What should song writers look out for when writing songs and making demos?
As a music producer, specialized in doing CD demos/masters, there are number topics I would like to discuss with you, songwriters and artists, to help you know what to look for when “shopping” for a record producer, from your point of view, as well as how to better present, and write songs. Let's face it, we have all started from the beginning at point or another in our careers, so it is totally justified you should not have a clue what to do in such a situation, to know what to ask and what to say when contacting a record producer.
PART 1:
To start of with, there are in fact a multitude of words that can be used to describe what I am, do and can provide you (so that you look up on the Internet when looking for producers available): from Record Producer, Music Producer, Music Programmer and Arranger to proving Demo CDs; Demo Productions Services; Demo Music Production; CD Demo Recording, the list goes on – it really does not matter what you call it, a record producer should be there to help you with your songs, providing you sound advice, unbiased feedback of your songs and of course, turn them into high quality demos/masters, so that you can actually do something positive with them.
For the purposes of this article, I will refer to songs done in a demo/masters format, as opposed to talk about signed artists (that would most likely be working with a name record producer) making records for release. In this article I would rather cover the beginnings, how one starts from the very beginning, how to build up from there and so on, what you need to know to avoid making many mistakes, and wasting valuable time and investing your hard earned money on projects that are not likely to fulfil your high expectations.
So, we need to first learn some hard facts, and do a reality check here; although not pleasant to hear it at times, this will save you, in the medium to long term, a lot of disappointments, and working with the wrong people.
If you are starting in this business or even if you have been doing it for a number of years but have not yet succeeded in having any of your songs placed with an artist (via a publishing company), or having it released professionally, you are by all accounts, an “unknown entity”, from a record producer's point of view. The reality is, why would anyone want to invest their own time and resources on a songwriter that has not yet had any proved track record?
I am of course saying this, because I do also learn a lot from my clients and their past experiences. I have heard several times of songwriters teaming up with music producers to do CD demos when they did not pay them a penny, and all you have sometimes, is just a verbal agreement that if the songs (you are working on) are successful, they will get a specified cut of your songs. These situations more often than not, end up in tears and frustration, and hardly ever do they achieve what they set out to achieve in the first place!
I have never believed in collaborations between songwriters and (professional) recording producers at this level , as, in my opinion, they simply just do not work. To deliver a professional quality CD demo requires a lot of time and hard work (I am of course, not talking about one, two-day wonder demos here!), why would any one in their right mind want to do that when the realistic chances of any meaningful success, and therefore investments returns are minimal or non-existent, since the songwriter in question is not signed by a major label, be it a publisher or record label, and most likely, would not have any real contacts in the music business? It just does not add up in mind, and I have seen that happen time and time again.
The solution to that? If you desire having any control over your music at all and be able to call the shots, there must be a professional bound between you and the music producer you have chosen to work with, and you must pay him/her an agreed fee so that he/she will be able to do his/her best to help you with your demo songs. If you are truly serious about your music career, you must therefore focus on that and invest heavily on it, as this music business is becoming more and more money orientated, and with the advent of better and better technology, the standards are getting higher and higher!
So your demos must reflect these change of times, and be every bit professional and of the highest possible quality. You cannot afford to leave anything for imagination here, as most people will not have the time for that, plus the necessary knowledge to help you there, as that is really the job and role of a record producer!!
Of course at this level, money, or rather, the lack of it , is indeed a serious issue when you are starting off, and/or have not yet earned money from this business. So for that, I would say, think quality over quantity - ALWAYS!! There's no point in trying to rush and record several of your songs when the overall quality of the demos CDs will be, shall we say, doubtful at best, but most likely, just plain waste of your time and money (because you would be trying to do them on a cheap, which is never going to work, at any level! ) . So, if you can only afford doing one demo song every month or every two months or so, so be it, it is much better that you do that, and in the meantime, you can work on your song craft, improving it all around. Make your demo recordings count ! You will need to do more than one song, in fact a few, as that is just the nature of this business, but learn to be selective, only demo your best songs, and you will just have to take one step at the time, Rome was not built in one day!
In order to save money and time it is imperative that you think it through what you want to achieve with your song, what market, artists you are targeting before you actually contact your record producer. The more homework you do on your song, the better the end result is likely to be. But there's absolutely no point, in my opinion, to invest your time, even money on pre-productions so that you have something a bit more glamorous to show (and impress) your producer.
