Brett Manning and Singing Success have remained faithfully committed to bringing you the best tools available to develop the fullest potential of your unique voice with cutting edge programs like his most recent creation, Mastering Mix.
We’ve offered tools to hone your live performance skills through the On Stage Success series offered by renowned Live Music Producer, Tom Jackson.
By partnering with Barry DeVorzon, creator of MasterWriter 2.0, we offer the most comprehensive tool available that will take your songwriting skills to its highest level of creative expression and potential for success.
Just imagine what you’ll be able to do by developing the unique gifts of your singing voice, live performance skills, and songwriting all together from one source here at Singing Success. Your growing confidence, creativity, and will to succeed will naturally feed off of each other. With MasterWriter 2.0 you will discover features that will unlock and immediately engage your creativity.
Its creator, Barry DeVorzon, fully understands the challenges faced by songwriters, singers, and performers. His career in the entertainment industry spans more than 50 years.
He’s won Grammy and Emmy awards and has even been nominated for an Oscar. A celebrated composer of musical scores for film and TV, examples of his best known work are the number one pop hit he had with the Theme From S.W.A.T., and Nadia’s Theme, known to most as the theme song for the popular daytime drama, The Young And The Restless.
The journey of Nadia’s Theme is a symphonic adventure all to itself and gives you an idea of the potential success when creative expression is engaged at its highest level.
“It was originally a dramatic cue in the score for the film, Bless The Beasts And The Children,” Barry said. “There’s a very poignant moment when the character, Cotton, dies. I called the piece, Cotton’s Dream. You name your dramatic cues. It was just supposed to be a little piece, a one time thing.”
The song was recorded by The Carpenters and was nominated for an Academy Award. Barry was friends with Karen and Richard Carpenter and approached the film’s director, Stanley Kramer, about having them record the title song. Kramer didn’t know anything about the duo; but after hearing them, he insisted that they record the song.
Two years after the film’s soundtrack was released, a television producer heard “Cotton’s Dream” and wanted to use it for the new CBS drama, The Young And The Restless.
The rest is history, and the story doesn’t end there.
“Five years after the film, there was a guy in New York at ABC that needed music for a slow-motion clip of Olympic gymnast Nadia Comaneci who had received a perfect 10,” he said. “That song became the biggest copyright of my career. The hit single came from the Nadia clip, and the song keeps reinventing itself, with a recent hit by Mary J. Blige called No More Drama. And, it all started with a piece meant to play behind a scene, just a dramatic cue. But, I worked hard on it because it was a key scene. I dug down deep, but I had no idea it had any kind of future.”
Another film song Barry wrote led to a cut with the legendary rock, country crossover group, the Eagles.
“I knew Joe Walsh in Santa Barbara, and I was signed to do music for the movie, The Warriors,” he said. “Joe and I were talking, and I asked him about writing the movie’s end title song, In The City.”
Walsh consented and down the road Barry got a call from Joe saying the Eagles wanted to cut the song for their follow up album to their classic Hotel California.
“I told him to never mention it to me again until it‘s on the album,” Barry said. “I’ll kill myself, I said. It would’ve crushed me.”
The song became a major track on another Eagles classic album, The Long Run.
So you can see that Barry DeVorzon has a lifetime of experience and wisdom to share from the journey that has led to his sustained success.
What makes MasterWriter 2.0 so effective is the selection and combination of features and tools that are geared to stimulate, optimize, and enhance creativity not just for songwriters, but for composers, screenwriters, poets, teachers, novelists – anyone engaged in the art of painting pictures, telling stories, and moving the heart with words.
“It keeps you present in the creative,” he said. “The human brain is an amazing instrument. It’s incredible at processes like problem solving and creating, but it’s really not a great memory bank for recalling something if it’s not used.”
He designed MasterWriter 2.0 to help writers work efficiently, to use time more wisely, and to stay inspired during the search for ideas, phrases, rhymes, the search for more vibrant, colorful phrases for expressing what’s on your mind and in your heart.
“But it doesn’t write your song for you,” he said. “You’re the only one to put your God-given emotional element to use. This gives you tools to use so you can express yourself to your fullest potential.”
With MasterWriter 2.0 there’s no such thing as writer’s block because you’re offered an amazing resource of ideas, hooks, and direction. Its collection of more than 33,000 phrases, sayings, idioms, and word combinations, gives you ideas and themes to explore.
Once you have an idea that’s set in motion, the program keeps you in the creative process with tools like its rhyming dictionary that offers well over 100,000 items along with 36,000 rhymed phrases. It also provides “close rhymes” that add interest, more textures, shading and colors to your lyrics.
“I think the greatest benefit of MasterWriter 2.0 comes with post-inspiration, after you think the song is done, because the muse rarely leaves us with perfection,” he said. “If you’re really serious about being successful, you never settle for good. The business only rewards what’s exceptional. Most people settle for good. You need to look at your song and see how you can find a better rhyme or phrase, a better way to express yourself. Your goal is to go from good to great to greater to greatest. You want to commit to the very best you can do, or you’re kidding yourself. The odds for success go way down. Then, you’re just wasting time, money, and the expense of effort.”
