Positive Records

Author: Eric Montgomery (Co-founder, CIO: Solid Rock Music Group, Inc.)

TM

Greetings fellow music lovers! It’s another month, and another opportunity to share with you many of the diverse and pleasurable musical experiences awaiting only your curious and expansive discovery. Over the last few months, I hope that you have experienced an increase in your level of knowledge and appreciation for what the Industry of MUSIC has to offer. The beauty of it all is that there is no glass ceiling here, and your experience can soar as high as your inquisitiveness and desire takes you.

That said, I recently had the delightful opportunity to chat with Steven J. Logwood, president of FutureSoft Inc. / Positive Records. The conversation was enlightening and afforded me the opportunity to learn of the special ways that the message of Positive Records is getting out.

(No Strings Attached) What is FutureSoft Inc. / Positive Records?

(Steven Logwood) FutureSoft is the parent company doing business as Positive Records. The company itself has a couple of areas of focus, being the FutureSoft arm for computer consulting and programming, and Positive Records, which is kind of where we’re going for the future, producing music based media that addresses four key areas. Positive Records focuses on developing new applications for music in academic, social improvement, health/literacy, and financial management for personal and business needs. Those are the four pillars of the Positive Records effort.

(NSA) I think that’s an awesome endeavor that you’ve embarked on, and I applaud you for your creativity. At its inception, and with the purpose being to address the areas you developed as your focus, did you have a specific target audience in mind?

(SL) I’m hesitant to declare a target, but if I were to name one, it would be an urban population such as African Americans, Latino’s, and others who need additional information in a different format. The concept itself has a broad application, and I’m into the science behind using music to communicate, and the impact of changing things like format which allows you to target different populations. For example, for seniors you would use more blues, classics, and jazz, like 40’s, 50’s and such. You would go Hip Hop to reach younger audiences, and you could use salsa for the Latino culture. But I’m looking to do it all and to reach a broad audience across the entire population.

(NSA) What was your creative inspiration when you started this project?

(SL) Among my God-given talents is the ability to break things down to teach, and I started by doing a computer instructional video series back in the late 80’s. That led to an effort to do an animated academic project called The Fly Cats that was a little capital intensive, so I downsized to doing music. When I started to write music for one of the animated series, I wrote a song called Alphabet Alley, a sing-along song to teach the alphabet. From there I dabbled with other subjects like black history, self-esteem, and parenting, which ultimately led to an interest in healthy/literacy, which is where I am right now. We did a project called Groovy Pyramid, which is kind of a music version of the food pyramid and a dietary guideline. That idea came by way of a recommendation from a licensed dietician. Once we did the Groovy Pyramid, which focuses on eating more fruits and vegetables, portion control, fat content, and calorie counting, I then became interested in other health challenges like diabetes and cancer.

(NSA) I can see from its modest beginning, that it certainly has room for expansion. What would you tell us about your future or long term plans for Groovy Pyramid and Positive Records?

(SL) It’s about our four key focuses. For academic, we’re looking to develop additional music products that will teach kids about subjects like math, science, and history. In health/literacy, we’re looking to develop more content that will increase the awareness of chronic diseases and health campaigns like obesity prevention,that affects African Americans, Latinos, and other minorities disproportionately. I’m interested in addressing those health disparities by using music. Financial management has much potential and I’ll use music to deliver financial literacy messages such as balancing checkbooks. Finally, I look to develop content addressing social improvement topics like anti-violence, anti-domestic violence, anti-substance abuse, and community and world harmony. These are all areas that I believe can benefit from the concept of melodic presentation.

(NSA) What an awesome endeavor. My personal belief is that Positive Records is creating a very helpful service that crosses many demographic lines, and will lend itself well to your efforts. I want to thank Steven J. Logwood, president of FutureSoft Inc. and Positive Records for talking to us today. Steven it has been a pleasure talking to you, and I look forward to much success for Positive Records in the future.

(SL) Good looking out and thanks for the opportunity to share our story.

Positive Records is available on the web at www.positiverecords.com.