A Would-Be Songwriter's Conundrum

It’s confusing to know whether you’re a songwriter or not.  It’s difficult to know what the qualifications are, as there is no one authoritative source that defines such things.  The question is one of earning money and popularity.  You can tell people you are one, and then you can worry if that is being dishonest.  You don’t want to be dishonest.

Since you’re reading this, you likely already have an idea that I’m one of the many people in the world who write and record songs that you can listen to via web streaming.  I used to tell people I did it as a hobby, and then technology evolved to allow me to offer my recordings of my songs to the world.  Does this make me more of a songwriter, or am I still just a would-be songwriter?

I like to write songs and record them, and I’ll probably keep doing it because it’s fun.  I shouldn’t care if I’m self-taught, and I shouldn’t care if I can safely say it’s something I know how to do or not.  A part of me feels like a poser and questions the legitimacy of what I do.  I can’t help it that my thoughts drift off to wondering whether I’m faking it or not, whether I’m a fraud, whether I can claim to be one or not.

You can write a song and play it, that’s one thing.  Another is you can record it.  The permanent record serves as proof.  It can be an art and a craft.  There are basic elements songs should have like a melody, and unless an instrumental composition, lyrics and rhyme.  Some of the definitions you can look up say in addition to writing the music and the words, you can especially be considered a songwriter if the song is popular.  Defining popularity is another conundrum.

I call myself a songwriter, but a part of me wonders if I’m qualified to be able to say that.  I write songs, record them, and then distribute them to music streaming services.  As someone who takes an autonomous, do-it-yourself approach, I produce and publish music independently from commercial record labels.  If I were young, I would try to achieve both professional status in some way and popularity with my songs.

I would definitely feel more confident telling people I am a songwriter if I achieved any of these:

• Hit:  I wrote and recorded a song that had mainstream popularity

• Signed:  I wrote and recorded songs but was signed to a record label

• Staff:  I was a staff writer under employment contract for a publisher

• Cut:  I could say I wrote a song that a label-signed artist recorded

• Placement:  I could say I wrote a song used in a movie or TV show

I’ve done none of the above, so you could say I’m definitely not a professional, but as an amateur using a digital aggregator distribution service with my own publishing and label, I have actually earned some royalty income.

From my humble home studio near Flint, Michigan, I’m not in the ideal situation for going after any of those.  I’ll never be a great singer, so if I was advising my 20-yr. old self, I’d tell me to move to Nashville.

It’s important to focus on what you do have going for you though.  Occasionally taking stock in what you’re good at, and what you have to offer, can get you fired up to keep doing more of it.  It also presents an opportunity to tell people what makes you unique and stand out among the others.  Some people have more natural abilities than others, and you can’t be good at everything, but it’s fun to try.  Although delegation and collaboration and specialization can have benefits for songwriters, it is very satisfying to be able to say you did everything yourself without anyone’s help when it comes to anything creative.

Some things I’m proud of:

• I‘m the sole writer of my songs

• I write the music and the lyrics

• I play all of the instruments

• I’m the beatmaker

• I’m the top-liner

• I’m the arranger

• I’m the producer

• My house is my studio

• I’m the recording engineer

• I’m the mixing engineer

• I’m the mastering engineer

• I’m the video producer

• I’m the publisher

• I’m the label

• I’m the marketer

• My own webmaster

• I’ve released over 100 songs

I am self-taught in all of the above!

I don’t co-write, and in this era, in which a famous artist like Beyonce lists 20 different songwriters on a single song, it is somewhat unusual.

I’ve had no lessons other than a single Intro To Guitar course my Senior year in college, yet I can play rhythm, lead, slide, fingerpicking and bass guitar.  Piano, organ, harmonica, ukulele, mandolin, marimba, drums and percussion too – all me, all self-taught.

I’ve never used a real recording studio, and I’ve never had another musician play on any of my songs…except accordion by my wife on a few.

