How Many Songs are Forwarded in a Listing?

[divinorivera]

I'm a newbie and just curious how many songs are forwarded in one particular listing? As I've also observed on my research, some listings in Taxi also appears exactly at others like Music X-ray... Just wondering.

[davewalton]

I'm a newbie and just curious how many songs are forwarded in one particular listing? As I've also observed on my research, some listings in Taxi also appears exactly at others like Music X-ray... Just wondering.

Regarding the last item mentioned, it's the listing party that runs/writes the listings. They of course are free to seek music from any and every source, Taxi being one of them.

The number of forwards isn't limited or rather is only limited by the quality of the submissions. If every submission hits the target then every submission would be forwarded. I'm sure that's never happened. I know from talking with Taxi that on super high bar listings (like Country looking for a hit for a huge artist) there may only be a few forwards. Or none at all. It's about hitting the target on the listing or nailing it dead center for high bar listings.

I talked with Taxi one time about a strange listing looking for Albanian Electronica or something crazy like that. They said there were just 26 submissions (not surprising) and 13 forwards.

So anyway, there's no cap on the number of forwards that are possible. Every track that hits the listing is a forward.

[daveydad]

You know, it would be kind of fun (and educational) to know how many songs are submitted and forwarded for each listing.

[Russell Landwehr]

You know, it would be kind of fun (and educational) to know how many songs are submitted and forwarded for each listing.

I think the funnest part of that info being published would be sitting back and watching all the hoopla of people with returns picking the stats apart and feeling persecuted and ranting about how there is a conspiracy against them at Taxi.


Russell

[daveydad]

yeah... the unknown keeps us quiet!

[CHuckmott]

Thinking back to when I asked Taxi this question directly when I was considering joining (and going by memory) in general one in 5. Somewhat rare in general to get several forwards your first year . Looking at guys who posted numbers up here themselves, my research indicates once you've hit a point in the learning curve (which seems to be about a year) one in 4 get forwarded. Another one in 4 or 5 of those get signed. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong....call Taxi and doublecheck, they readily answered those sorts of questions when I spoke with them. The overall number was , I believe, one in 10 submissions get signed. If I had time I would doublecheck. Can someone who does have a free minute call, ask and post? Think I need a brush up myself.

ANother point also is that a lt of the folks wh o discuss th esignings generally (and rightfully) include in their numbers of "X amount of tracks placed" thoe made as a result of contacts made through Taxi. WHy is that fair? Becuawe once you've made contact with the library, generally the contact is made and there is no logical need to pursue placements in that library through Taxi. So say composer X makes a contact through Taxi, they take on 50 or so tracks and because it is a good library 20 of those get placed, and used in multiple shows. Would be incorrect to say my 1 track I submitted to Taxi was used.

[CHuckmott]

My above also implies rightfully that to up your chances get awesome at writing to the listing. Getting good at writing custom cues is a skill that will serve you well, as libraries often send out briefs asking for such and such type of song needed in the next , say, 3 days. Peer to Peer can often reliably predict whether a song will work or not. If you post it there and the consensus is "Don't submit" then obviously your decision from there.

[AntonioV]

IMHO knowing the forward/return ratio would be of no value whatsoever. Other than being able to say "well, I wasn't forwarded just like 50% (or whatever the number) of people who submitted to that listing" there's no other statement or analysis to be made from that number. There are too many variables as to why a song may not be forwarded so it would be impossible to establish any kind of trend or to make any statements about the quality of the song you submitted. Nothing useful anyway. Let's say that 75% of songs are not forwarded on a particular listing; what percentage of that were not forwarded because they were not on target stylistically? How many were on target but not good quality songs? How many were good songs and on target but not broadcast-quality? How many were close but had some musicianship/recording issue? And the list could go on and on. There would be no basis for comparison between your song that wasn't forwarded and the rest of the songs that were not forwarded.
It would also not be good to start making assumptions as to what the averages may mean. For some listings there could be a lot more people who submit without being sure they're hitting the target whereas other listings are pretty clear (not sure a lot of people submitted to the Armenian Folk listing without being sure...) and they may have a higher forward/total submission ratio simply because fewer people submitted and fewer yet submitted off target.
Lastly, since there is no quota of forwards per listing as Dave explained, the numbers are really meaningless because comparing the ratios across different listings will be comparing pears to apples.

Just my 2 cents...

Antonio

[CHuckmott]

Yes quality and appropriateness for the listing are the variables. I think if you make that your focus then numbers are fairly consistent. Is like a company saying, there is no way they can try to measue the success of a TV commercial because there are two many variables involved. Any scientist types/statisticians /marketing among us? Taxi seems to keep abs on those numbers as well...proabkly because that question is amongst the Top 20 questions asked.

That said, what you mentioned has long been a controversy in research/number crunching.

In other posts , such as one I've put up, use all the Taxi resources to lift yourself to the standards. TAXI TV, the forums, Peer to Peer.

[daveydad]

Great discussion! True... in the end it wouldn't matter anyway. Focus is to compose better and better. Yes, Chuck, it took me almost a year to start getting some forwards.. .mostly because I started learning how to match with the listing requirements better and I also hope I became a better composer as the first year progressed. I look over my list now of what I've submitted and would probably not have submitted to 50% of them now. Live and learn!