Barry knows that successful songwriters (singers and performers) are perfectionists. They have the utmost respect for inspiration. But they also understand that after inspiration, that’s when the craft and dedication to art come into play.
“Be honest with yourself and your songwriting,” he said. “Recognize the song’s potential to be great. But also realize that some songs are never going to be great.”
So how do you know if your song is great? Barry believes there is one powerful rule to follow that will determine whether or not your song has the potential for greatness.
“If that song deeply touches you, you have a shot that it’ll touch others,” he said. “So ask yourself, does it move me? It can be any style. The bottom line is does it move you. If it sounds like what’s happening or the current trend, that’s not enough. It has to move you to the point of you want to keep playing it and singing it because it hits you.”
One of the most exciting features of MasterWriter 2.0 is the word families search for descriptive words and ideas that make your lyrics, story, and message come to life with more color, movement, and feeling.
“Instead of saying a hot sun, you might say, blistering or fiery,” he said. “Or you look into extended examples and find words like angry, glaring, or punishing. It gives you more creative imagery.”
And again, it keeps you in your inspired mode; it feeds your muse, and your muse responds by shouting and singing to be fed even more.
The “parts of speech” feature offers filters for things like alliteration so you can more effectively punch phrases and raise rhythms that rock or rouse your rhymes.
“Its organizational feature saves your work as you go,” he said. “Maybe you work with several other writers in a week. Think of how many times you work on something, put it aside, and then can’t find it or really get back to it. With MasterWriter 2.0 you can go back and all of your lyrics, songs, and lyrical ideas are waiting for you, under their title.”
There’s also an audio page where you can even import demos, works in progress, as well as finished projects.
“So, if you have a laptop, you can burn a CD, and print out a lyric sheet on the go,” he said.
And then, there’s the Songuard feature, it’s the first known on line date-of-creation service.
“With the U.S. copyright, the date of creation is commemorated with the registration,” he said. “It can get expensive at $35 or so per song. But, with Songuard, when you’re finished with a song; go to the Songuard and select lyric and melody, hit go. You have a digital signature that’s saved on a server in two separate locations. That proves authorship if it’s needed. You can even use Songuard to commemorate a lyric or melodic idea.”
Now what about Brett Manning’s Singing Success clients that are strictly focused on becoming better singers? Can MasterWriter 2.0 help with that? Barry thinks so!
“It’s vogue to sing songs, but singing your own songs makes you more attractive,” he said. “Let’s say you have a great voice, some ideas, but no gift of melody. So you hook up with a songwriter that has that gift. You can then work with MasterWriter 2.0 to express emotions more eloquently.”
The list of top songwriters and composures that use MasterWriter 2.0 spans all major musical genres and includes impressive players such as Amy Grant, Gary Burr, Gwen Stefani, Jeffrey Steele, David Foster, Sean Lennon, Rick Springfield, Kenny Loggins, Rob Thomas, Clint Black, LeAnn Rimes, Andrae Crouch, Paul Baloche, Steve Vai, Nikki Sixx, Kenneth “Baby Face” Edwards, and Jimmy Webb.
Webb, a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame, is the only artist to have ever received Grammys for music, lyrics, and orchestration. Best known for MacArthur Park and Up, Up, And Away, his songs have been recorded by The Supremes, R.E.M., Frank Sinatra, Glen Campbell, Elvis Presley, Issac Hayes, and Chet Atkins.
“MasterWriter keeps your work organized and gives you access to a wide collection of creative tools, including a comprehensive rhyming dictionary. It allows you to rewrite and make changes more quickly than ever before in history! It is a tool that fits the times we live in and is essential for the modern songwriter under pressure.”
-Jimmy Webb
Grammy-winner Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds has produced and written music for Prince, Beyoncé, Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Paula Abdul, Pebbles, Mary J. Blige, Tamia, Janet Jackson, Shola Ama, 3T, Sisqo, Dru Hill, Fall Out Boy, Céline Dion, and Aretha Franklin. Obviously, he’s impressed by the results that are generated by the program.
“MasterWriter has become an essential tool in my songwriting process. This comprehensive, user-friendly program streamlines all aspects of the creative process. This is a great tool for all levels of songwriters. Writers Block? Solved within a few clicks! It’s really that simple. That is why I never write without MasterWriter.”
-Babyface
Mastermind Barry DeVorzon joins the masterminds of Brett Manning and Tom Jackson to provide the most powerful tools available to refine that unique design that is you. So if you’re looking for the perfect tool to complete the package that will make you a triple threat as singer, songwriter, and live performer, sign up for MasterWriter 2.0. Your potential is only limited by your level of commitment. Get rocking, get writing; get ready to soar!
