Welcome! Use this forum to ask questions and learn about the inner workings of the music business from Marc-Alan Barnette. In this forum, you can expect straight talk!
I am trying this. If it seems to be in the wrong place or if I should do it in a different format, please let me know. Some of you have asked questions or made comments on some of the other forums on these pages. I try to respond when I can. I am putting some things out there if you have some questions you would like to direct my way from a more Nashville-centered perspective. If this seems inappropriate, please let me know and we can remove it. I am limited in much of my online, computer skills so this might help me hone in on things I can do as well.
I am here to help you as much as I can. Or stay in the back ground if needed. I will leave it up to you to let me know if this would help.
MAB
Do you normally start writing lyrics by brainstorming on the many concepts, phrases etc associated with a song concept you are working on?
I just shared a new song with a friend...thought it was pretty good, but really it's flaws were magnificent too. One thing she did was started writing out phrases, and words that might go well in the song. I just wanted to hear a little about how you yourself do this, as well as when, etc.
Thank you for asking. The second I put this up I got to thinking to myself, "How pretentious". If I have offended anybody by being a little presumptionous by thinking you might want to hear what I think, please ignore me. I just sometimes don't have as much time as I like to check all the forums, and sometimes even miss some of my own e-mails, which I hear plenty about when I didn't get a lyric re-write or some kind of deadline done. So just overlook me if I seem full of myself. Believe it or not, I really think I am just kind of lucky in some interesting ways but it has taken me 20 years to get that way. I will tell you a story on that in a bit.
Now thank you Phil, for enduring that silliness, and let me get to your question. I have kind of developed an interesting style in that I really start at the first line and write straight through. 95% of my writing comes from my "write up" program. That is, I am paid to sit down with writers and help them learn focus, process and the entire overview. These people range from new comers, 16 year old artist wanna be's, accountants, engineers, aging rockers, melody guys, lyric wanna be's, out of touch older country people, you name it. Most just want to write better songs and see some light at the end of a very dark tunnel.
They will sit with me and give ideas, senarios, and mostly, titles. Some times lyrics, but often it is overused titles, cliched' rhymes, and just very average language. And almost always WAY too wordy and too long. I try to get them to talk what they are trying to say and try to get them to identify the most important thought, Most of the time I have to show it to them because 90% of songwriting is a "DUH". It is right in front of you but you didn't see it.
"Live Like You Were Dying" DUH!
"Friends in Low Places" DUH!
"I've Had Moments" DUH!
"The Dance" DUH! They are all things we have said, heard, or thought about but just never put it into the right format. Then on the oppisite side, we try to say things that we have heard ten million times in song forms and we didn't like it then and it just doesn;t get any better. Things that are so overdone:
"She Was An Angel" DUH!
" Looking at the moon" DUH!
"He is a hot Cowboy" DUH!
"Let's get in our pick up truck! "Duh! They're things that are just so overdone that it is so hard to find a way to make them work, especially for a newbie writer trying to get attention from co-writers or publishers.
So we start going over senarios that relate to the song. By this time I have usually formed an opinion. I get very quiet. I am putting myself into character the same way that an actor does. I actually am an actor, director, camera man, script writer, all rolled into one. I am putting a short play together. I work for a first line that grabs attention. I often draw on personal experience or experiences I have heard from other people. Here is a song I wrote two weeks ago, and I will diagram this for you. I was writing with two people in town in one of my write up session. The assignment was to write a "strong man's ballad." That means Jeffery Steele territory. One of the guys had a piece of paper with some random lines. I saw one line that said, "I saw that look in your eyes that made me want to run away."
I started to develop a story with a bit of personal relationship. When I was 12 years old I was playing with a candle and some gasoline. I almost caught my mother's porch on fire. I also remembered a scene from an Andy Griffith show, where Aunt Bea wouldn't let Opie hang around the courthouse. So he went off on his own and ended up at an abandoned mine. As he was out front, the timbers collapsed, sending a big cloud of smoke. This is the first verse and chorus, which is usualy how I work. Before I say a word I think this out, write it down and then pick up a guitar for melody and groove. Here is what I came up with:
That Look
MAB/Dennis/Turner
2007 MABBOCASTER Music 12 years old and full of anger, never saw the danger,
Of that old mine out on five mile road.
