Navigation

Archive | Articles

SongBizness: Music Supervisors

By on October 26, 2008 in Songwriting Business

The following article by music supervisor Michael Rogers is the first in a regular column for Film Music Magazine, a must-read for anyone interested in writing music for film and TV. This is a great introduction to what music supervisors do.

Michael Rogers is owner of Rogers Entertainment, a full-service film & television music supervision and clearance company in Los Angeles.

MUSIC SUPERVISION
by Michael Rogers

Adventures in Music Supervision 101

This is the first in a series of columns on the craft of music supervision. As a relatively new specialty in film production (and sometimes pre-production-more on this later), this monthly column will attempt to both educate and (with any luck) entertain you.

For the past 20 years, almost every feature film has had a music supervisor or coordinator. Their role is often misunderstood, and they are in all fairness not quite as powerful as frequently perceived. However, they are inherently essential to the contemporary filmmaking process.

LESS IS MORE (or, wouldn’t it be cheaper to just have the director hum a few bars?)
It might prove fruitful to begin with what music supervision is not. Apart from the superstar music supervisors (including among others, Budd Carr, Bonnie Greenberg, Peter Aftermath, Sharon Boyle, and Karyn Rachtman), most are not the initial decision-makers about which composer to hire for underscore and/or which source songs to license. In the affable words of composer John Ottman, “music supervisors are dead wood.” In theory, the director and producer(s) usually provide the suggestions from which to select film music.

A typical scenario involves the director/producer leaning toward a particular composer with whom they already have a previously successful working relationship or whose work has made an impression. Likewise, particular source songs may be dancing around their heads as they shower (hopefully not singing too loudly-as only their loved ones would appreciate). The music supervisor’s job tends to be as creative as his or her collaboration with the director/producer allows it to be. Contrary to some popular views, part of a music supervisor’s job is not to interfere with the freedom and creative process of the composer. If a supervisor’s background happens to include composition, arrangement, production/engineering, theory, or even tin-ear syndrome-so be it. But once a composer is hired it is always advisable to oversee at a distance to allow him or her to actualize the talent they are hired to utilize.

A SUPERVISOR’S RESPONSIBILITY (or what does that guy over there do, anyway?)
An initial determination must be made about whether there will be a need for pre-recorded music to be used in coordination with principle photography (i.e., a scene requires a character to write an original song because he/she plays the part of a musician in the film). In this case, the supervisor will usually be required to hire an original songwriter (details about songwriter deals will be covered in a future column) to create the original song, book studio time, hire any necessary vocalist(s) or musicians to record the song, and oversee the mixing and mastering processes to ensure that the song is ready prior to principle photography.

Depending on a music supervisor’s industry credentials and relationship with the producer and/or director, he or she may or may not be involved in the composer selection process. The final call is that of the director and producer. Once the composer has been selected, the supervisor may negotiate and structure the composer deal. The music supervisor may be present during spotting (watching the footage to determine where music will go) but it is usually advisable to leave this process to the director and composer. In fact, the supervisor undoubtedly works more closely with the music editor than with the composer. Music supervisor Gerry Gershman (Buffalo 66) confirms, “For the most part, supervisors oversee that the big-picture musical vision is being realized and that the composer is staying within budget. Usually the music supervisor’s creativity is in deciding what source songs will most seamlessly match the tone and theme of the composer’s underscore and vice versa.” Part of the job also becomes the fine art of ensuring fair compensation for the artists while at the same time staying within the studio/production company music budget.

Next, the supervisor must work with the director and producer to determine what, if any, source songs will best enhance particular scenes and sequences in a picture. This process can often be the most creative aspect of the job. However, going about the business of clearing and licensing songs is an art in and of itself. The supervisor must close a deal with both the song’s record company (who owns the Master rights) and the author’s publishing company (who owns the Sync or publishing rights) before permission is legally granted to sync the song (a sync license is a fee paid by the film company to wed (synchronize) a song to a visual image).

A music budget range for a major film is typically between $500,000 to $2,000,000. Attempting to get film executives to appreciate why composers and source songs are worth shelling out some cash for is often an arduous process (but one well worth the effort for truly talented supervisors who value how the right music can literally make or break a film). For student films or projects to be shown at festivals, publishers will often quote a significantly lower price to accommodate the budget (issuing a limited festival license). However, if a festival film is picked up by a commercial distribution company, the distributor will usually have to re-negotiate a commercial license.

Once the songs are decided upon, the race is on to get them licensed, cleared, and into post-production in order to meet the film’s release date.

Despite the challenging expectations and pressures under which music supervisors are expected to deliver, the good ones are invaluable and very well-compensated. The next time you watch a film or television program, ask yourself if you would be as engaged in it if a music supervisor hadn’t effectively overseen the strategic placement of music.

3

SongBizness: Song Contests

By on October 24, 2008 in Legal, Music Marketing, Songwriting Business

Contests provide songwriters, singers and bands with an opportunity for validation/acknowledgment of their talent as well as an opportunity to win prizes.

