For Orchestra Accelerates: Building Up an Online Music Business, the Natural Way

MIDTOWN, MANHATTAN: There’s more than one way to be a rock star. For Walt Ribeiro, Founder of NYC-based For Orchestra, the path to a global music stage is paved with bass clarinets, bowed tremolos – and a brainy, instinctual knowledge of the ‘Net.

Walt Ribeiro, Composer/Founder of For Orchestra

Driven with a by-all-means-necessary mindset when it comes to forging a musical career, Ribeiro first made his mark as the “Internet’s Music Teacher,” building a worldwide audience for his online video lessons as he slyly sold his original classical music on the side. But trial and error can be a beautiful thing, and his first venture taught him that there was a more profitable and satisfying outlet for his symphonic talents.

Enter For Orchestra, which unleashes a new orchestral hit pop song arrangement every week onto iTunes, Amazon, and beyond. With a repertoire covering Lady Gaga, Bon Jovi, Weezer, Kings of Leon, Michael Jackson and multiple “guilty pleasures”, Ribeiro’s fast-increasing sales shows that he’s struck a chord. Here, Ribeiro shares his insights on how music pros of all stripes can put the Web to work for their passion.

How did you first get interested in starting For Orchestra?
I released a CD in 2006, and it failed miserably. So then I started teaching music online, which was fun for a bit, but got old because I started feeling like a video editor rather than a musician.

Sometime in 2008 as I was teaching, just for fun I released Jonathan Coulton’s song “Code Monkey” for orchestra, and saw how much his community loved it. They asked for more – that’s when the idea struck me that I should be arranging other songs rather than my own. Plus, it was incredibly fun.

That’s a good, organic way to start a business venture. Once you have an idea, what’s necessary to make a site like this tick?
Doing it every day. Being passionate about it. I also love writing, so my blog has helped a lot because I receive good traffic from people who find my website through search results, and then discover my company.

I also know a little bit about Web design – so that’s huge too, because over time I’ve tweaked my site for better user experience, navigation, aesthetics, and more, which has helped tremendously with sales. And then there’s my understanding of how the social web and certain sites work, so I use them to not only find my audience, but also stay in touch with them.

It helps to be a Swiss Army Knife to get ahead on the Web. On the content side, how do you pick what song you’re going to cover on For Orchestra — what makes the cut?
iTunes is a big teller of what’s going to work. So is Youtube. Lately, I’ve been deciding to arrange songs that are recently popular, so I’ll arrange them within a week or two of being released. This is great because as the search results and interest level of people are highest, my orchestration is a lead to that traffic.

After that, once you’ve committed to a song selection, how do you go about orchestrating and arranging the cover?
I start off with the MP3, sheet music, and sometimes I even refer to tabs depending on the voicing of the chords that a piano can’t tackle. So with my piano and guitar in hand I slowly transcribe and reference the piece into a piano two-hands with vocals.

From there, I arrange it part-by-part for the orchestra. Sometimes I’ll edit sections out, add a section in, slow the tempo, or even have the climactic moment in the piece be performed by a solo flute so it’s the softest part of my arrangement. It’s all about tension and release, and leaving your audience surprised – both in the song selection, and in the final arrangement that they hear.

What a meticulous process, especially if you’re racing to get it online while the original is still a hit. After the orchestration, how do you actually produce the song? Do you ever record live instruments for For Orchestra?
I have never recorded live instruments for any pieces yet. I’m not against it, I just haven’t had to. My current library consists of Sibelius to arrange the piece, then EastWest samples, Digital Performer 7, Grado headphones, and a few plugins for my DAW all running through my MacBook Pro for the production.

What was the most challenging song to orchestrate so far?
BT “Simply Being Loved” and The Roots‘ “Seed 2.0” were both incredibly difficult. The reason for this is simple: techno has so many layers in it – from synths, sound effects, stuttering vocals, and more. And hip hop has very fast, usually unpitched vocals.

Ochestrating BT was a bitch.

As a result, the hardest and most time-consuming part of it all is the transcribing, and making sure you’re getting every last characteristic so that it remains as powerful and brilliant as the original.

Orchestrating isn’t something our nation’s youth is gravitating to en masse, but it certainly seems to get you going. Why do you get so excited about orchestrating in general, but especially doing it for pop songs?
It’s about changing the world. I feel that orchestras today have become “Beethoven Cover Bands”. Could you imagine if every movie theater today only played the same 25 movies in rotation? And people wonder why orchestras go out of business… it’s because there’s nothing innovative about them. With new music would come new ideas, new stories, new performers, new interests – and ultimately, new audiences.

That’s HEAVY. So do you ever get feedback from the original artists on your work — what have they said?
Motley Crue liked my “Dr. Feelgood” arrangement, The Spinto Band told their community about it. I also bumped into Questlove and so I sent it to him, and when I was at SXSW I met Tom Morello and his manager Michelle, mentioned I arranged (Rage Against the Machines’) Bulls on Parade, and they wanted to check it out.

