Music Publishing & Songwriting

A couple of years ago, a family member gave me a book called You Will Make Money In Your Sleep. I think it was intended to encourage me to get more than four or five hours a night—a carry-over from my days as a musician and record-producer. That haggard, post-all-nighter look starts to get a little scary when you reach my age bracket. Unfortunately, the generous gift-giver apparently hadn’t given the text much of a look, as You Will Make Money in your Sleep turned out not to be a brilliant get-rich quick scheme or a story of the salutary effects of slumber, but rather an expose of “the financier to the stars”, Dana Ghiaccetto. Ghiacetto was a high-profile investment advisor in the Nineties, who managed to swindle people like Toby Maguire, Michael Ovitz and Phish with that tempting come-on line.

So I admit to a little trepidation when I found out that I would be a panelist at “Music Publishing– Making Money In Your Sleep” at South By Southwest this week:

Music Publishing- Making Money In Your Sleep
Thursday, March 18
3:30pm
http://my.sxsw.com/events/event/606

Thankfully, I’m not providing any investment advice. Or at least, not exactly. Instead, we’ll be looking at ways to try to make your music work for you. That’s a good topic, especially for the singer-songwriters and indie bands that throng to SXSW each year.

As many of you have probably noticed, the downside to the grass-roots, indie approach to making it in the music business is that so much of the work requires the direct involvement of you, the artist and/or songwriter. In this new 21st century business model, you can only succeed by getting out and building your fanbase person by person, show by show, and that means a lot of hands-on work for the musicians. Now, not only do you have to gig continuously, with all the drive-time, set-up and tear-down effort that is an inevitable part of rock ‘n’ roll touring, you also have to book the gigs, sell your merch, coordinate your own publicity campaign in each town, and spend at least a couple of hours on your social networking site, making sure your fans feel connected. And don’t forget to Twitter while you’re at it.

Not only do you need something that will help make you money in your sleep– you need to find the time to sleep. Probably, you are not in the mood to hear that you now need to become a music publisher as well.

But you do. In fact, as I’ve said so many times, you already are a music publisher– you have been since you wrote your first song. You are not only the author and composer of your song, you’re also the music publisher. The problem is that most songwriters haven’t learned to be effective music publishers. Of course, that’s what my book, Making Music Make Money, is all about. My course, Music Publishing 101 at Berkleemusic, goes even further, and provides a week by week guide to setting up your own music publishing company.

Unfortunately, I can’t promise that having your own music publishing company comes without effort. You have to gather the knowledge you’ll need to be effective. You will need to set up the structure and systems necessary to operate the business, administer copyrights, and issue licenses. You’ll have to strategize about the opportunities that exist for your music, and then make the calls to get your music out there. Maybe you can find an intern or a colleague to help you with the day to day operation of the company. Perhaps you can even partner with a larger, already established music publisher, who can take on most of the responsibility for pitching, licensing and administration. Still, there’s no use kidding yourself that this is a small undertaking. At any level, music publishing is a big, complex job.

Nevertheless, here’s my investment advice for the day (and most certainly, the ONLY investment advice you should ever take from me):

Do it. Stop treating your songs as something more than simply the material you perform or record– start seeing them as the primary assets of your business. Stop viewing your songwriting as inherently intertwined with your performing career. Your songs, and your songwriting talent, can generate income on their own. That’s what music publishing is all about. Here are just a few opportunities that an investment in music publishing could yield:

Place your songs with other recording artists. Let them do the touring and the twittering, while you earn money.

Place your songs in films and television shows. Not only does it publicize you as an artist—it generates sync fees and performance income.

Place your songs in video games or other products. The licensing rates are pretty low, but the exposure is ridiculously high. And you don’t have to travel in a van, tear-down or set-up.

Place your songs in advertisements. It’s not only about grabbing that Apple iPod spot. There are national, local and international advertising opportunities that could fund your band’s next road-trip.

Create new music for film/TV libraries, which license “needle-drop” music to a wide variety of media. The sync fees are virtually non-existent, but because these are non-exclusive licenses, the same piece can be used again and again, generating significant performance money.

Write new songs for projects not tied to you as a performer. Of course, your artist career or your band’s development are the priority. But you’re also a songwriter, and not every song has to be for you to sing. There are artists around the country, and especially outside the US that are looking for songs. Why not spend a few weeks a year taking aim at those?

This last strategy was one that our company, Shapiro Bernstein & Co, Inc., and our partner, Tosha Music, recently employed with one of our top songwriters, Marti Dodson, from the Ohio-based band, Saving Jane. When Saving Jane’s first single “Girl Next Door” (Dodson/Buzzard/Goodman/Martin/Misevski) became a Top Forty pop hit, showed up on NOW (That’s What I Call Music) 22, and was covered by country artist Julie Roberts, we knew that Marti had the potential to be an important pop songwriter, and not only for Saving Jane. We suggested that she spend two weeks traveling to Stockholm, which is the pop-song factory for all of Europe and much of America, and the home of many of the industry’s best production and writing teams. Marti’s first trip yielded Saving Jane’s subsequent hit single, “Supergirl” (written with Mats Valentin from Sweden), which was later covered by Suzie McNeil in Canada, who took the song Top Ten in that territory. The song was used as a theme song by superstar auto racer Danica Patrick, gymnast Nastia Lukin, and showed up once again at the recent Winter Olympics.

Through the investment of a couple of writing trips to Sweden, Marti has now had songs cut by artists from South Africa to Germany (where she recently had the theme song to the German Popstars television show). When your songs are being played on TV in Europe, you’re literally making money in your sleep. That’s the goal. And that’s what music publishing is all about.

You can’t be everywhere at once and you can’t do everything all the time. If your business plan is predicated solely on your performance schedule, you will eventually reach the end of your earning potential, because you can only play so many gigs in a week. But if you have an effective music publishing operation, your songs can indeed be everywhere at once, earning money all the time. Of course, it’s not easy getting your music out there or locating the right opportunities. Yet it’s the best investment you can make, as there’s no limit to the ultimate pay-off. Do it right, and you might even be able to get some shut-eye once or twice a week.

If you’re going to SXSW, be sure to catch this panel. Afterward I’ll be at the South By Bookstore, selling some books:

Thursday, March 18 at 4:45pm
http://my.sxsw.com/events/event/8614

Stop by and say hello! See you in Austin…

In my most recent book, The Billboard Guide To Writing and Producing Songs That Sell, I posed a question:

Given the ridiculously low odds of ever landing a Top Ten pop single, a feat which puts a songwriter in the top one percent of all the songwriters out there creating music, how is it that a quick glance at the Billboard Hot 100 reveals the same names again and again, with some writers having as many as two or three Top Ten singles in one year? Why can 99 percent of songwriters never reach the charts at all, and one percent can go there repeatedly?

Of course, there are several answers. Certainly, many people will argue that it’s simply a matter of talent, the same reason that thousands of kids can play basketball, but only a handful make it to the NBA. Naturally, there is some truth to that. But anyone who has spent anytime in music has met dozens, maybe hundreds of immensely talented people who never manage to quite crack the nut of success. The truth is, most of us in the industry can name dozens of writers who are equally talented, perhaps more so, than the writers populating the Top Ten. It’s not a simple question of talent.

Others will make the point that success in any aspect of show business is mostly about luck and timing– the proverbial “right place, right time”. Again, no one who has witnessed the vagaries of the entertainment business would entirely dispute it. Certainly, luck and timing might account for the success of one or two songs in the Top Forty on any given week. But it won’t get you seven or eight chart-topping hits in your career. Lightening does indeed strike– once in a while. It doesn’t hit the same person several times a year.

Probably the most realistic explanation of the phenomenon that allows a small number of writers to dominate the Billboard charts is the principle of “access”. Having one big hit will earn a writer/producer access to all of the superstar artists. He or she will then have an opportunity to work on all the biggest projects and co-write with other top writers. Established “hit” artists have greater access to radio playlists, bigger promotion budgets, and more label support. Naturally, those established writers and artists are more likely to repeat their early success.

Certainly, the power that comes with access is a major factor in determining future success. But it’s not as much of a factor as many writers and artists believe. The truth is, top artists like Rihanna, Pink, or Kelly Clarkson will work with dozens of different songwriters and production teams in the preparation of a new album; some of the production teams will be well-known, some less so. Such artists might be involved in cutting as many as fifty or sixty songs, from which the album tracks, and then the single will eventually be chosen. Access alone hardly guarantees that Dr. Luke or Stargate will get the single. In the same way, artists with a proven track record have no “free-pass” at radio for their next single. Ask Chris Brown. Ask Usher. Ask James Morrison.

Here’s the reality:

One of the main reasons that certain hit-makers are able to work their magic again and again is that they know what the target looks like and they aim for it. Most songwriters are shooting blind.

I never quite realized this when I was a songwriter, which I was for many years. Even having been fortunate enough to have written a few hits, I never really understood why one song had done better than another, nor did I have much of a plan for repeating the success. I had a certain amount of craftsmanship, but no real strategy.