Contests are created for many different reasons and it’s important to be able to assess whether or not you’re wasting your money to submit material at all. Most contests are created to make money, though there are always contests that spring up for other reasons, for example to find a theme song for an organization or a city. There have been several competitions for a new national anthem, for instance. Many non-profit songwriting and music organizations use competitions to raise operating funds. These contests are usually open to writers from all over the world. Continue Reading →

2

Casting :: Pitching Your Songs to A-list Singers

By on October 22, 2008 in Songwriting Business

Casting: The Right Song For The Right Artist

“Kelly (or Josh, Faith, etc.) could sing this song really great!” This statement, and the ignorance behind it, has been the cause of countless unnecessary rejections of songs. Though it’s certainly not the only cause, it ranks right up there with poorly crafted songs. But for the sake of this discussion, let’s say both the demo and song are excellent. But is it appropriate? It’s not a question of whether they could do it. They could make bus schedule sound good. But from the artist’s point of view it’s about whether they need to record your song.
If you’re writing for yourself in a band or solo artist context and don’t think this information applies to you, don’t stop reading just yet. The history of pop music is filled with songs written by self-contained artists who had no idea their songs could be recorded by other artists. After all, Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails) probably never would have dreamed that Johnny Cash would cover “Hurt.” Cash covered it because he said it was “the best anti-drug song he ever heard.” Someone had the skills to recognize that those songs were right for those other artists. Wouldn’t it be better to develop these skills yourself rather than reward skillful publishers/managers with a substantial percentage of your income for it?
The skill is called “casting,” knowing which song is appropriate for which artist.

First, there’s a process of elimination. Forget about artists who write their own songs. Not that they wouldn’t ever record a song they didn’t write, but generally speaking, they’re not motivated financially to record “outside” songs (written by someone other than themselves or their producer). With substantial royalties for sales and airplay on a hit, they’d rather fill their CDs with their own songs, for better or worse. Sometimes worse. Record buyers are getting tired of buying an album with only two or three good songs on it. Though “good” is certainly in the ear of the beholder, things are changing now that single tracks can be bought online.

Who Not To Pitch To-Playing the Odds
If you’re playing the odds, you’ll leave self-contained artists until last. First, you’ll read the Billboard magazine charts to find those artists who record outside songs. How can you tell? You look at the “Hot 100” chart and your favorite genre singles chart: “Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs,” “Hot Country Songs” or “Hot Latin Songs.” (The other charts don’t list writers.) You look to the left under the name of the song, and the first name is the producer’s, the second (in parentheses) is the name(s) of the songwriter(s). If the same name is in both places, the producer is the writer. Then, if you see, in the column to the right, that the artist’s name is the same as the writer, you know the odds are bad. You may have a hard time telling who wrote the songs when the artist is a group (although if there are four or more writers listed, you can often assume the group did or they’re using samples of other songs). Check it out by going online to their record companies and look up the artists’ bios. If they wrote the songs they’ll want everybody to know it.

You’ll end up with a list of about 25 percent of the hits on the “Hot 100” on which the artist sings an outside song. About 2/3 of those will be Country. On the “Hot Country” chart about 60-70 percent are outside songs. Check the charts periodically. Record “countdown” radio or cable TV shows (MTV, VH1, BMT, CMT) of current hits so you can listen more than once and analyze them without having to stay tuned all day (Or just go to i-tunes or Amazon.com and buy a few.) Keep your Billboard handy for reference. If you’re an Internet user you can go to Web radio sites like Live365 and pick your genre. Last time I looked there were more than two hundred country Web radio stations playing country songs, and those are divided into subgenres.

Doing the Research
A critical step in casting is to get all the information possible about the artist to save yourself the embarrassment of pitching something totally wrong. Your best move is to buy the CDs of any artist in your style who records outside songs. Listen to each cut on the album with special emphasis on the successful singles and determine the following:

  1. Style. If it’s rock, is it influenced by pop, blues, funk, punk, metal, or world music? If country, is it on the rock, traditional, pop, or Texas swing side? You may find different influences in different songs on any given CD, but they’ll give you some boundaries of style.
  2. Are there any songs the artist did write? Pay particular attention to the style of these. Also try to determine the common factors of the outside songs. Chances are, the artist or producer had some input into those choices.
  3. Lyric message. The shaping of an artist’s image is based largely on their personal philosophies and attitudes about life and love, how they handle disappointments, etc. Those attitudes show up in their song lyrics regardless of who writes them. Read or listen to the lyric of each song and answer the following:

a. Is the lyric positive or negative, up or down? Do the down songs show some hope in the end? Are the songs in first, second, or third person? Are they about winners or losers?
b. Does the lyric have a payoff, a final “moral”? Is it based on a high concept such as Tim McGraw’s “Live Like You Were Dying” (written by Craig Nichols and Tim Wiseman) or is it just a straight ahead love song?
c. Is the artist young, naive, inexperienced, hopeful, or more mature, experienced, a little world-weary, sexy? A song I once heard pitched for a former Gospel artist looking for secular songs was a sex-oriented song that would have worked great for almost anyone but an artist, who didn’t want to lose his Gospel following altogether. You’d know this if you’d read some interviews with the artist. I heard a song that was pitched for an established country star but it was about how he had to return to his little town in defeat because he had not attained his dream of stardom. Remember that a successful artist is singing your song and needs to believe the lyric, and that it has to reflect the artist’s self-image and personal story. Songs that say, “I’m a terrible human being” don’t work unless maybe you’re apologizing to someone you’ve done wrong. Remember the prime audience for country is 25- to 40-year-old women (and they love to hear a man apologize).

