As part of my ongoing search for songwriting websites and blogs, I
have a Google Alert for “songwriting tips”. Whenever anything is
posted whether it’s news or a new blog post, I get an email with a
link to it.
It struck me recently that I might be reading the same thing over and
over again, but I couldn’t remember where. The only clue I had was
that there was always a link to a website selling a Takamine guitar
and another one called Solobis which is about making money blogging.
So I did a Google search using one phrase from the article and found
that there were 69 blogs with the same article! You can check for
yourself here.
The web has always been a place where you have to take what you find
and what you read with a grain of salt, but this new way of making
money blogging just disappoints me.
I mean, the article is fine. But the whole idea is to get you to buy
something, not to help you write better songs.
You can count on this website to always have original articles that
you will find nowhere else, and the websites that I recommend in my
links section are the same. There are no duplicate articles with a
hidden agenda to “make money blogging”. So what I recommend to
you is to subscribe to your favourite blogs (including mine!) and
support the people who really are trying to help you along your
songwriting path.
“Never Is Forever” is Floyd Murray’s lottery ticket to a happy retirement, if he has his way. He is offering thecopyrightto this song for auction oneBayfor a million bucks.
When I read the CNN iReport it said that a search of “hit song copyright”, including quotes, would bring up the auction, which was reportedly to begin on March 26, 2010. However, when I went to eBay and did the search, it did not come up. Did he perhaps have second thoughts? Here is an excerpt of his response when asked why he is selling the rights to the song:
“My age and my life situation (and the current industry and economy) dictates that I won’t be going on tour any time soon to promote and perform my music, and I haven’t actively pursued any publishing or licensing deals. I’ve been sitting on this song, and every time someone hears it, they tell me how great it is and ask why it’s not on the radio. So I’m just offering it up to someone who sees it on its merits and can take it and run with it. I guess I’m selling my pension plan. I’m creating my own economic stimulus package.”
I listened to the song and you can too on the video posted below. While I appreciate that Mr. Murray may really only be hoping to create a little nest egg for his retirement, the fact that he has been sitting on it and not pitching it to publishers himself first, was a mistake. What most songwriters with any experience will tell you is that you need decent and honest feedback from people who are objective and know what they’re talking about. Your friends, family and acquaintances don’t count! Some smaller publishers will respond within a few weeks as to whether or not they are interested in the song, and sometimes they will give some feedback in their response.
Why am I saying all of this? Because as far as I can hear, the song has some glaring flaws. First of all, it has the same chord progression throughout, the same three chords, so there is no contrast between verses and chorus (if, indeed, there was a chorus). That alone wouldn’t necessarily spell disaster, except for the fact that it’s a county song and most country publishers or labels won’t even let you in the door without a big, splashy chorus.
Secondly, the word “never” is used ad nauseum. Now I know that the song has “never” in the title and this is obviously the theme, but using it in almost every line is enough to put anyone to sleep.
Which is why I only made it through the first half of the song. So he may have actually switched the chords up at the end of it, or used the word “never” less as it went along, but I wouldn’t have heard it. And neither would most industry-types if they threw it on in its present state. Which is the sad reality: most songs sent to publishers or industry people aren’t listened to past the first verse and chorus (if there is one). It doesn’t take long for them to decide that “this ain’t it.”
It could very well be that Floyd Murray is just trying to get a little attention for himself, but actually I think he is probably sincere and really thinks he has a hit on his hands. Which kind of reminds me of that guy I wrote about a couple of months back who wants to sell a million CDs. I wonder how he’s doing? [Update Nov/12…his video and website disappeared and now he has only a website with himself doing mostly cover songs. So much for the million sales!]
I wish them both luck. This is the day and age when it takes a lot of creative thinking to come up with ways to draw attention to yourself and your songs. But first, the songs have to be good.
In another article called Songwriting TopicsI went through a myriad of things you can do to inspire yourself in terms of what to write about (what? you don’t have anything to write about? :-), and most of them were the obvious such as using your own life experiences or those of others.
But what if you are bone dry in terms of ideas? Where else can you get them?
I’ll focus on a few places on the web that might help you get some ideas. In fact, you might learn to get really creative about being creative! The web is an excellent way to get ideas if you know how to use it and what’s out there.
Interestingly enough, as I’m writing this blog I’m looking at something called Zemanta. Zemanta is essentially a media and article/information gallery that you can use as a plugin in Firefox or in a WordPress blog like I have. You can try it out on the demo page on their website. Type anything in the text box and Zemanta will come up with images, articles, links and tags relating to whatever you’ve typed. It’s a pretty clever little tool.
Which brings me to another idea. Pictures can be really inspirational sometimes, especially photographs. If you go to a website like Photography.com, you can browse through hundreds of stock photos; pick a subject like flowers or landscapes and see what you can come up with. I often peruse a website called BOOOOOOOM! which has photography, but also art and sometimes even videos, all in blog form. It’s a very cool site to look through even if you’re not looking for something to write about :-).
Okay, but what if you’re looking for musical inspiration? Aside from listening to other songs, where else can you get some musical ideas?
A few months back I found a really neat little site called Jam Studio where you can literally create a whole music bed right on the site. It leads you through entering some chords and picking some instruments, including drums, bass, guitar and piano and even a “feel” or genre like country or rock. Then voila! You can create a whole song in any key and come up with all kinds of ideas! Try it out.
And last, but not least, I wrote an article for the Muse’s Muse awhile back where I featured an NPR series called “Project Song“. The whole idea is that an artist or band is given a set of photos and words to choose from, and is given two days in a studio to come up with a song representing them. It is a very interesting premise and on the Project Song website you can watch a video showing how songwriter Nellie McKay came up with her song “Cavendish” using the tools at hand.
You might do the same for yourself…take a random photo from one of the websites I recommended and go to a dictionary and pick out a word or two and see what you can come up with!
In fact, I’m thinking of coming up with a songwriting challenge to do exactly that. Keep your eye on this blog in the coming weeks…!
