A Bermudian is on the move in the US music industry after having five of his songs accepted by Los Angeles-based Transition Music Corporation.

Award-winning songwriter, president of Renascent Music Publishing and founder of the Bermuda Songwriters? Association (the Island?s first Songwriters? Association) Richard Bassett said Transition places a lot of music with the major networks and movie houses. ?We signed five of our instrumental tracks with them,? he said. ?So they are actually circulating now to producers, directors and people who are in charge of productions for the autumn.?

Asked if there were any bites yet, he said: ?We won?t know for a little while because we are just getting into the new season. Right now all of the decisions are being made for new music. We should know within the next two or three months.?

Mr. Bassett heard about Transition after dealing with another group called TAXI. ?I submitted some music through TAXI, who pre-screen music for producers, publishers and recording artists as well as music libraries like Transition,? he said. ?So, TAXI will run listings saying that X,Y or Z company is looking for music and then members of TAXI respond and they pre-screen the music and then send the appropriate music on to their client. We managed to establish a relationship with one tune that was forwarded and then we used that relationship to send other music that we had available. So, instead of just signing one they signed five at the end of the day.?

Mr. Bassett has enjoyed recent success when one of his songs, ?Like It Like That?, which received a commendation in the Nashville International Songwriting Competition. ?We were awarded an honourable mention, which meant we were in the top ten percent of entries,? he said. ?We used that as a stepping stone to raise the profile and make people more aware of the songs we write.?

Clearly pleased with his success, Mr. Bassett said: ?It still feels great. The fact that it was an international competition, was judged by heavyweights in the music industry artists and that there were over 11,000 entries made the award mean even more.?

Mr. Bassett plays the piano and keyboards, but he pretty much uses the computer for most of what he does. ?I also work with a partner (Michael Spencer Arscott of DDM Studios), so we do a lot of work there as well involving vocals or guitars,? he said. ?Some songs are my own, some are with Michael, and we also work with writer and vocalist Ingrid Pucci. So we either work together as writers, co-writers or producers. I have been working with Michael since 1997 and Ingrid since 1999.?

When asked about the current state of his songwriting career, Mr. Bassett said: ?It feels good because we can see the progress that we are making. We continually have new achievements, and every time we achieve something it raises the profile a little bit more for other opportunities that come along.?

The music that is with Transition is purely instrumental. ?The funny thing is that years ago we got a listing from TAXI saying that they wanted some Hawaiian music, so Michael and I got together as a joke to write this music,? he said. ?But it turned out that every Hawaiian piece that we submitted they accepted, even though we knew nothing about Hawaiian music. However, we never got anywhere with it, and that was about four years ago. So, you never know what you are going to sign ? it could be anything, which is why when we do songs we not only record songs with complete vocals, we also record an instrumental version, because you can have an opportunity to place an instrumental version of a song in something.?