How long do you hang in there?

[RunarB]

I've been writing and submitting for TAXI listings for years, and last year I finally decided to try what Michael said right from the start was the best place to begin: Write instrumentals for commercials and movies. Suddenly I got more than 20 forwards in 6 months. And then nothing happened. It's kind of a turn off. I also had some songs forwarded to really big artists, and never heard anything back. I know it's an achievment to get this close, and I should be happy with my progress. But man, I wish something happened soon. Any advice?

[funsongs]

Honestly - from just a lurker in The Peanut Gallery, I'm not the one to be giving advice... BUT... here's 2 pennies worth to take or leave:
1) It appears this is your first visit to these forums; that's one thing you might consider increasing, taking advantage of FREE critiques from members who are getting placements.
2) And when you post here - include links to the music/songs to which you are referring that have gotten forwards, but not placed...
there may be some 'hidden' reasons that could be addressed - so you can tweak them - for future listings/forwards/placements.

From your report - it appears you've already made positive adjustments to your method; take that as a stepping stone, knowing you're on a better path.
Sounds like a few course-corrections could pave the way for more and better things.

Hope that helps - good luck to you.
Welcome to the Community Forums.
Y'all come back now, y'hear?!

[RunarB]

Thank a lot for the advices, man. I'll use both of them! Just have to figure out how to post links to songs. You just copy from the taxi hosting site and paste into the post, is that it?

[RunarB]

Here's a song that was recently (december) forwarded to a request from a huge US band. I'll try and just copy and paste the link to the hosting site:
https://www.taxi.com/my/artist/songs/Ak ... antom-pain

[funsongs]

Here's a song that was recently (december) forwarded to a request from a huge US band. I'll try and just copy and paste the link to the hosting site:
https://www.taxi.com/my/artist/songs/Ak ... antom-pain

That's a good start - yes. But - there are different "boards" on these forums, each for its own purpose.
If you are wanting feedback on a tune or song BEFORE submitting it for a listing, it would help for you to post two things:
1) the text of the listing itself.
2) the link to the track you plan to submit to THAT listing. For this, use the Peer To Peer board.

note: if the piece is on Soundcloud, click onto the Soundcloud icon up in the right end of the tool bar above - that opens up a line, so you place the cursor between the brackets, and paste the link there.
The result is the track will appear in in the post, to be seen directly.

There are other boards for forwards (or returns - tracks NOT forwarded).

Since you are new to the Community Forums - consider introducing yourself with name and short bio - using General Hangout for that sort of thing.

Suggestion: check out examples, questions, answers on the other boards to become familiar with the subject matter they contain.
Once you've got a handle on that, you may well find you've acquired a whole bunch of 'new friends'... in this friendly, pay-it-forward space.

Again - from The Peanut Gallery - hope that helps you make the best of it.
Cheers.

[jaywilliams]

...Suddenly I got more than 20 forwards in 6 months. And then nothing happened. ...

Hey RunarB congrats on those Forwards!

How long has it been since you got those Forwards?

How many Taxi listings have you submitted to in the interim?

I gather from your post that you are frustrated at the lack of contact from all those Forwarded tracks.

Some tracks get signed quickly, some can take a year or longer to get signed, you don't have any control over that.

If you just got 20+ Forwards in half a year you are doing something Right - keep doing those things!

TLDR-write more tracks, keep going!

Jay

[MBantle]

I like the concept of 'marginal gains' i.e. with every track you do, try to improve one thing (whether it's editing, writing, mixing etc.) and, yes, hang in there. You had forwards which means your music was 'up there' when it comes to the respective listings. In other words, you already got what it takes! I would also suggest that you take a look at the forwards blog (I think it goes without saying that e.g. hip hop instrumentals 2 years ago sounded different to what would be considered 'contemporary' today). And, most importantly, never stop writing - in particular in your strongest genres. It helps a lot when you're able to start writing a cue for a specific listing using a draft that already has a few strong elements that fit the listing...
My five cents.
Cheers,
Matt

[cosmicdolphin]

But man, I wish something happened soon. Any advice?

How many years have you been at it ? How much material have you written ?

I started out writing songs pre-Taxi but decided when I got here it was way more productive for me to make instrumentals..that's because despite many lessons I admit that my songs sounded better sang by others and it's hard to get quality singers who can record properly to do this stuff for free or the promise of maybe some backend that may never materialise.

I can do an instrumental per week without neglecting my job and family too much, more if I collab and share the workload. It would probably take me several week to a month do a song from top to bottom all told. They just take more work.

I'm approaching 300 tracks made over 4 years, about 10% have had placements, most are in a Library of one type or another - A couple of the Taxi friendly Libraries have been resposible for the lion's share of those placements.

How long you hang in there kinda depends, I think it was only about 3 months for me to get that first cue signed but the first 12 cues they signed have never been used..it was cue 13 that got a placement but it took over a year and by the time I got the $10 or so in royalites it paid it was almost 2yrs later.

Of course I kept on working and trying differnt styles and working on my skills , some of the early stuff doesn't sound very good to me now but I guess that's why no placements happened.

I've seen a pattern where the 'Already Excellent' writers / producers get results quite quickly and they seem to leave everyone in the dust..

Some are the opposite and seem destined to stay forever in ' Returns Hell' but they seem to enjoy it anyway..so good luck to them..not everyone is in it to win it.

Then there are the Inbetweeners of which I count myself one who will never be Superstars but have put in the 1.000 hours or whatever it is they say to get good at something and somewhere along the way they start to get more consistent and over that quality bar. Stuff happens slowly and over a period of time they gradually build on their success.

So I guess ' How Long You Hang In There ' is the wrong question...It should be ' What Do I Need To Do To Give Myself The Best Chance Of Success '..the answer is work hard but strategise to make sure you are working on the right thing. And that's going to be different for everyone depending on your strengths and weaknesses.

Mark

[jdstamper]

How long? With your track record I have to believe it's going to happen. It may be sooner, it may be later, everybody is on a different journey, and there's a certain amount of luck involved too.

I think you need to enjoy the journey and creating music, and getting deals is just icing on the cake.

Good luck

Jim

[RunarB]

Thanks guys for tips, encouragement, spot-on comments and for taking the time to lift my spirit! I am new on the forum, so please show me how to respond to each comment, I can't figure it out. So I'll answer some of your questions here:

I have been writing songs in english for more than 30 years, though I'm norwegian. I definately write for the joy of it, I just can't stop. But of course, I want the songs to be heard and used by artists who can bring them out to people. In this time I guess I have written 200+ songs or more, lyrics and all. And a bunch of piano instrumentals. Now I use Logic as my production tool.

Marginal improvements: Yeah, that's spot on. I like that. And the concept of a journey. Down the road I keep discovering things that could improve that track I made a year ago.

One question: If I put my songs on Soundcloud and get them forwarded to a band, I noticed Michael saying that it might ruin the chances of a deal with an artis, since the song is already out there. I guess this is different with songs and instrumentals for TV and commercials?

I have a family and a day job, and work with music on my tiempo libre, which I guess is the case for a lot of TAXI members. Beeing able to work from home most of the time as a writer and editor, I am lucky enough to have flexible hours within biweekly deadlines, so that's great when there is a TAXI deadline.

The instrumentals I got forwarded in my most productive and hopeful period was made and forwarded in the fall of 2018. Half of them were Christmas instrumentals.

Strongest genres: Great tip to identify those! For me I guess it is acoustic based pop/rock, alt-pop/alt-rock, top 40 and AC. And of couse Christmas music:)