I would be willing to bet that even though I think figuring out how to do all of the above myself makes me special, there are millions of others out there.  The world is a big place.  Many of them are probably also good at skiing.  Nonetheless, I think you should be impressed, because looking back, I’m impressed I figured all this out too.  I’m not sure why all of this seemed interesting to me, but it did.

As you can see, I am a lot more than just a songwriter, and being able to do all of these related things might help my case for being able to rightfully call myself a songwriter.  

I think the quantity thing has to score me a few points too in favor of being able to self-apply the songwriter to my identity.  A lot of people with a guitar or piano will tell you they’ve written hundreds of songs, but there’s no proof.  I have actually publicly released and formally published and copyrighted around 150 original songs.  You can find the proof online, so there’s that.  One could argue that I’m quite prolific.

Popularity is another thing.  How to define it?  All you can do is compare the streaming stats in this day and age.  It’s relative.  Some of my songs have a measure of popularity then, and some of them are mor e popular than others, and some of them are more popular than other songwriter/artists’ songs.

Let’s face it:  Although I’ve made a little money, I’m not a professional.  Although I’ve had some streams, I don’t have any real popularity.  People wouldn’t say either of those about me, and I don’t say them about myself.  Not a pro, not popular.

You can’t argue against those two statements, and being a popular pro is a part of most definitions of ‘songwriter’, so therefore, I am not a songwriter.

Being good is another thing, the whole judgement thing, appreciation being objective and all that.  Everyone has close friends and family who dish out compliments about their creative art projects.  Polite applause at the open mic night, the gig at the bar filled with people who know you.  Sales and streams can be measured, yet we all suspect that record company promotion and marketing and advertising can manufacture success through hype and create popularity when it isn’t necessarily deserved or organic.

You can write what you think are songs, you can play them, you can record them, you can even try to sell them on the internet.  You think they not only might qualify as being actual songs, but also you think they might even be pretty good.  You wonder if a great singer could really make them sound like great songs, like way better than even you could've imagined when you wrote them.  

You wonder if such a thing might even be a realistic possibility.  When you're not a good singer or performer yourself though, and thus can't really deliver the songs in a state that would prove they're pretty good, you think to really be able to call yourself a songwriter, you need to have someone who is a really good singer and performer record your songs.  Getting "cuts" is the one thing that would certainly validate your hobby.  

Are you really a songwriter?  Most people can hit a dance floor and move around a bit, but can't really call themselves dancers.  Lots of people go on talent shows on TV thinking they can sing, but the millions of viewers think otherwise.  Getting a song you wrote recorded by a famous singer is the holy grail if you're like me and can't sing well yourself.  You think your songs might be good enough for such a thing, but you're not sure.  So, you look into how to go about making such a thing happen.  

You'd like to be a songwriter who has his songs recorded by famous artists, but you don't live in a place like Nashville or New York or Los Angeles where the famous artists are.  You know the experts advise you to move to one of those places to have a chance among the massive competition, but you're not willing to do that.  You can try to pitch via email, have an online presence, even release your own demos, but dread the hassle and fear the rejection, so you don't do it.  You know the successful songwriters move to Nashville and pay for top-quality demos, then pitch them in person after networking like crazy.  

You know that your singing and instrument-playing and home recording capabilities on your self-made demos are not that good, but you can't afford to pay for pro session singers, musicians, recording engineers or real studio time.  You research services like TAXI who supposedly once in a while get songwriter's songs to famous recording artists, movie/TV music supervisors, record labels, and publishing companies, but in reality, they are in California and primarily get radio-ready songs to their connections in the movie and tv business.  They also offer critiques and tell you your demos do not have that radio-ready quality yet.  You pay them to tell you this, which you already know.  So that won't work, so you don't pay them.  

