What happens to all the music with no forwards, no deals?

[cosmicdolphin]

I don't subscribe to the idea of throwaway songs, like you need to write 100 songs to get one good one.

I would argue if you wrote 100 songs in a year, you would end up with more good ones than if you only wrote 10. Writing constantly hones your skills more than carefully doing less of it.

[DougM]

I write songs because it’s just good for my soul and I have story to tell.

Without knowing what kind of music you write, your testimony suggests to me a fit in the local coffeehouse scene. Best chance to be heard by the people that matter most - those who do not have a stake in your happiness and success. If they like your music, you can be sure it is sincere. MHO

Alan, thanks for your thoughts on this and I really appreciate your "MHO". I'm going to take in all the feedback I get and see what the best roadmap is for me. I've invested the time, $$$ and effort so why not?

Also, I really enjoyed your tracks...........perfect for my morning yoga and contemplating what the day will hold. Best of luck with your endeavors!

[DougM]

Sync is not my jam and I don’t create for listings.

Well obviously, Taxi is not for you. Taxi listings are 80-90% for sync and it's hard to get forwards and deals without writing to listings (other than occasionally having the right song lying around). It sounds like you figured this out already.

So, if no forwards or deals, what are the best options for getting our music out there to those who may enjoy it with or without expecting any monetary payback? Anyone ready to start their own record label?

I agree with Alan that local gigs, coffee houses, etc. would be the way to go. Play your songs for the pure joy of it without caring if you make money on them. It's good to know what you want, what your goals are, etc. Not everyone is seeking the same thing. Good luck!

Casey

Hi Casey, thanks for taking the time to respond and great thoughts!

Agree, Taxi probably isn't for me given the sync-focus and me creating first and seeing where it may fit later, if at all. My music starts out just for me - because I can and like you said, for the "pure joy of it". That said, I do read the taxi listings and unless I have something specific that may fit (rarely), I take it all as a teachable moment to learn about the industry.

As stated elsewhere, I would not be a proponent of having anyone's good works shelved just because it may not have had a Taxi forward or deal signed
- makes no sense to me. That would be up to the content creator.

So being new to this arena, I was hoping to learn what platforms might be best for sharing my music - be it Sound Cloud, Spotify, Youtube, Tik Tok, personal website etc. I am less a live performer and more end-product produced in a studio.

I really enjoyed the tracks on your website....great writing, production and vocal talents. Wishing much success to you and your co-writers!!

[RPaul]

I would argue if you wrote 100 songs in a year, you would end up with more good ones than if you only wrote 10. Writing constantly hones your skills more than carefully doing less of it.

I probably should have clarified that, on the front end, you might well need to write 100, or more, songs to get to a really good one, at least other than by luck.

I also agree that writing "constantly", whatever that means to any individual, hones your skills. "Practice makes perfect." Okay, maybe not "perfect", but at least "much better over time".

Note, though, that I said "songs", which includes lyrics and music. And, of course, those songs need to be recorded, at least at some level, before you can do anything with them. If I were to write 100 songs in a year, probably none of them would end up having finished recordings, beyond maybe a quick piano/vocal work demo. Just doing the math, 100 songs a year averages one song every 3.65 days. That may be doable, though I think it would risk running out of "inspiration" (i.e. the combination of life experience and ideas that are needed to augment the writing skills to get to the truly worthwhile songs). But it wouldn't leave time to record those 10 songs I'd nominally get by writing 100. For that, I'm going to need a minimum of 20 weeks (assuming each song needs a full production, not just a piano/vocal to get to the point needed for putting it out there), probably longer, since there's also time needed to come up with the arrangements, figure out sounds, do the actual recording and editing, and mix.

Rather than writing those 100 songs, where 90 of them end up being throwaways (or just practice, maybe hoping that some will end up better by some sort of luck combined with the skills honing), I'd rather focus on the 10 songs (or whatever the number would be in any given year) that I feel have the potential to be "great" (which I do not define in commercial terms, but in the sense of a meaningful song that will affect people), then take whatever time I need to actually record them and put them out into the world. (FWIW, there was a period in the late 90s where I wrote or co-wrote about 75 songs in the space of a year. I was feeling inadequate on the lyric writing front, so worked with a bunch of lyricists over the internet, and I was very quick in writing music to lyrics at the time. But the most any of those songs got at the time was a live to tape piano/vocal demo or maybe a live-to-tape Band-in-a-Box demo. I got involved in the lyric rewriting, but I mostly picked lyrics that I felt were already very close, and that had the potential to turn into great songs. There were two big sets of those, maybe on the order of 35 songs in total, that ultimately "went away" when the collaborations went south. I've recorded and released on the order of 10 of the others since then, and a few others have been recorded and released by other artists. Some of what remains may never go anywhere, but there are still a whole bunch of those I'd like to get around to recording and putting out there at some point. But those are also competing with songs written since then that still need recordings and songs I write now that still need recordings.)