I, myself only need a melody and your lyrics, and have a chat about what you have in mind, what direction you see your song going, who you are writing it for, for me to create a full production of your song. Arranging and producing is WHAT I do and am trained for, plus I have the equipment, skills and would like to think, talent and patience to do a great job for you, if you had any of these, you would not be contacting a music producer in the first place and would instead, be producing and recording your own songs yourself!
PART 2:
Some things to look out for before showing your record producer your latest hit song: Now that is where the fun begins! There are many things that ideally you should think long and hard before you consider your songs to be ready to be demoed.
Let's start with the basics:
1) Again, only write for a specific market, or for the artist(s) you are aiming at. You write for yourself only IF you are recording your OWN album!! If you are a song writer, you are writing for other artists, and trying to place a song with them, first find out what they are about, what they usually like to sing about, the various styles of music they cover, who their audience are. Song writing is where you can actually make lots of money, here is where the big money is made, if you are luck to write a hit song for someone that has a large audience and sell many records. So be careful before signing away your songs to a publisher without consulting a music lawyer to read out to you all the terms of the contract, as they are usually very long, and made to confuse you (sorry for being perhaps a bit cynical here!)! Once you have signed your songs away, there's very little point in complaining later when your first cheque comes!
2) A song is a vehicle for expressing yourself, as an artist, but is also big, huge business, so there's no point in being all romantic about it; it is (hard) business and money at the end of the day that we are talking about. So be professional about it, know your stuff, not just from the song writing point of view, but try and learn as much as possible of the business side of it.
3) As a marketable product you have to make sure you have thought about all aspects of it, coldly, objectively and totally unattached from it. Of course there's no such a thing as a sure thing, or a dummy manual on how to write hits, if it were that easy we would all have had hits! But there are certain things, certain rules you can follow that will minimize the prospects of your songs being turned down, and hopefully increase the chances of landing that elusive deal.
PART 3:
4) How to structure a song, how many bars should each part have: These are the rules that you MUST follow, if you writing on the Po p domain, so unless you are aiming at Progressive Rock market, do pay attention to this:
a) The actual structure of the song (what part comes after what, how many times you repeat it) can vary, but there are some “formulas” that are used more often than others, again, do your homework, analyze the songs that the artist you are writing for sings, or take top 5/10 songs in the charts, how do they go about it?
b) Number of bar for each song part:
Intro : can vary, anything from not having any at all and going straight into the first verse or chorus 1, to being 2, 4 or 8 bars in length. More than 8 bars is not advisable, unless you have a very strong hook line and it sort of morphs into the chorus. The first 30 seconds of a song are extremely important, as many A&Rs (Artists & Repertoire, the people that are meant to be listening to your hits) will jump to the next track if not sufficiently impressed with the first 30 seconds, so you have to impress and create the mood there and then! Remember this is a demo, you have to sell your song, what the artist will do with it afterwards is not of your concern!
Verses : can ONLY be either 8 bars or 16 bars, you can have 2 verses (of 16 bars each) one after the other, but personally I would not want to push my luck having 32 bars of verses, as the chorus (being the most important part of the song) has to come in pretty quickly, so you do not want to delay that for too long. If you are writing 3 verses (of 16 bars), have the 3 rd verse half the number of bars of the previous verses, i.e., make it 8 bars only.
Bridges: is the part of the song that precedes a chorus, it does exactly what it says on the tin, Bridges the gap between the verse and the chorus. Bridges can vary, from 2, 4 to 8 bars, but not more than 8, which is the most used, a song does not necessary have to have a bridge, if the verse develops well into the chorus, or you are using 16/32 bar verses, which would make the song too long. If the bridge is too strong, has a strong hook, it can be considered to be a Pre-chorus , instead of being called a bridge. Confused? You bet, so I am!!
Choruses : should be either 8 bars or 16 bars long, making sure they are indeed the strongest part of the song, and has a very strong hook line. The chorus has to be beyond any doubt the one part of the song that everybody will remember the most! If it happens that the verses (or bridges) are the most memorable, then you are indeed in BIG trouble, and should know your song is flawed (it has a very weak chorus!) , so re-write the chorus again, seriously !! Also, and this is quite common with my clients, if one has trouble telling which part is what, and not being able to tell which part is the chorus, the same thing applies here, re-write the chorus and re-structure the song, it is just not happening! A big catchy chorus is what will sell your song , so make sure you have just that!
There are also Post-chorus , which works more like a second chorus (placed immediately after the main chorus), which is too strong to be a verse. Usually 4 or 8 bars long.
Middle 8: this is the part of the song that usually happens somewhere in the middle of the song, and guess what, it has 8 bars!! So don't write a middle 16!! The purpose of a middle 8 is to have a break from the rest of the song, it is a (momentary) departure from the central theme of the song. Not every song has to have it though!