You're not a great performer, so you don't go that route of trying to get paid gigs as a solo artist yourself.  Such is the conundrum of the non-performing songwriter who doesn't have much money and doesn't live in a place like Nashville.  You can't really hit an open mic night at a bar and have an A&R guy in the audience approach you to have his major-label artist record the great song you just played.  

There's not even much of a songwriter community for you to network with locally where you live, or even much of a music scene for that matter, so the odds are not in your favor.  About the best you can do is to keep writing, recording, and releasing, and hope you can increase the sales without any money to promote, market, or advertise your records.  You can't afford to have decent music videos.  You hope for viral recommendation via social media.  You know some independent artists pay for fake likes and follows to artificially make their music appear to be more popular, which can actually make it more popular, but you refuse to stoop to such unethical tactics.  

Even if you were able to move to Nashville, you know that for songwriters, it's the equivalent of thinking you can act and moving to Hollywood.  There's gonna be a ton of other people from the small towns of America who flock there seeking to realize the same dream.  Where they are from, there were hardly any other people who could write songs at all, or act at all, so of course for their area, they were perhaps not bad, and perhaps think they're better than they really are.  

The cream rises to the top, as you know, and the vast majority of the rest give up and move home or serve people food in restaurants or whatever.  You don't really know for sure if you don't ever try, I guess.  It can take years of putting yourself in the right places with the right people at the right times for the now-successful ones who "made it" to get where they got.  

You know all of this.  You also personally know people who made the pilgrimage to Hollywood or Nashville or New York and came back being able to say they at least tried to be an actor or dancer or musician or singer or songwriter, and you wonder if they'd been better off never having attempted it in the first place.  You learn from hearing their stories, reading on the internet, forming your own opinions, taking it all into consideration as you wonder if you could have better luck.

Sometimes I think I barely know what I’m doing.  Lyrics, melodies, harmony, rhythm, vocals – yes, what I make checks these boxes.  Words set to music, meant to be sung.  I’ve created a lot of these.  Based on that alone, I guess I can say I’m a songsmith.

At this point in my life, I’m not going to move to Nashville or subscribe to pitch sheets and submit my demos to labels, publishers, agents or artist managers.  I’m not going to network in person or online.  I’m not going after cuts, placements, employment, or record deals.  What I am going to keep doing is writing songs, recording “demos” and just releasing those demos as a pretend solo recording artist myself.  Maybe the streams will increase, maybe not.

You only really wonder about these things when not in creative mode.  You’re wishing you were more popular, more legitimate.  You wish you made more than fractions of a penny for each stream.  You are reminded of this type of thing when you get a report on your “success” from one of the streaming services such as this one from Spotify that I just got:

Some creative art works can be easily made from your home, and songs are included.  They can also be made available for public consumption from your home.  Twenty years ago, this was not the case.  In May of this year, according to Spotify, I had 186 listeners, an increase of 94% over April.  Might even add up to over one penny this time, who knows.  Does having a monthly increase in streaming stats mean I can call myself a songwriter yet?  Still don’t know.  Does the appearance of popularity beget more popularity?  They say it does.  Does using the word ‘beget’ make me cool?  Definitely.  Is this all an example of humble bragging?  Yah, you betchya.  I write about this kind of thing a lot to make sense of it, and I keep coming back to an overall feeling of being in the right place at the right time for this to be possible, and feeling fortunate I am able to do it.  Thanks for being a reader and listener!

Big Egos and Grandiose Notions: How Songwriters Act in Times of Crisis

We’ve never seen anything quite like this in our lifetimes.  As songwriters shelter in place, they are no doubt contemplating writing, recording and releasing songs to make people feel better during a sad time for the world.  I’m not an exception. 

Instead of some sort of save the world through song, Live Aid-style thing, I’ll probably want to get out a few more songs from my bedroom here in Michigan somehow.  Maybe another album, maybe a single, maybe just hit record on the computer webcam and upload a solo performance of a new previously-unreleased original to YouTube.