It was only later, when I became a music publisher, that I began to see that there was a side of the songwriting business that I had been missing. I didn’t figure it out on my own. The revelation came from having the opportunity to work with a wide variety of the industry’s top songwriters, including Stargate, Max Martin, Jorgen Elofsson, Steve Diamond, Billy Mann, Rob Fusari, Don Black, Steve Robson, Wayne Hector, Andy Goldmark and so many others. All of these writers differ in style, genre, approach and temperament. But what they each have is a relentless focus– a determination not to simply write songs, but to write successful songs.

This is the idea behind a new one-day workshop, “The Hit Factory: Making Your Music Make Money”, which I’ll be leading at New York’s SongHall on Saturday, March 13. Check it out at:

http://www.songhall.org/news/entry/940

This six and a half hour seminar is aimed at helping aspiring songwriters understand their market and develop their brand, turn their songs into hits, and devise strategies for selling those hits to the people that need them. There will be plenty of time for interaction and group discussion– songs by those attending will be reviewed and we’ll discuss individual business strategies based on personal career goals. The registration price of $150 includes both of my books, Making Music Make Money and The Billboard Guide To Writing and Producing Songs That Sell.

http://www.amazon.com/Billboard-Guide-Writing-Producing-Songs/dp/0823099547

http://www.amazon.com/Making-Music-Make-Money-Publisher/dp/0876390076

For those that live in the New York area, this is a great opportunity to take advantage of just one of the many programs offered by the SongHall, the educational division of the Songwriters Hall of Fame. For those outside of New York, perhaps it’s worth the investment of a day-trip or weekend in the Big Apple to spend a day focusing your business and creative strategy. Best of all, it’s a chance to network with a group of other new songwriters– forging new connections and learning from others who are developing their own careers.

For my part, what I hope to offer is the perspective of an industry insider, who has lived on both sides of the desk. To young writers and artists, it often feels like the music business is focused on excluding new talent rather than discovering it. The reality is that everyone in the music business food chain, from club owners to booking agents to A&R executives to radio programmers, is searching constantly for the hot new hit artist or hit song. Our livelihoods depend on finding it. The problem of is one of mismatched supply and demand: what new artists and songwriters are supplying is often not what the industry actually needs. This is a chance to share some insight gleaned from working with dozens of established and developing writers and to help formulate some strategies for helping you to build a business around your music.

I’m looking forward to it! I hope you’ll try to join in…

Alright—mark it down in the “Believe It Or Not” column. This interesting newsflash first appeared in one of my favorite industry newsletters, A&R Worldwide:

Fan-Financed UK Band Lands Multi-Album US Record Deal

Leaving aside one obvious question (isn’t every band essentially “fan-financed” to whatever degree?), the following story stood out like a flower in a mineshaft, sprouting up in the middle of news about more corporate layoffs and the ever-falling fortunes of the music industry. You don’t hear many stories like this one:

Scars on 45, a UK based band began making waves on the website Slicethepie back in 2008. The site provides an opportunity for music fans to provide ratings and reviews for unknown bands that they are passionate about, and then to take it one step further by actually getting involved. With enough positive response, a band can reach the “funding” stage, at which point they can raise funds directly from their fanbase to record an album. In return, the fans who choose to invest receive shares in the commercial success of the record. Fans can invest anything from 1 pound (GBP) on upward. Through Slicethepie, Scars on 45 managed to raise 15,000 pounds (GBP) to help record their debut album.

As it turns out, “Beauty’s Running Wild”, the fan-funded track on the album was subsequently featured on “CSI-NY”, and attracted more than 50,000 website hits within days of airing. This in turn attracted the attention of Alexandra Patsavas, a leading music supervisor best known for her work on “Twilight: New Moon”, “Gossip Girl”, and “The O.C.”. Patsavas brought the act to her label imprint, Chop Shop, which is distributed by Atlantic Records.

Great news for the band of course. But if you think this is a success story for Scars on 45, check out the even better ending to the tale:

Those who invested in the band through Slicethepie back in 2008 hit the jackpot. When the band was signed, a buyout clause was triggered and shareholders were bought out at a 50% premium to the then market-price—representing a whopping 800 percent return on their investment!!

Not too many people had investment returns like that in 2009. What’s most interesting though is that not many music companies, big or small, had returns like that. While “professional investors” like Guy Hands are going bankrupt after sinking billions of dollars into EMI; while investment bank-backed publishing companies are struggling just to stem losses, this group of music fans managed to turn a 1 pound investment into 800 pounds—without having to do any work! Slicethepie CEO David Courtier-Dutton was quoted saying, “We are delighted for both the band and their fans which, in this case, have truly been instrumental in their success. We believe that consumer-driven filtering has an increasingly influential role to play in the face of the music industry…” With an 800 percent return on investment, it certainly does. Count me in.

What’s interesting is that the success of this Slicethepie venture highlights several very useful concepts when it comes to investing in the music business—ones that seem to often slip by the more high-rolling music execs and investment bankers. If you’re looking to acquire music for your publishing company or record label, here’s a few principles to keep in mind:

1. Buy low. Sell high.

The problem with most big-bucks investors in the music industry is that all of them are looking for the same thing: hits. They want big-name artists, well-known catalogs, songs that are on the charts. In fact, most of the investment-backed publishing companies have avoided new artists all together. They focus solely on catalog purchases.

The problem is, when you’re buying hits, you’re paying the top price for something that in most cases, has only one direction to go. Established superstar artists can’t usually get much more super—they can only fade. Songs at #1 today can’t go any higher. What seems safe is actually the most risky investment you can make—you’re paying top dollar for something that is already at its peak. Whoever found Scars on 45 in 2008 was buying at a fire-sale price. That’s where you get a bargain, and it’s also where you find the big pay-off.

2. Bet what you can afford to lose.

One has to assume that no one who made the initial investment on Slicethepie.com was betting his or her grocery money on a new, unknown band. I’m confident that no one was taking out a loan just so they could buy a piece of Scars on 45. The problem with most large-scale investing in the music industry over the past five years is that the investors have taken out massive loans (and hence, have massive interest payments) or they’ve invested other people’s money, people who quickly grow impatient if the ink starts to turn red.

The sad, ironic and inescapable truth of the speculative bets made in the music business every day is that the worse you need the gamble to work out, the more likely it is to fail. Maybe it’s because investors who can’t afford to lose tend to over-think, throw good money after bad, or chase the popular trend a little too late. Maybe it’s just the way the world works. But don’t put your money in the game if you can’t afford to lose it. Better to bet one pound if that’s all you can afford, than to take out loans to bet a hundred thousand pounds. Ask the guys at Terra Firma.

3. Bet on things that people like.

This has always been a pretty good formula for success in the music industry. It’s amazing how few people do it. Clever as it is, the concept of Slicethepie and “fan filtering” is really not that much different than old-school music entrepreneurs who would check out their songs with local audiences, get a DJ to spin their records in the clubs, ask the local retailer what people were buying, or see who was getting the most applause at the talent show. In my book, “The Billboard Guide To Writing and Producing Songs that Sell”, Daniel Glass, the president of Glassnote Records talks about being a young DJ, and seeing Prince, Barry White and others in the DJ booth, watching the dance-floor reaction as they tried out new mixes they were still working on in the studio. Daniel himself uses web activity as a major gauge for his own signings at Glassnote, which led him to artists like Secondhand Serenade.

It’s always easier and safer to give the audience what they want than to create something and then convince the audience that they should give it a chance. Certainly, great art has been created with either approach. But the average hit rate is a lot higher with an approach that watches what audiences are responding to, and then puts money into giving those audiences what they like.

4. Bet with your ears.

Most professional investors in entertainment, and even a lot of music executives, bet more with their eyes than with their ears. They watch sales chart action, or look at past financial records, or watch what others in the industry are doing, but they never really listen to the music. Clearly, part of knowing what the audience wants (concept #3) is watching reactions and tracking audience response. But once you see what’s happening, you still have to listen.

Some things look good on paper for reasons that have nothing to do with the music itself. Perhaps the appeal of an act is not really rooted in their music, but in some other social phenomenon. That’s okay if you’re the record label, but you wouldn’t want to buy that song catalog. Maybe something is flying up the charts because a savvy manager is spending a fortune on radio promotion to make a stiff look like a hit. It’s been done. You can use your eyes to do initial research. But if your ears tell you differently, trust ‘em. In this business, they’re the only real friends you have.

5. Don’t be afraid to cash out.

As every gambler knows, there is a time to hold ‘em’ and a time to fold ‘em. The great thing about the Slicethepie venture is that if a band is signed, the initial investors are in a sense, forced to fold up and cash out. It’s likely the biggest favor they’ve ever received. The truth is, the odds are stacked against a band like Scars on 45, as talented as they are. It is entirely within the realm of possibility that Atlantic will never make money on the band—it happens with alarming frequency. But for the initial investors, the game is over, and they’ve won.

