revealaudio.com What's On My Mind

Lyric Writing – A Simplified Approach

Date: Sunday, October 25, 2009
Location: The Yellow House, next to The Swallow At The Hollow in Roswell, GA
Time: Begins at 2:00pm
Cost: $5.00 for GMIA members, $10.00 for non-members
RSVP: squattlebaum@gmia.org

This is the first part of the course I taught at Kennesaw State University. My students were songwriters of all skill levels and styles, and this approach helped each of them learn something new.

As many of you know, I am primarily a musician. I struggled with lyric writing in my early years as a songwriter. The principles I am sharing in this presentation are the results of years of observation and practice, and have become my personal method of approaching lyrics.

As a  producer/engineer at Reveal Audio Services, I work one-on-one with many songwriters and songwriting artists. Any time time a client is experiencing a problem in the lyric of a song, I can usually relate one of these principles to him/her and in the space of the session they usually find a way to work it out.

I feel that there are no rules to songwriting – there are only expectations. The approach I give has only a minimum of guidelines; and by following them, I believe the work of lyric writing will be easier for you and your songs will better connect with your listeners.

Please RSVP to Shelia Quattlebaum at the link at the top of the page if you plan to attend. I hope to see you there!

David

TV/Film Placement

In addition to 99 cent downloads, more than ever we are looking to film and TV for a song placement. If we are successful there, it means instant recognition for our song and for ourself as an artist, not to mention the money paid for the license and the back end performance royalties generated. Here are three internet sources:
Taxi: Billed as the world’s leading A&R company, Taxi works to pair its members with music industry professionals, hopefully resulting in label deals or song placements. It costs about $300/year to join and they charge a fee every time you want to submit one of your songs for an industry event or media placement.
Broadjam: Networking site dedicated to indie music. Song of the month/lyric of the month contests with cash prizes. Can sell downloads on site. Broadjam charges $.19 per $.99 download (20%). There are opportunities listed to place your music with film/TV projects on a reasonable flat fee per song basis.
Rumblefish: Music licensing site that acts as broker for music supervisors seeking music for film and TV. You retain all rights and performance royalties. Rumblefish gets 50% of the net licensing fees. It’s non-exclusive with a one-year term and no submission fees.

The gist of my “music is free” speech

Anyone who’s recorded with me has heard this. But in case you should need a refresher course, here it is.

In the mind of the public, music is free. There are many reasons to record and publish music that don’t have anything to do with making money, but IMO if you want to make money with music you must package your music with something of value that cannot be reproduced digitally.

There. That’s the gist of it.

Until the late 1960′s the only form of recorded music was the phonograph record. It was not portable. It could not be reproduced by the ordinary listener. Then the cassette tape was invented. At first the sound quality was inferior to the phonograph record so the music industry ignored it. But soon the quality DID improve and the fact that it allowed the user to compile a tape of their favorite music from different sources and carry it around made it more popular than the phonograph in a matter of a few years.

The music industry got legislation passed that allowed an addition of a royalty to the price of blank cassette tape as a form of compensation for the sales lost due to consumer home taping. The money generated from this went into a big pool that was distributed according to the record label/artist’s sales of real product. The more popular labels/artists got more of the pool.

Then the CD came out and we were back in the days of the phonograph. It could not be reproduced by the listener, could hold more music, sounded cleaner, and could last longer. But the invention of the CD burner changed things again. Now the consumer could make digital copies of their favorite music again, just like the cassette days. And just like the cassette days, the labels got legislation passed that allowed an additional royalty to a certain type of blank CD called the “music CD.” (The truth is that except for a header that identifies the disc as a music disc, there is no difference between this type of CDR and a data CDR except that some standalone disc burners will not burn to a data CDR. They’ve been cripped by their manufacturer.)

The internet and the MP3 changed things again. Again we have an inferior format (MP3) that is more widely used than the higher quality CD because of its portability. We think nothing of sending entire songs via email, downloading hundreds of our favorites to our hard drives and MP3 players, listening to customized internet radio, etc. So for the time being, because of the ease of digital copying, the value of recorded music is approaching zero.

On the other hand, people still pay real money for things they need like clothing, food, shelter, gasoline. So it follows that by packaging your music with something of value that cannot be reproduced digitally, you can make some money. What kinds of things am I talking about? Here are a few examples.

