Career Songwriter

Co-writing can be a truly freeing experience. In a good co-writing relationship, we can expect to come upon ideas together we wouldn’t have normally thought of on our own, broaden our lyrical and musical scopes, finish songs faster much less finish them at all, and just plain have a good time. Even co-writing relationships that last only a short time have monumental benefits for each writer. It’s not unusual for two writers to come together and without a previous meeting or relationship, write a truly fantastic song.

As with all working relationships, co-writing requires some special skills on both sides. At some point both parties will need to be flexible, to trust the other’s judgment, and keep a commitment to work on the song until it satisfies both writing partners. Sometimes the pacing of each writer is different, one writer accustomed to tossing around ideas quickly, and another more comfortable with processing an idea internally before offering it up for consideration. There’s no wrong way to write if it yields good material, and so it is with co-writing. What works for one pair may not work at all for another.

But what about those situations in which the relationship goes sour, or disappears into thin air when there is half a song in the balance? Who owns what? What if one party wants to demo the song and another doesn’t? Who pays for the demo? What if you’re not proud of the song, but your co-writer is playing it everywhere for everyone with your name plastered all over it?

There may not be rules, but there are some good guidelines of conduct we can apply to these situations. The first guideline is to sit down with your co-writer before beginning to write and discuss how you both wish to divide up the song. Whether you’re a lyricist and don’t write any music, or both you and your co-writer are both chipping away at lyric and music ideas at the same time, a very common split is 50/50. That means that even if you’re writing with an artist, and that artist simply says ‘yes, I like that’ or ‘no I don’t like that,’ the split is still 50/50. The reasoning here is that over time, all of us are more or less helpful in coming up with song material during a writing session. What goes around comes around, and to count words or count notes that belong to each writer just complicates things and adds unnecessary stress to the relationship.

It’s not uncommon for the writers to lose steam mid-way through the song, and the tune sits unfinished for months on end. If the idea is really as good as you thought it was when you started it, you’ll know after hearing it again for the first time. If you’re bound and determined to finish a tune and your cowriter is MIA, you don’t have to scrap the tune. What I’ve done in the past is let my co-writer know through an email and a phone message that I’d like to finish the tune, and to please let me know when is convenient to get together. If I get no response, I leave another message and email, this time with a deadline after which I will finish the song on my own if he/she doesn’t respond. Now, if we’ve signed a split sheet agreeing to a 50/50 split, then that agreement still stands. If no agreement was signed, I let my co-writer know that I plan on finishing the song as 50/50 (if I intend on keeping what we wrote together). If I want to scratch the whole tune, keeping the title I brought into the co-writing session, for example, then I let my co-writer know that is what I intend to do. His/her lack of communication is an acceptance of the terms.

When it comes to demoing, it gets a little tricky. I don’t expect a co-writer to chip in 50% of the cost of the demo for a song he/she doesn’t believe in. So if I feel very strongly that the tune is worth recording, I’ve got to eat those initial costs myself. Certainly, if the song gets placed and makes money, I can bring half those initial costs up with my co-writer again. But one word of warning – if your co-writer isn’t totally psyched with the song, consider why. Is the song really as strong as you think it is? Is there is a disconnect in how you view the direction of the lyric or the music, and you need to record a simple rough piano/vocal or guitar/vocal to get your thoughts across clearly? It can sometimes be easy to ride on the excitement of a collaboration and start to believe a song is better than it actually is. Nothing heals this better than time. Give it a few months, and see how the song hits you as you listen more objectively. If either writer is bound by a publishing contract, then the publisher should be involved in the decision of whether to demo the song. After all, if the publisher believes in the song enough to invest a little demo money, it suggests the publisher believes the song is worth pitching. If the publisher doesn’t think the song is marketable, then the writers may decide it’s a better idea to go back to the writing room and work up a song everyone can stand behind.

Finally, if your co-writer thinks the world of the tune you wrote together but you’re on the fence, don’t sweat it. If you’re not keen on contributing to demo costs, suggest a simple piano/vocal demo or guitar/vocal demo instead. Explain that you like to write several songs before taking them all into consideration for which are the top tunes to be demoed. If the writer is so pleased with the tune that he/she is constantly playing it for folks, don’t sweat that either. If you’ve got stronger songs, that reputation will precede you, so you simply stay the course striving for better tunes, a bigger network, and more opportunities. Other songwriters understand we are the sum of our body of work, not just one song. One song can as easily be chalked up to serendipity as it can be the result of consistent, hard work. I’m thankful for those songs that fall out without much effort, but grateful for those that come from my desire to create a specific and intentional experience.

Happy writing,

Andrea Stolpe

In response to my previous blog, ‘How Co-writers Co-write’, I’ve been asked to supply an example of a song split sheet. Eric Beall has a perfect example in his book Making Music Make Money, so you might want to pick that up. It’s also a great book explaining the function of a publisher, and what you need to do to publish and administer your own songs or those of a catalog you acquire.

You can make your own song split sheet by simply printing out a word document with the following fields:

Song Title
Names of the writers
% of ownership for each writer
Names of the publishers
% of ownership for each publisher
Month and year in which the work was completed

Then have you and your collaborators sign at the bottom.

Keep a copy for your records and give a copy to each co-writer.

If you are not under contract with a publisher or label, then you are your own publisher. By filling out this document, you are simply documenting the ownership of the song for later reference when it is recorded in a commercial setting.