If you’re running a small publishing company, there will be instances where you will build a writer up from nothing, only to see a larger company swoop in and woo him or her away with the promise of untold riches, the moment that writer has his or her first big record.

Most of the time, that’s just fine. You will have that writer’s first big record, for which you probably paid relatively little. On the other hand, the big company will have spent far more than they should, and will usually wind up with a songwriter who never has another song as big as that first hit. In many cases, you’ll get a call a few years later from that same writer, now dropped from his or her big publishing company, and eager to come back to where his or her first success originated. When you’re a small player, you play for small victories. When you get one, take it and don’t look back. Put your energy into finding the next undiscovered jewel.

And somebody, pass that pie!

After an upbeat pep talk to begin the year, it seems appropriate now to acknowledge what we all know:

Things do not always go as planned.

Have you noticed that? If you’ve tried any of the previously given tips on how to get your music out there, I’m pretty sure you’ve definitely noticed that as good as the ideas look on paper, they don’t always play out as well in real life. The truth is that the work of putting your music out into the industry is every bit as difficult as the creative work of writing songs and making records. And that’s pretty hard.

Unfortunately, most of us bring a lot more tenacity and determination to making the music than we do to selling it. It’s always interesting to watch musicians, who have spent countless lonely, isolated hours honing and refining their ability to play a musical instrument or to sing, then devote all of twenty minutes to researching potential contacts. Producers who will miss deadlines or blow out their budget to fix tiny flaws in a recording (which are probably noticeable only to them), will balk at spending money to attend a conference, or will choose to send out mass emails to A&R contacts, rather than personalized ones, in order to save a few minutes worth of work. Songwriters will work and rework one simple line in a hundred variations, but give up in despair when their first phone call attempt to an A&R person goes unreturned.

Be forewarned: no matter how strategically you approach it, getting your music out there will always be challenging. You will run into closed doors everywhere you turn. Everyone does. But somehow, each year, a handful of people do break through. We know then that it can be done. It’s simply a case of trying every possible avenue until you find the one that works. So, to conclude a series of blogs on “How To Get Your Music Heard”, here’s three ideas of how to trouble-shoot when your sales approach isn’t working. Most importantly, don’t panic and don’t get discouraged. This problem is no harder than learning to play an instrument, finding the perfect title, or figuring out why your Protools isn’t working. When your first approach fails…

1. Check your connections.

The most common response you’ll hear when trying to get someone in the industry to listen to your music is this:

Our company does not allow us to accept unsolicited material at this time.

Welcome to the dead zone, from which most songwriters and publishers never return. Indeed, that’s part of the reason for such a policy. By its nature it will eliminate at least 50% of the people trying to call the company. Most will just give up.

Don’t give up. At the same time, don’t get mad– as irritating as it obviously is. The person who is telling you this is telling you the truth. Almost every major music company has an official policy, drafted by the corporate lawyers, that no A&R person is ALLOWED to accept material that is “unsolicited”, which is to say, from someone the A&R person doesn’t know. This is to protect companies from the very real threat of lawsuits, launched by amateur songwriters who are sure that their song was stolen by a superstar act. An A&R person who violates the policy and suddenly finds himself or herself at the center of a lawsuit could very likely lose their job.

The best way around this obstacle is to get out of the category of “someone the A&R person doesn’t know”. You need a connection. If you can drop the name of a lawyer, your ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC writer rep, another songwriter or producer who the A&R person has worked with, a friend in a different department of the company, or an established manager, booking agent, or radio programmer who is recommending you, you are now no longer “unsolicited”. This is the cover that the A&R person needs to be in compliance with company policy. It’s also the test you need to pass in order to make the person on the other end of the phone believe that it’s worth his or her time to speak with you.

If you’re getting the “unsolicited” line, then it’s time to go back and figure out who on your team (lawyer, manager, writer rep, songwriting buddies, studio engineer or owner, gear salesman, friends, etc.) might know the person you’re calling and be willing to refer you. If no one on your team can help, see if they know a friend of a friend of the person you’re calling. If you’re still unconnected, then you need to expand your team. Figure out who might be able to get to the music weasel you’re after, and go after that new person, starting the whole process over again.

I didn’t say it was easy.

2. Check your levels.

The second most common issue, after the “no unsolicited material” roadblock, is “nothing”. That is, total silence. Unreturned phone calls. Unanswered emails. The big freeze-out. You’re trying to get your music out there, and it seems there’s no “there” there.

Again, don’t get mad. Remember– just because you want someone to hear your music does not lay an obligation on the other person to take your call or listen to what you send. The person on the other end of the phone is being given priorities and duties by his or her boss, and they probably don’t include speaking with you. This is especially true as you move up the corporate ladder, and start trying to reach out to the higher-ranking executives on the A&R staff.

Most major record labels do have people that are searching for the next “developing” star– the hot, unknown songwriter or the undiscovered artist. But they are junior A&R people– not Sr. Vice-Presidents. The more elevated executives are supposed to be devoting their time to the superstars that are already signed and paying the bills. The same is true in major publishing companies and management firms. If you don’t yet have a track record or the calling card of a current “hit”, you will probably not have much luck reaching the Big Weasel. But that’s not who you need anyway, nor is that the person that needs you. You want to speak to the hungry, ambitious, excited, 22 year old kid that works for the Big Weasel and who wants more than anything to discover the talent that no one else knows about yet. This is how the kid will eventually become the Big Weasel. It is also how you will eventually get a returned phone call.

If you’re hitting a wall, it may be that you’re aiming too high. Adjust your aim one or two levels down the corporate pecking order, and you might find an open door.

3. Check your sound.

I know it will come as a shock, but some people may simply not like what you do. They have that right. In fact, if what you do is reasonably stylized, quirky, or clever, you can be sure that most people in the industry will not quite get it. Sony dropped Alicia Keys. Jive dropped Kid Rock. Lady Gaga is already on her second record deal. The fact that some people don’t like what you do might mean that there’s a problem with your music– you’ll have to determine how to address that. But it also might mean that you simply don’t have the right match between your sound and the person listening. There’s no accounting for taste–and you don’t have to. All you have to do is find the person whose taste is suited to your music.

As a veteran of the music industry, one of the few advantages that I enjoy is that I have begun to understand the likes and dislikes of the people to whom I’m pitching music. This means that a huge part of my job is simply knowing how to match a particular song, a new artist, or a producer with the people in the industry who will “get it”, whatever that “it” is. If I hear a great Swedish style pop song, I know to send it to Jive Records or Syco, and not to Island/Def Jam. If I’ve discovered a new female singer/songwriter or a Triple A band, it’s going to fit better for Chop Shop than Activision. Much of song-pitching is not how you send it out, but who you send it to. If you’re not getting results, it may simply be that you haven’t matched your sound with the correct listener.

4. Check your options.

Every office has multiple entrances. There is always an alternate way into any project. Persistence is vital, but persistently beating on a closed door will not make it open. The good kind of persistence is the kind that knocks on a door once, twice, maybe a third time… and then circles around the back, and goes in the side entrance. If an A&R person refuses your “unsolicited material”, try the artist manager. Many managers are one or two person companies, and thus have far fewer corporate “policies” that have to be respected. If the manager won’t respond, try the producer. If that proves to be a dead end, just keep searching– try the artist directly on MySpace or Facebook, or a friend of the artist, or the recording engineer, or the fashion stylist. Whatever crazy idea you have, I promise you, someone has tried something stranger. Not quitting doesn’t mean picking one person and torturing them until they listen to your song. It means searching for every possible person to torture. Just joking. But it does mean that you never stop looking for another way to approach the project that you’re targeting.

I hope the little series we’ve done on “Getting Your Music Out” has been helpful. I know in the opening paragraph of this blog, I compared the challenge of selling your music to making it– and in many ways the two things are quite similar. But in a few important ways, they’re as different as night and day. You know that rush you feel when you play a great guitar solo, or come up with the perfect hook line for a song? You’ll probably never get that feeling when you’re pitching music. It just doesn’t have that kind of reward. Instead, you get rejection followed by rejection followed by a slight glimmer of hope.

But here’s the thing: if you don’t do it, nothing happens. No stranger is going to find a song hiding on your hard drive and decide to put it on the radio. You’re going to have to make that happen. That’s the point of my book, “Making Music Make Money”. The only thing that can move your career ahead is if someone else hears your music and wants to buy it, sell it, perform it, or help you to do one of those three things. That won’t happen if the song never leaves your home studio.
If you haven’t made your New Year’s Resolution yet, here’s one: resolve to spend one hour pitching songs for every five hours writing or recording them. Get your music out there, and let’s see what happens…

Happy New Year everyone!

