Since its inception in early 1998, the Association of Music Producers (AMP) has dabbled in its fair share of good causes. In ’99, AMP used what would have been a party for its one-year anniversary as an occasion to raise money to aid the relief effort for refugees in Yugoslavia. Dubbed "The Event For Refugee Relief," the fundraiser was held at New York’s Webster Hall, where AMP members and non-members came together to help raise funds for three organizations: CARE, Doctors Without Borders, and the International Rescue Committee. It was somewhat of a defining moment for AMP as its members—who compete with each other for business daily—put aside their egos, got together and did something for the greater good. This solidarity also was a key ingredient in helping to advance AMP’s charter mission to provide a unified voice for commercial music and sound design companies across the country.
Four years later, with 75 member companies across the country, AMP is still operating on the same principles. Last fall, the organization, along with the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP)—with whom AMP has a strategic partnership—and others in the industry, presented another fundraiser, this time benefiting organizations aiding victims of the Sept. 11 tragedy, including the Red Cross and the Twin Towers Fund.
AMP’s founders, including its current president Jeff Rosner, who is president/executive producer of Sacred Noise, New York, look upon the organization as a community of composers, rather than a membership of individual companies with individual interests. And to that end, AMP recently brought its membership together for another good cause, aimed at benefiting an organization that gives children born with cleft palates a second chance.
Founded in ’99, The Smile Train, headquartered in New York, is a non-profit organization that provides free reconstructive surgery for children who have a cleft lip or cleft palate. The concentration of its work is done in developing countries, but it will consider any candidate who can otherwise not afford to have the surgery. The Smile Train, with its major initiatives in the highly populated areas of China and India, gives training to local surgeons and medical professionals in developing countries, empowering doctors to perform the surgery themselves. The Smile Train’s mission is to eventually find a cure and, as it states in its literature, "work themselves out of a job."
Like any not-for-profit endeavor, The Smile Train relies heavily on its partnerships with other cleft organizations, medical institutions and corporate sponsors to keep funded. Part of its marketing strategy is to create short films, mini-documentaries and PSAs to inform potential donors of The Smile Train’s work. In the past, big names such as former president George Bush, Candace Bergen, and Walter Cronkite have appeared in these promotional videos.
While in the midst of ramping up for a September release of its next film, which is a compilation of existing footage and stills, The Smile Train president Brian Mullaney asked Josh Rabinowitz, associate partner/music producer at Young & Rubicam, New York, to recommend a music house to score the footage. Rabinowitz contacted Rosner, who hatched a plan to open the opportunity up to all of AMP’s members.
"What we wanted to try and do was give Brian [Mullaney] a choice through AMP’s membership," recalls Rosner. "Rather than it be a single music company that would expend its resources in the hope of promoting themselves, we thought we’d take more of an AMP approach where we could throw more than one company’s resources at this incredible cause." At the same time, the project would afford AMP more visibility, while giving its members an opportunity to band together for a worthwhile endeavor.
lyrical help
AMP put out a call to all its members asking for participation. The response was so overwhelming that Rosner conducted a lottery to narrow the competition down to five companies. Each company was then contacted by Mullaney under the AMP banner and asked to submit a track based on a moving, mini-documentary that conveyed The Smile Train’s initiatives.
Participating companies were also given a directive in terms of lyrics that worked around the catchphrase, "a second chance at life," which is the main thrust of The Smile Train’s organization. "In forty-five minutes we can take a kid that looks like a monster and turn him into a normal, smiling kid that allows him to go to school and get a job and have a normal life. All the tunes we received were a variation on this second chance," relates Mullaney.
Mullaney judged the tracks by laying the music across the footage The Smile Train had already compiled. And while he initially planned on picking only one track, he wound up choosing three. "We were overwhelmed when we received twenty different demos that were all great … just narrowing it down to three was hard," he notes.
The winning compositions—all three of which will be used by The Smile Train in the promotional pieces—came from composer Robbin Thompson of In Your Ear Music & Recording Services, Richmond, Virginia, where he is also a VP. Thompson co-wrote the piece with In Your Ear composer Butch Taylor, who happens to be the keyboard player for the Dave Matthews Band. A composition crafted by creative director Andy Milburn and composer Taylor Haskins of the New York office of bicoastal tomandandy was chosen (Jason Menkes, executive producer at tomandandy, produced and freelance lyricist Jason Hammersla wrote the lyrics). And a piece by owner/composer/producer Stan Xidas of Xidas Music, Chicago, also made the cut.
One refreshing outcome of the contest was that each composer took a radically different approach to the project. For instance, the Haskins and Milburn effort has a very contemporary feel to it, while maintaining an emotional vibe. Thompson created a gospel-like sound with the help of the Richmond Boys Choir. And Xidas weighed in with a power ballad.
"Stylistically we were a little worried about getting too saccharine sweet with the music and the lyrics," relates Menkes. "You don’t want to tug at heartstrings so much that you turn people off."
That said, each set of lyrics sends a clear and emotionally charged message. Consider Thompson’s gospel track, which states: "Believe it or not/It happens everyday/A child is born and the parents turn away."
Even Hammersla’s contemporary take on the song’s message is tear-inducing: "The pity and the ridicule/ The shouts and stares are oh so cruel/Follows him through life and school/hurts him deep inside."
Xidas describes his track as being a "soaring, uplifting ballad, along the lines of a Celine Dion type of track. It starts off soft and demure, then builds to a rousing chorus."
Giving Back
Overall, working on The Smile Train music project has put a smile on the faces of those involved. For some it meant taking a break from composing for "shamelessly corporate television commercials," as Milburn put it. For Thompson, who’s been an AMP member for three years, it meant feeling like a part of the AMP community without ever having to leave his Richmond studio. "We don’t get up there for the normal [AMP] meetings," says Thompson. "We are mainly members via the Internet, but this particular project was something we could get our arms around."
Xidas, who has been an AMP member since the inception of the Chicago chapter three years ago, often does pro bono projects for organizations such as the National Association For Down Syndrome, and with STARBRIGHT, an organization chaired by Steven Spielberg and General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, which is dedicated to the development of projects that empower seriously ill children. "I looked at The Smile Train project, and I thought ‘This is really wonderful.’ " notes Xidas. "The industry has been very good to me, and I do like to give back."
Perhaps more importantly is what The Smile Train project has meant for AMP. While the organization has its own very long list of things to do and issues to deal with, one item on that list is to participate more in a world of organizations that give back. "The most important thing for us is to start being in that arena and get some publicity about what we’ve done," explains Rosner. "Then if people [from other charitable organizations] contact us for our services, that would be wonderful."
Whatever the motivation, The Smile Train has been the true benefactor. "We’re really grateful to Jeff and AMP and the music houses that worked so hard on this because we could never ever have afforded the talent, time and resources that were donated," states Mullaney. "We’re going to use this music half a dozen different ways to raise money and the product they gave us is going to indirectly help hundreds or even thousands of kids."