  1. Lyrics as vocal platforms. In addition to vocal range, you need to consider whether your lyric allows the artist room to sing. When I see a lyric sheet literally covered with lyric, and hear the words sung so tightly that there’s no space for the singer to style the song in his own unique way, I know it’s going in the reject pile. Great singers love to hold notes (particularly vowels at the ends of lines) and play with them, embellishing the melody. It may be a wonderful story and brilliant lyric but so much a product of your own unique style that it won’t work in their style. A group like Third Eye Blind, for instance, writes unique songs that other artists would have difficulty covering without sounding like them.
  2. Who is the artist’s audience? Pre-teens and early teens are fans of bright, young pop artists who quickly outgrow the style at the same quick rate as their audience. Listeners in their mid-to-late teens generally become more genre-specific (rock, pop, alternative, rap, hip-hop, or country) and tend to fragment along those styles. You’ll need to gear your song and demo to that style or recognize whether or not you write in that style or for that audience.
  3. Vocal range. Listen to the song with the highest and lowest notes and you’ve got the range. Does the artist have a wide vocal range like Celine Dion or Kelly Clarkson, or Josh Groban? Odds are they’ll choose a song that will show it off. If the artist has a limited range, a two-octave stretch won’t work. Also, look for a place in the artist’s range that she favors because there may be a unique quality or timbre there. It’s been referred to as a “sweet spot.” Make sure the song allows them to use that spot.
  4. Structure. Do the artist’s successful songs use a repeated chorus, pre-chorus sections, or classic AABA (verse-verse-bridge-verse a la “Yesterday”)? AABA structures are rarely recorded, except by self-contained artists. It’s easier for a listener to learn a song with a repeating chorus, so verse/chorus songs are seen as being more commercial.

Along with analyzing the song, collect articles about and interviews with the artist from fanzines, trade magazines, and the artist’s personal and fan Web sites. You can find some great clues to the artist’s image and values. Don’t send a recovering alcoholic or drug addict your song about the bottle being your best friend. But the song about getting your life together might work. It may help to know that the artist is a parent, donates money to organizations that help kids, just got divorced, is a womanizer, feels women deserve more respect, feels women should stay at home, is a born-again Christian, etc.

Another level of casting expertise involves projecting, based on past success and artist image, where you feel the artist could go. This is a common strategy of writer/producer/arrangers and publishers who can conjure a vision of the artist’s next step and, in the process, become the artist’s producer, at least on the producer’s own songs. This requires a thorough knowledge of the artist and, in the best case, the ability to produce tracks that would provide the artist with a fresh sound. There is a point in a very successful career where an artist looks for a stretch away from the too familiar and into adventureland. You can either anticipate that move or help to create it.

Regardless of all the homework you do on an artist, you can still strike out, though the odds will be considerably better if you’ve done the research. A major benefit is that you now have a great frame of reference when you talk to the manager, record company A&R representative for the artist, or the new producer who may be taking the artist in a different direction. In my experience, those people speak to and listen to demos from so many writers who are clueless about their artists that they welcome a conversation with someone who knows what makes their artist special. It also gives you a level of confidence in that call or meeting that communicates that you should be taken seriously.

3

10 Ways to Get Your Songs Recorded

By on October 20, 2008 in Music Marketing

Now that you’ve got that great song written and demoed, it deserves to be recorded so you can start earning the compensation you so richly deserve. In the broad scheme of things, there are two ways to get your songs recorded. You either become your own publisher or sign a contract with a publisher in which the publisher finds users for your song, negotiates fees for their use, then collects the money and splits it with you on a 50/50 basis. The following are some ways that can take place with or without a publisher. Without a publisher, the negotiation and collection still has to take place but you hire a copyright administrator or an attorney with that expertise to do it for you. You just take on the task of “selling” the song and experiencing the rejection yourself. Here are some strategies:

1. Find a Music Publisher to represent your songs.
If you have no inclination to be on the phones making cold calls and researching recording, TV and film projects and negotiating deals and you have no existing contacts in the industry you’ll want to go this route. If you have internet access, search the data-bases of ascap.com, bmi.com, sesac.com, in the U.S.A. or the performing rights organization in your country . Search for song titles and writers in your style and find out who publishes them. Call for permission to submit your songs. There are also other resources for the names of publishers. Go to your library, find Billboard Magazine, look up songs on the Hot 100, R&B or Country charts in the style of your songs and see the accompanying list of publishers. You may also be able to also get referrals from your performing rights representative if your songs are exceptionally good.

