Intention – The Bolder Dimension of Songwriting

Paul McCartney via last.fm

My buddy Wayne asked me to share this with my friends. It is a well written article about Songwriting that all songwriter's might enjoy.

Wayne Cohen, veteran multi-platinum selling ASCAP hit songwriter, producer and educator, owner of publishing/production company Stand Up Songs.

Wayne teaches individual and group songwriting tutoring sessions at his NYC Stand Up Studio and via Skype.

One of my song tutoring students recently sang me a song she was working on called ‘Listen You’, which I thought was a cool idea about missing that special someone. She had strong lyrics for her chorus, but the chorus chords she had were in a minor key just like the verse had been. The minor chords worked great in the verse, but the melody fell flat at the chorus. I call this kind of chorus melody problem flat lining, as in, the melody didn’t lift enough for a chorus. I suggested that she go to the relative major key for the chorus, and that the melody needed to be ‘happier’ to pay off the manic lyric idea she had set up. This eventually made for a killer chorus for that song.

This started me thinking, if the question is, ‘how do you write a breakthrough song?’

This experience with my student reinforced my conviction that having an intention when writing is the answer. In other words, if you can imagine the result you want before you get there, you have a much better chance of achieving that result.

I think lack of intention is one of the things that is crippling the music industry. I see creators in many fields (not just songwriters) influenced by the culture of immediacy that we are living in. I believe some songwriters are influenced away from writing a breakthrough song, expressing a riveting clear universal emotion with catchy melodies, and instead are focused on making trendy tracks that sell immediately. I think the craft of songwriting is suffering as a result, and this shortsightedness is contributing to a lack of certain songs’ longevity on the charts.

But keeping this idea of intention can be a tricky business when writing a song, because sometimes you don’t want to question that magical part of writing from pure inspiration. Great songs can seem to fall out of the sky and flow through the writer.

However there are so many facets of songwriting that can be improved by conscious thought. There are many examples of this, not the least of which is McCartney’s now clichéd story about ‘Yesterday’ starting out as a song he dreamed called ‘Scrambled Eggs’. After further consideration, the title and subsequent lyric story of ‘Yesterday’ had just the right feeling for the melody he dreamed. The title and lyric fit like hand in glove. But he worked at it ‘til he had something great. And that was all because of his intention to write a great song. Luckily he didn’t settle for ‘Scrambled Eggs’.

So, you ask, how can we take an OK song and make it better, with the right intention?

As a starting point, here is a quick intention checklist to run your songs by.
Intention Check List:

1. How do you want the song to feel?
2. Does every aspect of the song feel the way you want it to feel?
3. Does the lyric develop within a section, and from section to section, to express an urgent coherent story, the way you want it to?
4. Does the melody have the right flow, i.e., does it climax and subside where it needs to? (from the verse into the chorus, etc..)
5. Is there rhyme scheme consistency and development in the right places?
6. Have you mapped your melodic rhythm by using slash marks to count the number of syllables (for ex., map the V1 melody so that V2 will have the same melodic rhythm)?

Feel free to drop me a line and let me know how you did with the checklist…I’m curious! You can hook up with my buddy Wayne here: wayne@standupsongs.com

COPYRIGHTS & WRONGS-A Guide to protecting your music....4

Image via Wikipedia

ALL TOGETHER NOW

Prolific songwriters and performers often worry about the cost of multiple registrations. At $45.00 a song, it definetely adds up. One option is to register music as a collection for one filing fee, using From PA (for musical compositions only) or Form SR (for compositions and their recordings, or recordings only). According to the Copyright Office, all the songs (and recordings, if applicable) in a collection must have the same copyright owner(s). Collections of songs don't have to be an entire album; they can be partial albums, suites, movements, or simply a gathering of your music.

Give your collection a title to appear in the Copyright Office's records. While you can also specify the individual titles within the collection, those will not appear in the Office's records unless you register them separately or submit a supplementary registration (Form CA).

Be sure to read the Office's circulars on musical compositions (Cir 50) and sound recordings (cir 56) for details. The easiest way to access forms or circulars is by visiting www.copyright.gov/register/performing.html for musical compositions, or www.copyright.gov/register/sound.html for sound recordings.

More tomorrow....