Break/Link: Usually you also have brea ks or so called links, it is used as a break part between the choruses and the next part (usually verses, as a middle 8 would obviously not need this). These brea ks are usually between 1, 2 or 4 bars long (no more).
Outro: This is the double chorus at the end of the song, where you will (most likely) find vocals ad libs, and (possibly) a song fade; the length is same as that of the choruses. Here you can afford to be a bit more adventurous and introduce some surprises, some nice instrumental motifs over the chorus (outro) chords.
Song total length: In Po p music, the trend these days is to write more and more short songs, not as short as some of the early Beatles stuff, but thereabouts. I think that aiming at 3 minutes, up to 3:30” is a safe bet. So writing 16 bar verses, with bridges, a middle 8, or even having 3 (16 bar) verses on a song, will not help your cause much. So do plan your song in advance, time it and make the right decisions, remember, leave the emotion element out of it, this is indeed big business!! And leave the longer song versions for the dance remixes!!
PART 4:
Other things to consider:
5) When writing lyrics:
Rhymes - if you are going to use rhymes (you do not have to), please avoid the obvious and uninspiring rhymes, but specially, be consistent and methodical. If you are going to rhyme, for instances, lines 1 with 3 and 2 with 4 (or any other permutation), of a given verse, be consistent and do the same again on the next verse, otherwise that is considered to be flawed and bad song writing.
Number of syllabus per line – try your utmost to have every line, or that very same line number on all verses to have the same number of syllabus – this is indeed very important, but equally very difficult to achieve successfully. Sing the lyrics counting syllabus by syllabus making sure they all have the same number. This will help the singer to be able to sing (scan) the verses much better and allow them to repeat the same melody again on the next verse, and when doing BVs (backing vocals), make sure the same formula will work on the next verse as well! Trust me, this is important!!
Singing rhythm – a singer, be it yourself or a session singer can only sing well if the vibe is there, to begin with, and if the words do not “scan” well and are not easy to sing, it will not work, and it will result in terrible vocal performances from the singer. Do listen and take onboard what the singers have to say, this is what they do and yes, they should know this better than you and me, as they are the ones singing the songs! Also there's no point in writing Shakespeare poetry, if when singing it, it scans terrible and the words have no “ring” at all. So you have got to have a good balance between intelligent, meaningful and interesting lyrics and writing something that actually not only sounds great, when sung by a good singer, but that you want to hear it again! Also make sure the listener can hear every word is being sung!
Words repetition – avoid repeating the same words again on the song, if at all possible, but by all means, do NOT repeat words within the very same verse, as that is just bad song writing! Unless of course, your song is called ”IF”, then I don't think you can help it that much!
Spelling check – as with any product you are trying to sell, good presentation is always a good and positive step towards achieving your goals, they can only help your cause, so make sure you do spelling checks before the singer goes to studio and record the vocals. Things like saying, “Your so beautiful”, instead of the grammatically correct, “You're so beautiful” may appear not to be too important, but every bit counts!
Still on the subject of vocals and lyrics, it is also advisable that you tell the singer/producer you are working with,the meaning of your lyrics, what you had in mind when you wrote them, what was that you were trying to convey, as that will help the session singers capture the required emotion. Remember, and this is no disrespect to any session singers, but unfortunately, unlike (most) record producers that genuinely care about their work, session singers are not usually connected emotionally to the song and/or the project, they were not there from the beginning, and most likely will not have met the songwriters per se, so every bit you tell them will help the record producer to achieve what you both had in mind.
Having a particular singer in mind that you would also like the session singer to sing and sound like, say, Britney Spears or Kylie, or Gwen Stefani (my 3 favourites when it comes to style direction), is always a good and sensible thing to think about, most likely your music producer will think along the same lines, but it will do no harm to tell him/her what you have in mind. Even having a CD with a particular song that you like the style of the vocals can be very useful! Although session singers are generally speaking, very experienced, music is such a subjective matter, and people can and will at time, hear different things when listening to the same music, as it invokes different emotions on all of us! The beauty of music!
Next time we will be talking about demos in more detail, what to expect and ask, and what is realistic to achieve from a demo CD, so that you can make sure you are going to get what you want and paid for.
Bye for now, I hope this has been useful to you! By all means you can of course contact me at any time should you have any queries or would like to ask me any other questions!
God bless!
Ricky Seraphico (Music Producer)
E-mail address: rickyseraphico@btinternet.com
Website address: rickyseraphico.com