How Did/Do You Decide Which Types of Listings to Write For?

[Razor7Music]

Hello Group--

After the last Road Rally I decided to try my hand and doing Pop songs again after many, many years of just doing Alternative Rock. I've got much to learn and the more listings I see, and the more sample music I hear from you guys, the more I realize I'm not sure if Pop music is the/the only genre I want to work on.

For those of you that do instrumentals, how did you decide to go that way? For those of you that do Singer/Songwriter, why? I watched one of the helpful songwriting videos that said never tell a publisher that asks you what genre you write that you can do them all.

How do you decide if you want to write for artists, or TV commercials (or anything in between)? **I know this is a subjective question, but I'd like to see if I can learn anything that might help me with my decision on which direction(s) I want to go.

My bottom line is the bottom line. I want to earn money for my music, but I'd also like to enjoy what I'm doing--so I'm never going to bend into a direction that I don't want to go. (I do that already at my day job )

Any feedback from anyone, but especially those of you who have placements, is really appreciated.

[richmstudios]

For me it's a two-fold thing:

First off, I need to be pretty psyched about working on the listing. I really need to enjoy what I'm creating if I can truly give it my all.
Next, I need to be confident that I have the skills to pull it off - this comes from experience and knowledge I've gotten from positive feedback and TAXI forwards. I am aware of my current skill set and the genres that I work best in and tend to write to those listings as a priority.

I love the bi-monthly TAXI industry listing days: I feel like a kid at Christmas! Nothing better than scrolling through and finding a "want ad" for something that looks like a lot of fun and that I also feel confident in producing successfully.

[davewalton]

I joined Taxi in 2004 after a long time away from music. At first I was submitting to a lot of listings without really knowing anything about the genre. I remember submitting a new age thing to a listing looking for "soaring orchestral". Eventually I upgraded my software/virtual instruments to where I *could* start to do orchestral stuff. Then I kind of got interested in electronica. At first it was pretty watered-down, milk-and-toast electronica but eventually I got the hang of some of the aggressiveness in the sounds and overall approach. I also delved a bit into ethnic stuff.

So now I basically 95% do orchestral, electronica and ethnic things. I 5% delve from time-to-time into other areas but I almost always co-write with someone that does whatever it is I'm wanting to do outside of my normal stuff.

Hope that helps!

Dave

[Razor7Music]

This does help - thank you. Liking the stuff and being good at it are really good factors. I also see that I'm not the only one that may not have zeroed in on what a listing is looking for until I make a few more mistakes. I think that comes from not having a very large catalog and maybe trying to stretch what I do have into a listing that may not be exactly what I've got. I'm guessing the larger my catalog gets the better the odds are that something will come up that I have a fit for.