Help, anyone?

[anne]

I need help - our work is generally "pop for adults" as it is recorded. One or two of the songs are very bare and can be arranged and produced more for a specific audience but I'm a little confused on submitting them. When it is just a song to pitch to a different artist, can we submit them just as a great quality vocal / piano recording rather than as a full band production? Thanks - Anne

[anne]

I put up an example for our question broadjam, and they should be active shortly. The first example is " Here In My Heart " as a piano / vocal recording, and one as full pop song produced by Andy Zulia (Jessica Simpson/Backstreet Boys). A second example is a fairly straitforward pop recording "Your Body Over Mine" vs the dance remix of Your Body Over Mine, remixed by Randy Bettis. The question I have is this: If a listing asks for a song in a particular genre, and we feel the melody and lyrics work well for the listing, is it best to do a good home recording in the specific genre the listing is in, or is it ok to send it in as a piano /vocal studio recording for them to hear the song to pitch. An example of the listings I'm asking about is S060830CO (although not for these particular songs I have on broadjam right now) - Hope this question isn't too rudimentary - your help is truly appreciated!AnneUntil the tunes load on broadjam, you can here them here:http://cdbaby.com/cd/jacobsen2 for the vocal / piano version of Here In My Hearthttp://cdbaby.com/cd/jacobsen3 for the full band production of Here In My HeartKaren's broadjam link:http://www.broadjam.com/artists/artisti ... stID=35496

[davewalton]

Hi Anne,I'm not going to be too specific and I'm probably going to tell you something that you already suspect. If the other people submitting to the listing (probably a lot of them) were only going to submit doing piano/vocals, then you'd be fine obviously. You can count on the fact that many will be submitting "full band" productions so you'd be at a disadvantage right at the start with only a piano/vocal version.I've read a fair amount of posts by Matto who knows first hand of piano/vocal submissions that turned into something really exciting. So it's possible but not probable. I'd say that the vast majority of forwarded submissions are good quality home recordings. HTH,DavePS - Good work on the song by the way. Very nice.

[matto]

Yes Dave, generally speaking you're right BUT...did you listen to this lady's voice though? I think her piano/vocal would get forwarded over MANY people's professional full band productions. I mean this woman has a KILLER voice. Anne: I think if you have piano/vocals of this quality, doing a full band home recording is probably not necessary if the song is more of a ballad. For an uptempo, it will be hard to get a forward with a piano vocal. In that case a quality home recording that has a stylistically appropriate sound is pretty much the only way to go.Just make sure the songs you submit for country listings are really country (in terms of their lyrics in particular). It's very important to be as familiar with that style and it's subgenres as possible, and not be under the impression that "if we slapped a steel guitar and a fiddle on this song it "could" be a country song". That's a mistake a lot of people make and one Nashville publishers often complain about. Yes the lines are sometimes blurred and some country artists do record what are really straight forward pop songs (Faith Hill is an obvious example). But the listing your mentioning is looking for mainstream country I believe, not for "corn pop" .Hope this helps!matto

[anne]

Hi Dave and Matto - Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to the singer I'm working with and giving us some great feedback. I do like your description of "corn pop", Matto - and Dave, I absolutely appreciate the thought about the full band vs piano / vocal with what the LISTING wants in mind - its easy to start thinking in terms of sending off the piano / vocal tracks and ignoring the full band recordings (of which we have fewer). Thank you again for your help!Anne