I know this is quite different from the production music/instrumental cues world. I don't even attempt much on that front, though I can at least imagine it being a lot more reasonable to get to the 100 pieces (or maybe even more) front once you get into a workflow groove.

[DougM]

So...what are the best options for getting our music out there to those who may enjoy it with or without expecting any monetary payback?

Well there are a few avenues you could check out that don't cost you anything:

1) Start your own YouTube channel to get your music out to the global public -
figure out what your 'brand' is - if it's more than just your name as the singer/songwriter/artist.

2) There's also the free Soundcloud account (up to 3 hours of music files, I think) - say about 50 tracks to go public.

3) Then there's Bandcamp - where you can put your material out there, set your own price, etc.
They'll take about 25%, but 75% of something is better than 100% of nothing.

Good luck finding what works for you.
Hope that helps, Cheers.
Peter

Thank you Peter for the excellent recommendations! And yes, it does help, thank you.

I will look at all those options. I agree that determining one's brand is essential and given my eclectic taste in music, I''m still working to define that.

Thanks for putting out so much good work. I enjoyed listening to your music and learn so much from great artist like yourself!

Cheers, Doug

[DougM]

I would argue if you wrote 100 songs in a year, you would end up with more good ones than if you only wrote 10. Writing constantly hones your skills more than carefully doing less of it.

I probably should have clarified that, on the front end, you might well need to write 100, or more, songs to get to a really good one, at least other than by luck.

I also agree that writing "constantly", whatever that means to any individual, hones your skills. "Practice makes perfect." Okay, maybe not "perfect", but at least "much better over time".

Note, though, that I said "songs", which includes lyrics and music. And, of course, those songs need to be recorded, at least at some level, before you can do anything with them. If I were to write 100 songs in a year, probably none of them would end up having finished recordings, beyond maybe a quick piano/vocal work demo. Just doing the math, 100 songs a year averages one song every 3.65 days. That may be doable, though I think it would risk running out of "inspiration" (i.e. the combination of life experience and ideas that are needed to augment the writing skills to get to the truly worthwhile songs). But it wouldn't leave time to record those 10 songs I'd nominally get by writing 100. For that, I'm going to need a minimum of 20 weeks (assuming each song needs a full production, not just a piano/vocal to get to the point needed for putting it out there), probably longer, since there's also time needed to come up with the arrangements, figure out sounds, do the actual recording and editing, and mix.

Rather than writing those 100 songs, where 90 of them end up being throwaways (or just practice, maybe hoping that some will end up better by some sort of luck combined with the skills honing), I'd rather focus on the 10 songs (or whatever the number would be in any given year) that I feel have the potential to be "great" (which I do not define in commercial terms, but in the sense of a meaningful song that will affect people), then take whatever time I need to actually record them and put them out into the world. (FWIW, there was a period in the late 90s where I wrote or co-wrote about 75 songs in the space of a year. I was feeling inadequate on the lyric writing front, so worked with a bunch of lyricists over the internet, and I was very quick in writing music to lyrics at the time. But the most any of those songs got at the time was a live to tape piano/vocal demo or maybe a live-to-tape Band-in-a-Box demo. I got involved in the lyric rewriting, but I mostly picked lyrics that I felt were already very close, and that had the potential to turn into great songs. There were two big sets of those, maybe on the order of 35 songs in total, that ultimately "went away" when the collaborations went south. I've recorded and released on the order of 10 of the others since then, and a few others have been recorded and released by other artists. Some of what remains may never go anywhere, but there are still a whole bunch of those I'd like to get around to recording and putting out there at some point. But those are also competing with songs written since then that still need recordings and songs I write now that still need recordings.)

I know this is quite different from the production music/instrumental cues world. I don't even attempt much on that front, though I can at least imagine it being a lot more reasonable to get to the 100 pieces (or maybe even more) front once you get into a workflow groove.

Hey Rick,

Thanks for all the good thoughts on this topic! You guys touched on the metrics that I eluded to in my original post about the mass amount of content being disseminated daily. If you're not in the sync world which I"m not, getting any great song noticed is really a daunting task. Platform choices are many and it's like winning a Powerball play. Tons of roadblocks and speed bumps.

For me....note I said "for me", I would rather concentrate on trying to make 10 good songs in a year the best they can be rather than focusing on trying to hone my skill on 100 with many likely being substandard. In any event, constructive feedback can certainly make one's product better - in any industry.

I prefer to do my music in a studio (rather than live) with professional assistance which allows me to control the results and a better end-product IMO. I'm not a great vocalist and endeavor to stay in my lane or get another vocalist.

What keeps me inspired is that although a "newbie" if you will, I by chance had the opportunity of a pro song writer who's written for many famous global artists, critique one of my songs and was told I'm "not a beginning songwriter" and that the particular song was "hypnotizing" and would be great for sync, film, commercials. That means a lot to me. So I'm here trying to find the right platform combo.