2. Pitch songs directly to recording artists.
If there are artists you truly believe should record your song (Not “they’d really sound great singing it”) and it fits their image, attitudes, style, vocal range, go after them in any way you can. If they’re playing in your town, try to get back stage or run into them in the hotel lobby. Tell them you have a song you feel is right for them and ask if it’s all right to give it to them. Often, to protect them from future lawsuits, their attorneys will have advised them not to accept tapes. In that case, ask if you may present it to their manager or record company A&R (Artist and Repertoire) representative. (See also: Casting)

3. Have an entertainment attorney submit your tapes.
Entertainment attorneys have industry contacts and if they feel your songs merit referral, they’ll shop them for their usual fee (roughly $100-$300 per hour) or may do it on spec. Not all attorneys will shop tapes, however.

4. Submit your songs or music into film, TV, production music libraries or multimedia productions.
There are increasing opportunities in these industries for not only songwriters but for composers of instrumental music who have master-quality recordings. Start your research in the phone book and ask the companies if they use original music in their productions. Some will use music from production music libraries or services that supply prerecorded music to film and video productions. Ask them for the names and phone numbers of those whose services they use and follow up to submit your music. If they like what they hear they’ll usually do a contract exclusively for visual use which means you’ll still be free to use it on your own audio recordings. You’ll be paid as the music is used and you’ll also receive royalties through your performing rights organization, after your music appears on television. How much you’ll receive depends on a variety of factors including the terms of your contract.

5. Offer a percent of the income from publishing royalties to anyone associated with the artist.
This time-honored sales incentive can work if those contacts aren’t prevented by their employers from participating in that type of transaction. Contacts may include, limo drivers, hairdressers, road managers, touring musicians and crew, recording engineers, relatives. How much? 5-10% of the publishing half of the song’s “mechanical” income (from sales of CDs and tapes). Only offer the percentage of income from that specific recording. Do not offer the percentage of ownership of the copyright, which will last the life of the copyright and include income from other recordings of the song.

6. Produce an artist/band and write for or with them.
If you have developed some production skills and have access to a good studio, find an exceptional local group with a great singer or singers and write for them, creating a style with the songs you write for or with them. The Glen Ballard /Alanis Morrisette collaboration is a good example of this strategy. Shop the masters to record companies.

7. Be your own artist, produce your own CD and sell it at your gigs.
This is a good route if you have a working band with a following, a database of fan addresses and somebody in the band with a good business head. (Read How to Make and Sell Your Own Recording by Diane Rapaport and Tim Sweeney’s Guide to Releasing Independent Records)

8. Find a local group to write with.
If you’re a good lyricist, whether or not you can write melodies, find a group with a great lead singer and write with him or her. That way, the singer can infuse the song with an individual style and also be motivated by participation in the writing royalties.

9. Submit songs via a respected service organization.
The best one I know is TAXI, an innovative tip-sheet/independent A&R service. Members, world-wide, receive listings every two weeks by major and independent labels, film music supervisors and publishers looking for writers, writer/artists, bands. All submissions are pre-screened and critiqued by industry pros. All styles including instrumentals.

Another service worth looking into is SongCatalog.com where, for a fee, you can post your songs online and, by way of entering specific search criteria, potential users can find your song and contact you or your publisher.

10. Attend seminars and meetings of songwriting and music industry organizations.
These events and organizations invite record company representatives, music publishers, record producers and managers to speak and screen songs at their meetings. You can meet them and hopefully begin to form ongoing relationships with them and continue to submit songs.

This is an updated version of an article that was written for Canadian Musician Magazine.

0

Career Strategies for Lyricists

By on October 15, 2008 in Songwriting Business

The situation for lyricists in the marketplace has its positives and negatives. On the plus side, it’s necessary for you to collaborate to have a suitable melody for your words. I know that doesn’t really sound like a plus, but if you’re a prolific lyricist, finding several collaborators represents an opportunity to produce a great number of finished songs. Those who insist on writing both lyrics and music, in my experience, are rarely so prolific. As a lyricist, you can develop your lyric skills in a variety of styles without needing to restrict yourself for marketing purposes as do many writer/performers.

On the minus side, it’s very difficult for you to get a staff-writing deal. You really have to be an extraordinary lyricist with some commercial success under your belt to get an exclusive staff-writing situation. And it’s virtually impossible to make a single-song deal on a lyric with no melody. There are audiovisual firms that commission lyricists to write material for them. Check with local firms to see what their needs are, and find additional contacts listed in Songwriter’s Market.

So, outside of that, what can a lyricist do? Find collaborators. Along with the methods listed in “Collaboration,” (see Chapter 7 in The Craft and Business of Songwriting), pay particular attention to political strategy. Find co-writers who are further ahead in their careers than you and still moving forward (This is called “Writing Up.”). Among collaborators to consider are new bands that are getting some industry attention or at least drawing great audiences locally. Good lead singers and keyboard players are usually worth considering because they’re more likely to write exciting melodies that may need equally exciting lyrics. Find other writers who are starting to get their songs recorded or those who are already on staff at a publishing company. Find writers in strong positions to make contacts with artists, such as studio musicians and recording engineers. With all the above you have the advantage of writing with people who could get good demos made at a reasonable cost, a big plus for you.