I know I said that this blog would carry on our current theme, which is how to get your music out there to people– and it will. But I’m going to save my trouble-shooting blog, what to do when you run into obstacles in pitching your music, for just a minute. After all, has anyone really been making pitch calls over the last two weeks? If you have, you’ve been leaving a lot of voice mails, because it’s dead out there. All of the music business weasels have departed for ski vacations or the Caribbean (nothing like a weasel in a swimsuit) and left LA and NYC to the tourists. So instead, I thought I’d offer up a quick set of ideas to kick off the New Year, and to put me thoroughly in sync with the rest of the blogosphere, offering Top Ten lists ad infinitum. Here’s mine:

TEN THINGS THAT YOU CAN DO IN 2010 TO MAKE YOUR MUSIC MAKE MONEY!!

1. Identify your market.

This year, try narrowing your vision and focusing on the one specific market that best fits what you do. No more dabbling in one style, then another, then another. Most of the reason that songwriters struggle to create that two minute “elevator pitch” that we discussed last week is that they quite literally don’t know what they’re doing– they have never forced themselves to focus on one specific thing sufficiently to be able to articulate precisely what it is that they do.

2. Know your market.

In 2010, the music business is a business of specialists– A&R people, managers, publicists, engineers, producers, and yes, even songwriters, are segmented by genre, and expected to be experts in that particular area of music. That means being familiar with all of the artists old and new in that market, knowing the key business players, the labels, the current production styles. Sound like a lot of information to digest? That’s why you “identified” your market. It’s not plausible to be an expert in three or four genres at once.

3. Strategize.

Once you know your market, and you know all about the artists, labels, managers and producers in it, then you’re in a position to start looking for the openings. Where are the opportunities? Don’t focus on the superstars if you don’t have any track record– those are out of reach. Look for the up and coming artists, or the new trends, or the hot new label, or the young entrepreneurs. That’s where you’ll find your opportunities. Once you see where the openings in the market are, you need to look at every possible way in which you can take advantage of it.

4. Know who you are.

You can’t start meeting people until you know how to introduce yourself. That doesn’t mean just saying your name and handing out business cards. You need to be able to explain in three or four sentences who you are and what you’re doing. You can talk about what you’re doing now (”I’m promoting a new single that just came out…”), what you did in the past (”I had a song on Kelly Clarkson’s last album…”), who you work with (”I co-write with Brett James in Nashville”), or who you are (”I’m a producer from Norway” or “I’m a recording engineer for a jingle house, but I’m also a songwriter”), but you need to have two or three sentences to present a picture that’s clear, interesting and memorable. Whatever it is, memorize it. Ideally, it should be a conversation-starter– that way it won’t be the only two sentences you get.

5. Know what you want.

This is such a big one that it needs to be divided into a big picture and a small one. In the big picture sense, you need to know what your goals are for your music and what would constitute success. Do you want to get rich? Do you just want to be able to have a full-time career in music? Do you just want to support your hobby and have one song on a record somewhere? Everything is acceptable, and there’s a strategy to get you to each goal. But it won’t be the same one. You can’t read a map until you know where you’re going. If you want to take on the big picture question, and you shouldn’t waste a moment on any other plan of action until you do, take the “Music Business Weasel’s Pop Quiz” in my book, “Making Music Make Money”.

http://www.amazon.com/Making-Music-Make-Money-Publisher/dp/0876390076

On the small picture side, you need to think about what you want from the person to whom you’re presenting your music. Are you looking for a record deal? Do you want them to record your song with an artist to whom they’re connected? Do you want them to sign you to a publishing contract? Are you looking for an introduction to someone they know? If what you want doesn’t match up to what the person on the other end can feasibly deliver (a BMI rep can’t offer you a publishing contract; a NY-based A&R rep can’t get your song to a country artist) then you’re wasting everyone’s time. Figure out what each person can do for you BEFORE you reach out.

6. Take the conference call.

No industry in the world has more conferences and networking events than the music business. That just means that there is no excuse for not knowing anyone, or not understanding the business. Every conference has a full array of industry executives in attendance, many of whom are on panels where they share the knowledge of the business and take questions from the audience. Beyond that, there are ASCAP, BMI and SESAC educational events, programs sponsored by songwriter groups like the Songwriters Hall of Fame and NSAI, or events hosted by industry trade organizations like the Recording Academy, NARIP, and the NMPA. Depending on your genre, your goals, and your financial and geographical situation, you can check out: MIDEM, CMJ, South By Southwest, Winter Music Conference, Billboard & Hollywood Reporter Film and TV Music Conference, Biillboard’s Music & Money, Amsterdam Dance Event, or ASCAP’s “I Create Music” Expo. That should fill your calendar for the year. If you can’t afford to register, consider contacting the conference and volunteering to work at the registration desk or within the conference itself. Sometimes you can trade some labor time for a free pass…

7. Ask one good question.

If you do attend a conference, here’s a tip for meeting that key industry player that you want to know:

Find a panel on which he or she is speaking. Then, when the Q&A portion of the panel arrives, step up to the mic and ask one good question. A good question does not directly involve you (”why didn’t you listen to the package I sent you?”), and is not too basic (”how can I get music to you?”). A good question reflects a knowledge of the business and the panelist, is relevant to all of the industry people in the room, and could be the topic of discussion among other panelists (”What do you think of the new rate decision from the Copyright Board?”, “How is your business using the social networking sites to target an audience?”, “Do you see your show widening its use of music, or the genres it uses, or narrowing it?”).

Having done hundreds of such panels, I guarantee you that if you ask one good question, you will be the only one who does. I also guarantee that if you approach the panelist at the close of the discussion, you will be remembered, and probably walk away with a business card and an invitation to be in touch.

8. Educate yourself.

At the music publishing company where I work, someone called our office this week, and began the conversation with “I don’t really understand what you do there…” Believe it or not, this happens EVERY DAY! For whatever reason, music seems to attract a large number of people who are almost entirely ignorant of the business of which they supposedly wish to be a part. Is it any surprise that most of these people are either ignored or taken advantage of?

If you’re serious about pursuing music publishing and/or songwriting as a business, it only stands to reason that you need to have the same knowledge as every other professional in the industry. Invest 12 weeks in “Music Publishing 101″ at berkleemusic.com, and learn exactly what a music publisher does, how to do it, and how to set up your own music publishing business. You’ll come out not only with a thorough knowledge of the business, but also with a full strategy for how to make your music make money.

9. Write hits.

The truth is, most songwriters’ primary obstacle to success is not a lack of knowledge, contacts, or strategy. Most of the time, the real problem is that songwriters are simply not selling what the industry needs. Most songwriters are trying to write good songs. Some are even writing great songs. But what is needed by every A&R person, manager, artist, is something else entirely. These people need “hit” songs.

If you don’t understand the difference, then check out my book, “The Billboard Guide To Writing and Producing Songs That Sell”. In an age where the album cut has become entirely irrelevant, there is no formula for success that doesn’t involve writing “hits”.

http://www.amazon.com/Billboard-Guide-Writing-Producing-Songs/dp/0823099547

10. Do the work.

I read an incredible article last year in the New Yorker by author Malcolm Gladwell, called “How David Beat Goliath”.

http://www.gladwell.com/2009/2009_05_11_a_david.html

Perhaps the most profound point made in the article was this, and I paraphrase:
most people don’t succeed simply because they are not willing to do the work required.

Having had the opportunity to work with superstar writers from Steve Diamond to Billy Mann to Andy Goldmark to Stargate to David Guetta, the one thing that all of them share is a “work ethic” that simply dwarfs most of their competition. This is not to diminish their individual talent, which is significant and unique. It is to say that there is no way you will be able to compete with these A-level writers on the basis of talent alone. Even if you have the same gifts as a songwriter, their drive, ambition, and willingness to go anywhere and do whatever it takes will put them on top. If you are going to compete, you have to do what is needed to win.

I know that most of the songwriters reading these suggestions will ignore them entirely, and search instead for a shortcut to success that involves less effort. A few will resolve to try three or four of the ten, and at the end of the year, will have excuses for why they only accomplished one or two. But be aware: the successful songwriters and music publishers will do all of these every year.

You can’t “try” to do something. Either you’re doing it, or you’re not.

Best wishes for a great 2010! Thanks for your support of the blog. See you at the top of the charts…

I’ve had some interesting inquiries come to me recently on the blog site and it got me thinking… after all is said and done, the problems of most songwriters and music publishers are not really the complex issues of negotiated royalty rates, streaming on demand versus downloads, or flat rate licensing schemes. Those big, multi-faceted bones of contention certainly affect us as songwriters and music publishers. They may weigh on our minds, get us in a fighting mood, or, best case, bring in some unexpected money. But they are not what is front and center in our mind as we go through our daily career struggle.

What we think about almost all the time is a challenge that seems considerably more straightforward and simple, but is in fact, far harder to conquer:

What specifically can I do to get my music out into the world to start earning me money?