Happy writing,
Andrea

Songwriting can be an isolating process at times. When we’re just starting out, the idea of sharing our ideas with someone else can be a daunting task. We might think, “what if my ideas aren’t any good? What if the co-writer takes the song to a place I don’t like? What does a co-writing situation even look like?

A large percentage of the songs we hear on the radio and on the releases of our favorite bands and solo artists are co-written. It’s not too difficult to figure out why, either, since co-writing has a long list of benefits. In a good partnership, we have someone else whose strengths and weaknesses compliment our own. We have someone to bounce ideas off of, and someone to share ideas with us when we’re at a stalemate. We expand our writing style, our network of industry connections, and grow our catalog of material faster. We also find out where our real strengths lie, personally, and professionally.

But co-writing isn’t without its challenges either. Finding a good partnership can take awhile, and so we often have to learn how to push forward despite a mismatched co-writing session. It’s a precious thing when we find a co-writer who we develop with over the length of our career. Many relationships in life follow a cycle, an ebb and flow of closeness and drifting further away. It’s no different in the co-writing relationship.

Co-writing situations can look a variety of different ways. In Nashville, where I spent the first 8 years of my career, writers made appointments to get together well in advance. Many times my publisher would pair me up with writers that enjoyed my style, and vice versa. Other times I would meet writers at shows, parties, industry functions, etc, and find we had a good connection personally. Feeling comfortable around one another is the foundation of a good union. I rarely accept a co-write with someone I don’t feel comfortable around, considering half our day will be spent creating art together.

The typical Nashville co-write involves sitting in a room with a guitar or keyboard, and trading ideas. Some writers prefer to start with a title idea or a melody, or a general theme. Others come in with no preconceived idea and simply start the day chatting about life. From there, we begin to construct a few ideas, starting anywhere we like. I like to start from the beginning, the first verse, and work my way towards the chorus. When I’m writing with an artist, it’s very important that I understand how the artist prefers to write. So in those cases, my approach may be different than with a writer who is writing for other artists.

There is no wrong way to co-write, and so finding a style and a pace that keeps the ideas rolling and results in a song you both enjoy is the only prerogative.
Writers in the pop markets often begin with a track that might consist of a beat, some harmonic movement, and instrumentation. In these cases, my job as a co-writer is to add melody and lyric to compliment the track. Again, if I’m writing with or for a specific artist, learning what that artist wants to say is of pivotal importance.

Co-writing sessions can happen over the internet, trading snippets of music via email, or exchanging lyric ideas. Songs can take 2 hours to create, or 2 months. When writing in the commercial markets, most of my songs are finished in a matter of days, with the demo soon to follow. The industry moves fast, especially the LA markets, and so being able to take an idea from start to finish in one or two 3-hour sessions, sing the vocal track, and finish up the record-quality demo and have it back in the publisher, label, or artist’s hands quickly is an asset.

The standard split between two co-writers is 50/50. That means that each writers owns half the writer share of the song. For more information on song ownership and publishing information in the United States, refer to http://www.ascap.com/
It’s a great idea to carry with you to a co-writing session a song split sheet. This is a sheet for your records, signed by all co-writers, that details the song title, date it was created (doc), co-writer names and publishers, and percentage of the splits. If there are 3 co-writers involved, the standard is 1/3 ownership to each writer.

You may have heard some horror stories out there about a writer who was somehow erased from the credits. Filling out the song split sheets will enable you to keep records of your own songs and co-writers, should you have any confusion over ownership in the future. For professional writers, the song split sheets help us remember songs that we’ve taken part in. After you write a few hundred songs, it’s sometimes difficult to remember just upon listening having written the song and who you wrote it with.

It is completely up to you and your co-writer to determine how to split the percentages of ownership. All professional writers have been in situations where they’ve written most of the song while their co-writer simply smoked a cigarette on the couch. Many of us have also been the co-writer who simply didn’t add much due to lack of ideas, or some other very real and disappointing fact of life. Instead of splitting hairs, I prefer to assume that the song would not have taken shape as it did without the chemistry of the situation that day. I also recognize that the opportunity for me to grow my career depends on the networking opportunities afforded me by my co-writers. So in the end, I try to simply do my best and write with those who I believe are also putting forth their best. That way, I have no problem splitting the fruits of our labor down the middle.

You might find co-writers online, perusing myspace, or visiting songwriting sites like Just Plain Folks, Muses Muse, or Share My Lyrics. Getting involved in your local music community serves many purposes, and is very fertile ground for linking forces with a songwriter, artist, or player who needs your talents and you theirs.

One of the most paralyzing fears of co-writing is winding up with an idea you loved upon bringing it into the session, and walking out with a song you hate. There is something you can do to handle this situation. Before sitting down to write, talk about each of you walking away with your respective ideas intact. That way, if you bring in the initial idea, you can take it to someone else later on who you feel will better develop it. If you simply can’t convince your co-writer to give you your idea back, then I suggest letting the argument go. When we view each song as the last great idea we’ll ever have, we’re on a fast train to proving ourselves right. Career songwriters learn that ideas come and go. We’re constantly growing and writing new and more relevant material. And we never know when a song we wrote 5, 10, 15 years ago suddenly gets recorded, catapulting our career forward once more. Don’t get hung up on old songs, but keep moving forward.

It takes time to find co-writers you enjoy working with. Stick with it and don’t be afraid to throw out the question “would you like to try collaborating?” when you hear someone you like. Then, bring a few ideas to the table and don’t take it personally if nothing seems to catch their ears. Keep trying, and keep pursuing those you believe will be the next forerunners in the niche you love.