Career Songwriter

How does one get to be a paid songwriter, writing songs for a living? Reflecting on the paths of our favorite role model artists or songwriters can certainly illuminate some answers. But most times the path can seem so uncharted, and indeed our own personal path is. The trouble is that with many musical careers, one person’s experiences are vastly different from another. Some of our success depends on circumstances out of our control, such as being in the right place at the right time to meet that person who wants to finance our next record. It can be very frustrating indeed to feel ready to reach a broader audience, co-write with those who can enhance our talents and skills, or approach popular artists with our polished demos, and not have the resources to do so. But there are things we can do to create those opportunities, harnessing the power over what we can control.

What we can control are things like how much we practice our art, whether and how often we network, and deciding which jobs to take and which to let go. We can also control how we view the road to our final destination – writing songs that matter, entertaining an ever-increasing audience, becoming an expert in our particular genre, helping to spread awareness for a special cause through our music, etc. Those are the end goals, the big picture we need to keep coming back to time and again to find the fuel we need to get through the current moment.

When I was first starting out as a new writer in a new town with very few contacts, I took too much responsibility for any success that came my way. That is, at times I felt that luck didn’t have anything to do with it and it was all up to me to carve the path ahead. I’m glad I did the work, but looking back I’m also aware of the blood, sweat, and tears I shed over things out of my control. Had I to do it all over again, I would create a game plan that included a reasonable amount of effort on my part, and a reasonable amount of faith in the journey. Burn-out is something we feel when our expectations for reward don’t meet the level of effort we’re putting out, and for an artist and writer, it can wreak havoc on our inspiration and our personal lives.

Today, I’m constantly revising my game plan as my life and career change and my goals change too. I try to think in terms of short-term goals, tangible ideas I can keep track of in a notebook as a sign of my efforts and tiny victories. I’m successful in my short-term goals if I put in the effort, regardless of the final result. I encourage you to do the same, trying it out for a few months. See if you feel more satisfied with how you spend your time, more justified in the victories you win, and more accepting of those you don’t. For me, it makes all the difference.

Make sure your short-term goals are reachable. For instance, if you dream of performing two times a week and drawing a significant income from it as well as broadening your audience from that venture, start by breaking that down into smaller, reachable steps. Target some small venues in your area, and book a show a month. Devise an initial plan for promoting your shows. Make it a goal to talk to one new person a day about your gigs, and follow up with an email about the next gig. Target one business in that community you may pair up with to promote the show. Write and perform one new song a month to generate more interest in your shows. Think about the visual interest of your show, and add one new element to spice up the way your show looks. Attend one industry event, conference, or workshop every two or three months. Make it a point to network with two new contacts at that event and follow up by email. Maybe your first step is to carry your CDs with you wherever you go. Maybe it’s to record a piano/vocal of one song and organize your lyrics and music in a folder that is easy to access. Maybe your smaller step is to make one cold call each week to a club you’d like to be booked at. Whether or not you get the booking, you’ve done the work of calling. Take charge of the day to day steps that are within your control. If you’re a writer, write one new song a week. If that sounds like a lot, write one new chorus each week. Or, commit to developing the outline for one new song each week, whether you write the final lyric or not. Research one new artist or songwriter each month. Get familiar with all the songs that writer has written, and analyze one lyric and harmony or melody for the tools you’re learning in your online Berkleemusic.com course. Research the publisher who works with the artist or writer you like. Read the staff bios from that publisher, and find out if any are appearing at conferences or workshops you might attend. The important idea here is to keep pursuing, cut yourself a break, and get real about where you want to go. Don’t underestimate the small steps, but keep track of them so you can see how the efforts you put in return dividends later on.

Start your list today by brainstorming all the small steps you can take to advance your craft and business of songwriting. You might even find a partner to brainstorm together and keep you accountable for those things you can control, and those things you need not spend your valuable time and energy fretting over. It may not always be obvious how to prioritize the items on your list. When this is an issue, give yourself a deadline from which you expect to see progress. If you find you’ve been pursuing a dead end, you can change gears wiser and more seasoned in the ways of the business. In all cases, commitment is key. Seeing a project through can be the toughest hurdle. Persistence is the most important element, so keep referring to those short-term victories when the dry stretches are long.

Happy writing,
Andrea

A good friend of mine and I were carrying on the other day about the music industry, venting our frustrations, sharing our hopes, and talking nitty gritty about our goals. She’d go on about how difficult it’s been to write while touring, and how she hardly finds the energy to wash her hair much less brainstorm on song titles or plot ideas. That’s about the time when I chime in about how I always intend on actually practicing the piano, but find myself moments later writing something I’ve been tossing about in my head for a month or so.

I find it interesting that my friend can’t get enough of the stage, and I can’t get enough of pen and paper. Though we both write and we both perform, we each have identified the fuel that drives us. Sure, she looks over on my side of the fence and fantasizes about a publishing deal and staying in the same town for more than a few weeks at a time. I fantasize about crowded auditoriums clamoring with fans dying to hear me and my band as I tour the country and live the life of a rock star. But, we both know that at the end of the day, these fantasies carve out important distinctions that make us successful in the pursuits we follow every day.

Sometimes we approach our music careers with limited vision of what different careers can look like. The most obvious career for musicians is a player, or a singer or singer/songwriter. Outside of those very visible jobs are studio session players, staff songwriters, song pluggers and publishers, managers, producers, tracking engineers, mix engineers, mastering engineers, programmers, studio managers, A&R, song coaches, booking agents, music editors or music supervisors, arrangers, orchestrators and string composers, horn composers, music directors or band leaders, and the list goes on. Many times we are performing several of these duties all at the same time. As you can imagine, different jobs call for different skills, and so though we may be able to perform the tasks needed to get our jobs done, we may be wise to identify those folks who can help in the areas we are weak.