When the lucky, famous, wealthy and privileged people seemingly have advantages to get tested before the rest of us regular folk, you dread the inevitable indulgent all-star jam for a worthy cause, and this cause is different.  Thankfully, you won’t get all those celebs on the same stage together for quite a while.

Don’t die with the music in you.  That’s from a t-shirt I saw a while back in a songwriter magazine.  I’ve got some good ones in progress, and some completed ones I haven’t released yet.  The thought has crossed my mind that I’ve got some risk factors, and when dead and gone, my wife won’t be able to figure out how to get my recordings of my songs off my computer and put them online, so no one will ever hear them.  Not that there’s a big demand in my case, but these are the types of thoughts that can cross our minds lately.

You can bet that the recording artists with a certain level of self-importance like that perhaps misunderstood Bono guy from U2 for example are going to record a video or house concert with a new, uplifting song, and those who were already generally annoyed by him will be more annoyed than ever.  I predict you’ll see a wave of similar popular acts and famous artists hit the internet and YouTube with something similar in the coming months, and the pretention levels will be high.  That said, it’s all good.

Whether we can relate to a sad song about loss, or feel uplifted by a song with a “stay positive, we’ll get through this” sentiment, such new music will be a welcome escape for those of us with internet connections, and for those without, at least for those who still have electricity, we’ll take solace and comfort in our old CDs and records on a home stereo of some kind, or maybe even the now-old-fashioned thing called a radio. 

In an unprecedented time when Amazon has stopped selling CDs and vinyl records, might as well take advantage of the seclusion and alone time to get inspired and “re-kindle” the creative fires.  So when you’re stuck in the house, and your guitar is there, and there’s a computer to type and record on, songwriters are going to do what they do, whether they really think their songs can truly make a difference in the world or not.

I’m no different.  If you have this hobby, you can’t help it.  It’s a way to get your feelings off your chest, and a creative outlet is a good way to spend your time instead of constantly consuming the latest sad news and living in fear.  I’m on a bit of a roll of late, having written and recorded a few new songs this year.  It’s fun, and it takes your mind off worrying about the future. 

You can’t help but wonder if your latest new inspirational song could catch on and make a difference to people by cheering them up or providing a calming influence or temporary escape from the fear.  Few can make money from writing and recording songs these days, but that’s not why you do it anyway – it’s out of pure passion.

When you think you’ve written a good one, and one that would be particularly impactful during tough times, you’re tempted to put it out as a single right away, rather than wait for enough songs to release a whole album.  You’re also tempted to just record a solo video of yourself singing and playing it live because the reality is you might not be around long enough to release that next album.

It occurs to you in times like these that you won’t be around forever, and little will remain, but maybe some of the songs will still be floating around the internet.  That’s the hope.  Long after I’m dead and gone, this little blog nobody knows about or reads might still exist, and if so, its posts will collectively tell some type of larger story about some dead guy who used to write songs and record them while he was alive.

The optimist in me believes I’ll survive, and the songwriter in me thinks it’s one of the reasons I was put on this Earth.  I seriously have this grandiose notion that it’s part of God’s plan for me – to stick around and keep putting new music out into the world.  It may be funny to some to hear that because I realize I’m not famous or even particularly good.  I’m aware I’m not a great singer or musician, but it could be that my ego is telling me I’m a decent songwriter, and that’s a part of my life’s purpose.

Praise is a strong word, but if you’ve interpreted positive feedback from people about your songs, the realist in you might chalk it up as being “kind and polite,” but your ego reassures you that it’s genuine.  If you’re at all like me, you know you have these thoughts from time to time, and that you’ve been spared so far because it’s a contribution you make, and further, that it might even be important in some way. 

When you’re confident enough to call yourself a songwriter, whether you qualify in the minds of experts or not, you keep on with it regardless of your abilities because you can pause for a while, but you can’t ever stop completely, even if all you can do is write in your head.