Me and Billy Lovell, skipping school, looking for trouble,
Could have died when those timbers, started to go.
Sherrif Johnson pulled us out and took us home,
We'd have gone through Hell to keep from having to tell our folks.
Chorus
I SAW THAT LOOK IN MY DADDY'S EYES
IF IT COULD KILL, IT WOULD HAVE TOOK MY LIFE
HALF OF ANGER, HALF OF PAIN
IT WAS SEARED INTO MY BRAIN
WITHOUT A WORD, IT WAS UNDERSTOOD
I SAW THAT LOOK What I did here was create a scene using about three elements, from my experiences, a television show, and making a story up. The whole thing leads to "That Look" and is about a Dad and son. I never got "That look" from my Father. I didn't know him very much until later in life. But I know many people have gone through that so it seemed to work.
When the guys heard it and I knew we were on the right track, I went to the second verse. Now second verses can either be "back story" or "advancing the story line" Just like the second act of a play. I tried to think of another experience that could lead to "That look." Again, I went to a "close approximation to a real experience."
Seventeen and prom night, thinking that I just might,
Get lucky with the girls behind the gym.
In the middle of that big track, somebody brought a 12 pack,
Teen age hormones looking for a place to begin.
All at once, the world just stopped,
He was standing right above me, with his arms crossed.Chorus
That sort of happened to me at another girl's high school. But the guy who caught us was the vice principal. In those days we only had a six pack, but if this was sung by an under 30 singer, it would seem a little more real. And of course, now you might end up in jail. But it got me back to the chorus.
The bridge is the lawyers closing arguments. I want to make a final summation of the entire thing, and bring it back to the beginning. Bridge
He always had the strength of a bull
But when cancer took him down he just couldn't fight that pull
Last chorus
I SAW THAT LOOK, IN MY DADDY'S EYES
AS I WATCHED, IT TAKE HIS LIFE
HAVE OF WORRY, HALF OF PRIDE
I HELD HIS HAND AND CRIED
WITHOUT A WORD, IT WAS UNDERSTOOD
I SAW THAT LOOK
I changed the final chorus in three lines and did a musical breakdown. From start to finish it was about 25 minutes.
Process suggestions:
The most important thing you can do is to work out a believable story line. Then you need to speak it as you would a conversation with a friend. Then putting very visual furniture in the song. In my case here they are: the mine, the timbers, the sherrif's name, the friend's name, the prom, track, 12 pack, etc. You need to stay away from emotion until there is a way to make that emotion real. The look is the emotion. The worry, the pain, the pride, all are emotions. But they are grounded in reality.
Musically, you have to find the feel that reinforce the emotion, This song is in "drop D" which gives it that "ominous" feel. The tempo is mid to slow, but has a very powerful chorus which just rips your head off, And it is dynamically very evenly paced. It has to match up. A weak lyric can be rescued by a strong melody, it never goes the other way around.
In short (like I do anything short) you have to develop a story with details but get to your point very quickly. And you have to have a big payoff. When you study the songs that are hit songs, history makers, I am talking the "Yesterday's, Imagines, Somethings" Take it Easy's" If Tomorrow Never Comes", etc. the points are made and driven home with very clear details. And while some songs may have metaphors, "American Pie" they are very strong melodically with a chorus that is so strong that you never forget it. That is what you need to be shooting for.
Class dissmissed. I know this is long, but that is why I wanted to go to my own spot so I don't take anyone else's space. Let me know if it helps or hurts.
Good to hear from you and thank you for letting me explain myself and processes.
I don't know if this is helping or not. Am hearing a little bit but don't know if it is working. I am trying to address some things I have been asked in workshops, or online. I had a little story of something that happened yesterday that plays into questions you hve asked. This one plays into the questions about getting songs pitched. A lot of you are trying to get songs out there and
asking questions about the art of the pitch.
You never know where a pitch is going to come from. The key to Nashville is writing lot's of songs with a lot of people. Because that writing relationship might mean more than just about that particular song. This what I mean by that.
