it's a lottery and it's all super subjective

[HectorRContreras]

Yes ! This is what I do, ... dearest Little Red Church

How do you like my latest :

http://soundcloud.com/catherine-armant/ ... umental-as

[AmandaJane]

Evening Catherine

You could always collaborate with some of the rest of us maybe ?

Could be nice

Amanda

[AlexanderFox]

I certainly agree with the replies and appreciate Cass's baseball analogy. As someone who's just made it to second base in the last few months I can say that the stuff I used to submit was like stepping up to the plate with a hockey stick. I've started seeing more forwards since I began reading listings VERY CAREFULLY and listening to a lot of other members' music on soundcloud and Taxi TV, and constantly improving my studio and production skills.

It's easy to get dejected - just ask my wife on days when I get returns! But like Amanda and others have aptly pointed out, it's a long game we are playing. Keep at it and keep producing. If you're not getting better with each track you do, something is off and you should probably reexamine either your tools or your process.

[billhewett]

I definitely have to agree with the general tone of responses here... I have been a member for just under one year, and I have 38 returns and one pending submission. I have definitely been frustrated on a few returns, but in general the feedback has been on point and helpful.

When I have felt that a return was unwarranted, or the comments confusing, I have posted on the Returns forum and have gotten useful feedback from members and was suddenly able to see what I had missed in the original listing, or in the a la's.

Also, +1 for collaboration! I have been working with another Taxi member who I actually met a few weeks before I signed up, but did not discover he was a member until a few weeks *after* we met! Since then we have been working together and our collaborations have been more than the sum of the parts. And having two or more sets of eyes on the listing text and ears on the a la's makes it easier to parse what Taxi is looking for, because we each read/hear things with slight variations, so where we agree we can usually be pretty sure we are close to the mark.

Lastly, as a 40-year-old former wannabe rock star, I know for sure that I never would have been successful with Taxi in my younger days. I'm not sure where the original poster of this thread is coming from, but I think it helps if your approach is to really try to copy the a la's and then mix up the copy, rather than put in too much creativity from the ground up. I spent many years trying to write clever chord progressions with amazing melodies that push key changes that would dazzle Lennon and McCartney... but the truth is that 90% of the listings want some variation on a familiar I-IV-V progression. But I don't feel like that's dumbing my writing down... it is just a bigger challenge to create something new and memorable in the context of something familiar.

-Bill

[HectorRContreras]

Evening Catherine

You could always collaborate with some of the rest of us maybe ?

Could be nice

Amanda

Sorry to see this so late, dear Amanda.

Yes, I would, I could ! Dear Paul Feaker has all ready "proposed" ...

Because my Music is very unusual, I think that the Music should come first, and then the Lyrics. Not very good at the Verse Verse Chorus Bridge Verse stuff, (did my best for Peter/FunSong Wedding Song that he asked me), although Hector tried to teach me ... but Hector was not an excellent Teacher.
He was not organized and he would just drop things often, for various reasons.

Or,

The way that Hector and myself we used to do.
Alternatively, we would send each other Backgrounds. Our Backgrounds were very simple Music that would call for a nice Hook, a nice Melody, and certainly Dynamics, and Orchestration. And more ... !

Here, Hector sent me the Background :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1jL95iEVkQ

Here, I made the Background :
http://forums.taxi.com/topic126278.html

PS : Dear Amanda, I like your Comment here very much !
http://forums.taxi.com/topic127920.html

[asjones41]

Hi to everyone who posted a reply to my 'its a lottery' post... I've just got around to reading the replies. The first and most important thing I would like to say is that it's great to see so many positive replies and professional comments, no trolling or abusive language etc.. it's a credit to the people at taxi and the users to see how mature and professional peoples attitudes are.
I've been using taxi for 18 months now and the amount I have learned has been incredible. I started off, like most people, thinking I was ace at writing and recording but pretty musch soon realised I was way below par and spent all of last year relearning my trade, so to speak. I have gotten some forwards one of which I can happily say has recently lead to a licensing deal which was amazing to actually achieve. Also my own album, due for release this month...is infinitely better than it would have been due to taxi's critiques and advice which means it might actually stand a chance selling a few copies ! I Can hold my hands up and say it's because of joining taxi I'm a hugely better writer and understand the needs of the business far more...plus my enthusiasm hasn't been dampened by 300 returns, my resolve has been strengthend.
I Hope I didn't sound like I was bitter at the time or even a bad loser, although I imagine I did
Thanks again guys

[asjones41]

alexferndezfox - I think your wife and mine would get along just fine...the amount of times my wife has said 'what's up with your face?' after I got returns
And lastly I'd like to add one last thing re; the whole taxi experience...I havn't regretted a single penny I've spent on my taxi experience and the past 18 months have been better months than the previous 18 musical years put together. I think that says it all for me.