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FIND SONGWRITING COMMUNITY NOW!

7/20/2021

No matter what your definition of Songwriting Success is, one of the most overlooked aspect of a songwriter’s journey is the community. I run into many writers who are writing pretty good songs, but they are doing it in a vacuum. In reality, it’s nearly impossible to succeed as a songwriter or anything without a supportive community around you. Being a member of at least one songwriting community will help you a lot to share your songs with other fellow writers, get their feedback and grow yourself, as well as being updated about the behind the scene of the industry. Plus, having a wider network is always great for your business, and please don’t forget that songwriting is your business and the songs you write are your product to be sold. Here are some reasons it is important to find community as a songwriter.

Songwriters are a different breed. It’s often hard for spouses, friends and family members to understand why we think differently.

I DO MY SONGWRITING BEST – PUTTING AN END TO THE COMPARISON GAME

6/8/2021

There is a lot of comparison that goes on in the songwriting world. Artists pick this song over the other song. Someone decides that song is better than this song. Someone decides who is a better songwriter and even among 2 co-writers, there will be someone who wants to work with one of the two as a solo writer. We all tend to compare our songs to songs on the radio. Or we go to a writer’s night and compare our work to the work of others. When we hear something better than our music, we start thinking and analysing that song to see what element made it better than ours.

At the end of the day, I am going to be disappointed if I compare my work to Max Martin’s. He has had hundreds of songs cut and makes millions of dollars. Maybe I think my songs are just as good as his. Maybe some of them are better than some of his. None of that matters. All that really matters is that I do my best. If I’ve done that, then the rest is out of my hands.

REASONS A PUBLISHER WILL WANT A COPY OF YOUR SONG

6/1/2021

There are a number of things that could cause a publisher to request a copy of your song. Yes, it’s right. Sometimes the publishers might want your song instead of you trying so hard to convince them to listen to what you created. Knowing what those reasons are can up your chances of success. In my humble experience, these are the top five reasons publishers request to keep a copy of a song:

They already have a good connection that they think would like your song. The easier you make the publisher’s job, the better your chances. For instance, if you have a song that would be a great pitch for Demi Lovato, it would be a good idea to get her last couple of CDs and see which publishers show up more than once on her album. Then, do a little research and see who works at that publisher. Maybe you discover that “Little Lady Bug Music” shows up a lot and that Susan Smith works there. You met Susan at a songwriter event last year and got her card. So, you call Susan and ask to send her one song for Demi.

She’s already had success with Demi and by connecting the dots, you have given yourself a good chance at getting your song to Demi. Knowing who a publisher has had success with in the past can help you decide which publisher to approach and what to play them. Pitch smart and you have a better chance. Don’t work like a machine gun to shoot one thousand bullets and one might hit the target. Instead, be like the sniper. Take your time, check all affecting elements, and shoot one bullet at the right moment and hit the target

HOW TO CHANGE YOUR ODDS IN ANY CREATIVE BUSINESS

5/18/2021

From time to time, someone asks me “What are the odds of getting a cut?”. In my mind, what they are really asking is “Is this even worth trying?”. I’m going to suggest here that this is the wrong approach to dream chasing of any form. Let me put it to you this way. What are the odds that an Iranian guy with experience of being a rapper and producing hip-hop finds himself in Singapore, writing and producing more than 3,000 songs for more than 250 artists? Almost zero. Yet, here I am! What are the odds that a guy who grew up with no connections in the professional music business at all, figures it out, gets more than 400 songs recorded by internationally major artists, and writes 16 #1 songs? Not great odds. Yet, here I am. What are the odds that a rapper with no formal business training create a business that has grown from day 1 and has served more than 4,000 songwriters all over the world in just 5 years? Yet here , Flipside stands. That’s laughable.

Even let’s move one step further, what are the odds for a guy who couldn’t speak more than 20 English words to leave Iran, and next year get his first English song that he wrote, recorded, and then more than 1,000 English songs later, he starts writing books and blogs all in English? Yet, you are reading his blog right now. So, please don’t ever tell me that there is such a thing as “impossible”. I am a living proof of my claim, and I personally know people who proof it even stronger by the things they’ve got done!

The longer I live, the more I realize that it’s really not about the odds unless you are playing the lottery. In that case, there really are odds that are stacked against you. Those odds are measurable and accurate. They are based on math. They are real! In any creative endeavor, however, the odds are not so fixed. You can figure out ways to cut them way down. How do you do that?

