To be honest, Larry, songwriters trying to sell songs sell the SONG, not the production. Few artists want to cover a songwriter's demo down to the note. A LOT of great songs are sold with no more than a piano or guitar and a vocal. Let the producer decide what HE wants to do with it (or the artist). Leave them nowhere to run with it, you put yourself at risk that, if they don't like the production, they don't like the song...

If you played this song on piano for an A&R guy, it's his JOB to hear in his mind how incredible this could sound But when he adds it in his mind, he is adding what HE wants to hear it like, not having it spoon fed to him and risk him not liking the production...

Have you ever been to singer songwriter 'circles'? A few songwriters get together, play tunes they have written, talk about the craft... They don't bring in bands, they don't bring in tracks, they sit around on stools and either play guitar or piano and SING. THAT is songwriting. You are confusing it with record production... They are two different things, at different stages in a song's release.

You need to be very careful not confusing the two. Chose what you want to do. They both take a lot of time. Spend days or weeks polishing production values, and that is days or weeks you HAVEN'T spent writing. And vice versa. You are getting there, Larry. It is perhaps time to reflect realistically (none of us is ever going to be Steely Dan! ) on what you DO want to do, and go for it. Shotgun yourself around on several different disciplines, and you may miss the boat on any one of them...

I hear you. This might be overproduced, even though it brought me a lot of joy and validation to hear how good one of my songs could sound. It took about 16 hours of studio time at least.

I think that the publishers want more of a full sound than they used to, at least that's what I'm hearing, and that often piano and voice is not enough anymore. But I've also read in Songwriter's Market from some publishers who commented that they want to be able to use their own imagination about how the song should go.

In the meantime, I'm sending this and a couple of my other songs around to see if I can get an opportunity. And I'm working on my next power pop tune, which I'm going to also overproduce. I'm having too much fun .

Beakybird

Beaky very enjoyable. Good luck to you and your music.

Thanks. I'm working on the next tune, this one with EZDrummer!

Will post next week when it's done!

Beakybird

Oh, BTW, Larry. I actually didn't MEAN that this one was overproduced. I think the arrangerment is very good. My remarks about songwriter demos were more as a response to



just to point out that it isn't ALWAYS the best thing for pitching your songs, but the line is a lot more blurry than it used to be. A&R guys are MUCH more likely to give a full production demo a fair shake than they used to. The main thing, I guess, is that the production can limit your market if you aren't careful. A song like this might work in a contemporary AOR market, but it might work for the country market too... (that's getting more and more like pure pop every day!).

If you know you are pitching to a particular market, a full production in that style works great. But if you then take that and try to pitch somewhere else, it MIGHT (I am not saying it always will) work against you.

If you are recording everything on a track by track basis, you can always play around with the mix after you have made the arrangement the way YOU want to hear it, and see how much you can strip away and still have a good representation of the SONG... Then burn that, and keep it for if you bump into someone from a different market looking for songs...

Can't wait to hear the next one. This is what makes coming here all worth while, for me...

[This message has been edited by Diki (edited 06-11-2009).]

Hey Bird,
Nice tune.. Harmonies are really nice as well... Recording is really good..

Nice job all around!