DEMO PRODUCTION

Image via Wikipedia

An entire book can be written on the subject of producing demos, so I'll focus only on some of the points you're less likely to read elsewhere. First of all, don't let anyone tell you that production values don't matter and that the song's quality will be heard regardless of your demos sound and arrangement. A producer or A & R manager might listen to 100's of demo's each day. Which one do you think will grab their attention, the one that sounds like a hit record or the one that has an out-of-tune vocal sung to a lone acoustic guitar recorded with a Radio Shack mic?

Production is of paramount importance. Whenever possible, compose catchy instrumental hooks for your songs before recording them. Make the intro short--no more thN 10 seconds if possible. Keep solos to a maximum length of 8 bars or cut them out completely. The more deliberate, fast paced, and powerful your arrangement is, the more the demo will retain the listener's attention and sell the song.

Unless you're Prince, resist the temptation to play all the instruments and sing all the parts on your demo's. Having ace union musicians and singers perform on your demos can make them sound like hits. That said, doing so will also likely eliminate those demos from being considered for placement in film and TV projects. To use any of the instrumental tracks played by union musicians in a synch-to-picture (film or TV) placement, they must first be upgraded to "phono" status with the American Federation of Musicians (AFM). Phono status essentially makes the demo recordings eligible to be used in new media (film, TV, record release, and so on) as well as a "new use." The upgrade from demo to phono status requires that all musicians on the session be paid master scale, which equals roughly double the demo scale rate you already paid them, and be given pension-fund payments for the entire session. This is required even if you will use the demo recording for only one song recorded during a multi song session.

The production company must convert the demo recording to motion picture use (a new use)at considerable cost. Yet they cannot do so unless and until the demo recording is upgraded to phono status. They will typically insist that you pay for the upgrade. The production company may also ask you to make any required "additional payments" (royalties) to union musicians in connection with the song being licensed, which you should refuse to do.

All this haggling may be moot, however, as many TV placements must be negotiated from soup to nuts during your first phone conversation with the shows producer, in order to meet an imminent air date. Therefore, most producers feel there is no time to work our AFM arrangements. In most cases, they want a song whose rights are already "cleared." Similar issues arise with demo singers who belong to SAG (Screen Actors Guild). So if your main thrust as a music publisher will likely be film and TV placements, make sure your demos are either completely performed by yourself or by nonunion musicians and singers whose talents are contracted fo in a one-time buyout.

I am overwhelmed by the response to this series. We obviously listened to you, found your topic of interest and got into it. I can tell by the forwarding of these writings to others and that's awesome. Remember, it is only "applied" knowledge that gives you power to excel.

More tomorrow....

More Cost-Saving Strategies

Image via Wikipedia

You can decrease your cost per song by registering multiple songs at once as a collection, paying a single fee for the entire lot. For example, the title of your collection might be "Collection of Songs From Tennessee: 1. I Love You Dearly, 2. Baby, Don't Leave Me, 3. I Hate You For Leaving,"where the collection's title is arbitrary and followed by the tiltes of each song you want to register. The Copyright Office recently announced its intention to charge a fee of $1 per title for electronic claims and $3 per title for paper claims listing titles of individual works in song collections. This isn't simply price grouping on the part of the Copyright Office; the additional fees help pay for keeping track of individual songs in a collection so they will show up in a database search. That way, someone won't have to know a song collection's provisional title in order to locate an included song's copyright owner. Current copyright fees are listed at www.copyright.gov/docs.

MasterWriter (www.masterwriter.com) offers its Web-based Songuard service as an alternative means of protecting your songs at greatly reduced cost. When you buy MasterWriter software, which is an outstanding songwriting application (see the review in the April 2004 issue at emusician.com), you get a free one-year subscription to the Songuard service; the fee for the service is $30 annually after the first year. Songuard registers and stores the date of creation of your song's melody and lyrics on the company's server. That's useful in protecting a song in it's development stage. Once the song is published, however, there are important benefits to registering it with the Copyright Office, including the right to be re-imbursed for attorneys' fees in a successful copyright-infringement proceeding.