Before I left Birmingham in 1988, I wrote a song called "Can't Blame Nobody But Me." I wrote it with my mentor, Ron Muir, who had lived in Nashville for about 10 years before I met him and showed me everything about Nashville songwriting before I got here. This particular song had a life of it;s own. It became one of my favorites and I closed every show with it. It was always a song that had people clamoring for it. Several of my first publishing offers centered around it. One night at a writers show I was approached by two men who asked about it. I said a really stupid thing in saying I was "holding on to it for myself" as an artist and didn't want anybody else to cut it. I was an idiot. Later I found out those guys were Bob Doyle and Garth Brooks.
It was always like that. This was an ultimate attention getter. Over the years I had several publishers who loved it, the song got cut, the song got never released, no matter what happened it still was a crowd favorite. I had done about 3 versions of it on various CDs and it was always one of my favorite songs. For 21 years.
Over the last few years I have gone into writing full time and on a show you only have space for so many songs. So I don't do it as much as usual.But it still gets requested. Now is where it gets interesting.
Two days ago I got a call from a very dear friend of mine, who is a wife of one of Nashville's most successful publishers, Larry Butler. Larry wrote "Hey Won't You Play Another Somebody done Somebody Wrong Song" a legendary song, and the longest title on record! He produced everyone throughout the 70''s and 80's and was the only Nashville producer to win a Grammy for Kenny Rogers, The Gambler. His wife, Peggy asked me an odd question, "was there any reason they couldn't play "Can't Blame" for Kenny? Of course not. That was the whole conversation. They are pretty direct.
Then yesterday Larry called me back telling me that he was producing Kenny again and wanted to play my song but needed a very stripped down version of the song to play. So I recorded a very basic guitar vocal track and sent it to him. We will see from here. But the point is three levels:
First, on the perseverance of songs and relationships. I hadn't heard from my two friends from years. But they always loved that song. And they cared enough to call me from out of the blue when a new opportunity arises. And they live in Fla. so this is not just a Nashville thing.
And while I didn't write it with Larry, he stil puts it above so many other song that he has written or songs he has access to. That is a true friend.
The second is that you often write them up and move on to other songs. If you do it right, certain songs will come back to you if you get them in enough hands but you have to always keep moving forward.
The third is demos. While I had a killer produced demo, actually about three of them, and seven or eight versions of the song that had been cut. I had to re do it in a very basic, live guitar vocal. Which means that a guitar vocal can work but you have to have that relationship built up first. And even though thte guitar/vocal worked for this pitch, the full produced version kept it around in my friend's eyes and ears for years. The song stands up both ways I hope.
Again, the points of all of this is the weird things that happens with songs and songwriters. Who knows where it will end up. I am just glad people like my stuff. Larry and Kenny have not been together in years and who knows where that chemistry is. Kenny is not a young current artist. And you never know if he will even like it. But it will get played directly for the artist by the producer. That is about as close as you can get. And if anybody has demonstrated a "Phoenix rising from the ashes" than Kenny Rogers. This guy has made more comebacks than Lazarus.
But it is how you never put your eggs in one basket, never get too excited about anything or never give up on anything. Write them as well as you can, get them out with as many people as you can in as many directions as you can. And try not to suck.
Marc: altho these may be a re-hashed questions you always get lol , i was wondering, as per copyrighting, Do you tend to send material in batches as "Songbooks" and then only copyright an individual song if it gets interest, or if its going to be cut by someone, or only when you put it out as a CD and then ,copyright the whole CD. I was also wondering, if you were to copyright a worktape(the first completion of a song), and then if you did a rewrite later, then would u copyright it again?
Posted Sat, Jun 30, 2007 6:49 pm, Edited Sat, Jun 30, 2007 6:56 pm
Hey Norman, (Marc I hope you don't mind me jumpin in with my two cents) :)
A quick note on "Copyrights" that is often misunderstood. When you put your song in a "Tangible" form, for example when you record it,, you just copyrighted the song. By posting my songs on Songramp, I have in essence Copyrighted them because they are in a tangible form...The recording.
This should not be confused with "Registering" your copyright with the Library of Congress. This is done to give you "Back-up" if your copyright is ever challenged. You can register a "WORK" if you send in an entire CD.