If those situations are just not available to you, look for skilled musicians in bands, college music departments, churches, theaters, and so on. If you speak another language fluently, gather samples of your song translations from, and into, the language. Contact publishers both here and in the countries where the language is spoken. They can be found in directories like Songwriter’s Market and Billboard’s International Buyers Guide. The Spanish-speaking market, for example, is enormous.

Make contact with as many potential co-writers as possible, enter lyric writing contests, put notices in music stores, schools, and magazines. Let everyone know what you’re looking for and you’ll find that your opportunities will grow quickly.

Caution: Do not send your lyrics to companies who advertise in magazines for “song poems” and ask you to pay a fee to have them write melodies to your lyrics. No legitimate music industry company will ask you to pay for collaboration or publishing. (See “Avoiding the Songsharks,” in “The Craft and Business of Songwriting.”)

4

SongBizness: How Your Songs Earn Money

By on October 14, 2008 in Songwriting Business

Though relatively few songwriters make a great living on royalties, the possibilities of income from a successful song can be mind-boggling. Remember that the following income streams are only from the songs. Don’t confuse them with the royalties you may receive from a record company as a recording artist.

The four major types of royalties for music are mechanical, performance, synchronization and print. Though there are many other sources including Grand Rights for musical theater and newly emerging sources arising from the Internet transmission of music, these are still the most basic.

Mechanical royalties
It’s easy to think of mechanicals as something you can hold in your hand, like CDs or tapes. This royalty is paid to the publisher by the record company after having signed a mechanical license agreement that describes how often the record company must report sales figures and send checks to the publisher. It also states the amount per unit sold of the composition to be paid. In the U.S. there is an amount set by the Copyright Royalty Tribunal called the statutory mechanical rate which is updated every two years. It is currently (2/03) 8 cents per composition per unit sold or 1.55 cents per minute, whichever is greater. Mechanical licenses can be obtained online from the Harry Fox Agency. This is also a good place to go for more detailed information about mechanical licenses.

A little arithmetic shows that one song on a million-seller CD or single will bring a total of $80,000. (Divided between publisher and writer(s) according to your writer/publisher contract.). When you have a song as a single, you can figure it will be on the CD too. Down the road there are also “Greatest Hits” recordings and TV packages like “The Top Hits of ‘the ’90s” etc. It all adds up.

Performance royalties
Performance royalties can be a major source of income for a writer. They’re not to be confused with the money a performer earns for public appearances. Performance royalties are royalties the copyright owner(s) and songwriter(s) receive when their song is performed publicly. According to the copyright law, nobody can publicly perform a copyrighted song without permission of the copyright owner or the owner’s representative.

The most common uses of music in public performance are radio, network and local TV, jukeboxes, Muzak and live performances (clubs and concert halls, whose owners and promoters pay annual license fees), restaurants, bars. When your songs are played in any of these venues, you, as the writer, and the publisher (whoever owns the copyright) are entitled to get paid for their use.

Performing rights organizations in the U.S., BMI (Broadcast Music Inc.), ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) and SESAC (no longer using their original title, Society of European Stage Authors and Composers) are the organizations that issue licenses and collect money for public performances of your songs. A writer or publisher may collect from only one of these organizations for the same song. You may belong to only one organization at a time in the U.S. though you may simultaneously belong to PRS (U.K.) or another performing rights organization in Europe.

Each of these organizations has their own method of determining how much you’re paid based on the number of times your songs are played. Performance royalties for a song that gets considerable airplay (which can continue for many, many years on oldies stations) generally will amount to a great deal more than the money earned from mechanical royalties. Over $5 million (before writer/publisher split) for the life of a hit is not uncommon. For more in-depth information on each performing rights organization, go to: ASCAP, BMI and SESAC.

Synchronization royalties
Another important area of income for writers and publishers is the licensing of the right to record the music or song in synchronization or “timed relation” to the pictures in a film, TV movie or commercial.

The film or TV producer negotiates the synchronization (or “sync”) license with the copyright owner, which is usually the publisher. There are several companies including Copyright Management Inc. (CMI) in Nashville and the Clearing House in Los Angeles, that negotiate synchronization rights between film producers and publishers. The Harry Fox Agency issues licenses on behalf of publishers who have already negotiated the terms of those agreements.

Synchronization fees are totally negotiable (from nothing to over $50,000) and depend largely on the previous popularity of the song and the way it’s to be used. If the song has already been a hit and it’s a perfect selection for that particular film, it’s worth a lot. If it’s an unknown song and there’s a soundtrack album as well, a lower sync fee might be negotiated because the film’s exposure of the song may benefit record sales, print or other areas. You will, in addition, receive performance royalties when these films are shown on television, in theaters outside the U.S. or if the song is in a TV production.

