Back when I used to stretch the truth to impress people more than I do now, in conversation and even in my blog and web site, I would make it seem like I saved my best songs I'd written for submitting to artists to record. I try not to do that so much anymore, if at all I guess. With few exceptions I pretend to not remember, for the most part I try to be honest in my life now - with a take-me-as-I-come, warts-and-all approach to most people.
The truth is, I record and release my best, and always have. Although I have submitted songs to artists before (which they never recorded), and they were usually among my best, I've released my own versions of them on my albums. If I'm being honest, I have to admit there's no pending possibility that the world will soon hear the better songs I've written as recorded by their favorite artists on the radio, and there never has been.
As a matter of fact and to set the record straight, I release anything closely resembling a song on my official album releases. Yes, it's true I've weeded out some of the worst, and yes, it's true I've written way more songs than I've actually released, but if they were even half-way decent and somewhat complete, I've recorded and released them. Every two years, you get the top 13 I had available.
As I've alluded to in past blog posts or in person to a few people I know, I have my own weeding out process to arrive at which songs make the cut on my albums. Many remain on the cutting room floor still, but what I release are the best I could do at the time, so as disappointing as it may sound, in a way, each record is like a mini greatest hits of the two years leading up to its release.
Since I'm not a great singer or instrumentalist or live performer, my thing has always been that I'm first and foremost a songwriter above all else. It's truthfully the one aspect of music that I'm most proud of: the fact that I've written a bunch of songs that can actually pass as sounding like real songs. Particularly when that's your deal, you tend to make that a part of your identity in your own mind. It is indeed a big part of who I am.
I'm many things - a son, a brother, a husband, an uncle, a nephew, a cousin, a friend, a neighbor, etc. Among the first things I'd add to that are that I'm a skier, and also that I'm a songwriter. It's a hobby I've had since I was about 20 years old. People tend to like the things they're pretty good at, and there's not much on that list for me, but one of them is songwriting.
Granted, being "good" at songwriting is my opinion, and one that is shared by some but not all who've heard my music. The number of people who have actually listened to my music is relatively small, and of those who have, there are some who do not find it to be their particular cup of tea. I am a realist who takes into consideration that judgment of creative works in general is a matter of personal opinion and taste.
We have all heard songs written by professional songwriters and recorded by popular recording artists that a vast majority of people in the world think are good, yet we disagree. Some people don't think Smells Like Teen Spirit or Like A Rolling Stone are good songs. Some people don't think Kind Of Blue by Miles Davis or Graceland by Paul Simon are good albums. Same goes for singers, bands, and songwriters. For example, there are people out there in the world who don't think Aretha Franklin or Elvis were good singers. There are people who think the Beatles and Led Zeppelin were not good bands. There are people who think Bob Dylan or Smokey Robinson are not good songwriters. It happens.
So, I thought if I pretended that the songs I write, record and release were not my best, and that secretly, I'd saved the best for ones I'd submit to mainstream major label recording artists to record, that people would think I was better than there was evidence for. Possibly I did this out of insecurity or as a preemptive strike to soften the blow of them not liking my songs that I did make available for people to hear.
I'm not one of those people who have obvious successes in areas of my life such as an impressive career or fancy material things. Maybe when one doesn't have those kinds of things, they tend to make themselves out to be something they're not to make up for it somehow. Present yourself as a starving artist creative type who is probably on the verge of finally having their unconventional path pay off, after which people would be impressed that you followed your passion for so long. Guilty.
My dream is to have scottcooley.com list as its primary content artists a who have recorded my songs. The list would be enough: Famous Artist Name, Name of Scott Cooley-penned Song, etc. I would maybe then eventually release a couple of albums called Cooley Sings His Own Songs, parts I and II, or something like that. Maybe throw a couple pictures on there of me accepting songwriting Grammy awards and hanging out with those famous singers and bands. That would be about all I'd need on my website if my dreams came true. The life of Scott Cooley, Professional Songwriter, would then consist of collecting royalty checks, recording newer, better songs in a kick-ass home studio with expensive equipment. No day job as a technical writer anymore. That's the dream.
Instead, my website is all about me pretending to be an actual recording artist, which I'm not really. Yes, I've sold some albums and individual songs I've written and recorded myself performing, because anyone can do that nowadays. It's a site that is a mess, made by a guy who doesn't really know anything about making websites, and it's full of me making myself out to be something better than what I really am. This is my perhaps sad but true reality - one of a million guys who figured out how to write and record some songs in his house, make them available for sale in online music stores, and put up a website that probably claims he's better than he really is.
So, to sum up and set the record straight, my records contain the absolute best songs I could come up with. There are approximately 100 of them on 8 album releases for you to discover. Despite all of this (and maybe because of all this too), I love doing it and will continue!
