

So this is actually a great point to talk about, especially with the new experience, because we’re going to be making all of this a lot more streamlined.

It’s going to look a lot better and be a lot more user friendly.

So what you’ll want to do is complete your profile as much as you can.

This will help, of course.

Have a good bio with all of your accomplishments as a composer.

Have a good profile picture.

Have a good feature your items, make collections.

You take advantage of all the resources that you’re going to have in this new experience.

So yeah, having a complete profile, I think is very important besides audio.

And then making, of course, making your scores well engraved as well, which comes with your notation software.

So if you can’t tell, I am definitely an overthinker, right?

And I have trouble sometimes when I’m using the uploader because there’s this paradox of choice.

You upload a piece to the system, and there’s like 30 different subcategories that you can choose to represent the piece.

And not knowing enough about how search works, right?

And how the system is set up.

I sometimes wonder, like if I’m being too specific with a genre designation, am I going to limit the reach of the piece?

So can you just talk us through that decision-making process when you have all of these different boxes and you have a piece that fits in more than one style of music or more than one instrumentation?

Like how do you label that in the most effective way so that it reaches the maximum number of potential customers?

Sure.

Yeah.

This is a problem or issue, I suppose, that we encounter a lot.

Lots of composers have very diverse music that touches a lot of categories.

I think that’s a reason in itself for us to have so many subcategories and so many different genres that we provide in our list, is because we want composers to feel like they have a place to put their music everywhere.

So the search category won’t be too limited.

Composers are going to have their searches are going to appear in other ways.

They’re going to appear in multiple places and multiple…

You really want to get right the big blanket category that you’re writing for.

Are you writing for orchestra?

Are you writing for choir?

And then all these subcategories are going to help designate whether it is holiday music, is it sacred music, is it music dedicated for a certain ensemble?

And then after that, there is a little bit of gray area.

You want to find the best way…

How would you describe your piece?

And then you want to pick the best category.

The biggest example of this, I think I can think of, is when a composer is writing for both choir and band at the same time, a really large work that has a wind band behind a choir or an orchestra behind a choir.

And we’ve talked with a lot of composers through this and we have categories.

Chorus accompanied by wind band is really what we want to look at there.

So I think thinking about the way to best describe your music, and then going to the categories as best you can, and also researching other things that are possibly similar.

Looking at different categories on taking a little bit of a look at the website will help you, I think, designate that.

And then we’re also always here to answer your questions and to help you categorize music as well.

You can always reach out via email and schedule something with us.

We can have a talk or yeah, at myscore at jwpepper.com.

Absolutely.

I mean, I think the opposite is also true, right?

I’m the over thinker, but there may also be composers that don’t think very much about that as they upload the piece.

And then you might find yourself in trouble, because just with the amount of music out there, if your music is not categorized correctly, I mean, the technical term is the metadata, right?

Like if your metadata is wrong, then it doesn’t matter how amazing your piece is, like the right people are not going to find it.

And so that that sort of detail is, even though it seems sort of obvious to us because we’re so close to the music, like we can just look at it and tell this is a choral band piece, right?

But if somebody is coming to this cold, searching for whatever they’re inputting, right?

There’s thousands and tens of thousands of options that could potentially fit that.

And so if your music isn’t labeled the right way.

So I think that advice is probably the right advice, if you’re not sure, like ask somebody on the team.

But I would also just say like, don’t blow that part off and just pick random things because that doesn’t help you either.

If it’s in the wrong category and then people find it, it’s great that they saw it, but they’re gonna have a negative reaction to it because it’s not what they were hoping to find.

Of course, of course, yeah.

And I think, scrolling through the uploader and then going to the website a little bit and then asking questions will help.

Of course, you don’t wanna blow over that specific part of the process.

It is important in terms of categorizing your music, but there are lots of options and it is a relatively streamlined process at this point now to kind of, what’s the word, weigh those options.

I think when changes to systems like this happen, especially when they’re changes to a website, I think people just sort of take for granted the amount of work and effort that goes into that.

So I always like to ask about the process of how these things came to be.

Like, what’s the behind the scenes as you’re meeting with developers and programmers and with the MyScore team and deciding what are the things we need, what are the things that are the biggest priorities, and how do you sort of make those decisions?

And give us sort of that timeline.

I mean, these changes take months, if not years, to implement fully.

Yeah, I am the newest member of the team, so I kind of came in as this process was going on.

It definitely takes months, you know, at the very least.

So now, with my, I think my fresh set of eyes on this project, I think is an interesting one because I am a composer.

So I’m able to see like, really like one of the first things that I was tasked with doing was look at this with a composer’s mindset and think what would be the best way, what is needed here?

What would composers want?

And then also at the same time, we’re really trying to be the voice of the composer and listening to all of these, these emails that come in and these feedback articles and the words that the composers are saying to us to help.

They’re not even necessarily saying this would be better for the website, but they’re saying, oh, I’m experiencing this issue or I can’t categorize my piece in this specific way or I can, you know, the upload process isn’t making sense to me.

And we keep track of those things so that we can think, okay, how can we make this better?

So, you know, ultimately, we wanted as much customization as possible and as much ease of access as possible.

So that’s really what it’s been building up, not only since I’ve joined here and looked at it from a composer’s perspective, but basically since composers have been working with, you know, this part of the website and this user experience, we’ve always been keeping note of that and communicating that with the web team as well.

If somebody is listening to this episode and they haven’t yet signed up for MyScore and they want to check it out, how do they do it?

So you can reach out to myscore.jwpepper.com and we’ll give you all the information that you’ll need.

We also have articles and FAQs and support articles that you can look at if you find our website, go to jwpepper.com.

There’s a lot of information about MyScore as you scroll down the main page.

So those are really the best options there.

Well, thank you for taking the time to talk through all of this with me.

Anything else you want to highlight before we go?

Sure.

We’re always looking to update and make the experience better.

So we do have some things that will be coming soon, even though they’re not on the cards right away for what will go live in this big update of the website.

So we’re excited about these upcoming features as well, which will help make the user experience better, such as linked product pages.

Soon Composer profiles will be linked directly to live product pages on the JW Pepper website.

This will make it easier for customers to discover and purchase works for composers.

We were talking about ways to search for some products and how composers’ music can get found.

This is going to help and it will be coming eventually to even make that process better.

We’re also going to be adding a single sign-on process.

So one of the issues that we have had here with composers is that the customer accounts and the MyScore accounts are separate at this time.

So when a composer wants to order their music, it is a little bit confusing that they have to go and make another account to create that order so that they can see their products.

This is all going to be much more user-friendly and streamlined.

They’re going to be able to…

MyScore and JW Pepper customer accounts, they’re going to be a single account, which will help with the login experience.

Then on top of these last couple of things, we’ll have an improved choral upload process.

So at this time, we’re working on enhancements that will make it easier to upload your choral works with multiple voicings.

So at this time, you have to upload separately and we’ll group them together.

So these voicings will be a lot easier to add all in one time.

Then on top of that, we will have faster product updates.

So we’re going to be trying to get these products online as quickly as possible and updating that so that composers will be able to see their work up on the website as quickly as possible.

It’s all really exciting stuff and I can’t wait to see it.

Thanks, Liam.

Thanks, Garrett.

Appreciate it.