Music in print
If you write mass appeal songs, particularly adult contemporary, pop, R&B or country, you’ll be able to take advantage of a potentially lucrative print market. With the possible exception of the education print market, though, the songs will have to have been very popular records to make all those piano bar singers, cover bands and other print buyers want them. There are several types of print music publishing: 1. Sheet Music: piano/vocal arrangements, often with chord designations for other instruments. 2. Personality Folio: in which the concept is based on a name artist or writer; “The…Songbook.” 3. Matched Folio: music from a particular album or musical theater show. 4. Mixed Folio: based on concepts like “Easy Piano Tunes,” “Hits of the ’90s” etc., which involve songs from several writers. 5. Educational: included in this category are how-to books (“How to Play Slide Guitar” etc.), arrangements for choruses, marching bands, (concert bands, jazz bands, and orchestras.) These are obviously sold to schools, drill teams, drum and bugle corps etc. It’s not unusual for popular choral writers to net $9,000-$10,000 a year for a composition.

How you get paid
Mechanical, synchronization and print royalties are collected by the publisher who takes his percentage and sends you your percentage, usually semi-annually, though some pay quarterly. The performance royalties are collected by the performing-rights organizations, BMI, ASCAP and SESAC (SESAC also collects mechanical royalties). They will send a quarterly check and statement directly to you and one to your publisher, the amounts divided according to the terms of your publishing contract (usually 50% to you, 50% to the publisher).

These explanations are simplified but at least you¹ll have a basic idea of how your songs can work for you beyond being good therapy. John’s book “The Craft and Business of Songwriting” gives a more in-depth look at these topics.

2

SongCrafting: Dance Music

By on October 11, 2008 in Songwriting Craft

With the increase in the number of dance songs in the four-minute range on the Pop and R&B/Hip-Hop charts, we see much more experimentation with these extended forms. Dance records are developed for pop, rock and Urban radio and singles for the dance club market. The records are usually formatted in a way that allows the record to be re-edited or re-mixed. This means that, originally, a longer version is recorded with more segments that can be removed to make a shorter version for radio or left in for the dance club market or for radio stations that like to play the long versions.

Techno, Electronica, Euro Dance, Acid Jazz, House, Big Beat, Trip Hop, Jungle, Drum & Bass, Trance are among the groove based styles that don’t necessarily use the song form conventions of pop songwriting. The styles are primarily DJ/producer originated styles that may incorporate loops (short repeated musical or lyrical phrases); ambient sounds, dialog, and a great variety of “found” sounds from radio broadcasts to phone conversations to traffic noise. The styles are used in dance clubs, at raves and on an increasing number of specialized radio shows and Web radio sites. Since they already havethe attention of their audience in those venues and media, they don’t need to follow the song-form conventions of mainstream radio.

Records earmarked specifically for the dance club and “rave” market, and not for radio, can break more rules. Since there’s a captive audience and you don’t need to get their attention and since records well over four minutes are the norm, there can be long, slow-building intros, additional sections and long instrumental breaks that would be too monotonous on radio. The records’ major appeal is based on having a relentlessly exciting dance groove. Beyond that, there are no rules and aside from a few conventional arrangement tricks like dropping out and bringing in instruments or repeating “loops,” there is a lot of room for creativity in vocal and instrumental textures particularly for songwriters with arranging and producing skills. Dance music is usually “written” with the groove first, then other instruments, loops, vocals, etc, added later.

DJ/producers have become the new stars of the dance scene by virtue of their use of digital turntable technology that allows them to seamlessly keep the music going by segueing between songs with different tempos, their choice of recordings and the creation of their own digital loops to provide transitional grooves.

Dance music is one of the most creative areas of popular music today. From the point of view of the composer/arranger/producer, it’s more like writing underscore for film than writing pop songs. There is inevitably a growing fusion between these dance styles and traditional styles of World Music: Latin, Caribbean, African, Middle Eastern and Indian featuring classical and jazz instrumentalists and vocalists from those musical cultures. To learn more about it, search the Internet under “dance music.”

For online information go to:

www.dancemusic.about.com/cs/genreguides/index.htm

To hear the music go to my favorite Web radio site, www.Live365.com and pick a genre listed above.

0

SongCrafting: Clichés

By on October 10, 2008 in Songwriting Craft

How often have you heard: feel the pain — by my side — set me free — lost without you –broken heart — all we’ve been through — hold me close – my foolish pride — all night long — give you my heart — want you, need you, love you — all my love — more than friends — never let you go — more than words can say — when you walked into the room — when you came into my life — when I first saw you — dream come true — call on me — our love is forever, and the ever popular — oh baby? Then there are the clich© rhymes: hold (take my) your hand…understand…be your man, dance…take a chance…romance, kiss you…miss you and on and on. Of course you’ve never been guilty of using any of these worn-out phrases and rhymes. But just in case you’re thinking about it, I’ll try to answer the questions I know you’d want to ask. Continue Reading →

3

SongCrafting: Clichés

By on October 10, 2008 in Songwriting Craft

How often have you heard: feel the pain — by my side — set me free — lost without you –broken heart — all we’ve been through — hold me close – my foolish pride — all night long — give you my heart — want you, need you, love you — all my love — more than friends — never let you go — more than words can say — when you walked into the room — when you came into my life — when I first saw you — dream come true — call on me — our love is forever, and the ever popular — oh baby? Then there are the clichƒ© rhymes: hold (take my) your hand…understand…be your man, dance…take a chance…romance, kiss you…miss you and on and on. Of course you’ve never been guilty of using any of these worn-out phrases and rhymes. But just in case you’re thinking about it, I’ll try to answer the questions I know you’d want to ask. Continue Reading →

3

SongCrafting: Dynamics

By on October 9, 2008 in Songwriting Craft

Among the most powerful tools you can use to make your songs more commercial and to impress industry pros with your command of the craft, is the use of contrasts and variations that I call “song dynamics.” I’ve also observed that it’s the tool most commonly overlooked and underused by amateur songwriters. In this section we’ll look at several devices you should have in your bag of tricks and why they work.