REASONS TO SIGN AWAY YOUR PUBLISHING

5/11/2021

Over and over, during my songwriting career, I have been a part of debates over the issue of holding on to publishing vs signing away publishing. As a general rule, keeping your publishing would be preferable. After all, the publishing share is half of your share of the song. So, why would anyone sign away their publishing? Here are a few good reasons:

You need a monthly draw. In the beginning of my career, I needed a monthly income to survive. I traded my publishing for that monthly check. Looking back, it was the right choice. It got my foot in the door. I had an amazing mentor/publisher. And I got some cuts. I came out close to even on a 5-year deal that I considered “Songwriting School”. I learned the craft and I learned how the business worked. That was invaluable.

DO YOU WANT TO BE A SUCCESSFUL PUBLISHED SONGWRITER?

5/4/2021

Today, I was sharing my songwriting journey with a group of high school students. I’ve never really told my story in quite this much detail and to such a young audience or matter of fact, to anyone out of my very small close circle, but in the course of trying to convey my story, I discovered a couple of things about myself. I told them about growing up in Tehran and how I had to leave Iran, because I almost got executed and almost lost my life, simply because of writing music which was questioning certain things about the government, and about the intimidation I felt in regard to the music business because of the huge number of people I encountered that were trying and failing to make their dreams come true.

Even though I had dreamed as a child of being one of the people whose names were on the liner notes as having written the songs, I was scared senseless, so much so that I wouldn’t even try.

I went to college and got a degree in Industrial Engineering, but I never gave up my music dream and eventually at age of 20 I ended up studying the degree course again in major of Music Production (instead of studying Master of Industrial Engineering).

DID HE STEAL MY SONG?

4/13/2021

A couple of year ago, I was searching for song titles by reading through quotes on the internet. I found what I thought was an amazing quote. It said something like “How can you be old and wise if you were never young and crazy”. The next day, I threw that title out and my co-writer and I wrote an great song. As soon as we could, we demoed it and started pitching it around town. Six months later, I turn on the radio one day to hear “And here’s Frankie Ballard’s new single – ‘Young And Crazy'”. I knew right away that it had to be the same idea. Sure enough, it was – which killed my chances at getting my song cut – for a long time at least. Recently, I had just written a song with an artist that he loved. The day he turned it in, his label said, “You know that’s the title of Kenny Chesney’s next single, don’t you?” Game over for my great song.

Did anyone steal my titles? Did I steal theirs? The truth is, you can’t copyright a title. The bigger truth is that I got those ideas from someone else anyway.

QUALITIES OF A BAD SONGWRITING CO-WRITER

4/6/2021

Bad co-writers! One of the hardest species in this industry to deal with. A songwriting session can be one of the best things happening in a professional songwriter’s life. Everyone are supposed to enjoy it to be able to be themselves and let the creativity to flow. But it takes only one bad co-writer to ruin it for everybody in the room! Through the years, I have collected a list of qualities that make someone a bad co-writer. If you want to succeed as a co-writer, don’t be this guy, or girl.

Comes to the writing session unprepared. I don’t know how many times I have heard a co-writer say, “I’ve been writing a lot and I’ve got nothing today”. If you don’t have anything, do everybody a favor and cancel the appointment. Better to give your co-writer a snow day than to waste their time. Have ideas, a feel, a guitar lick, a groove, a good catch phrase for the song, at least a title! Something, or don’t come at all. Cancelling the appointment is bad but it’s still better than showing up and making the session unpleasant.

ADD NEW SKILLS TO YOUR SONGWRITER’S TOOLBOX LIKE A PROFESSIONAL WRITER

3/2/2021

Songwriters, like any craftsmen, rely on skill. But skill is often limited by the quality of tools in our toolbox. Here are 4 steps to get you on the path to constantly adding new tools to your toolbox.

Practice Active Listening. When we’re listening to music, it’s important to go beyond the “I like this” or “I hate that” Passive Listening. The next time you hear a song that catches your interest, ask yourself more specific questions like: Do I like this unique phrasing the singer is using? What rhyme scheme is being used? Does it work? Do I like this song because of the production, or is it a great song? Passive Listening promotes opinions rather than knowledge. Active Listening gets you inspired and develops your skills! This same method works for producers too. When listening to a song (especially electronic music) it would be good to think about what kind of synthesizer set up created this sound or what happened in the mixing that this song is so clear or even mistakes had been done that this song sounds like this!

HOW TO WEATHER THE UPS AND DOWNS OF THE MUSIC BUSINESS

2/23/2021

“The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There’s also a negative side.” ~Hunter S. Thompson

There is no doubt that the music business is tough. But so is the “Medical” business, the “law” business, the “teaching business”, etc. You get the picture. Things are tough all over. But the music business is full of things that look promising and fall through, things that are “guaranteed” and don’t happen – on and on it goes. By this point I have shared some of my disappointments. Holds that were all but a “sure thing” and didn’t happen. Singles that were promised on Sam Smith and never came to be.