Being a staff songwriter, I spent many years writing for other people. Now and then a song would slip out that I knew would not be particularly marketable in the genre I was writing for. I had a feeling that later on I might record my own record, and that is exactly what I did. Now, though I consider myself an artist, the secret I know about myself is that if given the opportunity to write or to perform, I will almost always write. It seems to be an unconscious choice more than a conscious one. Writing just gives me energy rather than depletes it. For my good friend, she will almost always find herself on stage performing a favorite cover tune among her own tunes rather than off somewhere writing and honing her craft.

If you think about your natural tendency, what is it you find yourself doing when got a little free time? Are you busy booking gigs, going out to shows, networking with other musicians and friends, jamming with your buddies, or telling everyone you know about a great new song or artist you found while searching the depths of Myspace? What drives you, what gives you energy, what keeps you up late at night? The answer may help you to identify the strengths that make you good at what you do, and what you do fulfilling.

Just because I gain my energy from writing doesn’t mean that my influence is limited to just writing. I can perform and do all those things that feed into a successful and diverse career. The difference is that I can be realistic about my expectations, and kind to myself when setting goals.

We might be talented enough or good looking enough to become the next rock star, or have the chops to write the next big hit if we only spent the time honing our craft. But, is what we think we want doing more to limit us rather than expose and employ our true strengths? Unfortunately, this is one of those questions each of us has to answer for ourselves. The answer isn’t always as obvious and clear-cut as we’d like it to be. But, keep asking and I believe that door always opens in due time. Be prepared to let the answer grow and change too. As we experience more, we recognize more opportunities and how those opportunities call us to be the best of who we are.

Andrea

In the effort of making a living with songwriting, I find it easy to slip into the habit of thinking that unless I’m endorsing perforated strings of royalty checks, I’m not writing great tunes. Commercial success certainly can be an indicator of great writing, but it’s also a result of other elements like networking and being on the pulse of the current sound of artists in our genre. When I signed my first publishing deal in Nashville, I hadn’t yet learned what that meant. Over the years as I looked back on my development as a writer, I recognized a few patterns I had gone through that are so typical of developing songwriters and artists. Initially, I was signed based on the merit of the songs I was already creating. My publisher believed there was something unique about my musical style and my lyrical voice that he could market. His comments to me were always “honey, just keep doing what you’re doing.” For awhile, I did. But the more I began focusing outward on other writers’ and artists’ songs getting attention around me, the more I wanted that attention too. After all, I didn’t know for sure if what I was creating would be successful in the major market. That very lack of belief was what convinced me to skip the process of developing my own style further and instead just recreate what were already hits. The problem was, my publisher already had writers to fulfill that need, and the songs I wrote were just near copies. After much frustration, a hundred thousand unrecouped and several years of a good contract later, I finally came back to what I was doing in the first place.
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When it’s not possible to send each song we write off for a critique by a skilled writer, we need to get a good critique system going at home to learn how to rework our own material. I’ll go through 5 basic ideas below that I use to rewrite my own material, in hopes that they may help you to become more critical of your work where it counts. For a more in-depth study on several of these techniques, please refer to my service called ‘Songwriting Made Simple’, available at http://www.andreastolpe.com/.

1. What is the main message of the song?
Perhaps the most important element of a song is the chorus, and within that, the title. Look at where you’re singing the main idea. Is it set in the first line or last line of the chorus, or hidden within the chorus in a less prominent position? Sometimes our listener can be left confused and disinterested in our song if the title is not highlighted by its position in the chorus section.

2. Can you sing the melodic hook of the verse and chorus sections?
Every song begins with a melodic idea that is made up of pitch and rhythm. That melodic hook is like a first impression, and repeats throughout the section to form one consistent pattern. Often that hook or parts of that hook makes up other sections of the song, giving the whole piece one consistent fingerprint. Consider what that hook is for your song, whether two notes or two measures. If you can’t identify one hook, then you may have several different melodic and rhythmic ideas all fighting against each other. Listen to some of your favorite songs and notice how simple the basic hook idea is.

3. Do the song dynamics rise toward the chorus?
Consider whether the chorus section is overshadowed by the energy level of a previous section. Do you hear the chorus as the main message, or is it possible the listener may be misled to believe the second verse or pre-chorus section is the main message of the song? If your pitch is lower in the chorus than in previous sections, that may be the case.

4. Is there plenty of contrast between the song sections?
A lack of contrast results in choruses sounding just like verses, pre-choruses, and bridges. If you find the listener confused as when the chorus actually starts, then consider taking a look at the harmony, melody, and lyric in a new way. Harmonically, you can add a new chord to the first measure of the chorus, or change chords more of less frequently than in previous sections to add contrast. Melodically, you can raise the pitch, or lengthen or shorten the notes to create contrast. You can also change the beat on which the chorus melody begins. Starting before, after, or on the downbeat are the three options, and so choose one that contrasts with the starting area of the previous section. Lyrically, you can start the chorus with your title idea, and immediately repeat that idea. That repetition and setting of the main idea first distinguishes the section from others that came before.

5. How long does it take to get to the main point?
If you want your listener to wait through an intro, two verses, and a pre-chorus before arriving at the chorus section, you’d better give them a good reason to give you their attention. Production alone can do the job, but consider that you’ll need a slow build if your chorus will stand out as the highlight when it finally arrives. A much better way to ensure that your song is structurally sound without all the bells and whistles of production is to keep your sections short. Take a look at the basic verse and pre-chorus and chorus rhyme schemes in your favorite songs. Notice how many lines each section is, and take note of how many seconds each section lasts. This kind of research can yield a great deal of information about the attention span of your audience, and clue you in to how best to display your ideas so they are received with the most impact.