There are crucial points during a song at which the audience’s attention must be dramatically and positively captured in order to make it effective on radio. I had a very valuable experience that helped to confirm my information about these factors. Len Chandler (my partner in the Los Angeles Songwriters Showcase) and I were asked to produce demos of some strong commercial songs by a company that regularly tested records on behalf of producers and record companies. Every Saturday, four hundred young potential record buyers of several demographic groups (divided into age, sex and racial groups) sat in a theater and turned a dial on the arm of their seats to indicate responses to a given song ranging from “don’t like it” to neutral to “love it.” As the song was played in the theater, lyrics were shown on the screen and, simultaneously, a computer totaling the combined responses of each demographic group drew a graph of that group’s reaction so that we could see how they responded at any given moment of the song. Even though they later found more effective ways to test records for marketing purposes, from watching those reactions and from the director’s interpretations of what we saw, we learned the following:

1. Intros for ballads should be shorter in order to get the listener into the body of the song more quickly. Intros for up-tempo songs can be longer because people get involved physically almost immediately and don’t need to wait. People reflect on ballad lyrics in a more passive way, which increases the need for a blockbuster chorus. Though average intro lengths have been about 15 secs there are no rules about this and both technology and radio practices will always influence it. Do your own research.

2. People will try to identify the voice when it’s first heard. If it’s familiar, it usually generates a positive reaction. People always feel more comfortable with a voice they know than one they don’t, because they have to decide whether they like an unfamiliar singer.

This phenomenon also contributes to the difficulty for an unknown artist to get exposure on the radio. A good example was a demo we tested of an unknown male artist with a beautiful but very high voice who got a negative reaction from the audience. We finally concluded that the audience was turned off because they didn’t know whether to identify a male or female (the lyrics didn’t immediately establish a gender). Remember that this wasn’t Michael Jackson or The Artist, both of whom have readily identifiable high voices. The problem here wasn’t the high voice in itself, it was the lack of gender identity.

3. The reaction at the first sound of a voice is critical to the audience’s continued reaction to the record. The longer it takes to respond positively, the harder it is to build interest through the rest of the song. In the absence of a familiar voice, the lyric content of the first line(s) is very important to the audience’s response. This is the audience’s first exposure to the song and artist, and there’s an automatic tendency to pay attention when someone starts to sing, just as there is when someone starts to talk. If people don’t understand or hear or like what’s being said, the reaction will be negative.

4. The chorus is another critical place in a song. If audience interest doesn’t increase perceptibly at the beginning of the chorus and increase throughout, continued positive interest in the remainder of the record is unlikely.

In television, the pros say that there should be a new camera angle or other change at least every fifteen seconds to keep the viewer’s interest. (In the quick-cut style contemporary music videos, that time is much shorter.) This principle has an analogy to radio. Since it is true that we remember only a fraction of what we hear compared to what we see, we begin to understand why we’re so easily distracted when we listen to the radio. That means that the battle for people’s attention on the radio when they’re usually engaged in other activity (working, driving) is a major challenge and songwriters need all the ammunition they can get. Now that we understand what has to be done, how can we create the excitement that solves the problem?

One of the main components of the “Superlearning” techniques developed by Russian educators now being used in the West is that teachers vary the tone, intensity and pitch of their voice frequently as they deliver the material. Those changes continue to stimulate the student’s attention. Since this is the same effect you want to achieve in your listeners, you can use this principle by increasing and releasing tension, and thus achieve contrasts between different segments of the song.

The effectiveness of contrasts in getting and holding a listeners attention, is based on the way our nervous systems are wired. The cave man who didn’t notice the sudden movement of the prairie grass or hear the lion growl didn’t live to pass along his genes. It’s why fire engines are red and have sirens. It needs to contrast with the environment. I was talking with an advertising artist friend about his craft when he mentioned the phrase, “pattern interrupt.” I asked him what he meant. He drew me a simple diagram…

/ / / 0 /

…and asked me where my eye went when I looked at it. I told him it went to the circle. My eye went to the one thing that was different, the thing that “interrupted” the pattern. I had one of those “Ahaa!” flashes of insight when I recognized its parallel to the auditory experience of hearing a musical contrast in a song. It always works to pull a listeners attention back to the song and is the reason all successful radio songs employ it to some degree or another.

Try out some of these:

1) Change the groove
You could go from a straight “on the beat” feel in the verse to a more syncopated feel in the chorus or vice versa. In other words, go from emphasizing “1-2-3-4” to “1-and-2-and-3-and-4″ — like a reggae beat.