So I thought that in the time leading up to the holiday break, perhaps I would try to address that subject, from a variety of different angles. In the end, it’s what music publishing is all about. It’s how my first book, “Making Music Make Money” got its title. It’s the primary focus of my class, Music Publishing 101 at Berkleemusic.com. And yet the questions keep on coming. And the challenges to actually getting our music into income-generating opportunities keep increasing. Let’s go back to basics one more time.

http://www.amazon.com/Making-Music-Make-Money-Publisher/dp/0876390076

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gm685uF6Dk

But in order to do it, we’re going to start with three more questions, all of which usually follow the big question of “what do I do to make my music earn money?” If we can tackle these fundamental issues, then we’ll have a start on conquering the bigger question in the following weeks. Here are three selections from the “greatest hits” compilation of questions to ask the music business weasel:

Question #1: How do I get my songs considered by major, superstar artists?
Answer: You don’t. You also don’t get to pitch in the World Series with no professional baseball experience or become the president of a Fortune 500 company on the first day on the job. In songwriting, as in every other business, there is a concept of “working your way up the ladder”.

Songwriters who have yet to have even one successful single do not need to be spending their time trying to figure out how to get songs to Rihanna, or Taylor Swift, or Daughtry. The truth is, most major artists want to be directly involved with writing most of the songs they record, and the ones that they don’t write will largely come from the proven, successful hitmakers so sought after by the record companies. Trust me, if it were your multi-million dollar investment on the line, you’d probably take the same approach.

If you are a developing songwriter with no real track record, you need to concentrate on writing for the next Rihanna, or Taylor Swift, or Daughtry. That means working with artists who don’t yet have a record contract, and helping to write the song that clinches the deal. Or finding a lesser-known act still trying to break-through with that one big hit. Or meeting local developing artists or managers in your local community, and trying to write the song that will expose them to a larger audience. If you can do that successfully, then you’ll get approached to work on slightly bigger, more high-profile projects. Then slowly, but steadily, you’ll be building the contacts and the track record that can move you up the ladder.

Check out tipsheets like Songlink International or Myhitsonline.com. They are full of projects in various stages of development, all looking for songs. Or get active in your local community and find the potential talent you can work with there.

http://www.songlink.com
http://www.myhitonline.com

Certainly, most of these projects will amount to little. But if you can provide a key song, you will at the very least make a new set of contacts, who will go on to other projects after this one. This is how “networks” are built. If you can show up with a genuine hit, you might create a new star, and immediately put yourself in a different level of the industry.

Question #2: How do I cold-call A&R people, managers, and others who I want to listen to my music?
Answer: You don’t. In my Music Publishing 101 class at Berkleemusic.com, we don’t get to the subject of pitching music until halfway through the semester. Instead, the early weeks of Music Publishing 101 are devoted to laying the groundwork that will make the pitch effective. This means building a team of support around you– a music lawyer, a Writer Relations rep at ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC, a network of friends and colleagues in your local community that could include everyone from a music journalist to a studio owner to a radio programmer.

Just as importantly, it means researching and studying your music genre and identifying the major and minor artists in that world, the key labels (both major and independent), the A&R decision-makers, the managers, the radio stations, and the clubs. It means identifying what business strategies are the most effective in your market. In the pop-rock or indie band world, advertising placements can be crucial stepping-stones. In the heavy metal biz, video games are key. You have to be an expert in whatever field of music you’re pitching songs. That’s what gives you the right to bother someone else, who is also an expert of sorts, in the middle of his or her workday.

Only when you’ve established your team and network of business contacts will you be in a position to change a cold-call into a referral. Once you’ve decided who you want to approach with your music, you can then try to figure out if there’s someone on your team, or in your network, who might be able to make an introduction, or at least allow you to use their name as a reference. Obviously, the bigger your circle of supporters, the fewer real “cold-calls” you’ll make.

In the same way, proper research and understanding of your musical genre will ensure that you’re approaching the right people, and saying the things that they want to hear. If you understand the nuances of the business environment in which you’re working, know the background of the person with whom you’re speaking, and can show how your music fills a need in that person’s world, you can speak with the A&R person, manager or producer as a colleague. That’s not cold-calling. That’s connecting.

Question #3: How do I find time to get my music out to people– music supervisors, A&R, artist managers– when I’m so busy actually making and recording the music?
Answer: You don’t. The one thing I can tell you without any doubt, having been a songwriter, producer and music publisher for more than twenty years, is that every single thing that happens to you everyday will conspire to prevent you from actually getting songs sent out to the people that need to hear them. You will always be needed in the studio, or have to pick up the kids, or be exhausted from last night’s gig, or be stressed from tonight’s gig, or in need of a new computer, or SOMETHING. And each night, you will vow that tomorrow you really will get those songs sent out…

You will never find the time. There are no spare hours lying under the bed somewhere. Trust me- I’ve looked. The only hope that you have is to make the time. You will have to change your schedule, cut back on certain things, try to find an intern to help out, or figure out a way to run your business on the road. But one way or another, you must make the time to get songs sent out to the people that need to hear them. Because…

Your business depends on it. Without that, nothing happens. There is no music publisher anywhere that has built a business solely by doing administration and collecting money. At least in the beginning, someone has to get the music out to people who will use it.

What would you think of a widget-making company that invested solely in production–building a factory, hiring workers, making widgets– but had no sales team or strategy in place to sell the product? Yet, that’s what so many songwriters and music publishers do– retreating to their comfort zone of writing music, recording music, acquiring music and listening to music, until there’s no time left in the day to sell any of it. Check the number of songs sitting on your hard-drive and compare them to the amount of songs that were sent out this week. It may be happening to you.

The point of these negative answers to oft-asked questions is not to be discouraging. I’m a publisher too. I know that none of us need more discouragement. The point is to give a reality-check, and to adapt realistic strategies to our businesses.

It is the nature of show business to sell dreams, and this is one of the most prevalent– the sudden opportunity that leads to instant glory. I’m not saying it never happens. Almost every career is built on a few such unexpected moments. But it’s not a day to day strategy for approaching your business.

I heard a great story recently of a hard-working musician laboring in relative obscurity, who was playing in a band that recorded several records for small labels, none of which found any great success. However, one of the records was picked up by a dance music DJ and producer in another country, and began to garner some underground buzz. When that buzz led to more calls for material from the DJ-producer, he turned back to our friend the musician, who after more than a decade of playing and touring, had virtually given up on his band and was looking for a new line of work. But the musician answered the call for more material and sent it off to the DJ-producer, who then added his own magic touch. One of those tracks was recently released as the first single off a recent Madonna album, and it became a world-wide hit.

That’s the reality of the music business. Doing your work, getting the music out, meeting the right people and building on those contacts, as you slowly climb the ladder. Only then can you hope to finally get that lucky break that catapults you to the top.

Last question: When do you give up?
Answer: You dont. You just keep moving, one rung at a time.

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Had quite an interesting visit to Amsterdam last week, where I was part of the first ever Dutch Writers Camp. The event was sponsored by Holland’s collection society BUMA STEMRA (the equivalent of our ASCAP/BMI/SESAC and Harry Fox Agency) and brought together an all-star group of international songwriters, ten contest winners from across Holland, and a couple of assorted special guests, which included yours truly. The songwriters participating in the camp were treated to an incredible master class from Ralph Murphy, the great guru of songwriting, and then paired off to write in alternating groups over the next two days. The result was an explosion of creative energy, a fascinating mix of cultures and working styles, assorted moments of euphoria, panic, insight, and a few emotional meltdowns, and alot of new friendships– as well as ten great new songs, all written and recorded in about two and a half days. No, everyone didn’t just hang out all day in the Amsterdam coffee shops. We worked!

As one of the American writers, Shane Alexander, put it, this was the songwriting “trenches”, with time pressure, competitive spirit, and a wild melange of musical and cultural influences adding a whole new set of challenges to the craft of creating a song. For the writers themselves, it was an exhausting and exhilarating week. For the special guests like myself, who had the luxury of observation rather than direct participation, it was a fascinating look at the creative process. In light of that, I thought I’d share two experiences from my stay in Amsterdam. Consider them souvenirs of my trip…

It’s funny how sometimes you have to go all the way across the globe to meet someone that’s been your neighbor all the time. Ralph Murphy and I are not literally neighbors–he’s a resident of Nashville (via Canada passing thru New York by way of London) and I’m a New Yorker. But we’ve certainly covered alot of the same territory. Both of us at various times have been songwriters, music publishers, and A&R managers, and both of us spend a great deal of time writing, talking, and thinking about the craft of songwriting. So to find ourselves at the Dutch Writers Camp together was a pleasure. For me, it was also an invaluable education.

If you’re serious about songwriting on a professional level, you can’t find a better teacher than Ralph Murphy. Currently ASCAP’s Vice-President of International and Domestic Membership, Ralph is a legendary songwriter and publisher with more than twenty Number One hits. But Ralph is not merely a gifted songwriter, he is both a student and a professor of the craft.

Ralph is a student in the sense that he has studied, and continues to study the science of the hit song from every angle– watching the chart action on new releases, spotting trends, and analyzing the reasons for a song’s success or failure. If you want to discover the rules and realities of creating commercially successful songs, you should start by checking out Ralph Murphy’s Laws of Songwriting at:

http://www.murphyslawsofsongwriting.com.