The cool thing about The Ramp, is your uploads are Time stamped, as well as the Comments that are left. This may help if your Copyright is ever challenged. Registering costs money, if you feel your song is strong enough to warrent this protection, by all means do it. Copyrights are sometimes hard to enforce unless someone lifts your song Note for Note, word for word. The fact is all songs have elements that are contained in a Hundred other songs. Famous examples of Copyright infringement are Harrisons "My sweet Lord" and The Chiffones "He's so Fine" Although Harrisons song is unique in Many ways, the similarities are too strong to deny! George Lost! Another Case is when the BeeGees lost the copyright on "How deep is your Love"...too similar. These are both "FAMOUS" cases by "Famous" people. Truth is, the average writer does not ever have to worry about this, until Money gets involved! :) We all have influences and I believe it is close to Impossible to write a completly "Original' song. The originality comes in the arrangement and Performance.
Of note, is the fact you cannot Copyright a title or theme. In essence you could write a song called "Live like you were dying" and follow the same theme..however,.The Melody would have to be substantially different, same goes for the actual words. I would not recommend this, the writing community would Ostracize you, and the listening public would not accept it. :) Hope this helps answer some questions. Jeff
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GREAT to hear from you. I was about to figure out if I should take this rant down. I don't want to seem like a jerk. I think copyrighting is one of the biggest wastes of time and money songwriters go through. You cannot copyright an idea or title and they get written all the time. We are mining the same ground all the time and the same things happen. In the last three years , these are some ideas and songs I have written that not only have I written, but have performed with the writers of these hit songs:
Mississippi Girl- Faith Hill Hit
Jesus Take the Wheel- Carrie Underwood hit
My Wish- RAscal Flatts hit.
All of these songs I have had for several years. If I wanted to make a stink I could but I just don't. I have a few publishers who take the responsibility of filing copyrights when I have something that needs to be copywritten. When the Tracy Lawrence cut is ready to be released, I will assign the publishing to Best Built Songs, that I wrote for as a staff writer for five years. They will file and administer the copyrights. I have written almost 600 songs in the past two years and seven months. There is just no way I am going to deal with the headaches and paperwork and money on those songs because not many are ever going to go anywhere. Most will never be pitched. That is true for every writer I know.
It is a very personal decision and one that should be made after discussions with other writers, publishers, and PRO contacts. But I will tell you one thing I have seen in 19 years here and 6 years of teaching workshops. Out of the literally hundreds of songs I have seen with that copyright form attached and literally thousands of songs I have heard, evaluated, etc. I have never seen ONE that I would want to steal. They are all the very same ideas, said the very same way in the very same attitude. They are not developed enough, distinct enough or have anything that is really different to be worth stealing. There is only so many ways to say I love you and only so many notes. I just don't worry about it.
I personally don't do it but I would not dare to speak for you. You should ask other writers and will probably get a ton of direct opposite opinions. But I would worry first about having a song worth stealing before worrying about copyrighting it. Let me ask you this:
Think of me as in probably the top 400 of Nashville writers. There are about 300 staff writer jobs in Nashville. There are probably another 200 that acutally make any money at all at it. There are 48,000 writers in this town alone. 500 songs a day get written here. I write between 1 and 3 songs a day and do it all on the spot with people that are from every place imaginable. I judge song contests, do evaluations, and workshops around 15 hours a day. Exactly when would I or any of these people have a chance to steal your song? They have their own songs and believe me, if we even have a suspicion that we are on to someone else's stuff, we drop the song, or try to change it. We write a ton of songs.
Song theft is a myth. You can spend a lot of time and money on it. Or you can write more songs. That is my take.
Very good analogy. It is great to hear from you guys and you, my friend are dead on. It is a question I hear all the time and I just don't hear people with anything worth stealing. It is so hard to write those unique songs. It just really is. And so few very go anywhere. I would give anything if that was a question I never had to hear again. If you write amazing stuff, and you are diligent about getting it out there, you are very quickly going to garner attention. People will be asking you to write. They will want to introduce you to their contacts. Or they will ask for publishing on your songs. Why should we work that hard if the song is already there. We don't like writing stuff that is already out there. That takes away our individually.