Indeed, I have had people tell me they enjoyed my songs before, and that fact tells me I’ve already made a small difference in people’s lives.  Just a little of that serves as fuel to keep going.  You can’t help but want to help, and writing and recording a song is a way you can help. 

It comes naturally to people like me, so you can expect that in a much smaller way, sad and pathetic as it may sound, I’ll probably be jumping on the bandwagon and joining the ranks of all these artists you’ll be getting inspirational songs from during this challenging time in the world.  We’re all going to die eventually, but it’s going to be okay.  You keep doing what you do in whatever time you have left.  Stay tuned.

Why acoustic guitars are so much better for songwriters than electrics

It may be that playing an acoustic guitar instead of an electric is doing it the hard way, or a wimpy way, depending on how you look at.  Electrics are tougher, meaner, wilder and more aggressive sounding, but they’re easier on the fingers to play.  You don’t have to press as hard, the necks are thinner and faster.  Bronze wound acoustic steel strings build up calluses on your fingers and thus kind of get you in better shape for playing.  Higher action and heavier strings on acoustics, lower and lighter on electrics.  Hard rock on an electric is easier to play, soft rock on an acoustic is harder to play, one could argue.

Depending on your preferences, acoustics can perhaps sound harsh and rougher on the ears, whereas electrics have a slick smooth sheen about their sound.  The sustain and effects can hide a lack of good playing technique, whereas acoustics leave you naked and can easily reveal the little mistakes.  On the other hand, acoustics played well can be simply beautiful.  The music they produce may be lighter sounding, and the actual weight of them is physically lighter.  Electrics can be uncomfortably heavy to play and the necessary shoulder straps can hurt your shoulders and give you neck and back problems, especially when you’re older.

To use an all-American baseball analogy, acoustics could be considered like practicing batting swings with several wooden bats in the on deck circle before throwing them on the ground and stepping up to the plate with a light aluminum bat.  Maybe electric guitars are aluminum bats, and maybe amplifiers and effects pedals are like swinging with corked bats.  I have a preference throughout my playing and recording "career" to stick with acoustics, not for practice to get in shape for electric playing, but even when I have electrics available at my disposal, I almost always choose the old dreadnaught.  It’s more handy for writing, and I just prefer the tone they make more when recording.

I’ve stayed true to a signature sound that includes the acoustic guitar as the primary instrument in my music.  It evolved naturally.  I was not a musician until several years into adulthood.  Before that, I was a music fan.  Early on, I was a fan of music my parents liked, which included early 70s folk rock, an example of which was the John Denver records they had in their collection.  His music also featured acoustic guitar, his lyrics were about the beauty of the natural world, he was an environmentalist, he seemed like a nice guy, and he liked skiing – all things I appreciated, even as a young boy.

As I got a little older, I got into the hard rock of the late 70s with my peers, which included musical acts who also had acoustic songs like Neil Young and even Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin.  On the radio, I’d hear the soft rock artists like America, Gordon Lightfoot, James Taylor, Paul Simon, CSN, Jim Croce, Cat Stevens, Van Morrison, and Bread.  This is what I grew up on.  The late 70s brought a myriad of changes that lasted through the entire 80s that were not great for acoustic music – with the exception being the Violent Femmes, a huge influence on me.

Disco and punk faded out as new wave, pop and hair metal came and went along with grunge in the early 90s.  Then came the unplugged MTV show and related album releases of the early 90s – it was getting appealing again – with rock bands playing rock music on all acoustic instruments.  From about the turn of the century onward though, acoustic music has been off the beaten path and underground for the most part.  Mainstream country sounds like bad rock music sung with a southern twang accent, which I don’t have a taste for.

