How strong are your songs? A test to find out!
If you are songwriter you maybe asking how strong are the songs written? Knowing this information is extremely very useful in your marketing efforts as it will help you pitch the proper songs to your potential clients. Not knowing this information, you cannot get full potential returns of your songs.
For example, say you have written 20 songs. But most clients will ask for only the top 3 songs to be sent to them, so it is up to you to decide which are the strongest songs. Do you know the potential of your songs very well??? If do not know your songs well, do not even bother submitting top 3 songs or else you maybe wasting a lot of money in the submission process.
This is also applicable in any scenarios, it could be a songwriting contest or a music publisher accepting demos. So make sure those songs that are sent are the strongest ones. Are we confident that as a songwriter we can spot great songs? Maybe yes or no. We all have our personal choices, great writers such as John Lennon loves songs he wrote but it is not even known to public like the ones popular such as “Imagine”.
Great songs are hit potentials. Even songwriters may not even aware of the true song potential. “Hey Jude” by Beatles was written in a car while Paul McCartney was driving to visit John Lennon home. Paul did not give it much attention, until he played it live in a piano then George Martin then produces the song. The result is a Gold record:
To avoid songwriter self- bias and to clearly spot the strong ones, below are the ways that are recommended to spot the true strong songs. A truly great song pass in all test below. It is up to you to use all inputs in the process below.
1st approach: Simple, have someone hear your song, particularly not your relatives but your peers. A good recording is recommended but you can play it a guitar or piano just like how Paul McCartney introduces “Hey Jude”. Truth will come, and they will frankly tell you that your song is not good enough or has potential. Pay close attention to details and handle rejection carefully. This is where professionalism in songwriting is very important. I read how Billy Joel wrote “Honesty”, it was when he was sitting in a piano with a friend. He ask for his friend feedback about the new song he wrote. Then his friend criticizes the song ,saying it sucks. Instead of becoming angry or being discourage, Billy Joel sits down in the piano for a longer time developing the song. It ended up a masterpiece, it was a song called “Honesty”.
2nd approach. Spread out your lyrics to your friends and ask for feedback. You can even publish it on your blog and let viewers comment your lyrics. Again truth comes, when readers does not understand the lyrics, it will then mean you have problems with your lyrics and most likely the song cannot convey good message to listeners. A creative idea is to start a blog about your lyrics. Participate in songwriting forums. Below are the recommended songwriting forums for which you can join for free:
a. http://forums.songstuff.com/
b. http://www.musesmuse.com/forums/index.php
c. http://www.songwriterforums.com/forums/
3rd approach. Have your songs professionally reviewed. This is a cool approach. By having someone review your songs professionally you can get valuable inputs to measure if your songs are strong or not. I think there are great song review sites out there. I have searched Google and I have find these: http://www.unsignedbandweb.com/forum13.html
If you need a more professional song reviews, you can join Broadjam. They have free song reviews for any types of membership. I am not still a paid member though planning soon. But I find their song review services really helpful.
4th approach. Try hit song science: http://www.hitsongscience.com/. It can help you measure quantitatively the hit song potential of your songs. This is very reliable tool especially when paired with subjective reviews from forums in the 1st to 3rd approach above. If you received some very good subjective reviews on the above 1st to 3rd approach then hit song science gives you a hit song rating. Most likely the song will become successful.
5th approach. Join Indie Song Music Charting and let the public decides the rest. Before record-producer.com accepts demo songs. But currently they have disabled it (as of November 2008) due to the volume of submissions. But as the time of writing this article, my song “Always thinking of you” manages to stay on Position 1 on their chart for almost 3 months now. See screen shot below: 
If you can give it a visit, you a listen it here: Always thinking of you-Jeanine Maningo
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