Calling a chorus a chorus

[Casey H]

My 2 centsHi Ed et al... I'm listening to the demo and enjoying it. It can see it as a cool one for an acoustic gig at a small club. I think this has already been said but it all depends on your goals. If you want to pitch this to artists, forget it. If you don't have a killer, clearly identifiable chorus within about 1 minute, it will be clicked off. Remeber, artist pitches, especially for country, are the most competitive of all. That's why many of us focus more on film/TV. If your goal is personal pleasure, your own gigs, your own CDs, etc. that you can say the hell with the rules and just do it.This doesn't mean I don't like the song! Just the realities of the world...Warm regards,Casey

[edteja]

I appreciate that feedback Casey. My goals, like many, I would suppose, are twofold: I write songs tha I like, and I try to write killer songs as well--ideally finding a niche that will let me write killer songs that I like. I am not one to bang my head repeatedly against immoveable objects, but I am still enough of a dreamer to hope that an artist or three will want to record a song I write without my growing formulaic. Pipe dreams R Us, perhaps.And I am looking at libraries, not necessarily artist pitches. Maybe I didn't make that clear. After all, the dream is, after all, to get the music out there in the big world, and, with luck, earning this poor boy a few sheckles in the process. Whether I do a tune and the library sells it, or as in the case, I have someone else sing it, or some artist picks it up, is not that relevant to my happiness.Perhaps I was sort of assuming that libraries would have the same insatiable craving for heavy duty choruses that are needed for artist pithces. True? No? I have such limited experience with that end, I would apreciate some insight. Could save me lining Taxi's pockets with money spent on wrongly targeted pitches (and wasting screener time!).

[matto]

Ed,I'd have to agree with Casey, as a song pitch to outside artists this is not gonna fly. For one thing the melody is just not memorable enough. After listening to the song I couldn't have sung the chorus or any other section back to you without first listening again. An artist who is trying to sell records is not gonna be interested in recording a song that they can't remember large portions of after just one listen.Also you say it's a country song but musically or lyrically this doesn't sound like anything that's on country radio today. And I think you'd be hard pressed to find artists that are interested in recording songs that aren't good airplay candidates.As far as music libraries (and film/tv in general), in general they are interested in one of three things: 1- songs that sound like current hit songs or like the could be current hit songs or at least album cuts (in any popular style), 2- songs that sound like hits from a certain period of time ("Classic Hits From The 70's") or part of the world ("Sizzling Salsa") or 3- songs that may not be particularly commercial but set a great and very specific mood (like for example maybe Tom Waits' songs do, or that Hawaiian version of "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" by IZ...things like that).I think your song, if rewritten somewhat and produced in a really moody and original way that befits the subject matter, could possibly work for this last category. However you'd still have to rewrite it to at least be more memorable melodically and have a clearer structure (aka sectional contrast). And this last category is probably the toughest to get into a library...Again I'm just talking about the commercial potential here. If the song as it is means a lot to you and is near and dear to your heart, you should just keep this one as it is and worry about commercial considerations when you write more commercial songs. But in that case it probably won't make a great deal of sense to pitch it to opportunities where they are looking for commercially viable material.matto

[og]

I tried to listen, but apparently I can't play Broadjam. D I need a different Media Player?

[edteja]

Goat, if you are using Firefox you need to use IE Tabs. Other than that it should work fine--it has its own player.Matto (& Casey too),That is very helpful insight. This is great because I have had fun doing this song (which is always good) and learned some specifics that I haven't been able to get out of the (tons of) books I have read--especially in the difference between artist pitches and library pitches. Some recent Taxi critiques had, unintentionally, given me some wrong ideas about library pitches (i.e. that they are exactly the same as artist pitches). And the hardest things to learn are the ones we don't know we don't know. Most likely I will leave this song as it is for the next CD I do as an artist (if it goes over well in concert, that is) and take what I have learned to the next one. And since this is exactly what I wanted to learn by joining Taxi it make me a happy songster. Onward and upward!

[davewalton]

Quote:I tried to listen, but apparently I can't play Broadjam. D I need a different Media Player?Broadjam uses their own media player. You might need to install Flash:www.adobe.com/downloads/Also, if you have a popup blocker you might need to allow popups so that their media player can "pop up" into the foreground.

[davewalton]

Quote:I'd have to agree with Casey, as a song pitch to outside artists this is not gonna fly. For one thing the melody is just not memorable enough. I don't have a feel for what would or wouldn't be popular in areas like folk, country, americana, or whatever. If you get both Matto and Casey independently saying the same thing I'd say it's practically gospel. I will say that my experience with the song was different than Matt's in terms of memorability. It stuck in my head right away and bounced around for most of yesterday. Just thought I'd throw that out to eliminate the possibility that you could draw any conclusions about what, if anything, to do about the song. Always glad to muddy up the waters a little bit. Later,Dave

[edteja]

Appreciate the mud, Dave. I have a hunch that "memorable" melodies vary with the listener. That was the only comment of Matto's that I was truly wondering about. Since it stuck, I hope you liked it a little. It's awful when you get bad songs stuck. (Wasn't there a thread about that a while back?)

[davewalton]

Quote:Appreciate the mud, Dave. I have a hunch that "memorable" melodies vary with the listener. That was the only comment of Matto's that I was truly wondering about. Since it stuck, I hope you liked it a little. It's awful when you get bad songs stuck. (Wasn't there a thread about that a while back?)No, it wasn't a bad song stuck.

[matto]

Quote:Appreciate the mud, Dave. I have a hunch that "memorable" melodies vary with the listener. That was the only comment of Matto's that I was truly wondering about. There is definitely some subjective element, no question. I've found however that there tends to be a pretty broad consensus, particularly when it comes to people who are relatively knowledgable about a certain style of music or market. And certainly when it comes to songs that are quite far from hitting the target when it comes to that style or market, as this song is. IMHO.But Ed...what you really should be doing is ask Dave what the chorus of the song is, since it stuck in his head...cause I still can't figure it out, even with the music. matto