Also Rick, I see we're in the same area so hopefully I can catch one of your local gigs, introduce myself and say hello!

Thanks again for all the good feedback.

Does anyone have thoughts regarding Rocket Songs?

[RPaul]

You guys touched on the metrics that I eluded to in my original post about the mass amount of content being disseminated daily. If you're not in the sync world which I"m not, getting any great song noticed is really a daunting task. Platform choices are many and it's like winning a Powerball play. Tons of roadblocks and speed bumps.

I wouldn't totally discount the potential of being in the sync world in the sense that most any solid song can work for sync if the context is right, since that world can also include source music (e.g. music supposedly played on the car radio, by a bar band, etc.).

With respect to the platform choices, I saw another of your messages where you'd asked about some specific platforms, and I'd tried making a detailed reply with some thoughts on each of the specific platforms and/or categories you'd mentioned on Saturday. Unfortunately, though my reply somehow got lost, and the thought of trying to redo it was just too daunting. (I've noticed some issues recently, where I get an error message when trying to preview my post before submitting, but then it lets me try again, and all works the second time. In the case Saturday, I'd skipped the preview step and gone straight to submit, and that just took me straight back to this thread -- no error message or anything, at least that I saw, but also without my reply making it to the thread.)

I prefer to do my music in a studio (rather than live) with professional assistance which allows me to control the results and a better end-product IMO. I'm not a great vocalist and endeavor to stay in my lane or get another vocalist.

Even if you're not a "great vocalist", performing your songs live, for example at open mics, can be a great way to get some sense of how the songs are working for others. Unless I'm really pressed on a write/record/pitch deadline, I pretty much always try my songs live before recording them. It can sometimes help me work out the kinks, especially on the musical front.

Also Rick, I see we're in the same area so hopefully I can catch one of your local gigs, introduce myself and say hello!

Cool. I keep my performance schedule, including open mics and such, on my website. (I'm also on Bandsintown, but I only list full-length gigs there.) Open mics can often be a good place to talk about music/music business stuff with some like-minded individuals.

Does anyone have thoughts regarding Rocket Songs?

I had not heard of them previously, but I checked them out as a result of your mention. My initial take from the site was positive in some ways -- I recognized some of the publishing companies listed as being those of well-established Nashville songwriters, for example, which suggests there is a quality bar for the songs, and that some successful people are considering the site worthwhile. And there is information on the site to indicate that they are open to non-established writers, albeit with an audition of sorts, which also reinforces the quality bar consideration. However, one thing that made me nervous about it was their mention of licensing the music tracks and stems, potentially with the idea that a client could record their version to your tracks and release it, which would likely create a conflict (e.g. with YouTube IDs) due to have the same tracks. I didn't have time in that initial check to look into it in much more detail, only to make a mental note to check back into it later.

This morning, though, I went searching for reviews of the site. I found a few comments, but not many reviews. However, I did find this video interview with the head of the company, and I found it quite informative:

https://youtu.be/6tMTAXYB0Fk?si=KTD4KUy_pIEARzpJ

Bottom line is, I'm going to check them out further when I get a chance (maybe later this week, but there's a TAXI sync listing due Thursday that I want to see if I can come up with something for first). The video is old, from 2018, but, at least at that point, it sounds like the tracks licensing part was not mandatory. And I'm pretty sure that, if they would approve me as a "content provider" (i.e. songwriter/publisher with songs to license), it might be a way to get some covers of my songs. They do require a minimum of 10 songs to put up and recommend at least 20. (I've got a big catalog, so that shouldn't be an issue for me, though I will have to check into considerations relating to cowritten songs. While I have copublishing deals that give me permission to license any of the original songs I've actually recorded and put out there, subject to paying my cowriters/copublishers their share, some sites won't allow that unilateral licensing and require cowriters to also be members of the site.)

In some ways, it reminds me of early days of putting my songs out there on the Internet via my website. My site was well-linked at the time (I was even on the second page in a curated Yahoo listing, surround by various famous songwriters), and I used to get a fair number of inquiries about using my songs from that, including getting maybe a dozen indie cuts of those songs plus at least as many artists using my songs on their demos. And, in the video, the guy claims they're getting on the order of 500 cuts a month for their content providers. So I'm definitely interested in checking it out further to see if it might be able to help get my songs out there more widely.

[cosmicdolphin]

I would rather concentrate on trying to make 10 good songs in a year the best they can be rather than focusing on trying to hone my skill on 100 with many likely being substandard.

Okay but understand it's the reps that make you stronger. Given time, someone who writes a song a week will produce better songs than someone who writes one every month. Not because they are a better musician but because they compressed 4yrs of mistakes/learning/improvement into a single year.

Same principle applies to many other fields. Focus on improvement, not perfection.