Showing posts with label weeding out process. Show all posts
Showing posts with label weeding out process. Show all posts
Sunday, November 4, 2018
Wednesday, October 25, 2017
Keeper Ratios for Rewrites vs. Newwrites - Glass Half-Full Outlook Can Lead to Stockpile Mode!
Dear Diary, um, I mean imaginary readers of this blog,
I am hereby posting more information about the writing and recording of songs I've done lately which you may feel free to comment on after reading or discuss freely with anyone afterwards.
Unlike a lot of famous recording artist blogs, I write 100% of everything you read here myself, and it's typically not filled with a bunch of photos I took on my phone while traveling, etc. Nor does it have a lot of wild stories from the road while doing gigs and tours.
Instead, it gives you honest insight into what is going on with me, and what I think about things, as it relates to my passion of writing and recording songs.
To remind everyone, this is a single-author blog that is not a non-profit think tank per se, but it is free and it covers topics related to and advocating for the culture of songwriting, do-it-yourself music recording, acoustic garage rock music and Scott Cooley album and song appreciation.
I'm not really out to advertise myself as an individual or artist with this blog, but rather, a way to communicate with those who like my music. Did you know you can comment on any of these posts as well as contact me via email, phone, text, or social media messaging?
Yep, I can be contacted and am usually willing to interact with those who like my music and want to reach out to ask me stuff. I can usually find something to socially relate to with most people, particularly if I already know they like my music and just are interested to know more about it or me.
I don't moderate the comments, and they are public, but there are private ways to contact me as well which are listed on the Contact page of scottcooley.com. So, you can comment on other people's comments, and interact with other appreciators, etc. If there is hateful or offensive stuff, I do have the ability to delete it, so if you see anything like that on here, let me know and I'll remove it ASAP.
I also occasionally use Twitter as a microblogging platform, and this blog's posts get fed there, so if you like that @scottcooley is the handle.
I'm on facebook too, but log into it even more rarely than this blog, which as you can see, is an average of maybe once every two months.You might get the idea that I don't have much to say if you only look at my post frequency numbers, but you'll see each post is fairly long, and dives fairly deeply and thoroughly, so once you read some posts, you'll see the opposite is true and I do have a lot to say, it's just that I don't post often.
So, I like to wait until I have something of a fair amount of quality and quantity before posting, which means I have to be compelled enough to start a post, then have enough to say that I continue until I have some sort of conclusion or point, and a way to relate it to my love of writing songs.
On to my recent ventures, which have been 1) more rewriting of old songs with mixed conversion ratios, and 2) new song writing spurred on by the rewriting. Let me elaborate on #1 first: Usually a song doesn't make the cut for a good reason and no amount of rewriting will boost it to a keeper level to make it "release-worthy," but it is possible for such a thing to happen.
I typically have to attempt rewriting about five borderline keepers before one will become better enough that it is vaulted above that threshold. That's the approximate ratio. Interestingly enough, it's about 1/2 of the keeper ratio of writing brand new songs, which is approximately 2/5 or 4/10...something close to that usually. The other four become "don't waste time on again" songs.
You can look at that as discouraging and effort-wasting, or if you're like me, you can view it as a glass half-full scenario and be psyched you got that 1 K out of 5 tries because the 5 tries were good practice and you got another K you wouldn't have otherwise had, so it's always productive time spent the way I see it.
Then, the beauty of it all is that there's this boost of a bonus that K brings on - it gets you back into the creative flow again, and next thing you know, you're working on new ones again, which brings into play the 2/5 ratio.
Write 5 more, and you're going to end up with 3 keepers and 7 non-K's, but that's OK. It's more than OK, it's great, because that's what you're trying to do.
When you get on a little creative roll like that, and let's say you write 5 new ones and get your two K's, that's just one spurt, and just an average ratio. No matter how much you get writer's block droughts, and no matter how much you get afraid you'll never get a spurt again, you know that all you have to do is one thing: go back through your non-K's a rewrite!
Sometimes you only need three or four short bursts of creative output like that and you're close to an album's worth of material. Then you know you're close, and writing more to get to that 12 song count is not so daunting.
Once you're over it, you've surpassed the baker's dozen and get into stockpile K mode, you then have the luxury of getting more discriminating and replace a weaker K with a stronger one, improve the lineup if you will.
These are good situations to be in when you're a recording artist with a fan base whose expectations of more releases are based on your past output, and you know you can be consistent and deliver again. This is precisely the situation I currently find myself in. A good place to be, for sure.
So, if you're one of the surprisingly many now anonymous readers of this blog for whatever reasons, and one happens to be you're wanting to know if more music is on the way, I'm happy to report the answer is yes. So, the only thing that could prevent me from releasing on my birthday in even-numbered years again, as has been my practice since the turn of the century, would be if I die between now and then, but the stockpile means potential for contingency plans just in case.