The truth is, most people who take the romantic view of songwriting, as a mysterious vocation built primarily on intuitive talent and luck, simply haven’t bothered to study it much. Ralph is the ultimate scientist, breaking down the factors that lead to success, one element at a time.

Even better though, Ralph is also a professor– someone who delights in sharing what he’s learned with songwriters at every level of the business. He’s an instructor for the Nashville Songwriters Association (NSAI) International Song Camps, and he leads his songwriting master classes at venues around the world. To hear him lecture at the Dutch Writers Camp, and watch him bring together an audience that ranged from veteran writers with numerous hits under their belts to developing writers across all different genres, was a real eye-opener, even for someone who has been working with songs and songwriters for more than twenty years. If you’re ready to challenge yourself to go from writing good songs to writing hits, make the investment and sign up for one of Ralph Murphy’s classes. It’s a lifetime’s worth of songwriting knowledge condensed into a couple of very entertaining hours.

Speaking of very entertaining hours, the other Amsterdam experience I wanted to share was my trip to the Vincent van Gogh Museum. Living in New York, I have ample opportunity to check out quite a few great museums, like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney and many others. But I’ve never had a museum visit quite like my trip to the Van Gogh.

What makes the Van Gogh museum so unique is that it is centered solely on the creative life of one person. Where most museums are “greatest hit” packages, with the masterpieces of one artist after another, the Van Gogh is a “career retrospective”, with paintings from each period of Van Gogh’s development, interspersed with personal letters between he and his brother Theo. The result is not only a remarkable collection of paintings, but a fantastic and deeply moving portrait of an artist’s development and all the challenges that brings. Seeing the museum while I was also a part of the Dutch Writers Camp prompted me to consider the parallels between a painter like Van Gogh and all of us who write songs and make records. Here’s three quick observations to keep in mind as you examine your own creative development:

1. Where you are now is not where you are going.

To see the paintings done early in Van Gogh’s career is to see a shadow of what was to come. Some of the paintings are very beautiful in their own right, and they have certain characteristics that would become part of Van Gogh’s unique style. Yet they look very little like what we have come to think of as a Van Gogh. They are dark, restrained, and a little somber– very much influenced by Dutch masters like Rembrandt, and reflective of Van Gogh’s Dutch upbringing. There are masterpieces among those early paintings. But they are not the pictures that would ultimately define Van Gogh’s legacy.

In the creative whirlwind, it can be easy to forget that wherever you are, you are not at the end point in your artistic development. No matter how good they may be, the songs you’re writing today are not the songs you’ll be making five years from now. So don’t get too depressed (if you’re struggling creatively) or too proud (if you’re having success). It’s impossible to know just where the work you do today will ultimately rank in your overall career. All you can do is to try to do the best job possible on each song, and to keep moving ahead in your development. Which leads me to…

2. Where you’re going will be depend upon your willingness to challenge yourself with new opportunities, and by the people with whom you choose to surround yourself.

By far, the most dramatic moment in the Van Gogh museum is to see the metamorphosis that takes place when Van Gogh’s dark, moody early work suddenly gives way to the wild explosions of color that most of us recognize as the classic “Van Gogh” style. What happened? How did he so quickly go from a gifted but conservative artist to the ground-breaking innovator that became an art world icon? The short answer is: he moved to Paris.

It was only when Van Gogh moved to Paris that he came under the influence of the other French Impressionist painters that were popular at the time. The new methods of painting that he saw, the friendships with people like Gauguin, the challenge of surviving and competing in what was the artistic center of the world, all combined to push Van Gogh out of his earlier comfort zone and to help him re-invent his style. It was only with the influences of other people that he was able to truly find himself and his own unique way of painting.

The truth is, moving to Paris must have been very traumatic for Van Gogh. He hated cities, lived an almost reclusive lifestyle, and disliked much of the social-climbing that has always been part of the art world. Nevertheless, he knew that he needed to make the move in order to become a part of the larger artistic community. In the same way, your artistic development will be determined by your willingness to put yourself in new situations, with new people, with the pressure to create new and different kinds of music. Whether it’s moving to a city that is a music center, attending a writers camp in Europe, scheduling a writing trip to Nashville or LA, attending a Ralph Murray master class or taking a Berkleemusic course, you have to be willing to face the competition and challenges of a new creative environment. No one creates in a vacuum. You will not find your own unique style by working in isolation. You’ll find it by being part of a community.

3. Ultimately, it’s not about where you are, or where you’re going. It’s all about the journey.

By the time you reach the end of the Van Gogh museum, you’ve seen dozens of renowned works of art. But what sticks with you is not any single painting, but rather the story itself– the progression of one man’s creative journey, full of exhilarating breakthroughs and career detours and emotional challenges and tragic moments. So it is with great musical artists like Miles Davis, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, or Prince. Even beyond any single great song, what makes their careers significant is the journey itself, as they were constantly pushing ahead, experimenting, moving from one style to another, and capturing the changing times within the context of their own changing lives. In the end, the story of the journey touches us more even than the one singular work of art.

When faced with the pressures of surviving in this difficult business, it’s easy to take for granted the everyday experiences of a life in music. As someone who has been doing this for far too many years, I know that the one thing that sticks with you in the end is not the songs themselves, but the people you meet when writing and recording them, the places you go, and the experiences you have. That’s the best part of the show– so don’t miss it. I had a great time in Amsterdam, met a fantastic group of creative people, learned a lot and brought home some good souvenirs. That’s the kind of journey you don’t forget.

Alright, to be fair, I haven’t gone on a really vicious rant since I tackled the subject of YouTube all the way back at the beginning of the summer. I’ve tried to be patient and positive and encouraging and educational and not get sidetracked on a subject that frankly, just completely sets me off. But I’ve hit the wall tonight. Look away if you’re easily offended or your feelings get hurt easily. I’m on the warpath.

It all started innocently enough. This evening, as on probably about 7000 other evenings of my life, I went out to what I thought was a showcase performance of a singer/songwriter who had sent me a couple of promising songs. Not hits really, but songs that showed enough potential, both in the writing and the performance, that my curiosity was sparked, and I felt it was worth an hour to go see what the artist could deliver live.

I’m still waiting. Because what I saw left me scratching my head. I don’t know what I saw. It was at a club that ostensibly features live music and charges money, so I assume that it was a performance. On the other hand, the artist seemed to view it more as some kind of therapy, in which she could drag all her friends to listen to her as she sleepily worked out her career path, artistic direction, set list and relationship challenges in public. The back-up band clearly viewed the evening as the rehearsal that they had not had previously. I saw it simply as my own personal hell, in which I watched yet another evening drift into some horrible nightmare of missed cues, false starts, wrong notes, poor song choices, and some hapless manager or attorney telling me how much better last week’s show was if only I’d seen that one.

I did see that one. I’ve seen them all. I’ve endured enough showcases to fill a YouTube channel, except that no one would watch them. I can’t take it anymore.

One seems to read constantly these days that the future of music is in live performances– that’s where the money is to be made, as it’s the one thing that can’t be stolen. It’s all about the live show. If what I’m seeing at showcases recently is the future of the industry, God help us all. The only thing we can be sure of is that no one will figure out how to steal it. No one would want to.

In the past five showcases I’ve attended (some of these presented for major record labels, others at major NYC clubs, all with industry A&R in attendance) I’ve seen the following:

One band, having generated interest at a major label based on an EP of material, played a set-list with an entirely different musical direction than that of the EP. In fact, they played only two of the six songs on the record.

A singer/songwriter chose to play three almost entirely inert ballads in a row, somehow oblivious as the entire audience was lulled into a slumber.

Another singer-songwriter managed to hit six obvious wrong chords in a thirty-minute set, forget a lyric, and had to start one song all over again– all on songs that he had written himself. If you can’t play your own songs, what can you play?

All of the performers proved unable to manage even one interesting, provocative, amusing or insightful spoken introduction or bit of banter with the audience. Most were inaudible, which was a plus. The others opted for things like “How you guys doin’? Is everyone having fun? This next one’s about a girl I knew back home…” Wow. That sounds really fun.

What the hell is going on? How has the standard for live performance slipped so low that most of the artists I’m seeing can barely struggle through a six song set? Could even 10 percent of the acts playing at The Living Room, or The Bitter End, or Mercury Lounge, or the Whisky in LA draw even fifty paying customers if you excluded close personal friends, relatives, and industry people who were coaxed there? Does anyone ever see a performance that truly wins over a crowd, the way Elton John did at the Troubadour or Springsteen did at the Stone Pony?

I’ve heard all the explanations. I’m always reminded that most of the young artists playing these showcases are still developing and defining their sound. They need to experiment. Of course, I totally agree that there is a place for development and experimentation. It’s called a rehearsal studio. More bands should use one. I also agree that the costs of maintaining a band, finding a rehearsal space, and setting up a show are growing more and more overwhelming. Which should mean that artists make sure the performances that they do give actually mean something. It might also suggest that rather than showcasing at pay to play venues, they should concentrate on actually building a live following of people who will pay to hear them.

