Can You Teach Songwriting?

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Would you or someone you know like to go on a songwriting retreat with industry professionals? Visit SongbirdCamp.com for more details!

The Unteachable

This is an excerpt from an entrepreneurship book I'm reading (I'm There For You, Baby; The Entrepreneur s Guide to the Galaxy, by Neil Senturia). Like entrepreneurship, it's hard to teach someone to be a great songwriter.



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Would you or someone you know like to go on a songwriting retreat with industry professionals? Visit SongbirdCamp.com for more details!

Bono & The Edge on Late Show

This is a wonderful clip from The Late Show with David Letterman. Background story of the song paired with a killer performance makes this a must-see:



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Would you or someone you know like to go on a songwriting retreat with industry professionals? Visit SongbirdCamp.com for more details!

Quote of the Day - Bob Morrison

"To be a songwriter in Nashville is to have the heart of a poet and the hide of a rhino."

– Bob Morrison

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Would you or someone you know like to go on a songwriting retreat with industry professionals? Visit SongbirdCamp.com for more details!

Questions - Who?

When it comes to songwriting, I think it's essential to at least understand the "who, what, when, where, why and how" of creating. The way we each answer these questions should give us a clearer understanding of the process and purpose of our creativity. Let's begin with "who."  

Who writes songs?

The simple answer is, anyone. I believe we all have some level of musical ability, and some message we desire to communicate.

The complicated answer is that songwriting, at least on a professional level, is not for everyone. That should be freeing for some, and sobering to others. For some, it is better to enjoy writing songs as a hobby. For others, it is a deep calling that can only be satisfied by pouring out the creative soul. Either way, writing songs has a therapeutic way of giving life to the creator. Where there was nothing before, now there is something. And you, songwriter, had something to do with that.

Keep writing,

Ben

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Would you or someone you know like to go on a songwriting retreat with industry professionals? Visit SongbirdCamp.com for more details!

What is a Co-write?

A co-write is a process in which two or more songwriters collaborate on writing a song. Generally, each writer gets an equal amount of credit for their effort (2 people, 50% each; 3 people, 33% each, etc.).

Co-writes usually consist of about 20% talking, 10% creating and 70% editing, often in that order. The 20% talking portion allows the songwriters to catch up on life, effectively getting on the same page. Sometimes an idea for the song will be born out of these conversations. The 10% creating portion is where the writers share from their notebooks of potential song ideas, or they fiddle around on instruments and create something out of nothing.

When the writers get inspired by the same melody, lyric or chord progression, the song has begun, and continues developing in a type of ping-pong-style conversation. This can be the most nerve-wracking and intimidating part of collaborating creatively with someone else, but I find it the most exciting and energizing at the same time.

As mentioned before, editing is 70% of the co-writing process. This is where a song goes from good to great. This is where the music and lyric are married, creating an inseparable bond. For more on the editing process, read my previous post here.

Keep writing,

Ben

Fast - Cheap - Good: Pick Two

Here's a marketing tool that I've found helpful: in any given project, a product can be fast, cheap, and/or good. But it can only be two of the three. Let's look at this through the lens of a songwriter.

If you're interested in getting a song recorded, there are three scenarios:

1. Fast/Cheap

There's an audio engineer friend who is looking for some recording experience. He said he'd record your song at his place if you buy him lunch. Fast and cheap, but what level of quality should be expected?

2. Cheap/Good

There's a family friend who has had success over the years recording well-known artists. As a favor, he offered you the opportunity to come into his studio when it's available to record some songs. He even said he'd be willing to mix them. It's no cost, and the quality is top-notch. But how long will it be before he has a free day to mix your song?

3. Fast/Good

There's a professional audio engineer in town who has gained a reputation for not only getting great-quality recordings, but mixing them the very next day. Nothing's better to a songwriter or publisher than getting a final mix so soon, but how much is that going to cost?

The best audio engineer of all is the one who makes you feel like you got a recording that was all three of the above: cheap, good and fast. It's your job to figure out which one of the three it's not!

Keep writing,

Ben

What Does a Publisher Do?

From my experience, here are some aspects of what a publisher does:

1. Pays a salary in the form of an advance, allowing me to not have to work another job
2. Provides valuable feedback on songs
3. Sets up co-writes
4. Takes care of legal copyright registration
5. Fronts the money for demo sessions
6. Acts as a communication buffer
7. Validates a songwriter as a professional
8. Provides a space for co-writing

As a songwriter, you aren’t necessarily trying to prove to a publisher that you have written the best song in the world, rather that you have all the potential to write the best song in the world. It’s as if the beginning songwriter is a young apple tree and, though it may not provide the best fruit quite yet, with the proper care and growth it can soon produce bountifully.

It's important to remember, however, that you don't need to have a songwriting deal with a publisher to be a great songwriter. It just allows you to write songs from nine to five, rather than before or after your nine to five.

For more information on publishers, check out All You Need to Know About the Music Business (see Reading tab above).

Keep writing,

Ben

Songwriting Article in The Tennessean

Last week there was a pretty interesting article about the business of songwriting in Nashville's newspaper, The Tennessean.

Read it here.

Also, I found this video on The Tennessean's website helpful:



Keep writing,

Ben

The Journey of a Song

Between the songwriter’s pen to the listener’s ear, there are a handful of steps that the song must take along the business path. Here is a basic estimated unfolding of events in the journey of a song once it is written (with estimated length of time in parentheses):

1. Song is turned into publisher
2. Song is demoed (three months later)
3. Publisher pitches song to artists/labels/managers around town (six months)
4. Artist decides to record song (three months)
5. Album gets mixed and label promotes upcoming release (six months)
6. Album is release, and publisher and songwriter look forward to royalties (six-nine months)

Yesterday my publisher said to me and my co-writer, "You can kick off 2011 by writing something that will make you money in 2012 or 2013!" He was jokingly serious. Or seriously joking. Sort of. If you add up the months in parentheses, you get about two years.

For example, I co-wrote songs over two years ago that are just now on the Mosaic album (leaving me at step 6). Making money in song publishing is a long-term investment for both the publisher and the songwriter. Both are players in the waiting game, and expecting things to happen too quickly can only bring disappointment.

But this should not be a daunting reality to the songwriter. The long period of time can serve as a reminder that it doesn't necessarily pay off to try to simulate what is currently on the radio. A good song written today will certainly stand two years from now, regardless of what the top 40 landscape may look like. 

Keep writing,

Ben

Writing Tools - Audacity

Audacity is the basic recording program that I use on a daily basis. These are the things I love about it:

1. It's free
2. It's fast (you open the program and hit record, as opposed to setting up a Pro-Tools-like session in GarageBand)
3. You can compress and normalize any selected area
4. You can bounce (turn a portion of the recording into a stand-alone mp3 or wav file to import into iTunes) any area

There are plenty of recording programs out there, but in my experience nothing has been as easy and helpful as Audacity.

Download it here for free.

Keep writing (and recording),

Ben