HOW TO INTERPRET FEEDBACK ON YOUR SONGS

Often, it seems like song feedbacks leave people confused. In one of my attempts at getting feedback early in my career, I send a song to a very prominent songwriting organization that I belonged to. The was called “It Don’t Get Better Than This” and it was about the way the “this” changed throughout a boy’s life. In the first verse, the boy held his first puppy and as it licked his face, he was thinking “It don’t get better than this.” The second verse has him kissing his first girlfriend and thinking the same thing. Finally, the bridge has him standing in his wedding ceremony and while his bride walks the aisle toward him, thinking the chorus again. The feedback I got was “Pretty well written, but it’s not possible to have three things that it doesn’t get better than.” I couldn’t imagine how the person giving feedback didn’t understand that what we imagine to be “the greatest thing ever” can – and does – change over time. The feedback left me confused and frustrated. Years later, as I gained more confidence in 

my writing, I took another look at that song and realized that the feedback I got was not good at all. I’ve since discovered the reason for the weak feedback. The organization that I had gotten feedback from hired people to do feedback who had never had cuts. They were aspiring writers who were struggling and needed a paycheck, not professionals or hit songwriters who knew what they were talking about. Over the years, I have found these thoughts to be helpful in interpreting feedback on my songs:

Realize that the feedback is just one person’s opinion. Definitely one person’s opinion has value specially if it’s coming from a reputable source, but it is not the final word. If you still believe in the song and the reviewer didn’t like it, get a second opinion. Get a third opinion. When a bunch of different reliable people give you their feedbacks, you can get an average of the comments and see where your song is standing and which areas can be better.
 
If you get mixed feedback, weigh it all and decide for yourself what is the best course of action. Stick with it if you believe in it. If there are all positive feedback, great for you. Then go ahead and pitch the song. If it’s all – or majority – negative feedback, try to find out where the problem is and fix it. If the feedbacks are mixed, try to find a middle ground among them and take that as the final feedback, yet that doesn’t mean it’s all correct. Even if the average feedback is negative but you deeply feel positive about it, as I always said, go with your guts!
 
Don’t take it personally. Bad feedback on a song doesn’t mean that you are a bad writer. It usually just means that you didn’t communicate something well. Go back to your writing room and fix it. Never take anything personally, even if sometimes you might know for some reason whoever gave you the negative feedback is just having some issues or something with you. Even in those cases you still can just stop asking that particular person’s opinion instead of asking them, getting the bad comment and then get discouraged! But keep in time that in most cases professionals are keeping it professional and it’s all about business. Nothing personal. Michael Corleone knows it well!
 
Sometimes, the reviewers don’t want to hurt your feelings, so they go easy on you. They try to come up with positive things to say to balance out the negative. Weigh it all carefully and you can usually tell who is blowing smoke and who is being sincere.
 
Feedback on your songs is one of the best ways to grow as a writer if you are getting feedback from people who know what they are talking about it. Put on your big boy or big girl pants and ask the people giving you feedback to “give it to me straight”.

Author

Hangi Tavakoli is our in-house established and professional music producer with more than 17 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.