JOB #1 MEANS DOING YOUR JOB!

Some time ago I was enjoying a mentoring session and was offering tips to help a young songwriter understand what producers and publishers often listen for in song demos. One of the demos had an extremely long guitar solo after the first chorus. I offered that:

#1. Guitar solos typically are after the 2nd chorus and not the first.
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#2. The solo was so long it pushed the song to over 4 and half minutes. And that hurt the chances of getting the song recorded. The songwriter I was mentoring shot back this question. Why can’t a publisher or producer who knows what they are doing, hear the song with all the changes and record the song anyway?

​The short answer is this. As songwriters, it’s our job to do our job. Producers and publishers hear 1000’s of songs. They are extremely busy, and if they do take the time to sit down and listen to one of our songs, then we can’t expect them to do our job. We can’t expect them to analyse the song and say “if you cut the 2nd verse in half and re-write the bridge, then I will cut that and make you a ton of money.” 99 times out of 100 that is not going to happen. We must do whatever we can to make their job easier. If we don’t another writer will! Who would you rather work with if you were in their shoes?
 
Our two main jobs as songwriters are to consistently write good songs and build relationships with the right people to record our songs. The second part of that equation is MUCH easier if we do OUR JOB and bring publishers and producers songs that already have the re-write and demo them correctly.
If we can start to approach our job with this frame of mind, we start making doors open that we don’t even see right now. By doing our job, other people start to see we can be counted own. We start to build a reputation of knowing what we are doing and being professional. There are lots of things that go into the job of being a songwriter. I’m still learning everyday. Even after being fortunate to have what I’d call a decent amount of success as a writer, I still have to hustle, be professional, and write good songs.
 
Learning these good habits now will serve you down the road on the journey of your dreams.

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.