Supporting Commentary
The purpose of my EPK is to be a downloadable addition alongside the main body of my website when it has been made; and as a post on my Instagram profile. It will act as a music version of an artist commission sheet: it gives the reader an overview of what my ‘brand’ is about, and the commission/hire prices (similar to the structure of composer Clarice Assad’s website ((Clarice Assad, n.d.)). Rather than the traditional EPK; it means I can ignore adding details that could just be put on a public profile – such as where I am based, and what music I have available already. The positive of this is that it can be kept brief as classical-oriented EPKs are generally very lengthy (such as LangLang’s (Lang, n.d.)).
The genre I am striving for is my own blend of classical and steampunk music. This is for two main reasons: the first is that classical music is not profitable and performers/audiences are on the majority quite elitist and queerphobic (even though many famous composers are queer). The second is that I already have many friends who perform in the steampunk community; steampunks are very adamant on supporting their artists and musicians. They have been very accepting of me, my transness, and my tastes; so I want to give back to them and fill a gap that hasn’t been filled yet: steampunk-inspired contemporary classical music. I believe that this type of music could go far within the community, especially with live performances: an inherent part of steampunk is to be a grown-up ‘theatre kid’; to express yourself through fashion, music, art and characters/personas while keeping an open mind.
I have already performed at Lincoln Asylum and other events with Full Fathom Five, so this is also a good place to jump from for my solo performance and freelance composition career. It may take a few years for my performance persona to fully form, as I have a concept that requires a lot of prewritten repertoire. I have many characters that I’ve made costumes of; but this could be taken further, and these costumes could be used for solo performances of original steampunk-classical compositions I have written. The two characters I would start with are Danitteveux Menique, and Trènnique Endin; these characters would give a theatrical juxtaposition to the very lovely characters of other performers such as Professor Elemental – as well as a good dynamic for starting repertoire. Menique’s music would be very folk-based, ordered and royal, while Endin’s music would be a lot more gritty (such as Dr. Steel’s music (Vernon, 2001)), improvised, with incoherently-coherent politically-based lyrics. This could give music for both steampunks who love folk music, D&D, and pompous characters; and steampunks who love rock/noise music, unapologetically evil characters and critique on capitalism.
Steampunk musicians’ websites are generally a mix of informality and formality; this is because, while professionality is important for the wider audience, authenticity and friendliness is a prised quality. Steampunk tends to deal with parasociality quite well: a lot of its audience are relaxed older people (50s/60s+) and there’s no marketing push to know every detail of the musicians’ lives or to hype their presence at an event. It’s very much seen as friends supporting friends, especially in Lincolnshire groups.
Arguably Facebook is more important to have a presence on, rather than Instagram or an EPK. Facebook holds the majority of the steampunk audiences since the attending audience is an older demographic. It is also the platform that is most known for having community groups/pages for people who organise to meet up and hold events; so posting in them is vital for people to find you. Instagram is good for people who aren’t veteran steampunks but may be interested in the music. Word of mouth is also important as people will discuss who they’re watching in the Asylum evenings.
Personally, I do not have any dislike anything from performers I know, the standard practice is much better than most other genres. Accessibility is made as possible as can be; people are very courteous; merchandised is quite affordable and good quality. The only problem I have is with organisers using generative AI to advertise a concert they could be in (though this is a problem everywhere); the performers themselves are against this. While I’m friends with the ChapHop performers, unfortunately my music does not fit in as that. However, could run along as another set in a gig they’re in, or in a gig that has more gothic performers such as Victor and the Bully (Victor and the Bully, 2016).
If you want to make money you have to spend a lot of money first, especially today as a lot of services are run on subscriptions rather than one-time payments. For my own work, I use Musescore3 for my traditional scores – Musescore is opensource and so you do not need to pay for a commercial licence to monetise your work. Domain names are generally quite affordable, especially mine ‘melodicmadnesscomposer.com’ (Franks, 2024), as it’s specific and not in demand. I already have a photographer in mind when I need a professional shoot for commercial purposes; Pat Lyttle (Lyttle, n.d.) whom I met at Lincoln Asylum, and is very passionate about personality in fashion and pursuing your dreams. Money on art/posters, and costume makers will not be needed as I can do this all myself. The only time I will someone else is when I start writing material about Edoria Felixis and his Hyde Hynden (I refuse to work with latex again); or when I need a wig making (of which I will commission the Rude Mechanical Theatre Company’s wig maker (Jago, 2024)).
Branding is very important, and because I have many characters I work with, I have chosen the pseudonym Melodic Madness as a catch-all name. Composers generally work under their whole or surname (Nyman, Birtwistle etc.), but because I am not going for the classical audience, I can be more fun in my presentation. A pseudonym is also useful as if you legally change your surname you don’t have to change all of your previous scores. I do have a full pen name of Melodie Edoria Adressa on my scores; though there are a few times where this feels inappropriate and will publish under my current legal surname, such as Painted Blue – a memorial piece for my beloved cat Archy (Franks, 2025). I prefer to self-publish as I do not want legal drama with record labels and publishers.
