Taxi songwriter critiques

[Hookjaw Brown]

I have always heard that only 5% of musicians make any money at music. I have also been told that 90% of everything is cr*p (Sturgeon's Law). I also just watched a Monday Taxi show with the incredible producer Ron "Neff-U" Feemster on ustream.tv.

The main gist of his lively and insightful advice is let the emotion be the first thing about a song, then melody and then lyrics. AND PRACTICE TILL YOU ARE GOOD! If the lyrics and melody convey some heartfelt emotion, the screeners will hear it, even with a simple arrangement. He also said a lot about enjoying what you do, it is your music that is in your head.

[charlie2]

I'm really into music theory/melodic contour and all that stuff. I believe that music theory might possibly gives us clues as to what makes a song emotional and aesthetic and I wish more time was spend on those aspects.
At the same time I can see the reason there's a lot of importance on production.

To see the importance of production; listen to carol king's slow/piano/voice version of "will you still love me tomorrow". Compare that with the faster/shirelles/ version with strings to see the difference production makes.

To be honest; if I was a screener, I wouldn't be able to see how great that song was if I heard the piano/voice version, which is most likely why production has to take a front seat.

Still, at the same time, I wish there was also time for the music theory aspects too.