Your live performance is the first thing. It exists at a point in time that will never happen exactly the same again. In order to have a memory of the performance, people will buy a physical item like a CD, tee shirt, hat, etc.

If your song has a trademark-able hook, take advantage of it. Example – “Margaritaville” by Jimmy Buffet spawned an industry of items for him. Not only was the song popular, but in the thirty years following its publication, there are now Margaritaville restaurants, bar supplies, clothing lines, and more. Why? Because the title identified a lifestyle.

Niche markets like specialized groups and charitable causes are places where your music can be considered a rallying cry or an anthem for the cause. People will support the cause by purchasing your music outright. But if you can add to that with something physical, it will mean even more. One example is the song, “A Song For My Son” written and published by a mother of the groom because there were no wedding songs with that subject. She packaged the CD with a small booklet that could be signed by friends and family and kept as a keepsake.

These are just a few suggestions. I’m sure that people will not stop making music just because consumers feel they have the right to copy and distribute it without paying for it. I’m sure that at some point there will again be just compensation for creators. But for the time being, in this transitory stage, digital goods bring attention, and real goods bring real money.

Lessons and opportunities

Read a very good post by Seth Godin: Things You Can Learn From The Music Business (as it falls apart).  The thing is that the traditional way of doing business has fundamentally changed, but the musicians, the indies, the ones who aren’t necessarily signed to a major label, those are the ones who are pushing ahead in the digital era.

SoundExchange/Webcaster Agreement Reached

I read a very important piece of news yesterday in Billboard.  SoundExchange, the company designated to collect streaming royalties from internet sites, has reached an agreement with internet radio broadcasters that paves the way for them to actually begin receiving monies and distributing them.

In 2007, the Copyright Royalty Tribunal decided that the per-stream rates be set at $.0011 for 2007, $.0014 for 2008, $.0018 for 2009 and $.0019 for 2010. The agreement lowers the rates significantly (nearly 50%) and is retroactive back to 2006.

If companies are making enough money (more than 1.25 million/year) they can pay a flat rate of 25% of their gross revenues, with a $25,000 minimum payment.

Essential Reading

Found this great link today. 10 “New Music Industry” PDFs That’ll Make You An Expert.

I think these are so important that I’ve gathered them all for you here in one zip file.

Please take the time to download and begin reading them. I’m sure you’ll find that your understanding of how to find a wider audience will increase if you do.

Production and Copyright – Don’t Give It Away

I was just talking with someone today about the line between music production and cowriting. You probably all know my views on this, but I wanted to put my rant into a blog as a reference. Hopefully this will help someone from making a bad mistake.

A lot of my clients have songs in their head and they don’t play an instrument.  They sing the melody to me, I record the raw version, and we go to work from there.  Their melody implies a rhythm. We talk about the tempo and the beat and I show them some examples. They decide what it was that was closest to what they were hearing in their head.

Their melody also implies harmony – chords. I’ll try some simple ideas suggested by the melody and again, they will tell me what is closest to what they were hearing. I see my part in this as a sort of musical detective – trying to uncover the rest of the music that wasn’t heard in the raw recording. I am NOT acting as a cowriter, but as an interpreter of sorts.

Sometimes I’ll hear something that the writer didn’t hear. I’ll play that, too, and if they like it better we’ll use it instead. Now, that is treading on the line, IMO. But they didn’t come into the studio looking for a cowriter and I don’t look at what I’ve contributed as earning me a part of the song even if it makes a drastic difference in the way the final product is perceived by listeners.

Some producers think differently. Afraid that they’ll miss out on a piece of the pie or some recognition, they feel that any contribution they make that isn’t specifically spelled out is cause for them to be a part writer in the song. I feel this is wrong, but at the same time there is nothing stopping the uninformed or timid writer from making a bad decision at this point and giving up part of their copyright.

No matter how the law may be written to protect your rights, if you enter into an agreement that is not to your advantage, you must live with the consequences. Case in point – when my song “Taking Our Own Sweet Time” was recorded by the Kinleys back in the 90′s, the record label sent me a form that stated I would agree to being paid a sub-statutory rate on my royalties. The choice for me was whether to sign an agreement that earned me less money than what I was entitled to, or not sign and be excluded from the album. I signed. I got paid. I’m OK with it, but I still don’t like being another victim of record label leverage.

So, understand your rights. But also be aware of your situation and what kind of leverage you may have. You may be able to negotiate and keep more of what’s yours in the first place.