2) Change chord progression
Initiate a whole new chord progression, scale context or for the chorus and another for the bridge. Modulating up or down, or playing the same progression in a different key, are arrangement devices that can be built into your demos.

3) Change time
Don’t change tempo or pulse if you’re going for a radio or dance market record. It’s been done by major artists (Paul McCartney on “Live and Let Die,” Queen’s “We Are The Champions”) but it’s a very risky business, even to start slow and break into an up-tempo dance groove. Once you’ve engaged a listener or dancer in the pulse of a song, it’s a solid base on which you can build other dynamics. Against that solid base you can go from 4/4 time to a couple of bars of 3/4 time to increase tension like the Beatles did on “We Can Work It Out.” It can make for an interesting transition between verse and chorus, for example, but be careful not to continue for more than a bar or two or you’ll ruin the groove.

4) Change melody
A melodic change in the chorus is probably the most effective song dynamic you can use to make a song memorable and commercially viable. Generally, you’ll want it to “lift” out of (up from) the verse melody by starting above the last note of the verse. That’s not a rule, however, and there have been rare songs that have achieved a contrast by dropping down from the verse. A change in chord progressions will automatically induce you to change the melody in the chorus. It can also be effective to try to change the chorus melody before you work out new chords. Try playing and singing your verse melody right up to the place where your chorus is supposed to come in. Then stop playing and continue a cappella. It also helps to put that on tape so you can listen to it away from your instrument.

5) Change lyric density
The term, “lyric density” is about how close together the words are over a given tempo. You might have rapid-fire lyrics with one syllable per 16th note during the verse, then change to one syllable per 1/4 note in the chorus. Or just do the opposite, all the while keeping the tempo the same. Many hit songs use that technique. The rest of the chorus continues in the same pattern, giving our minds another subconscious cue to remember the lyric and melody.

Example: One of the factors that made Lenny Kravitz’s “Fly Away” work so well was the change in lyric density, going from short choppy phrases in the verse to the stretched-out words and the Beatlesque “ahhhs” of the chorus. In fact, speaking of the Beatles, “Eleanor Rigby” (and many many other Lennon/MacCartney songs) used it well. Next time you listen to the radio pay attention to the lyric density changes.

6) Change the lyric meter
Changing lyric meters from line-to-line or section-to-section is one of the most common techniques used in successful songs, and most underused by novice songwriters. Though keeping the same meter through a verse can subtly build tension that can be released when you change it in the chorus, it risks being too predictable. You can also alternate between two different meters every other line (and within the same line). There are many options. Try this while you’re listening to your favorite songs: instead of singing along with the lyrics, pretend the words are part of the rhythm and just speak them, maybe substituting “da-da-da” instead of the words so you can get a sense of their meter, or rhythm.

Listen to any of Diane Warren’s hits: “Un-break My Heart,” “Because You Loved Me,” “I Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing,” and many others (www.realsongs.com) She’s a master at changing her lyric meter and density in the middle of a line, at the choruses, or at the bridges in ways that feel natural and conversational. Matchbox Twenty’s Rob Thomas is another writer who’s great at that. Listen to the way you speak and pay attention to the natural rhythms of others: we rarely, if ever, hear people speak in iambic pentameter: “da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM” (five metric feet), because it feels so stiff and predictable. When you write lyrics and music together, by yourself, whether for yourself as a singer or someone else, you have an opportunity to marry lyric and music in a uniquely conversational way. Collaborations can also have a very special magic when writers are in sync with each other. As a lyricist, the ability to express your own attitudes and ideas in way that’s natural for you is one of the best ways to create a unique song or singing style.

If you’re a lyricist whose words will be set to music, you should employ changes in lyric density, meter and rhyme scheme so that eventually, your composer has a head start in creating musical contrasts. Writing lyrics against a metronome pulse or drum machine will help you to “hear” those patterns in a useful context and have fun experimenting with the phrasing.

7) Change the rhyme scheme
You can have a different rhyme scheme in your verses than in your chorus and/or your bridge. Try not to use the same end rhymes in more than one verse. This one is a little more subtle than the others and though it’s not as obvious to a listener, I believe it still has the effect of too much predictability.

8) Change where the vocal begins

This dynamic largely goes un-noticed by new songwriters, But pros know it can make a lot of difference in what’s percieved as the song’s style or singer’s style. If your song is in 4/4 for example, count your bars as “1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and”. If you start your verses on 1, you might consider starting the first accented word of your pre-chorus or chorus on 1 and or a more surprising and 1. Experiment with this and listen for it in your favorite songs.

Those are the major ways to create contrasts but there are others. For example: Adding an extra lyric line at the end of a section to introduce a surprise element and highlight an important thought; Contrasting long lyric lines in one section with short lines in another; Changing whether your first accented syllable falls on the beat or after the beat.

These devices have infinite variations and it’s in their imaginative use that you exercise your creative muscles. They won’t all work on all songs, but they’re options you can try on each song. Arrangement devices such as dropping out and bringing in instruments, silence, and changes in intensity, volume and texture can be used to further give your songs drama. These are devices to explore when you record your demo.

1