The list is long and sad. And these are maybe less than 5 percent of the disappointments. But important is if you are going through these disappointments, you don’t give up and just use these rejections or unfortunate indicants as lessons and start again, stronger. So, how do you stick with it when the “downs” start to pile up? I learned the hard way that you have to have a plan. The plan I came up with was this.

LEARN TO SPEAK MUSIC BUSINESS

2/16/2021

Lots of songwriters I know just want to become better writers for their own pleasure not for being in the business – and that’s awesome! Another significant group in I know are trying to write commercially and to break into the music business – which is even more awesome. If that’s your goal, you need to learn to speak the music business language, or you’ll wind up looking like you don’t know what’s going on when you encounter people already in the business. Every industry has its own terms and words might have different meaning than their original meanings. Here are some proper uses of music business words.
HOLD. A hold is a request by an artist or a representative of an artist to give them first right of refusal on a song. If Katy Perry puts your song on hold, it means that she’s asking you not to give it to anyone else before she decides for sure whether or not it will make her record. It is some sort of saying that they had “shortlisted” your song and probably a couple of other songs and now they are debating which song have to get the final move.

Record labels, producers, managers and artists themselves put songs on hold. Publishers do not. If someone tells you that your song is “on hold” and it’s not one of the groups listed above, they are blowing smoke and hyping you up.

CO-WRITING ETIQUETTE

2/2/2021

Recently, we’ve had several people write to me concerning issues with co-writers. So, I thought I’d remind everyone of a few co-writing etiquette “Do’s and Don’ts”. Co-writing a song with someone enters you into a business relationship with them. Once that song is done, the two (or three, or five) of you have created a legal entity that will live on for 75 years after the last one of you passes away. That’s a big commitment. Because it is a big deal and it is important to know how to properly behave in regard to that little song baby that you create. It is seriously required to be taken highly seriously! Here are some things to keep in mind.

Ideas thrown out in a co-write are not for you to write on your own later. You pick one to write that day in the room and the other ideas “belong” to the person who brought them in. Taking the ideas you didn’t use that day is uncool and unethical.

Come up with your own ideas and respect the ideas of your co-writers. Unless if something is your idea and you are the one coming up with it and it is not being used in the co-write session, then later you can work on it alone or with another co-writer but if the other person comes up with it, it is not yours, no matter what.

ARE YOU PITCHING YOUR SONGS WITH A MACHINE FUN OR A RIFLE?

12/22/2020

In one of our Staff Writer Crash Courses I was teaching; we had a number of songwriters concerned because they could only submit one song for consideration for the week’s assignment. The prevailing attitude was that “more shots equals a better chance of something great happening”. I want to dispel that myth and to explain why pitching your songs with a machine gun is not the best way to hit your mark.

Not too long ago, one of my pluggers sent out an e-mail to all of our writers asking us to send him only one song pitch idea for a big shot singer. Well, I had the singer's first single ever, so I thought to myself “I’ve got tons of songs that would work for him”. I proudly sent my plugger a list of 8-10 smash hits that I thought he would kill. In my head, they were all pretty good shots. And, I thought the plugger could pick his favorite (or two or 5) to play for him. Immediately, I got a reply that said “I’m about to walk out the door to go to this meeting and I don’t have time to listen to 10 songs from every writer.

BLOW THEM AWAY WITH YOUR SONGWRITING

12/15/2020

I often run into people who are doing all the wrong things in their pursuit of success with their music. Most of the time, the thing they need to be doing is improving their songs. That’s often the one thing they aren’t doing, and they’re usually wondering why this whole songwriting business is not working for them. They are meeting with publishers and people at PRO’s (ASCAP, BMI, COMPASS, SESAC, etc). They are trying to get co-writes with big writers. They play shows, hoping to get noticed. Basically, they are doing anything they should be doing according to the “textbook” but the problem is that their songs aren’t just good enough. No publisher or PRO rep can help you if you don’t have songs that are great. Not good. Great.

If you get that writing appointment with a big writer and you aren’t up to writing at his or her level, you probably won’t get another appointment. So, I often find myself reminding people that the “secret” to success is to write undeniably great songs.

You know the feeling you get when you are listening to the radio and all of the sudden, a song comes on that is way better than the previous song? It stands out because it is just flat out better. If you have songs that are undeniably great, it won’t take many meetings or shows for you to garner some interest. If you aren’t getting that interest yet, then just take a deep breath and invest your time and energy into writing better songs.