Here’s the bottom line, for those artists who have not yet come to this realization:

We are not simply in the music business. This is the entertainment business. Musicians do not simply compete with other musicians for opportunities and an audience. Music competes with television, movies, sports, video games, social networking, a dinner out, and anything else that fills the average person’s time when not at work. If your musical performance is not more fun, or more interesting, or more emotionally satisfying than those other things, you will not be successful. Eventually, friends will get tired of coming out of a sense of duty. You will need to entertain them. Here’s four tips as to how:

1. Ponder your pacing.
Every form of entertainment, from movies to theater to sports is focused on grabbing an audience’s attention, holding it by raising the tension and the intensity, then releasing it at the end with a big climax. How then does a songwriter offer up three ballads in a row? When you think of the time and effort that goes into editing a feature film, how can a band get onstage and think to work out the set list on the spot? Broadway shows spend weeks in previews, just trying to fix those few moments where the energy lags. Any performer should put that same amount of thought into his or her set list, to grab hold of the crowd and not let go.

2. Practice at home.
If you can’t play your guitar without looking at the frets, or the piano without looking at the keys, or remember the words or the chords to your song, there is a very simple solution available, and it works for everyone. Sit alone in your room and do it over and over again until you can do it perfectly. No one watches John Mayer or Alicia Keys and wonders if they might hit a wrong note. This is because at some point in their existence, they spent hour after hour learning to do what they do. There are no shortcuts and no excuses. Practice. In private.

3. Don’t speak, unless or until you have something to say.
If you have a funny story, or a witty aside, or feel like saying something outrageous, by all means speak up. But remember, if you are awkward and uncomfortable and prone to mumbling things that can barely elicit a titter of laughter from a group of your friends, it’s very easy to hide it. Just don’t say anything. Know your set list, move immediately from one song to the next, and let the music speak for itself. No one ever complained that Bob Dylan didn’t speak onstage. There’s a power in silence. Use it.

4. Compete.
Put any two great performers together, whether it’s Billy Joel and Elton John, or Tina Turner and Mick Jagger, or Jay-Z and Kanye, and you’ll get a war. An entertaining war, but a battle nonetheless. Great performers take the stage as if they own it, are sure that they’re the best band or artist on the bill, and will not stop until they have won the audience over. No audience has an obligation to listen attentively, or give you a chance to express your feelings. You have to grab the opportunity and make believers out of people. The music business is not a self-help group or an open forum for all interested parties. It’s a jungle, with thousands of aspiring artists fighting desperately to cut through the clutter and reach an audience. Superstars understand that it is a world of “kill or be killed”. You have to be ready to compete.

It would be easy to assume from the description of some of the recent showcases that the artists themselves simply weren’t talented. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. In fact, that’s what makes the whole thing so frustrating.

There are always lousy bands or untalented singer/songwriters, and there always will be. From an industry perspective, they really don’t matter much, as they rarely get far enough to get on anyone’s radar screen other than their immediate family. What has set me off on this tirade is the sight of talented people, with real potential, giving poorly-planned, under-rehearsed, low-energy performances that don’t do justice to their own gifts. No one minds watching a bunch of grade-school kids on a playground playing a sloppy basketball game. But when you go to an NBA contest, and see great players playing without strategy or focus or desire, you want your money back. More than that, you go home depressed, to have seen people who didn’t respect themselves or their craft enough to put in a solid effort.

I read an article recently that talked about the tradition of opera audiences openly booing performances that they feel are sub-standard. Someone commented that it’s rude and hurtful to the performers. Which it probably is. But sometimes, for some performances, it’s the only appropriate response. At least it shows that the audience understands the standards, respects the art form, and cares about what is being presented. Next time you’re at the Bitter End and you hear a loud “boo” coming from somewhere near the bar- you’ll know I’m in the house.

I had an opportunity this week to speak with two different groups of developing songwriters and producers, one at the ASCAP Songwriters Workshop, the other at NYU’s Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music at New York University. Besides the obvious benefit of getting out of work early and meeting a bunch of promising young songwriters, producers and aspiring music business weasels, these kinds of forums offer oldsters like me a chance to think for at least a minute or two (I’m not one to over-prepare) about what insight we might be able to offer to those preparing to build a career in the music biz, and what advice we might want to give.

Actually, the first thing I usually think when preparing for such meetings is: What the hell do I have to say and why should anyone listen to it? One of my favorite quotes about show business was from Eddie Murray– when asked what advice he would give to young people, his answer was “Never take anyone’s advice”. Which is actually pretty sound, particularly given the fact that everyone in the entertainment business seems to have an entirely unique path that led them to wherever they are.

But perhaps that’s the point. In pondering the relevance of anything I might have to say to a group of songwriters or students, I realized that the one valuable thing I can offer is a somewhat unique background, having spent fifteen or more years as a professional songwriter and record producer, then a subsequent decade as an A&R person for a variety of music publishing companies, from a mid-size publisher (Zomba Music) to a major publisher (Sony ATV) to a small independent company (Shapiro Bernstein). My sort of dual-track background, with a significant amount of time logged on both the creative and the business ends of the spectrum, does not guarantee that my point of view is relevant or interesting, or even accurate. But it does offer a perspective that is somewhat unique.

It’s not hard to find people ready to share a great deal of knowledge about songwriting who have never had the experience of making a difficult A&R decision: deciding which act should be signed and which should be dropped; which songs should make the album and which should be tossed off; if that new hot writer is really worth that high six-figure advance, and whether you’re prepared to bet your job on it. Say what you will about the foolishness of the music business weasel, but those kinds of decisions definitely have a way of clarifying your views about music and refining your judgment.

At the same time, there is no shortage of music business executives who are more than happy to offer their opinion about what you as a songwriter should be writing, or how a song should have been written, or what styles are in and out, or what seven hit songs (in entirely different genres) should somehow be combined into the perfect new song for their act, all without ever having had the experience themselves of sitting down with a guitar or piano and a blank piece of paper. Seems easy till you try it.

The one valuable thing I can offer is that I’ve lived on both sides of the street. In fact, since I moved from being a songwriter and producer to being an A&R person, much of my time and thought has been spent trying to reconcile the two experiences, and derive some kind of perspective that might be useful to other developing songwriters and producers. There are plenty of things that I see now, as a music industry executive, that I couldn’t see as a music creator, and I wish I could have. When I speak to groups like the one at ASCAP or NYU, all I can offer is a real-life, bottom-line picture of the music business, born of my own experience.

Whether it’s in my books, Making Music Make Money and The Billboard Guide To Writing and Producing Songs That Sell, my online class, “Music Publishing 101″ at Berkleemusic, this blogspace, or the various talks I give at industry events, my philosophy is built on two fundamental ideas, both of which grow directly out of my experience as both a songwriter and music executive:

1. Songwriters don’t need to look for a music publisher. They need to learn to be one.

Only if a songwriter learns to be a good music publisher, and actually creates a business around his or her music, will a larger company then approach the songwriter/publisher and look for an opportunity to partner, invest, and build the business together. It always starts with a songwriter taking control of his or her catalog, and learning to generate income from it. Until that happens, no publisher will be interested in getting involved.

The truth is, songwriting is not a job. Songwriting is just something you do. There is no actual financial transaction at the core of songwriting. Taking a song and generating income from it is the work of a music publisher. Until a songwriter takes on that role of creating a viable business, nothing will happen. No one is looking to sign a publishing deal for a set of songs that are sitting in a desk drawer. Publishers want to partner with people who already have something up and running.

This realization grew out of my experience as a publisher, particularly when working with A-level songwriters like Billy Mann, Steve Diamond, Gary Baker, Stargate and others. What I noticed was that the busiest, most successful writers often had less contact with their publishers than many of the less-effective writers on the roster. This was because the top writers weren’t looking for someone to run their business, or to create every opportunity for them. They had already built a successful company around their music. They wanted someone to help expand their business, generate new opportunities, and relieve some of the administrative burdens.

As a songwriter, you are your own publisher as soon as you complete your first song. The successful writers accept that responsibility, and learn to be effective at making their music make money. That was the underlying theme of my first book, and it is the foundation of “Music Publishing 101″– a class that actually takes you, week by week, through the process of setting up your own publishing company.

2. Songwriters succeed consistently when they learn to tell the difference between a good song, a great song, and a hit song.

You don’t have to be in the songwriting game for long before you learn that everyone is looking for a “hit”. The problem is, no one seems to be clear as to exactly what a “hit” is. Most beginning songwriters think they write one every week. Most experienced, veteran songwriters think they write one per month. Most A&R people, drawing upon all of the top songwriters around the world, hope and pray to find one or two a year. The problem is that the beginning songwriter thinks that a “hit” means “a good song”. The experienced writer interprets it to mean “a great song”. Meanwhile, the A&R person is looking for something entirely different.

