An open letter from OK Go

A lot has been written about the music industry and how it’s going through changes. One truism (I’m paraphrasing) is

the record business is in freefall, while the music business is growing.

Here’s a summation of the issues by the band OK Go.

What about Taxi?

People ask if Taxi is for real, if it’s legit. I am a Taxi member. So far it hasn’t helped me. But I’ve met real people who have had considerable success with Taxi. You may have seen the band Naked Blue in some Taxi ads. I can assure you they are real. They’re from my home town (OK, the next town over). I was a Naked Blue fan long before they showed up in the Taxi ads.

Then there’s the guy I met standing in line at the Taxi Road Rally. It was a long line, so we had a chance to share our life stories, including our experiences with Taxi. He had already achieved some success with Taxi, but in the next few years he had more and more success, until one day I saw him in the pages of Recording Magazine, in a Taxi ad. They don’t make this stuff up.

My main advice about Taxi is, it works, but you have to submit a lot. That makes sense, because if you only submit one or two songs a year, your odds are much lower than if you submit 10 – 20 songs (or more) a year. There is no limit to how many you can submit. It’s $5 per song every time you submit.

But submitting a lot means you must have a lot of well-recorded demos (or you can submit the same song over and over again). They can be home studio recordings, if you have the recording/producing skills.

Why hasn’t Taxi helped me? For one, I joined when I only had a few song demos and I didn’t have the wherewithall to record more. In retrospect, I should have waited a few years. Now I have a full CD under my belt and another on the way. We’ll see how it goes.

If you know of a better way to get your songs to Film/TV music supervisors or to recording artists and their management, let us know by replying to this post.

Which comes first, music or lyrics?

Q: Could you give me some advice on how to structure lyrics – is it a question of writing lyrics in repect to the rhythm or write the lyrics and construct the chords and rhythm around them?

A:

For better or worse, there are no hard and fast rules in songwriting.

Many many successful, professional songwriters write the lyrics first or add music to lyrics already written by a co-writer.

And many many just as successful songwriters do it the other way around. They write the lyrics first and then the music.

Then there are those who do both at the same time.

I heard an interesting concept the other day. The idea is that the music is IN the words and the words are IN the music. Certainly the music conveys a mood and informs the writer what sort of lyrics to write.

Likewise, when you write lyrics first, they make it clear whether it should be a sad, happy or bittersweet song. Should it be uptempo, slow or something in between?

Good luck. I hope I’ve given you something to think about.

3 tips to beat writer’s block

• 1 Try this first.  Keep a journal. You can find books on journaling in your public library or at any bookstore, online or otherwise.The idea in a nutshell is to discipline yourself to write in the journal every day. It might start out as a commitment to write for 15 minutes every day. I think you’ll find that it’s easy to go on for longer. The important thing is that you do it every day.

  Another important element to journalling is that you write whatever comes into your head, without censoring it, editing it or worrying about grammar, spelling, what your mother might think. It’s amazing how freeing this is. And it amazes me how this opens up the creative flow.

• 2 As an exercise, try another art form. Any art form will do, especially if you have no experience with it. If you never did sculpture, try that.  Make a collage, get out the watercolors. Work with childrens’ clay or crayons.   It doesn’t matter.The idea is to give over your attention to this endeavor 100 per cent and with no expectations. You don’t have to finish it, because this is just an exercise.   It doesn’t need to be a masterpiece because this isn’t your medium. I don’t know why it works, but it frequently does.
• 3 Play. Take off your adult hat and become a child again. Play any childrens games you like, including physical games like hop scotch, jump rope and catch. Play a board game. Do not watch TV.You need interactive play by yourself or better yet with children. At its best, children’s play is always creative. Don’t worry or even think about songwriting or creativity. Just play and have fun.

Beatles remasters to be packaged as USB

The recently remastered Beatles catalog is being offered on a limited edition apple-shaped USB drive. This is the first time Beatles catalog has officially been sold as digital files separate from the CDs.

Limited to 30,000 units, the 16MB USB features 14 Beatles stereo releases as well as all of the re-mastered CDs’ visual elements, including 13 mini-documentary films about the studio albums, replicated original U.K. album art, rare photos and expanded liner notes.

A specially designed Flash interface has been installed, and audio and visual contents will be provided in FLAC 44.1 Khz 24 bit and MP3 320 Kbps formats. The content is fully compatible with Mac and PC.

Pre-order it here.

Love in Spades

Congratulations to my friends David, Mary and Lilly. They and their team created the short, Love in Spades, which won the 2nd place audience award at the screening and 4th Runner-Up in the Washington DC 24-Hour Film Race competition.

The entire film was conceived, written, produced and edited in 24 hours by the Overnight Delivery Productions team.

David also wrote the song you hear in the film, also within the 24 hour time limit.

Topics for songs

This question recently dropped in my inbox.

How do I decide on a topic when I’m thinking about writing a song?

I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately. Here’s what I do to get around the problem. Hopefully there will be something in here that helps you.

My strongest songs are always the ones written about a specific topic (or person, place, idea, etc) I really care about. It can be anything from my pet iguana to my baseball card collection, from chess to downhill skiing, from social causes to my favorite cartoon.

It doesn’t matter what your topic is, as long as you are passionate about it. Whenever I try to write a song on a topic that I’m not really interested in, it turns out lame, or I lose interest altogether before finishing it. It helps to be a passionate person with a lot of interests.

What kinds of things are you passionate about – think of your hobbies, your interests, your loves (and that can mean romantic love, love for your mom, your kids or your hotrod).

Another source of topics and ideas for songs is quotations. I subscribe to a free daily inspirational email quote service. There are many of these on the web. You can also get a book of quotations at your library or bookstore.

Here’s an example. I’m passionate about my guitar, no surprise there. But one time with Valentine’s Day approaching, my songwriting partner and I thought we should try to write a love song for our respective wives. It turned out a little different than we expected.

Bassman’s Lament

one amazing multi-instrumentalist

Do you appreciate live jazz? Do you like Chick Corea? If so, you’ll get a kick out of this guy.

When is the best time to write?

When is the best time to write? My stock answer is right now. Don’t procrastinate or make excuses or justify any reason not to write right now.

Of course, I’m not suggesting you neglect your family and work obligations. I am suggesting you look at your priorities. Because it’s all too easy to fall into habits that go counter to our priorities.

I’ll give an example from my own experience. Songwriting is my greatest challenge and greatest joy. Nothing is more satisfying to me than writing a new song. Still, when I come home from my day job, after dinner, I often have an evening or part of an evening free. You’d think I’d go right to my desk or pull out my guitar and work on my latest song. But often I’ll sit down and watch a show on the boob tube (or YouTube or Hulu).

Not a huge sin, but one show leads to another and before you know it, I’ve blown the whole evening and lost an opportunity to do what I really love. So take stock for yourself. For me it was the tube, for you it might be Wii, xBox, Twitter, IM or something else.

Another way to ‘write right now’ is to multi-task. Lots of us are able to write while driving and while mowing the lawn and other mindless, but necessary tasks. Try writing while walking or jogging.

Finally, don’t wait until you’re in the ‘mood’ to write. Force yourself to write everyday, even when you’re not in the mood. Soon, you’ll find that a certain ‘mood’ is not a requirement for writing. And the more you write, the easier it will be to write the next time. Don’t expect a masterpiece every time, just keep writing.