Make your own song

It offers great advantages to any songwriter that can produced the demo themselves. It is because:

a. Recording in the studio is very expensive.
b. At the studio, you do not have all the time to think creatively which can affect the quality of your projects.
b. Cuts the cost of your recording.
c. When the production cost is very low and your song has the potential to earn a lot, the return of investment in your business is very high.
d. When the return of the business is very high, it will ensure you have a successful music business. (more…)

Song is the product of the songwriter but a song demo is a by product of a team of music professionals. And the process of creating demo from your songs is a bit complex and needs to be understood. It is important to learn basics of the song production process. The objective is for you to find a suitable person that can help you produce the demo if you are a songwriter.

Let us discuss step by step what happens from the moment the songwriter put his pen to a paper to write lyrics and melodies and to the moment the song will be heard on the radio or other performance medium:

1. Songwriting Stage: the songwriter is the first step. He is the one inspired to write songs with purpose. Professional songwriters write for a specific artist while Amateur Songwriters write for themselves although in a transition of becoming professional soon. In this stage the song is created. The end product of this stage is a complete set of lyrics and melodies of the song. It includes also the arrangement and simple raw recording from the cassette tape. In this stage, the songwriter will file a copyright registration of the song. (more…)

Frankly, the one receiving your demo expects that the songs in the CD are your best written songs. Many times songwriters are in a hurry of submitting a demo without properly evaluating their best songs in terms of quality, performance and marketability. This results to low success rate, frustrations and failure. Based on my experience of submitting demos, I will give steps to illustrate the ways in selecting the best songs for your demo:

a. Develop a catalog first that will produce potential hits. By understanding 80-20 principle, only 20% of your catalog songs will become hits. And these hits will give income in terms of royalties that comprises 80% of all royalties gathered. Developing your own catalog takes time. Patience and proper planning is the key. So if only 20% of the songs written will become hits and if demo requires 4 songs. This means:

Total number of Hit songs = 20% x Total number required songs in the catalog

Total required songs in the catalog = Total number of hit songs / 20%

Total required songs in the catalog = 4/ 20% = 20

This means to produce a high success rate demo, you will need to write at least 20 songs. This does not mean, you have to write 20 songs immediately in one day. It will not help. Instead, these songs are written with quality and marketability in mind. You will need to devote significant amount of time for each song that is to be written. (more…)

Press kit is a form of formal demo presentation given to a music industry professional. Way back 2004 I am researching what are the ways to make an effective press kit. And these are the important points:

a. Basically press kit is a more formal one, a complete presentation package that can be done for an inspiring artist to break the deal.

b. Basically press kit itself should contain more than the song itself, it contains biography, reviews and photos if you are an artist.

If you are in doubt what to submit when someone ask for your demo. Here is my guide:

a. If you are a singer-songwriter with active performances, I go for a press kit because it is a more formal one. It gives my performance details and achievements.
b. If you are just a songwriter, I still go for a press kit but not including possibly loweing the formality than doing an artist press kit.Although song reviews are still very important. (more…)