ARE YOU A PROFESSIONAL OR AN AMATEUR SONGWRITER?

Over a weekend someone tagged me in a Facebook thread that had over 500 comments debating heatedly over whether or not a lyricist was an actual “songwriter” or lyricist is just writing the words. Well, I can say it was probably one of the most stupid questions I’ve ever heard. And trust me I get tons of stupid questions on a daily basis but this one was to a whole another level.
 
All I can say is who cares? I don’t mean that in a harsh way. You see, I’ve had over 150 major artists record my songs on 15 million albums sold. 19 Billboard hits. And you know what? I’ve been on writing sessions where I contributed only lyrics. Other times sessions I did only the music. And often both music and lyric. Some days I play an instrument on the session and others I won’t. Sometimes I just do the arrangement and some other times I do the mixing for the team. I’ve even been on writing sessions that all I needed to do was to record them. Let’s go further, on tons of sessions, I am considered as the “quality control manager” and I just tell the writers to keep this and change that! 

My bottom line here is, doesn’t matter what you are doing, as long as you are contributing what you’re good at, and everyone are satisfied and most importantly, as long as the song is having the progress. After all, the song is the king.
 
Who cares? The song doesn’t care who did what. Another thread here debated what it means to be a “professional songwriter”. Well, a great song doesn’t care about that either. I’ve heard songs that stop me dead in my tracks written by a writer without a publishing deal. And as a professional songwriter, some days I’ve written some pretty “just okay songs.” What we label ourselves or what we’ve accomplished doesn’t matter when we sit down to write. These debates and opinion shadings are always going on and they are pointless because you know what is real and not opinion? THE SONGS. When a song is written right and moves everyone that hears it to tears, or to dance, or to laugh. That is all that matters. A song doesn’t care how it was written, who wrote it, or if it was created by a professional or a first timer. 

Author

Hangi Tavakoli is our in-house established and professional music producer with more than 18 years of experience in songwriting, music production, mix and mastering. He has produced more than 3,000 and written more than 4,800 published songs to-date, including some major hits in international scale.