There’s always been this undercurrent of serious folk – last popular in the 60s and slowly dying since with the baby boomer crowd – that’s just somehow not cool or fun enough for me.  It should be no surprise the singer-songwriter genre leans more toward rock than folk, and features the acoustic guitar.   Along the way, I somehow discovered the good stuff from before I was born – the early acoustic blues and hillbilly music., the acoustic songs of the Beatles, etc.  Online discovery and recommendation has led me to discover the odd gem I somehow missed along the way like Elliott Smith.

The cheap, used acoustic is a typical first guitar for many, and I’m no exception.  It’s easier to find sheet music or chords online for guitar than other instruments when you’re learning covers of your favorites early on.  Because I was raised on rock, the guitar is a natural choice, because there was at least one in all these bands I liked.  It’s great to learn on, and there’s just something about the immediacy of being able to just pick it up and make sound without the hassle of having to plug anything in.

When the creative urge strikes, you want to capture what you can as soon as you can so you don’t lose the magic.  Over-editing and over-producing can achieve slick perfection, but I like the rough edges.  On the other hand, I have a soft side, I’m a mellow laid-back kind of person, so it’s just a part of what suits my style and personality I guess.

It’s also a lot easier to emulate the songs you like as opposed to playing a bass, drums, or a horn to sing along with, so it’s the ultimate solo instrument.  It’s made of trees, so it’s pretty organic.  They’ve been around a long time.  They’re portable, and you don’t need extra stuff like an amp and a cable to get sound out of it.  You don’t need to be near electricity, so you can hike into the wild and entertain around a campfire.

For all these reasons and more, it’s possibly the best instrument to write songs on as well.  You get a faster idea to recording transfer.  They tend to stay in tune better than electric guitars.  They rest on your leg easily while sitting without the need for a shoulder strap.  You don’t have to turn knobs to dial in a sound first – just grab it and start playing.

I love me some loud electric guitars from time to time so don’t get me wrong – I’m not knocking them.  In early jazz and blues bands, acoustics weren’t loud enough to be heard live, so amplification helped with volume.  It’s arguably cool to get more sustain for certain styles, as it is to add effects like reverb and distortion.  Too much of that can get annoying in a hurry though.  I guess it’s just more pleasing to my ears than electric – that’s the bottom line.

It could be that as people get older their music tastes might tend to mellow a bit, and that would be true with me to some degree, although as already stated, I’ve always been a fan of the mellow stuff.  Another factor is that I don’t want to impair my hearing further, and want to preserve what I have, so I’m cautious about excessive volume as I get older.  I have played electrics in bands, some of which accompanied acoustics, and I like me some crazy digital noises on occasion, but I like the honesty of an acoustic guitar better, and both as a fan of other music as well as my own, I gravitate toward an all-acoustic unplugged overall sound in general.

As a songwriter, I want to put my ideas to music quickly, before I lose the muse, and an acoustic is great for that.  A typical way to record is to lay down a rhythm guitar track first before you add bass, drums, vocals, or keyboards, so my first track is often an acoustic rhythm track.  Due to my tastes, it just so happens that I like to hear my songs in an acoustic style as well, so I don’t replace it with electric.  I also enjoy knowing I’m not using digital, electronic and technological trickery.  It feels more true and real and authentic with an acoustic, like I’m not cheating.  No covering up imperfections with fake sounds or software fixes.

In the back of my mind, I know it’s a little harder to play than an electric, and for some reason, I like knowing I’m doing something that’s a little more difficult.  Some of the primarily electric guitar musicians who went on the unplugged show revealed they weren’t that good on acoustics, and you don’t want to be like them in that way.  I’m not a take the easy way out person.  In several areas of my life, my personality has been such that I’ve intentionally and perhaps even stupidly, done things the hard way as a general approach, but there’s a greater satisfaction in it for me knowing that.

It has been said that if a song is really good, it sounds good with just a single guitar, as if when stripped of additional instrumentation and studio polish, the true quality of the songwriting can really shine.  Some songs are band songs, and don’t sound great when performed solo on one instrument.  So, in this way, a songwriter has a better idea if the song can stand alone that it will possibly be even better when doctored up with accompaniment.

