Introduction/Is Taxi the right thing for me ?

[DanielFelber]

Hello,
my name is Daniel Felber. I´m a songwriter from germany !
28 years old, playing all kinds of instruments since I´m 13 or 14 years old.
I do Rock and Pop songs most of the time. Seriously into writing mainstream and
commercial stuff since about half a year.
My goal is to find bands, singers who want to perform my songs.
I have a myspace page and a page at music2deal
http://www.myspace.com/tedmahoney
http://www.music2deal.com/3852a4c8b67e3 ... 6bbbfce411

You can listen to some of my songs there...
I recorded all the instruments myself with the help of professional singers.
I can´t sing, but I love writing vocal melodies and lyrics next to the music of course.

Anyway, I was lurking around this forum since some days and checked the current listings
and really wondered if Taxi would be the right thing for my goals.
I mean, from what I read it looks like the majority of listings is for artists and composers
who want to pitch to the movie/film/TV industry...
Or if not it seems they are looking for the whole package of an artist/band, but not for songs only...

I´m interested to place my songs to bands and artists looking for songs or to publishers who
want to do the same with my songs. But I only found a small percentage of listings who were
looking for that.

I would like to hear your opinion on that, or do I misread the listings ?

[ottlukk]

Daniel:
The listings are updated twice a month, so there are opportunities for what you do. First tip: Ask for feedback one song at a time, you're much more likely to get a response. At any rate, welcome to the forums!
Ott
p.s. where in Germany? I was born in Tubingen.

[tedsingingfox]

Hey, Daniel.

Welcome to the forums. THE single best place on the web to find answers to questions like yours.

for what it's worth, having a great demo of a great song (that no artist has picked up and recorded yet), and getting that great demo placed in TV/film, is one of the very best ways to earn a little coin while you're waiting for an artist to record one of your songs.

Take it one step at a time. Post up a song for us to hear and give you feedback on... Post up the listings you're thinking your stuff might be right for... The incredibly gifted (and often VERY successful) people on these forums are also among the most generous and helpful you may ever meet.

Look forward to hearing more from you, musically and otherwise.

Ted

ps. one of my oldest, dearest friends on earth lives in Steinen, just 10 km from Basel... I've been there to visit time and time again. LOVE Germany!

[DanielFelber]

Daniel:
The listings are updated twice a month, so there are opportunities for what you do. First tip: Ask for feedback one song at a time, you're much more likely to get a response. At any rate, welcome to the forums!
Ott
p.s. where in Germany? I was born in Tubingen.

I actually lived a big part of my life in a village near Balingen which is only a few km from Tübingen as you may know.... But now I live near Mainz.

for what it's worth, having a great demo of a great song (that no artist has picked up and recorded yet), and getting that great demo placed in TV/film, is one of the very best ways to earn a little coin while you're waiting for an artist to record one of your songs.

Take it one step at a time. Post up a song for us to hear and give you feedback on... Post up the listings you're thinking your stuff might be right for... The incredibly gifted (and often VERY successful) people on these forums are also among the most generous and helpful you may ever meet.

I posted a song of mine in the P2P section for you to comment on. I don´t really think the soundquality is OK enough to be placed on TV. On the other hand I have agreements with the singers who helped me out on my demos to only use the recordings for demo purposes.

So usually there are more listings from artists (and their labels and management) looking for songs
? Did I get that right ?

[Kolstad]

Hey Daniel,

Welcome to the forums. There's no better place to learn about the music industry than Taxi, IMO. Just keep an open mind, and be ready to adapt to the current demands for music.

The market for placement of your own songs and instrumentals are WAY bigger than the market for pitching music to artists. And in rock/pop most artists are self contained either by themselves, or their producers. You can of course rely on luck, but you really have to write HITS, as noone will ever take an album song these days.

So I believe your best bet is to join Taxi, submit your work to listings, adapt to the feedback, adjust your writing and your goals, and get in the luv!

[Casey H]

Hi Daniel
I agree with what's been already said. Many of us started out looking to place songs with artists and learned that the film/TV market is thousands of times more open to us. And, as already noted, rock artists generally write their own songs, so that makes it even tougher. I write rock and quickly found this out when I started.

Ted made a great point. You don't have to give up on a dream of placing a song with an artist. But in the meantime you can pitch for film/TV. Make sure than any demo singers or musicians that work on your tracks sign a master release (work for hire) giving you all rights to the recordings. Basically these releases state that the musicians performed for you as work-for-hire and have no rights to future fees or payments (paraphrase, not legal language).

I hear some really good songs on your myspace page. I'm on laptop speakers right now but you probably(?) do have to work on the broadcast quality aspect which encompasses EVERYTHING about the recording--- the performances as well as the engineering/mix. So vocals have to be on pitch, instruments on tune and on time, etc and you have to have the sound quality.

So I think you should join Taxi, start submitting, and see where your tracks stand and what you may need to make them better. One caveat is: Do it IF you are willing, at some point, to make changes per the feedback you get.

Don't forget there is a one year money-back guarantee. If you give it a fair shot by making a minimum number of submissions and don't feel it's beneficial during that year, they really will give you a refund. (They can explain the exact rules).

HTH
Best,
Casey

[mojobone]

Welcome to the forum, Daniel. Yes, there are opportunities for artist pitches, but the bar is much higher; there's no room for good, only great, undeniable hit material. If you're not there, yet, you're in a great place to learn.

[coachdebra]

BTW - do you have your own website? If you're really serious, you need to have your own website - not just a myspace page. You can get a wordpress site up for pretty cheap and really fast.

Warm regards,
Debra