As I just told my friend Rich, it's good to have a couple albums "in the can" because you never know how long you'll live, and just like Yoko Ono and Courtney Love, my wife Lenore will be able to do posthumous releases ... to keep up the lifestyle! 😉
I am hereby posting more information about the writing and recording of songs I've done lately which you may feel free to comment on after reading or discuss freely with anyone afterwards.
Unlike a lot of famous recording artist blogs, I write 100% of everything you read here myself, and it's typically not filled with a bunch of photos I took on my phone while traveling, etc. Nor does it have a lot of wild stories from the road while doing gigs and tours.
Instead, it gives you honest insight into what is going on with me, and what I think about things, as it relates to my passion of writing and recording songs.
To remind everyone, this is a single-author blog that is not a non-profit think tank per se, but it is free and it covers topics related to and advocating for the culture of songwriting, do-it-yourself music recording, acoustic garage rock music and Scott Cooley album and song appreciation.
I'm not really out to advertise myself as an individual or artist with this blog, but rather, a way to communicate with those who like my music. Did you know you can comment on any of these posts as well as contact me via email, phone, text, or social media messaging?
Yep, I can be contacted and am usually willing to interact with those who like my music and want to reach out to ask me stuff. I can usually find something to socially relate to with most people, particularly if I already know they like my music and just are interested to know more about it or me.
I don't moderate the comments, and they are public, but there are private ways to contact me as well which are listed on the Contact page of scottcooley.com. So, you can comment on other people's comments, and interact with other appreciators, etc. If there is hateful or offensive stuff, I do have the ability to delete it, so if you see anything like that on here, let me know and I'll remove it ASAP.
I also occasionally use Twitter as a microblogging platform, and this blog's posts get fed there, so if you like that @scottcooley is the handle.
I'm on facebook too, but log into it even more rarely than this blog, which as you can see, is an average of maybe once every two months.You might get the idea that I don't have much to say if you only look at my post frequency numbers, but you'll see each post is fairly long, and dives fairly deeply and thoroughly, so once you read some posts, you'll see the opposite is true and I do have a lot to say, it's just that I don't post often.
So, I like to wait until I have something of a fair amount of quality and quantity before posting, which means I have to be compelled enough to start a post, then have enough to say that I continue until I have some sort of conclusion or point, and a way to relate it to my love of writing songs.
On to my recent ventures, which have been 1) more rewriting of old songs with mixed conversion ratios, and 2) new song writing spurred on by the rewriting. Let me elaborate on #1 first: Usually a song doesn't make the cut for a good reason and no amount of rewriting will boost it to a keeper level to make it "release-worthy," but it is possible for such a thing to happen.
I typically have to attempt rewriting about five borderline keepers before one will become better enough that it is vaulted above that threshold. That's the approximate ratio. Interestingly enough, it's about 1/2 of the keeper ratio of writing brand new songs, which is approximately 2/5 or 4/10...something close to that usually. The other four become "don't waste time on again" songs.
You can look at that as discouraging and effort-wasting, or if you're like me, you can view it as a glass half-full scenario and be psyched you got that 1 K out of 5 tries because the 5 tries were good practice and you got another K you wouldn't have otherwise had, so it's always productive time spent the way I see it.
Then, the beauty of it all is that there's this boost of a bonus that K brings on - it gets you back into the creative flow again, and next thing you know, you're working on new ones again, which brings into play the 2/5 ratio.
Write 5 more, and you're going to end up with 3 keepers and 7 non-K's, but that's OK. It's more than OK, it's great, because that's what you're trying to do.
When you get on a little creative roll like that, and let's say you write 5 new ones and get your two K's, that's just one spurt, and just an average ratio. No matter how much you get writer's block droughts, and no matter how much you get afraid you'll never get a spurt again, you know that all you have to do is one thing: go back through your non-K's a rewrite!
Sometimes you only need three or four short bursts of creative output like that and you're close to an album's worth of material. Then you know you're close, and writing more to get to that 12 song count is not so daunting.
Once you're over it, you've surpassed the baker's dozen and get into stockpile K mode, you then have the luxury of getting more discriminating and replace a weaker K with a stronger one, improve the lineup if you will.
These are good situations to be in when you're a recording artist with a fan base whose expectations of more releases are based on your past output, and you know you can be consistent and deliver again. This is precisely the situation I currently find myself in. A good place to be, for sure.
So, if you're one of the surprisingly many now anonymous readers of this blog for whatever reasons, and one happens to be you're wanting to know if more music is on the way, I'm happy to report the answer is yes. So, the only thing that could prevent me from releasing on my birthday in even-numbered years again, as has been my practice since the turn of the century, would be if I die between now and then, but the stockpile means potential for contingency plans just in case.