In it’s pure, raw form a good song will sound good on an acoustic guitar, so it’s a good test, and a way to get immediate feedback when playing live or listening back to a demo recording.  For me, I always opt to keep the initial scratch rhythm acoustic track in the mix, and take it from there.  I even prefer to play fills and solos with an acoustic as well, just because my ears like what I hear better.  So it’s through this preference based on many aforementioned good reasons that I’ve evolved into a primarily acoustic solo recording artist, and why I feel strongly that the acoustic guitar is better than an electric for writing songs.

What It Means To Be A Songwriter

I claim to be a songwriter, and there's proof out there to show that I have written many songs I think are good. People out there in the world might question this claim, so it occurred to me that I should delve deeper into what it means to say someone is a songwriter.

What Is A Song? Simple Definitions

First, one must consider whether or not the things in question are what I say they are. It's arguable to say that what I call songs I've written are even songs at all, so I decided to take to the internet to see if mine qualify. "song" has some arguably official definitions you can find online from fairly reputable and reliable sources that are somewhat simple:

• a short piece of music with words that are sung
• a short musical composition of words and music
• a poetical composition or poem easily set to music 

My verdict then, is that what I call songs that I've written fit such definitions, and thus indeed are actual songs, and hence and therefore, they qualify.

Proof and Quantity Might Be Important

Once I've established that I've written songs, a next question might be: how many? As if quantity might be important criteria to establish credibility necessary to call one's self a songwriter. I saw Tom Petty being interviewed on TV once where he said something like:

"You have to write at least 100 songs before you can call yourself a songwriter."

So, if there's a quantity issue, I'm close to having that covered, since I've released over 70 original songs on recordings that are currently published and "in print" and being offered for sale that you can purchase in many online music stores like Amazon, Google Play, iTunes, and Bandcamp. This fact resolves any proof issues as well. One of the reasons I've thought it was cool to get my music into stores online is the fact that I wanted proof to be out there that I have written songs and recorded them.

I'm well on my way to meeting the Tom Petty requirement if you'll take my word for it that I've written way more than what I've released - over 300 at last count, many more since I stopped counting a decade or so ago. I stopped counting because it doesn't matter so much, when you take into account how many of those are "attempts" that are not good. It's a matter of opinion, as all appreciation of all art is.

Quality and the Eye (ear) of the Beholder (listener)

As for the "quality" issue then, know that I've released my best. This means that hundreds of my songs have not been release-worthy. If you write tons of songs, and they are all terrible, are you still a songwriter? Does a bear shit in the woods? Beyond that, one might wonder what even qualifies as a quality song, and what standards exist. You can talk popularity, you can talk hooks, and you can talk "you know it when you hear it" stuff. It's up to the rest of the world I suppose to offer up their own critical judgment about whether my songs are any good or not. So far, there aren't many reviews online, but I hope there will be more in the future, and that they will be favorable.

I imagine that art for personal satisfaction is one thing, but offering it up to the public for appreciation and consumption is another. I wanted to go there out of curiosity about whether others would like my songs, and would be thrilled if I became aware that more people out there in the world like the songs I've written for any reason. I'd also be interested to know more specifics about why people like them, I'll admit. I'm just happy to know they're out there and available for discovery and liking. It's hard to explain why, but I guess it's because I thought they were personally appealing enough to not keep them totally private.

Conclusions and Beyond

My definition of what it means to be a songwriter is that when your enjoyment of writing songs gives you a level of satisfaction with the craft that makes you want to share your creations with others, so that they might also be similarly satisfied from listening to them, you can consider yourself a songwriter. My way of doing that is recording them and releasing those recordings, since I'm not much of a performer, nor do I have a desire to be one. The limitations of my vocal abilities are significant, and quality of singing is important for song performance quality.