When an A&R person is looking for a “hit”, he or she is really talking about a “first single”. That’s the song that will traditionally be released six weeks prior to an album as a way of sparking interest in the artist and the upcoming release. If it’s an established act, the first single will re-introduce the artist into the marketplace and hopefully re-ignite the interest of the audience. If the single is for a new artist, it will be the primary thing responsible for taking a “nobody” and making them “somebody”. That’s a huge order, and it goes beyond something being a “great song”. It is a very specific kind of song, capable of fulfilling a very specific function.

A first single, by definition, has to do more than simply be a “catchy” song. Most of the time, it needs to work at radio, or at least in some kind of media venue. For that reason, it’s almost always uptempo, as most media outlets rely on energy and fast-pacing to keep their audience entertained. It has to fit a specific radio format, or at least target a very clear and specific audience. It must define the artist, giving the audience a sense of his or her individual identity, attitude, and musical style. It needs to be provocative, or funny, or surprising, or trendy or shocking enough that it cuts through all the other records being released at the same time. A first single is not only a great song. It’s a song that can make someone a star.

The Billboard Guide to Writing and Producing Songs That Sell is all about the challenge of creating those breakthrough first singles– it includes interviews with writers like Stargate, Midi Mafia and Darrell Brown, as well as industry execs like David Massey, Daniel Glass, and Hosh Gureli. There are plenty of books about songwriting, covering basics like rhyme schemes, song form, and basic harmony. This is not one of them. This is a book about discovering the difference between a song and a “hit”.

Of course, the great thing about offering up advice to developing writers and publishers is that one never knows how it turns out. Some will take the advice and prosper. Some will ignore it, and prosper nevertheless. Others will take all the advice that they can get, and things simply won’t work out. Unfortunately, career attempts in show business don’t come with a money-back guarantee.

I don’t offer much in the way of predictions, but I am confident of this: songwriters that learn to make something happen with their music by being effective music publishers themselves will be the ones most sought-after by A&R people like myself, and the ones most likely to be successful should they decide to partner with a larger publishing company. And songwriters who can learn to write “first singles” will always find more than enough opportunities, even in a shrinking business environment. A band with one sure-fire hit single will get a record deal long before a band with ten strong songs. A talented artist without a strong first single will see their album delayed, postponed, and maybe even dropped if they can’t come up with the one song that a label feels will work at radio or as the catalyst for a marketing campaign. And a songwriter who writes “hits” will be discovered, sooner or later.

It’s my birthday this weekend– and I’m gradually adjusting to the fact that I’m an industry veteran. Can’t say that I enjoy being the oldest guy in the room, but it does offer some security when offering up opinions.Take the advice if it’s useful– ignore it (like Eddie Murphy says) if it’s not. It may not be the world as you’d like it to be, but after quite a few years as both a songwriter and music weasel, I feel pretty confident in saying that it’s the world as I’ve seen it. Hope it helps…

In the past nine months, we’ve all learned a great deal about risk. As soon as the mortgage crisis struck, and the stock market plummeted, the realities of risk became starkly evident. Lenders and borrowers learned that an acceptable level of risk in one environment can become extremely dangerous should that environment change. Stockholders learned that risks have real consequences, and that risks can turn sour in an instant, without warning– that’s what makes them so, well, risky. The government learned that even very smart people, when lulled into over-confidence by a run of success, will usually take on far more risk than they can handle, or even understand. Without risk, there is no reward. This is true. This does not mean that risk usually leads to rewards. More often than not, risk leads to failure. Even the best hitters in baseball make an out 70 percent of the time. It’s worth keeping in mind.

It’s especially worth keeping in mind if you’re in the entertainment business. Most of us in the music business, or show business in general, have more than enough personal experience to understand that ours is not the most secure existence in the world. Even those who have not had a great deal of music industry experience are usually blessed with family members and friends who are more than willing to point out what a “risky” business it is to try to carve out a career in music. In fact, many successful music weasels cultivate a certain swashbuckling, riverboat gambler persona, making sure their colleagues and competitors understand just how ready they are to put the big chips on the table and roll the dice.

In a slightly different way, many musicians and songwriters take a similar approach, affecting a sort of rock ‘n’ roll nonchalance that says “I don’t really care about success, or making back the record label’s investment, or even paying my own bills. I don’t even care if anyone buys my record.” And neither pose is all that different from many of the top figures on Wall Street, including the head of Goldman Sachs, who are now busy telling the media that they were never really that worried about September’s meltdown, that it’s just the ups and downs of the marketplace, and that they’re not the kind of weak-willed softies that lose sleep at night about a few bets that go wrong.

It’s interesting that in any business in which you tend to lose as often as you win (or in the case of the music biz, where you lose FAR more often than you win), there emerges a certain honor in fearlessness, and a willingness to lose big without breaking a sweat. There’s also a certain business strategy that cultivates big gambles– the large record labels and publishers actually profit from a risk-taking culture, as it forces alot of the smaller companies, who can’t afford to lose, to stay out of the game entirely. Amidst all the bravado and posturing, there’s something that’s often overlooked:

The music business doesn’t need to be nearly as risky as most people make it.

Let’s take music publishing for instance. For those of you who may be operating their own music publishing venture, or thinking of starting one, the gut-turning excitement of wagering a six figure advance on an unproven rock band about to release their first album is probably not the kind of thrill that you’re seeking. That’s the business of the large major publishers, so leave them to it. The truth is, they’re wrong about eight out of ten times. For most major record labels, less than ten percent of the acts on the roster pay (or try to pay) for the other ninety percent of money-losing artists. As Tom Sturges at Universal Music Publishing once told me, an A&R person could say “No” to everything that came across his or her desk and only be wrong about ten percent of the time.

Instead, what if you were to seek out the low-risk opportunities that are usually not sexy enough or profitable enough to interest the big gamblers? Trust me, they’re out there:

1. Evey week, a simple reading of the Billboard charts will reveal dozens of songs already having at least some success and activity in which some or all of the publishing is available. Some of those unpublished writers are of course holding out for a big check. But others may be very happy to make a limited administration deal with a small advance, or even no advance, simply to have someone else on their team to help them collect their income.

2. Focusing on genres outside of the musical mainstream, like jazz, modern classical, folk, dance, or world music will immediately open up inexpensive, low-risk opportunities. If you can seek out leading composers or artists in these less competitive environments, you’ll find someone with a steady, if small income, a loyal fanbase, and probably a long-term career. And you won’t be trying to outbid a dozen other publishers to get into the game.

3. Why not seek out moderately successful small publishers in foreign markets and offer to be their sub-publisher in your territory? Sub-publishing has one of the best risk/reward ratios of anything in the music world. You try to work the other company’s catalog in your part of the world, helping their writers to find new opportunities, and collecting whatever money is generated by their music in your territory. Sometimes, you’ll need to pay a small advance in order to persuade a company to let you sub-publish them, but often you won’t. To put it bluntly, if you don’t manage to have any success with the catalog in your territory, it means that there’s not much collection work to be done. If you hit the jackpot and create a success story, then you’ll collect a percentage fee for all the money you generate. Hard to lose in that game.

4. Look into the library music business. This is a world in which you can take all of the instrumental tracks in your catalog, and make them available for low-cost, one-stop licensing to production companies and ad agencies looking for inexpensive, non-exclusive music for their indie films, local ad campaigns, or television shows. If you’ve already got the music on hand, it’s pretty easy to create a library. Then it becomes a matter of selling it to music supervisors and producers, and collecting the performance payments. You won’t get rich. But you can’t lose much more than your time itself.

Of course, this is an inescapable aspect of low-risk investing of any kind. Risk does not equal reward. But it does usually run proportionally. Big risks get big losses or big rewards. Little risks are a nickel and dime business. But if you can string together a lot of small profits, with very few losing ventures, you’ll start to make money. Best of all, sooner or later, one of those things that started small will somehow turn out to be something bigger than anyone anticipated.

To return to the baseball analogy– if you’re a big-market team, you stock your roster with big hitters and let them swing away. But if you’re a small-market team, you try to hit singles, steal bases, bunt, hit and run and somehow manufacture enough runs to keep the game close. Then, you hope that a few lucky breaks at a crucial moment will get you a win. Certainly it’s a harder road that requires more work. But you won’t wake up every morning wondering if you still have a business, either.

I remember Tom Silverman, the legendary founder of Tommy Boy Records, telling me once about an older icon of the music business. This original music weasel had hit it big at least four times in his long career, only to gamble it all away each time on the horse races. Silverman was incredulous. “I always thought to myself, why? The music business isn’t gambling enough for one lifetime? You need to go to the horse races or Vegas to get your fill of risk-taking?”

Don’t buy into the show-biz myth that equates risk with courage. There is valor in a reasonable amount of caution. There’s also a pretty solid business in taking the money that everyone else is willing to leave sitting on the table. Look for the sure things- or almost sure things- that everyone else is missing, then build your business on those.