Songs that were previously registered with the Copyright Office when they were unpublished need not be registered again after publication. However, you will need to deposit two complete phonrecords of the published sound recording's "best edition," along with any phonorecord packaging, with the Copyright Office. (Go to www.copyright.gove for more information.) If this isn't done withinh theree months of publication, you'll be levied a hefty fine. It's a silly, antiquated requirement, but it's the law. Songs available only as internet downloads are currently exempt from this requirement.

To run a smooth operation, you'll need to maintain a modest inventory for your company. Obviously, you'll need business letterhead and either custom mailing labels or preprinted mailers that include your company's logo and address. For making copies of your song demos, you'll need blank CDs with printable surfaces and a color printer that can print directly on CDs. The printer will likely come with software you can use to develop a template file for printing song titles and contact information on your CDs and importing your company's logo as a background graphic. Don't use CD labels--if they are applied out-of-round to your CDs, the disc won't play on some players. Buy extra ink tanks or cartridges before you run out. And keep a good supply of slimline CD cases or clamshells on hand for securing your CDs inside mailers.

Print several lyric sheets for each song in your catalog so you'll always have them on hand for urgent mailings. Lyrics should also be stored in electronic form so you can quickly paste them into emails when sending MP3's to industry contacts.

We will discuss the topic of Demo Production tomorrow...

I am overwhelmed by the amount of emails coming in from all of regarding this series. If there is a topic in the music industry you want to further discuss, please continue to feed us the topics. We will review them and discuss them based on your demands.

Copyright Registration

Image via Wikipedia

Once your music-publishing company is set up, you'll want to protect all the songs currently in your catalog from potential copyright infringement before making any preexisting demos broadly available for other people to hear. Protecting your songs entails establishing a creation date for each with an unaffiliated third party. One way to do this is to register your songs with the Copyright office.

Registration forms can be downloaded for free (www.copyright.gov/forms). Use form PA (Performing Arts) for registering sheet music with the Copyright Office. You can use form SR (Sound Recording) to register both an audio recording of the song and the underlying composition--melody, lyrics and arrangement--at once. The recording needn't be the fully produced version of the song; it only has to clearly convey the music and lyrics in order to protect the underlying song.

When you register your new songs with the Copyright Office, make sure you list your publishing company (not yourself) as the copyright owner, noting in the appropriate section of the registration form "transfer of all rights by the author(s)" as the means by which your company procured copyright ownership from the songwriter(s). By registering your company as the copyright owner, you give it the authority to issue licenses and collect revenues for the song's use by others.

You'll also want to transfer to your publishing company any songs previously copyrighted under your name. You may record this transfer with the Copyright Office, but it's an expensive way to go. The only practical reason to record copyright transfers with the Copyright Office, however, is to protect yourself from conflicting transfers (that is, someone else claiming that the song's copyright was transferred to them and not to you). This is moot if you're the only author of the song, as nobody can register a conflicting transfer unless you gave them your contractual consent to do so.

A valid, no-cost solution for transferring a song written solely by yourself to your publishing company is to draw up a simple document--signed by you and listing the title of the song being transferred--that agrees to the transfer (see online bonus material "From Me To Me" at emusician.com). You may then freely substitute the name of your publishing company in lieu of your personal name on all copyright notices for the song, such as on CD's and lyric sheets.

More Saving Strategies tomorrow...

Setting Up Your Own Music Publishing Company

Image via Wikipedia

Perhaps the most commom career oriented question unsigned songwriters ask me is, "How can I get my songs published?" Many of those same writers have only a vague notion of what it means to be published. If you've already sold recordings of your songs to the public, you are a published songwriter. The federal 1976 Copyright Act defines publication (the act of publishing as "the distribution of copies of phonorecords of a work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease or lending." Phonorecords are defined as "material objects in which sounds...are fixed."

There are a lot of ways to make money from the use of one of your songs than just selling your recording of it. Other ay cut, or record, the song. It might be used in a movie, a movie trailer, a TV series, a TV special, a music video, a videogame, for consumer advertising, for a ringtone, or for a myriad of other uses. Promoting, licensing, and getting paid for such song uses is the job of a music publisher.

Many unsigned songwriters would love to hand off business oriented tasks to a music publisher so they can focus on the creative task of writing songs. Unfortunately, the moment you sign on the dotted line with a music publisher, you give away your copyrights and half the revenues the songs covered in the contract will earn. For these and other reasons, many songwriters choose to keep all the profits and self-publish their songs.