And remember the big case where John Fogarty was sued for sounding like themselves. Look, last week a judge tried to sue for 54 million dollars for a lost pair of pants. He has lost his job, is a national laughing stock, and been exposed for the idiot he is. You can sue anybody. Winning, is another thing and even if somebody hooks one that you feel you are entitled too, so what. How many people are you all getting into see right now? All I hear is about how no one can see anybody. How many people are hearing your songs? Maybe they should be buying your CD's instead of worrying about suing somebody for copyright infringement on something no one ever heard.
I have a lot of friends who are going through these stupid lawsuits. It holds up royalties, never have merit and is the very reason very few of you guys can get to publishers or artists. They are not going to listen to anything because they are not going to take the chance.
Thank you two for participating in my forum. I have been a little worried. For those of you checking in on the post, please talk to me, if you don't I will just drop this. I only put it up because I felt it was easier to try and bring people to me than try to check every forum for something that I could help on. I really am interested in what you are doing and want to give you some ideas if I can.
Just checking in for a moment and stayed aroudn MUCH longer than expected to learn about songwriting, speed, ideas and generating/accessing/connecting them, co-writing and RELATIONSHIPS!!!! This last one had the big payoff of the direct pitch - need I say it - that's compelling.
I'm following the thread Marc and garnering what nuggets I can from it. I haven't gotten serious about getting my songs out there yet but when and if I do this will help a lot I am sure.
Copyrighting is free...only registration costs money...posting here is a free copyright re-inforcement if needed, but as Jeff said, all you have to do is put your works in a "tangible form"(where it can be read or heard) such as a CD, cassette, tape recorder, computer, on paper (words on any paper, music on sheet music paper), posting on the internet...all of these constitutes putting your works in a "tangible form" and you can then affix the copyright symbol to your works costing nothing to you
Song theft is a myth?...ask Arthur Smith about that
I'll ask him if I see him. My opinion. I ain't seen enough worth stealing in nearly 20 years here. If there was that much theft you would be seeing about 50 times the amounts of lawsuits. That is the national pastime. There's a whole lot of people that say they have been stolen from. With 12 notes, highly doubtful. As It was said, everything borrows from something else. But you've got your opinion. We'll just have to agree to dissagree.
I saw him a while back...one of the "Big Boys", Warner Brothers, decided to use one of his songs and claim the copyright along with Eric Weisberg...needless to say, they made Arthur a rich man by thinking he was a country hick and couldn't do anything about it against their lawyers, power, and money...even saying so to his face...a jury proved them wrong BIG TIME!
Thanks again for your experienced viewpoint Marc ,and as well everyone else who posted, Its all information that's helpfull and relevant. I was just curious to see, how you Marc and those you have worked with or work with deal with that.
Please dont take away the "RANT" LOL we may be slow to post questions or ask you info, but your insight is always a VALUED and sometimes just maybe we appreciate a Professional reinforcement about an oppinion, but its certainly welcome
Well Sunday here and I have my first "day off in 61 days. So of course, I am checking e-mails on Songwriting. Bill, glad to hear your friend did well. I have a lot of friends on the other side. I have friends like Marv Green, who wrote "I'm Amazed" spending $56,000 to defend himself against someone that he never met who mailied in a CD to him. Claims he wrote that song and the theme of "My Heart Will Go On" in the same song.And none of them ever met him. Marv has written more than a few number ones.
At NSAI we are given a blanket agreement that we are protected against infringement when we listen to stuff. But that is being challenged. There is someone now out there going around suing people that do workshops and saying they are stealing her ideas. This is all quite funny if you ever listen to the songs that are in workshops, until you find hundreds of thousand of dollars in royalties held up due to court cases from somebody that thinks they personally knew Motzart. And I take a chance every time I listen to anyone's song.
I wish everyone could listen to the volume of songs that I do. I think you would have a little different perspective. I listen to songs and work with songwriters from about 7:00 in the morning until about 9:30 AM ,where I have my private appointments, dealing with songs. Then in many instances, I am taking people around to writers nights, or involved in shows that I perform on, and there are songs. After that I deal with songwriters songs on e-mail until around midnight. That;s almost every day.
I did have a problem the other day though. I found myself writing a really cool song with a guy from San Diego and a 16 year old girl from Sacramento. It was fun, funny, and had a realyl cool groove to it. We finished it and went on to other stuff. Yesterday I realized I was very much on the melody of an Alan Jackson song in about three places. We spent yesterday re-writing some lyrics and the melody. The point is that you try to make them different but you are going to run into problems no matter how much you try to. Sometimes we get on to other melodies, some of the same lyric ideas. I write a couple hundered songs a year. I borrow from myself all the time.