THE SONGWRITER’S PITCH TO PUBLISHER CHECKLIST

12/4/2020

Before you even agree to the meeting, ask yourself – “Are my songs really ready for recording and for going to the radio? Are they my songs going to compete with everything this publisher hears every day?” If you can’t honestly answer that question, then you don’t need to take the meeting. I will be just a waste of time for yourself and more importantly for the publisher. I said more importantly because when you waste their time, they will put you in their “waste of time” list and next times when you actually might have something to offer, they will refuse to meet you because, well, why should they? The last time the spent time to meet you, they got their time wasted. I have heard songs pitched to me – as publisher – that were so bad that an artist would never cut them in a million years. Get lots of good feedback on your songs from the people you already trust that they don’t hesitate to tell you if your song is bad, and you know for sure they will tell you the truth. I refer to those people around me as “safe people” that I know no matter what, tell will tell me the truth.

Safe people are people that aren’t going to hold it against you if you play them a bad song and they most probably will tell you what they think is wrong with your song and even they might give you some suggestions to make your song better. You can consider their opinion, work on your craft and then show it to them again and see what they will tell you. Publishers are not safe people. They usually give you one chance and it is best for you to use your that one chance wisely.

WHY YOU’RE NOT GETTING SONGS CUT?

11/24/2020

Looking at the songwriters whom I am mentoring, and the messages and emails I receive all the time, I can say as an average, the biggest question most aspiring songwriters have is “Why am I not getting songs recorded by major artists?”
This is a very hard question to answer because there are many factors affecting your process in getting a song, but in my experience, there are several primary reasons people don’t experience the success they want with their songs. Here they are:

Your songs aren’t good enough yet. Well, I always had been saying “write better songs”. That doesn’t mean your songs aren’t good enough, but it means you can write better songs that what your written until this point. Today, you should write a song better than what you wrote yesterday, and tomorrow you should write something better than the song you wrote today. In more than 90% of the cases I’ve encountered, this is the problem.

DON’T BLOW YOUR SONGWRITING CHANCE

11/17/2020

If you get a chance to write with a producer, an artist or a writer bigger or more experienced than you, there are some key questions you can ask that will give you a better shot at getting a cut on their record. Those opportunities are valuable, so be sure to ask these questions before you start writing!

What’s been going on with you? I always start there for two reasons. I truly am interested in what’s happening with their career. And it helps me know what to write when I hear the answer to that question. Often, they will say something that sparks a song idea. When I’m mentoring younger writers I always encourage them to go out there and talk to people. Ask them questions, learn about them, understand them. Each person is filled with thousands of interesting stories and as writer who have a voice in the society, it’s our job to be their voice and say their stories. That being said, who could be better than your co-writer? When you get the ideas from your co-writer and working on it together with them, during the process they can contribute more too because they feel close to the story.

WHAT SONGWRITERS SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THE MUSIC BUSINESS?

11/13/2020

One of the biggest factors that keeps songwriters from succeeding in the music business is that they overlook the fact that it’s a business. Understanding the fact that “music business” is made from two words of “music” and “business” and they are equally important. Unfortunately, most of young musicians I know just care about the music part and they mostly complain that they can’t make enough money to make a living! If you are from this group, you should know the most important and the simplest reason you are not making enough money is that you are too focused on the music side and forgotten about the business part. On the other hand, there is another group of musicians that they are focusing way too much on the business side and they forgot that they need to be a good musician or a good songwriter to have fresh and constantly produced material to do business with. They just write a couple of songs and then they focus so much on selling those few songs! That’s not how it works. You must focus on both side of the music business at the same time and understand that these two, together, can bring success to you.

TIPS FOR PITCHING YOUR SONGS

11/6/2020

I see lots of mistakes being made in regard to pitching a song. Pitching the songs can be very tricky and sensitive. Tricky because you must make sure you understand what exactly they are looking for and you pitch the right work. And sensitive, because with couple of wrong pitches you can put your name in publisher’s list of people who always send the wrong song and the publishers will never open your emails anymore. Here are some tips to increase your chances of success, to help you appear more professional, and to keep you from burning bridges:

Learn as much as you can about the artist you are pitching to before you pitch a song. Pitching a love song to Kenny Chesney is as useless as spitting into the wind. He won’t cut one. Katy Perry isn’t going to sing a song that makes her look like a weak woman. Don’t waste your time or hers by pitching her one. Learning what artists will and won’t say is crucial to success in pitching songs. Be sure you have a song that you think is perfect for that artist, not just in the ballpark.