A next stage of considering someone to be a songwriter, particularly when they are not performers themselves, would be whether or not other musicians have performed or recorded the songwriter's songs. I've made no effort make musicians aware that my songs are available for them to perform and/or record other than releasing them, and stating that they are available for licensing on my web site. Not a lot of intentional effort to pitch is happening, but should there be an interest, I'm ready to offer up permission quickly and with reasonable and fair terms.

The Evolving Role of the Professional Songwriter in America Today

In an era where the visual appeal of the performing artist has become the focus of a song’s success, there is an increasing demand for the services of those of us who specialize in the craft of songwriting to introduce new compositions to those with vocal talent and a flair for entertaining live audiences. Mainstream major label artists are no longer the only vehicles for professional songwriter’s compositions. With the advent of the Web, we now have new electronic distribution means that open up the possibilities.

As with any industry, the music business is full of specialists and has few generalists. A single person isn’t blessed with the combination of gifts to be great at everything, and despite hard work, simply does not have the time to achieve mastery of all aspects. Chuck Berry had a unique combination of natural abilities and developed skills that allowed him to not only pioneer a new genre of music, but also a new level of participation in the industry by simultaneously wearing the hats of a songwriter, singer, musician, live performer and recording artist.

From the folk-rockers of the sixties, to the singer-songwriters of the seventies, to the video artists of the eighties, to the indie artists of the nineties, to the do-it-yourself online artists since the turn of the century, we’ve seen glimpses of a few successful individuals who could do many things well, provided they had a team of assitants picking up the slack in areas where they either didn’t have an interest or didn’t excel.

This didn’t signal the end of the professional songwriter, however. From MTV to YouTube, music video’s influence has spilled over into contemporary film music. In addition to symphonic instrumental film scores, today’s movies now intermittently feature pop and rock songs as well, with soundtrack compilations sold separately.

Individual songs either written specifically for the context of a film, or retroactively selected because of their unique ability to complement a script, allow professional songwriters more opportunities than ever before.

The recent advances in recording technology, including both the decrease in size and affordability of equipment involved, has made it easy for songwriters to work alone and from their homes to produce quality demonstration recordings. The internet, with it’s e-mail and audio transmission capabilities, make it easier than ever for the marketing and pitching of songs to their would-be vehicles mentioned herein. Despite the increased competition, it still takes some drive and perserverance beyond creating the demos.

From Leibler & Stoller to Brian Wilson to Carole King to Diane Warren, today’s professional songwriter still has the same qualities of their predecessors: a tendency to be introverted and shy from the spotlight; a tendency to enjoy the creative process more than the selling of the creation; a tendency to prefer to writing more than performing; and a tendency to have talents and skills more suited to writing than performing.

As an amateur songwriting hobbyist who is contemplating taking action to increase my chances of being able to call myself a professional, I’m faced with stepping outside of my comfort zone of favoring the woodshed/mad scientist side of the craft and taking my arsenal of exisiting songs and polished writing abilities into the uncharted territory of marketing and pitching. Stretching ourselves is what makes us feel most alive and stay young, but talking about it and actually making it happen are different things.

A logical place to start is to enter a songwriting contest or two. Many ask for electronic press kits that include gig schedules, and some offer as awards to winners the opportunity to play at live shows – both prompting me to curb the enthusiasm about the prospects. Past winners all have their own Web sites, CDs, and even merchandise available for sale online, in addition to having beefed-up performances schedules as a result.

Winning would mean a venture into self-marketing, vanity, and actually memorizing my own songs in preparation for the live performing. Could it be the kick in the ass I need to foray into the world of the travelling singer-songwriter, or the way more appealing need to move to one of the big music hubs like Nashville to start working my way into the whole open mic writer’s night scene, and also as all industry insiders advise as being the most important thing of all -the dreaded Networking thing? Time will tell, and when it does, I’ll be chiming in this blog to keep you informed on the progress.