I will admit there have been some lawsuits. And probably in some areas have been some legitamacy. Those are often settled, or litigated.No one really wins. I sours people in the industry and if you wonder how hard it is to get songs in the door now, wait another year or so. There is already an undercurrent of 'to hell with outside people and songs." In a town that is based upon songs, and tying to be origional, it is hard to endure a lot of outside things and then be asked to help people.
That is the other side of the coin.
Thank you. That is what I try to do. I guess how I feel about all this is many of you are out there, trying to write better songs, find ways into publishers, and other sources. Many do workshops, seminars, I see you at the Ramp bash and hear from a lot of you My perspective comes from devoting pretty much every day for close to 20 years here being somewhat on the "inside." And while I am in no way the expert for anything, I have some different points of view.
Many times I hear these common complaints, writing inside the box, being too forumula, song theft, in abilities to get songs heard or pitched, in every workshop I do. I am trying my best to explain it from "the other side." I have friends, co-writers and associates that are very successful in this busiess. I understand a lot of what they go through because I know many of them on a social level. So I can try to give you some understanding of that point of view. As always, in any of this you can believe it or ignore it. I will put it out there.
If some of you can ask some questions, I will try to give my opinion on it and we can see if it helps. If you don't have any, I will drop some comments from time to time about things that are happening as I see them. I will also talk about how some of it affects me. But I am not doing this for self serving reasons. I do this because they might be able to help you in your own journey. For example, a recent forum was about the quality of demos. I mentioned that recently I have had a friend of mine involved with a new Kenny Rogers project. He is pitching a couple of my songs. I had to do a very stripped down demo version. But I want to be clear that just because that happened doesn't mean that we should stop doing decent demos. And it also should speak to the level of relatihship you have to have. And if nothing happens with it, which is what is most likely to happen, the importance of continuing every day. The importance of perseverance.
When I talk about the styles and substance of my writing and how it relates to the industry, that is not to say that you have to do what I say. But it does mean that there are some certain things you can do to up the level of your songs. If you are creative, visual, and do it regularly, co-write, etc. your songs and your chances will get better.
What I like to focus on in these postings are to demonstrate some elements of process, and then the longer view of that process so that others can get a little better insights. That is what this is dedicated to. What I love is when you have heard confliciting information, (demos, copyrights, etc) You should ask that and I will try to explain the various opinions on that.
But there is no complete, one size fits all solution to anything. Much of it depends on your own talents and your own levels and get to it. I hope some of this will help you see where you are.
What's your perception of the market in Nashville for session players? Is it as competitive as the song writing arena? I would imagine that there are some top notch players in town....
It's about 20 times as competitive. The way studio things happen are this. You start out by moving in, and finding your way. About three months in you either find a few people you play with, rent yourself out for individuals needing the guitar/player, (name your vocation here) to play a live gig. About 6 months in, working your regular 8 hour gig, then going out every night meeting a ton of people. Somewhere about that time, you have settled into about five different semi-regular gigs. That transfers into playing on the newbies, guitar vocal or other demos. That starts a relationship with various studios. At some point you get a live gig with somebody (which takes you out of town on the road) as a fill in player. You do this for a while. As a player now this is about 3-4 years in. Sooner or later, somebody has a cancellation on a "real" or upper quality demos session. That starts a whole new chapter.
The process from new off the street to actually semi regular demo sessions is about ten years. From there, you either burn out or form your own band, book your own sessions or a little bit of all of that. As everything in Nashville, everyone has their hands in a dozen pies. You hope one will come up and pay at least a little bit toward the bottom line. The "A" list, which are the guys (and girls) that have worked their way to the big show. To get into that list, you just about have to wait until somebody quite literally dies. If you look at the credits on about the top 25 records at anyone time, you will find the same players,
Eddie Bayers on drums
Micheal Rhodes and Glen Worf on Bass
Brent Mayer on guitar
Larry Franklin on fiddle and so on and so on.
