Who Is: Mimi & Teft

Introductions....

If you haven't met us before, we're Mimi & Teft, independent artists, songwriters and DIY web style music people. Inspired by President Obama's message of change, we are changing up our viewpoint of music, music business, and the web. We hope you get to know us and our music, and feel like you can get involved with the experience we share with you on our website ...

This is our third 'site', and third "album". The first two albums followed the standard format - create a bunch of songs, cut them to CDs and sell them. This time, the album is endless. Each song comes to you in multiple formats, vocal stems for those of you who remix music, videos, production notes, photos and whatever else happens from the creative process!

It's very liberating to throw away the rules, and just release music!

Who's Judy?

I'm the silent J in M & T. Can't sing a note but I write the lyrics. I'm also Mom to one of these two. (hint - in 05 we called ourselves MSG Songwriters as in Mom, Son and Girlfriend)

By 2007, we had been writing together for about five years, and had joined songwriter groups such as West Coast Songwriters and NSAI. Pop music was our focus and it remains a big interest. We wrote for a year before we dared submit a song for critique - it was a watershed moment. We carefully selected one of our eight recorded gems and went to West Coast Songwriters screening session. The hour drive was full of heady anticipation. We arrived at the local cafe and lined up with a couple dozen other folks who were submitting songs. The screener introduced himself - I've forgotten his name, probably a deep seated need for amnesia over the event. He heard about six or seven songs before our amazing, incredible piece was to debut. As the room listened to the first five or so minutes of it, we began to percieve some possible disinterest. Finally he stopped it and said, "I don't know what to say. (pause) First of all, you have at least three songs here. Second, it's still going on after five minutes. Third, I have NO idea what I would do with this." Fortunately I've forgotten the rest. I think the heat of the embarrasment coupled with my near fibrilating heart made my ears swell. I didn't hear another thing all evening.

The Writing Process...

From that experience we discovered we either had to learn how to song-write or find better paying day jobs. We wrote some more, and after another few months, we submitted a few more of our songs, and had much better results. Then we started to have great responses to our music, but to be honest, we were not pleased with the spider web surrounding the music business. Artist magazines elaborate on that a lot, so we'll leave it alone.

We were mainly writing for other artists, trying to find the right sound for a particular singer or style, mainly targeting Disney type young artists. It began to feel very limiting, as well as having multiple moving targets, depending on the opinion of the song screeners. Although we learned an enormous amount from the critiques, we started to feel there were too many cooks stirring our broth.

M&T is born...

Late in 2006, we decided to take control of our own path in music and stopped pitching our songs to other artists. We became the duo, Mimi and Teft and set off to create our own album. We had written for several genre's, but have a penchant for dance music so we decided we would be (as of 2006) a electronica dance duo.

Teft Speaks:

Mimi is the vocalist on our music and the melody writer. I've been working my way through instruments and computer programs for awhile and fill the role of producer. I lay down rhythm tracks and the instrumentals, then Mimi takes a few passes over it and comes up with the melody. She usually has some improv lyric to go with it - often in the title line of the chorus. We spin this up into a functional song form and Judy takes over writing the lyric.

Today, when the song is at this point we do what the critiques used to do for us. We pick it apart - don't like this note, that run, those words. We work on our individual rewrites and record it. We usually sit on the first recording for a week or more, to "cleanse the listening palette". When we come back to the song we usually have a few more changes. Then we get into the final recording process.

One Rule Covers It All: To Be Inspired

Because we are now doing our own music as it rolls off our own hearts, we seldom worry too much about genre, style or specific target. The thing that matters most, is that we MUST be inspired.

Now it's 2009 and we have a new rule. We are no longer producing albums, but song experiences. If it's worth becoming a song, it has to mean something. It has to stand on its own. We didn't always have this rule. In December 2006, we finished our first 5 song EP with one idea - catch a melody, write words and record.

The EP caught some attention at WMC 07, and we made a bunch of new friends online and offline from the experience. From there, we dived into our first full length album, Shake Your Fantasy.

Again, caught a lot of attention at WMC 08, released a music video, and got spins around the world! Oh, and it continues to catch placements on tv and film. Very exciting ... but, we want mooooooorreee ...

Enter 2009 ... new site, new look, new rule. It's all good.

Peace & Love,
Mimi & Teft