HOW VALUABLE IS “EXPOSURE” FOR SONGWRITERS?

11/3/2020

If I had a dollar for every time someone offered to let me entertain them for free in exchange for exposure, I could buy a new house. I’ve had offers from TV shows, wanting me to grant them a license for my song for free so that I could “pad my resume” and get “exposure” for my music. I’ve had countless bar owners offer to let me play “any time I want” for free so that “word can get out” about my music. The list goes on. The main problem with this is that I can’t get that exposure to supermarket and use it to buy grocery!

The other problem with these offers is multi-faceted. Everyone else in the chain is getting paid.

The guy making the TV show, the actors, the prop people, the gaffer (whatever that is), the cinematographer – they all get paid. Every single one. They aren’t working for exposure. In the case of the bar or restaurant, the same thing applies.

5 WAYS TO INCREASE YOUR CHANCES IF YOU LIVE OUTSIDE A MUSIC CENTER

10/20/2020

As a mentor and coach living in Singapore – which is not exactly the biggest music town in the world – I am often helping many songwriters that don’t live in a music town too. Natural being based in a city that is known to be music center, it can help your career a lot but if you are not based in any of “music cities” it still is perfectly okay. Nowadays with all the technology you can be completely present in a place without physically being there! Here are a few of my suggestions for getting deals and cuts while you are not living in a music city.

Visit as often as you can. Even if it’s just once a year. Even if it’s not possible to literally keep going to the music cities, some wisely planned “face time” with your key contacts can help you make progress and make new connections and strengthen the existing ones. Just letting people see your face and hear what’s going on with you can make a difference. Human being tends to forget about others if they don’t keep the connections. Everyone once in a while just drop and email or give a quick video call and say hi. Let your name to be under “alive” status in their mind.

HOW DO WRITERS AND PUBLISHERS SPLIT ROYALTIES?

10/2/2020

I get lots of music business related questions on my inbox and this is a very common one. The business side of music is not as complicated as it seems. The contracts and “rule” can look pretty confusing and complicated but once you get it, it will be very easy. Just need to get that on click in your mind and suddenly it’s like the fog had gone away and you can see everything pretty clear. Here are the basics of Writer – Publisher deals and how money is split.

There are two shares of royalties for each writer when a song is created. Each writer has a writer’s share and a publisher’s share. So, if there are two writers on a song, there are four shares assigned to that song. Two writer’s shares and two publisher’s shares. The way those shares are divided depends on the contracts that the writers have entered into basically it’s going to both of them as a whole and depending on the type of agreement they have between themselves it can be divided. In Flipside’s case, we sign the writers to an exclusive publishing agreement.

EAT THE BIG FROG FIRST

9/25/2020

“If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.” Mark Twain

Author Brian Tracy wrote a book called “Eat That Frog”. He took the idea from the Mark Twain’s quote. The idea of the book (and the quote) is that most people procrastinate doing the most important things because they are usually the hardest things to do.

WITH THIS CO-WRITE, I THEE WED: 10 CO-WRITING VOWS

9/22/2020

By entering the songwriting room to write with you, I hereby promise:

To be faithful to you in keeping our song “OUR” song. I will not change our song in any way without getting your approval. No lyric changes, melodic changes or production changes. Nor will I bring another writer in on our song without your approval.

I will honor you as an equal creator of this song. I will not count lines or try to measure who contributed most. I will respect that fact that WE created this song and that everything that happened in the writing room contributed to the song being the way it is.

I will not take this idea and write it with anyone else, even if it was my idea. If I don’t like the way it turned out, I will suggest changes or ask you if we can bring someone else in to help us make it better, but I won’t do anything without consulting you. At the end of the day, if I still don’t like it, I will move on and learn from the experience.

HOW TO GET A STAFF WRITING DEAL?

8/7/2020

Write with signed writers. As I mentioned, the relationship is one of the key factors for a songwriter to get a staff writer deal. To build these relationships, you can always approach the signed writers and write with them. This is a way the publishers and producers working with that writer will notice your work and maybe they will want to work with you. Or if that doesn’t happen in any given case, you’ve lost nothing, and you end up with a new song with a signed writer who can just help using his connections to push the song.

Get to know music publishers organically. If there’s a publisher you are interested in and you are able, go to writer’s nights where they are featuring their writers. Buy them a drink. Meet their writers. Mix and mingle. Go to events where publishers are speaking. Attend industry events. Publishers are much more likely to sign someone they know over a stranger. The more publishers you get to know, the better your chances are.

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