Music Row magazine has an "end of year" magazine which lists musicians, back up singers, demo singers, etc. It lists the songs they played on, how many demos, how many charts, etc. But there are always about 20 people in the top, and everyone else from there. My friend Larry Butler, played piano and replaced Floyd Cramer, who replaced Owen Bradley, and then was subsequently replaced by Barry (can't rememeber) and he was replaced by Tony Brown who was replaced by somebody else who replaced somebody else. You get the picture.
What happens with the players as they move up is they begin to be producers. Tom Hambrige, who plays drums for Jeffery Steel, (and me at one point) has produced the rock act Susan Teduchi. James Stroud, who produced Toby Keith and Clint Black, went on to run Giant records. Tony Brown ran MCA and is now ( I think at Universal South. They come and go so fast I don't pay a lot of attention.) Rivers Rutherford and Jeffery produce Mongomery Gentry. John Rich has moved into producing everybody.
It is a constant combination of waiting your place in line, being good at what you do, being at the right place at the right time, upping the level of your odds by putting yourself out there, and just plain perseverance and luck. That is really what all of this is. The same thing is for artists, writers, players, producers, agents, managers, publishers, record company people. It is all exactly the same. You do something, then become a political animal selling your talents as much as you can. You constantly have to prove why you are worth someone spending their money on them. And the competion is unGodly. Think of Actors in Holly wood and that is what you have for everybody for every postion in Nashville. That is the real world.
Everyone likes to think they can just write a song, do a writers night, record a demo, open for some star, make some connection, have their mother drop their CD off for somebody, etc. and their world is going to change. It never happens like that. It is a long long line of heartbreaks and dissapointments. You never let your highs be too high or your lows be too low. It is just one day after another working at it all day every day. That is what you do.
You are correct sir. Brent Mason is the "Top dog" right now in the scheme of things. Brent Mayer has gone on to the producing thing. They all kind of run in together for me. Each studio has it's own "house players" that they tend to use. I work primarily out of Jay's Place, on 17th. I do this basically because the owner, Jay Verne and I work well as a team. He is a great keyboard player and has learned much of the technical tricks by being Lorrie Morgan's band leader for about 20 years. Plus, he has been in his current location for 18 years, which speaks to his reliability. For me, he acts as a " second set of ears" helping me to avoid repeating myself or having my songs sound too much alike.
As I write so many and at times they sound similar, Jay has a way with taking some things "out of my mind" so that when it comes to demos, we are able to make them very unique. A lot of this comes from the players as well. We use Danny Parks on guitar, who has played with Martina and many other acts. Tommy Barnes, on Drums, has been a standby for Ricky Van Shelton, Foster and Lloyd, and is the live player with Jimmy Hall (Wet Willie). We use several bass players and lately when Tommy has;t been availible we use Bryan Barnette (great last name) from Big and Rich and Gretch Wilson.
You work with people you develop a comfort zone with and just work very hard to achieve consistant product. We try to bring the same level of commitment and talent to each project we do. The only one of the "A" list players I have worked with on a regular basis would be Larry Franklin, on fiddle, who was voted number one player in town.
As in every single element of Nashville it is not so much about who you know as it is who knows you and how they know you. The studio is no exception, which is why I also try to introduce people to several studios so that they can get a variety of options when they record. We have to have great sounding demos. It's best to know who is the chops behind the product.
If I may read between the lines, this plays back into what you were saying earlier about connections. If any of your "comfort zone" people get a break, you stand a good chance of going with them to some extent in the same manner that you would take them with you if you got a break, because they are comfortable with you and vice versa. Why would they hire an outsider as an unknown quantity?
Which leads me to the question, how comfortable are you with me?
You are right on your assesment, which is why I say that Nashville is very much like High School and college. You have a Freshman, Sophomore, Junior and Senior year. The people you are around, interact with and develop with are your classes. You have a window of about three years, in other words, people around you for about three years are the ones you get your best friends, first co-wrters, etc. from.
I am feeling pretty good about you. You ask very good questions and have a very good grasp of what you are talking about. And you respond to my posts. I like that. I am a very reactionary individual. I try to take everyone the same. I react to them in the way based upon the way they treat me.
