24A

               Innovation is an opportunal force. It comes and goes in the world, passing from person to person as it tries to find a home in a single mind. Innovating is a hard-enough task to learn, but for it to come to one person numerous times shows a true gift. That’s why inventors and developers are becoming more and more sparse and few between these days- it almost seems as if everything’s been discovered already. But, every once in a while, a true spark of genius comes out and a person can truly be glorified as an innovator, typically once, but sometimes two or three plus times!

               Opportunities can be hard to find, but they come so frequently in the music world. The music industry as a whole needs a lot of fixing, but perhaps it is in the songwriters that it needs the most help. Between fees, not getting paid enough, and trying so hard to find the perfect sound, it can be hard for someone to even want to be a songwriter, and those who do will merely do it for the love of music. This small group of people are constantly bullied by the market and those who run it, unable to find footing or afford something to help them. That’s why I wanted to work with this group.

               As industries everywhere seem to move forward and find new ground to cover, the music industry seems trapped in the past. Just look at some of the most popular cheap recording software. Audacity, for instance, is a great program that runs smoothly, but, aesthetically, is entirely barebones and looks just like it did ten years ago. The music industry needs more innovation, and that’s why I wanted to create a program to help songwriters get off of the ground and truly discover a love for music.

               There’s not much out there at the moment to help budding songwriters, and everything that is is either expensive or doesn’t work. I remember when I first started up, I found a book that was supposed to help with songwriting, but the book was just so long and uninteresting. A program that walked me through would have definitely been more interesting. This market is an ever-changing one, and I’d like to be the forefront of a new style of songwriting and connection. This is a pretty big opportunity, as there is literally nothing cheap out there to help people like this.

               My innovation is as follows. A program that allows you to input a song, and it will tell you all sorts of facts about the song- chords, keys, modes, melodic lines, etc. It will also contain “maps”, which will involve taking a chord and then offering you a selection of different chords that would sound good after it. It would help with keys and finishing up melodic lines, analyzing your songs for cool things that could make them better. I would sell this program for cheap ($5) once it got off the ground, although the inputting of songs part would be a more-expensive addon, about ($30).

               There aren’t many competitors, and I certainly have not seen a program like this in my years of songwriting and music production. Packaging wouldn’t play any sort of role in my program, as it is online. Customer support would be very important, as I would love for each customer to have all of their questions answered. The design of the program would also have to be very aesthetically pleasing, as I wouldn’t want people to be turned off by how it looks. A business would come up to support me and the program, helping customers and going through and fixing bugs and making sure that everything is taken care of within the program and within the songwriting community as a whole.

               My most important resource will be a community of musicians that I have built up around the world. They will help to make sure that everything runs smoothly. Up next for the venture, we would probably continue working on the program to make sure it is perfect for everyone. We would also probably move on to other ventures, involving music. For me, five years after this, I would personally love to take the money and travel the world, giving up many of my possessions and having a great time going to other countries and studying wildlife there.