As I just told my friend Rich, it's good to have a couple albums "in the can" because you never know how long you'll live, and just like Yoko Ono and Courtney Love, my wife Lenore will be able to do posthumous releases ... to keep up the lifestyle! 😉
Friday, July 19, 2013
Dose Of Reality
If anyone reads this blog, they are in for a dose of reality about me in this particular post. This blog is connected to scottcooley.com, a website I created to make myself out to be a songwriter and recording artist. The website and blog have been half fantasy in that the content is delivered with a “fake it ‘till you make it” approach. In some areas of the site, I’ve humorously hinted at the true reality, which is that I’ve represented myself in a favorable light, not unlike people do on a resume. It’s something I haven’t felt entirely comfortable with, so to alleviate that mostly for myself but also to any potential visitors/readers out there, I’ve decided to more directly explain what I’m all about as it relates to songwriting and recording.
My understanding of the nature of personal blogs like this is that it is an acceptable thing to do to get things off your chest in a somewhat harsh tone as a form of self-therapy, so that’s my new approach. In this same vein, I am anticipating slowly over time revising the website content using a similar approach. A secondary motivation is that not only might I feel better about the website content, others might actually appreciate more. The objective is to be completely honest and get away from misrepresentation. Here the introduction will end and the blunt explanation of the reality of my situation will begin.
As a songwriter, I’ve written plenty of songs, but never for anyone else but myself. Not only have I never had a song I’ve written “cut” by another artist, but I’ve also never written one that would even come close to anything a real recording artist would want to record. If you listen to my music, you’ll be able to tell. Somewhere in my website I alluded to saving my best songs to pitch to other artists, but the ones I’ve “released” on my albums ARE my very best. I have pitched some of them before, unsuccessfully, and even though they were among my best, I did end up releasing them myself.
As a recording artist, I’ve recorded myself singing and playing the instruments on original songs I wrote, and then I paid to distribute them in online stores. I’ve recouped some of that expense, but not all of it, so I’m operating at a loss. This not only doesn’t really mean I’m a recording artist, but it also doesn’t really mean Scott Cooley Records is a real record company. I don’t have a tax identification number or a doing business as type of thing established. I’m not even really a solo artist, since I don’t play music in front of people for money. I don’t even play in public for free.
Elsewhere on scottcooley.com, I sort of make claims that what I do is special or rare. It’s not. There are literally millions of people in the world who have a home computer and microphone who record themselves singing and playing original songs using several instruments they taught themselves to play, and then put the recordings they make in online music stores so people can potentially buy them. The reality is I can write some words and rhymes, I can play a few chords and riffs on a guitar, I can play some root notes on a bass, I can pound on some drums, I can make noise blowing into a harmonica, I can use a mallet to hit a few notes on a marimba, and I can sing. If I make myself out to be anything more than that, I’m not. I am definitely not good at any of the above by any measure.
Setting the record straight,
Scott
My understanding of the nature of personal blogs like this is that it is an acceptable thing to do to get things off your chest in a somewhat harsh tone as a form of self-therapy, so that’s my new approach. In this same vein, I am anticipating slowly over time revising the website content using a similar approach. A secondary motivation is that not only might I feel better about the website content, others might actually appreciate more. The objective is to be completely honest and get away from misrepresentation. Here the introduction will end and the blunt explanation of the reality of my situation will begin.
As a songwriter, I’ve written plenty of songs, but never for anyone else but myself. Not only have I never had a song I’ve written “cut” by another artist, but I’ve also never written one that would even come close to anything a real recording artist would want to record. If you listen to my music, you’ll be able to tell. Somewhere in my website I alluded to saving my best songs to pitch to other artists, but the ones I’ve “released” on my albums ARE my very best. I have pitched some of them before, unsuccessfully, and even though they were among my best, I did end up releasing them myself.
As a recording artist, I’ve recorded myself singing and playing the instruments on original songs I wrote, and then I paid to distribute them in online stores. I’ve recouped some of that expense, but not all of it, so I’m operating at a loss. This not only doesn’t really mean I’m a recording artist, but it also doesn’t really mean Scott Cooley Records is a real record company. I don’t have a tax identification number or a doing business as type of thing established. I’m not even really a solo artist, since I don’t play music in front of people for money. I don’t even play in public for free.
Elsewhere on scottcooley.com, I sort of make claims that what I do is special or rare. It’s not. There are literally millions of people in the world who have a home computer and microphone who record themselves singing and playing original songs using several instruments they taught themselves to play, and then put the recordings they make in online music stores so people can potentially buy them. The reality is I can write some words and rhymes, I can play a few chords and riffs on a guitar, I can play some root notes on a bass, I can pound on some drums, I can make noise blowing into a harmonica, I can use a mallet to hit a few notes on a marimba, and I can sing. If I make myself out to be anything more than that, I’m not. I am definitely not good at any of the above by any measure.
Setting the record straight,
Scott
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