This article will explain the basics of how to set up and operate your own music-publishing company. To keep this article to a manageable length, my focus will be on publishing your own songs. Before I get to the nuts and bolts of becoming a music publisher, let's examine the benefits and drwbacks of doing so.

Over the next week, we wil discuss this topic at great length. If you have songwriter friends, this will be the place to get the information the way that it will best apply to you.

Tip sheets are an essential, subscriber based service for music publishers. Here are a few for country music, which include the label, artist, producer(s), contact person(s) and recording schedule for each project.

Pitch This Country Music Tip Sheet (www.pitchthismusic.com) is the most comprehensive listing of current projects for major-label and second-tier (prominent indie and joint venture) companies. Published monthly, this tip sheet is generated by successful, Nashville based song pluggers, and often includes difficult-to-obtain details on what specific types of material are being sought for each project listed (for example, "Soulful, real-life lyrics with range and attitude"). Check this site out, determine if it has value to your objectives and bookmark this page.

More tomorrow.

Song Of The Day "Wild Girl"

Image via Wikipedia

Somewhere back there Rickie Lee Jones lost her way.

I'll vote for the second album. Sure, the first was great, I loved "Weasel and the White Boys Cool", but the second, "Pirates", begins with a one-two punch that's undeniable, it knocks you out cold, you wake up on the floor, staring at the ceiling.

We belong together.

Have you ever laid in bed, wondering about the distance between the two of you, deciding whether to break it off or try and continue and you suddenly decide "we belong together"?

The operative word is "we". That's when relationships are on fire, when it's no longer about you and her, but when you can't imagine life without your other half, when you think the cosmos has determined you belong together.

I actually called up a girl and told her this. We'd had a hard time docking, we were unable to make it fit, frustrated, it looked like it was best to return to our respective corners, permanently. But this night I determined we belonged together.

She didn't see it the same way.

And, in retrospect, she was right. We didn't belong together. But that doesn't mean I don't remember that feeling. Just like Rickie Lee Jones sings it in this song. It's a private moment, not a diva onstage singing for everybody, but a private symphony playing in your own head.

The follow-up, "Living It Up", has got a completely different vibe. But it's no less touching, no less meaningful. You may think you're living it up, you might put a sunny face on the situation, but is that the truth?

Then Rickie lost the plot. She stopped working with Lenny Waronker and Russ Titelman. She did a great cover of "Walk Away Renee", but the albums no longer hit you in the same way. She was Rickie Lee Jones once. Now?

It's a beautiful day in L.A.

And I'm driving west on Wilshire and I hear the new Rickie Lee Jones song for the second time, "Wild Girl".

On Sirius XM's Loft. Meg Griffin was spinning it from her perch on the coast of Massachusetts.

And the song speaks for itself. But you can't hear it. I found it nowhere online.

You can hear a snippet at http://www.rickieleejones.com/ It's not the first track, still the first track works too.

How did Rickie Lee come back twenty years later?

By finishing twenty year old songs.

Her Website has too much Flash, you'd never go back. But the TV-type images are fascinating. They've got the feel of the music. This is not some babe of the moment in a video clip, this is meaning. We're all lonely at heart, but we're yearning to feel connected. Music, when done right, brings us together.

The second track on the Website player is "Wild Girl". You'll get a taste. Longer than thirty seconds, but not long enough. It's snappy, yet not mindless. It's visceral, it opens your skin and tucks itself inside.

But you can check out this live YouTube clip from last May.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBBJ2yBn_BU

The sound is not perfect, but Rickie Lee's voice is. She's aged, but her voice has lost nothing. It's stunning, you look at the image and you can't believe anyone can sound this good without some kind of aural trick.

Concord also has a clip, but although the audio is better than the YouTube video, it doesn't have quite the same punch and it stutters, still, it's great.

http://concordmusicgroup.com/newmedia/video/rickieleejones/rickie_lee_jones_wild_girl_clip.html

I don't think Rickie Lee Jones will return to her seventies perch. Where she was the hipster who dominated the country. But if you listen to "Wild Girl", not only will you believe she's still got it, you'll be blown away that she blows all the poseurs away.