There are not many citations here due to this being common/first-hand knowledge within the steampunk community.
EVIDENCE OF GROUP WORK AND EVALUATION
During lessons, I have talked with others, however, because I doing mainly composition in a niche the others don’t know about, it has been hard to get relevant group work. Therefore, I have spoken to my friends Thomas B. W. Esq. (Wild, 2021) and Tom Carridine (Carradine, 2025) who sent me theirs; as well as referencing Madam Misfit’s EPK (Jane, n.d.). I got my ‘In The Works’ section from Misfit’s ‘Upcoming Album’ section (Jane, n.d.); ‘In The Works’ contains both finished and unfinished works, finished works will be obvious as they will be on the website for purchase. When asked, Carridine said that he asked Thomas for his EPK to take in his words ‘copy from’ (Thomas was good with it) so I have taken reference of how Carridine laid his set rates and bio from (Carradine, 2025). Thomas doesn’t need much of a bio as he isn’t a music hall pianist, so seeing both of theirs was very useful in creating a combination for myself. My bios went through several consolidations as I never know what is too much and too little information; but I think I achieved the right amount in the end. I have not written a long version of my bios as it is the start of my career, and I doubt people would be interested in reading an essay about my completely improvised winging of a music pursuit. When emailed to him my finished copy of the Melodic Madness EPK he called it ‘fabulous’ so it sounds good for a first attempt.
I don’t have many statistics to boast about for social media, as I am awful at bothering to make content; but I plan to try and fix this in the future by posting works in progress of score sketches and parts of any performances I do. I also plan to get more legal, performance, and marketing experience by hosting my own concerts (my first being on 30th August this year for my top surgery fund).
Originally the artistic design of my EPK was going to be much fuller, but after designing my concert’s poster I learned that full-on drawings may be too much for an information based piece, so I drew just one picture of Danitteveux in his pyjamas doing his makeup to show that the performance side is still very much a work in progress aspect but has a hireable current act.
I did have a logo before the one I have on the EPK, but it was on a concept poster I did back in sixth form and can no longer find the krita file for it (Franks, 2019) so I was forced to redesign it (which turned out to be better anyway). Any photos that could be downloaded for venues making posters will be downloadables on the website rather than the EPK, as a lot of the EPKs I have referenced do this; I’d assume it’s a lot easier than having to email a bundle of photos each time.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Carradine, T. (2025). Tom Carradine EPK and Rate Card 2025.pdf. [online] Google Drive. Available at: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OIRkX174zAc9TzsrH7I9IJvgOrqXOzkV/view?usp=drive_link [Accessed 19 May 2025].
Clarice Assad. (n.d.). Clarice Assad | PRESS – EPK. [online] Available at: https://clariceassad.com/press-epk/ [Accessed 20 May 2025].
Franks, M. (2019). concept_concert_poster_discordver.png. [online] Google Drive. Available at: https://drive.google.com/file/d/18eTCsXbxQELFWsoNzajTC6XlGmdQPrmc/view?usp=drive_link [Accessed 19 May 2025].
Franks, M. (2024). Melodic Madness. [online] Melodic Madness. Available at: https://www.melodicmadnesscomposer.com/ [Accessed 19 May 2025].
Franks, M.E. (2025). Painted Blue Op.38. [online] Google Drive. Available at: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hGamPojL7KB1JnKvkQ2yedgxK18418BO/view?usp=drive_link [Accessed 22 May 2025].
Jago, K. (2024). Wigs | Jago Maker. [online] Jago Maker. Available at: https://www.jagomaker.com/wigs [Accessed 19 May 2025].
Jane, S. (n.d.). Madam Misfit. [online] Madammisfit.co.uk. Available at: https://madammisfit.co.uk/press-kit [Accessed 19 May 2025].
Lang, L. (n.d.). LANG LANG. [online] LANG LANG. Available at: https://www.langlangofficial.com/#music-2-section [Accessed 19 May 2025].
Lyttle, P. (n.d.). PAT LYTTLE. [online] PAT LYTTLE. Available at: https://patlyttle.blog/ [Accessed 19 May 2025].
Vernon, R. (2001). Lament For A Toy Factory. Available at: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ln65yf3bC5Hu9nbQ2av7Gx-26VSNbgdy/view?usp=drive_link [Accessed 20 May 2025]. Dr. Steel’s music is now only available through reuploads and archives as it is suspected that Universal took his music down despite it clearly being fair use sampling (if he used extracts from them).
Victor and the Bully. (2016). MEDIA | Victor and the Bully. [online] Available at: https://www.victorandthebully.com/media [Accessed 19 May 2025].
Wild, T. (2021). Press Kit – Thomas Benjamin Wild Esq. [online] Thomas Benjamin Wild Esq. Available at: https://tombwild.com/press-kit/ [Accessed 19 May 2025].