Once a song is complete and out there, how do you market it? Are there a lot of different revenue streams available for these covers?
If you do a recent song, then you pretty much let the search engines do the marketing for you. Then the community takes over, and they’re eager to share such a weird idea to their friends. A lot of it is word of mouth – which, in this high tech, social Web world, is an important point to make: The internet is great, but it’s a destination, not a replacement.

My revenue streams are mainly MP3 sales. It used to be sheet music sales, but now that the catalog is available on iTunes, Amazon, our Website, and more – we’ve seen a considerable jump in sales.

My target audiences are the diehard fans of the arrangements I do. If you’re a Pearl Jam fan and I arrange a Pearl Jam song for orchestra, you’ll love my work. I don’t target classical enthusiasts because they usually don’t like the bands I arrange, but that’s OK with me. I’m more concentrated on bringing in new audiences and sounds.

Besides, I feel it’s easier to get someone who likes Rage Against the Machine to segue into liking Beethoven, than it is for someone who likes Beethoven to start listening to a Rage song. These fans are looking for a fresh take on the song they love. There’s something beautiful about combining the amazing texture of the classical orchestra with today’s music. It’s awesome.

Let’s tawk LICENSING. What are the different kinds of licensing concerns you have to take into consideration for cover songs?
When you first start out, you have to prove yourself to several publishers — that you’re serious and worth their time. Another obstacle we had to overcome was learning what avenues were more profitable among sheet music sales, MP3 sales, merchandise, consulting, freelance orchestrations, etc…

For Ochestra is conducting its business wisely.

The problem with those two obstacles is that they take time – sometimes a year or two – to overcome, or analyze. Money can solve a website glitch, or an equipment failure, but time is limited.

I use Harry Fox for everything right now because I’ve been using them since day one. I looked into Limelight, but haven’t ruled them out. Synch licensing is difficult because they’re not Compulsory like mechanical sales are. As a result, since some songs have up to five publishers, it can be extremely time-consuming to get all parties together.

Mechanicals give me the freedom to not have to negotiate anything, which is why I generate lots of iTunes sales and more – because I can concentrate on marketing, staying in touch with my community, and creating more content and arrangements for them.

Data is EVERYTHING, right? Since you’ve launched, what kind of reception have you gotten for For Orchestra so far — and what do you envision next?

Great reception – we’re profitable, and grow every month. That alone, is a huge success. As a result, now we can concentrate on performances, new arrangements, and interesting ideas and collaborations. I like the idea of how we’re all starting to move to the cloud — the idea of everything being on the Internet. So I can imagine many group collaborations with the audience in real time – all with our cell phones and computers on stage.

Let us in on it! What would you say are the big lessons you learned from your previous endeavors that allowed you to make For Orchestra work for you?
Don’t assume. Be patient. Be different. And that it’s not only OK to fail – but that it’s required.

On the flipside, I guess the toughest thing is just learning to be happy. Not every crash cymbal is going to be perfect, not every image on the website will sit beautifully with the others, not every song is going to be a viral success. Once I stopped caring about all that stuff I’ve been having lots more fun with it!

Oui, don’t worry be happy! Now, what advice would you have for someone who’s looking to find their own particular niche in our ultra-competitive music business?
Be weird. If its an interesting idea, tells a story, is worth spreading, and is something that makes your eyes light up when you talk about it or do it – then it’s for you. It’s all about niche marketing – I’ve learned to stop trying to please everybody.

Also, it’s not about creating a fanbase – it’s about creating a friendbase. You’re not building a loose community of millions, you should be creating a tight family of hundreds.

We know that music really inspires you – what else gets your mind moving?
I get inspired by thinking about the future. Every arrangement arranged draws another step closer to a concert, great idea, and spreading the orchestra.

A great music business innovator is Jose Antonio Abreu. In a year, he grew one of the best youth orchestras in the world, and changed the landscape of an entire country’s music education, accessibility, and future. So cool.

Does being NYC-based make it easier for you to grow For Orchestra? Or is this a more challenging location to work from?
A lot of my connections have come from me living in NYC. I first moved up here from Philadelphia because many of my sponsors in my music show were based here. After starting For Orchestra, I’ve learned lots of music publishers, independent bands, orchestras, and interesting people were all around me (here in NYC).

There’s something about being in an ecosystem that makes you grow through osmosis. Sure, I could do this in another place, but where else would I draw my inspiration from? Music is a product of our imaginations and our experiences – so to be surrounded by people who want to change the world, take risks, express through art, think big, be weird, and go out and do something new every day – there’s no better medicine for your work and creativity to draw from.

— David Weiss

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