There are those that feel I am very full of myself and that I come off as a know it all. That usually goes away as they get to know me and most importantly hear my music or see me perform. Many teachers are not quite the writers or performers that they would like to be. There are those that can do and those that can teach. I tend to do both. I came upon the teaching thing quite by accident. I was a writer, performer and entertainer for about 25 years before I thought about teaching. And the reason I have a living doing this at all is because people have gotten to know me over the years and ask me. That is where my teaching level comes in. And a natural desire to help people. It is very genuine with me which is why I take the time to write these posts.
I love my existance. I care very much for writers and get to do that every day. I help people discover things about themselves and help them get to other levelsin their journeys. I don't take their dreams and hopes lightly. So I go the extra mile in everything I do. What you see is what you get with me. If people like what I say on this, they respond or go their own ways. When they disagree with me, that is fine. We have a lot of opinions on the ramp, just like in life.
I am very grateful for Donna Galbreth bringing this to my attention. I enjoy very much seeing where people respond to me. And I enjoy the repoire back and forth, So yes, I like you and look forward to hearing from you more. Let me know if I am hitting the ball here.
LOL! Well you seem like a straight shooter to me Marc, and I like that, so as far as I'm concerned you're hitting it out of the park!
However, I do have a litmus test for such occasions that has never failed me....what's your favorite electric guitar? This will make or break are relationship, so answer carefully......
I'll keep pickin' yer brain (in between pickin' my nose) as I think of stuff, but I'm just a guitar player, so don't expect to much out of me!
My publishing company is called MABBOCASTER MUSIC. If that tells you anything. For most of my life I had a jones for the White Strat that George Harrison used at the Concert for Bangledesh. I actually ordered one in 73'. I am left handed so we had to order it. Ibanez came out with a copy line of 6 factory made leftys so I cancelled the order with Fender in Fullerton. 8 years later that guitar was still on order from the music store I ordered it from. I also got a black Les Paul that I destroyed when I tried to do some "self improvements to install a third pickup when Frampton comes Alive came out in 76'. I was a real guitar freak, collecting catalogues and drawing pictures of them when I should have been doing homework.
I have a black strat like Clapton's and still have the origional white Ibanez. But a few years ago a friend of mine got a lefty Tele in and I love that one. I don't play electric that much since I mostly am solo on almost all the stuff I do. I have a brand new Taylor 614 that I ordered in August and got in April. It is my favorite color, black. I pretty much have every thing in black. It's slimming for the camera on TV and works with stage lighting better.
But I still have that special place for the "jumping black strat." That would have to be my favorite.
Well then, you get my official endorsement! But it was nip and tuck, until I got about halfway down your post and got to the tele I was gettin' nervous, although all that strat stuff was just about hitting the marc (pun intended) anyways!
In all seriousness, nothing but good can come from these discussions Marc, and I will join them when I can.
Marc, you crack me up, I swear! I think we all appreciate your time in this forum; you have a lot to share and the willingness to do so and it's been quite informative and helpful. I'm sure looking forward to attending your tour this month!
Norman, regarding copyrights: The only real benefit to registering the copyright with the Library of Congress, is when it comes to infringements, such as the scenarios mentioned above. If he's registered the copyrights, Federal laws would give Marv Green statutory damages as well as attorney's fees and court costs WHEN he wins his suit - and he will win it... If it's important to you, to cover all your bases, I wouldn't ever discourage you from filing the registration. Rewrites after a copyright are still covered unless the song has been significantly altered. In that case you may need to ammend it. Remember that if you copyright a compilation, even if you list the song titles separately, all the songs will have the same copyright number. It could cause a little confusion if more than one song on the compilation is later published. Here's a link for copyright forms: http://www.copyright.gov/forms/
Whew! That said, these idiots filing lawsuits costing honest people their hard-earned money in order to defend themselves, really piss me off and I must agree with what has been said above. At a bare minimum, I'd wait until you get a bite on your fishing line before registering a copyright, if you feel strongly about it. It simply isn't cost efficient to do so otherwise, depending upon the number of songs you write. The best advice I could give anyone would be to keep good records, especially scratch recordings and that song you wrote in 1986 on a napkin! I date and intitial stuff and just let it go for the most part, unless things are going my way on a specific song. Every once in a great while, I have been known to register a copyright. However, your publisher may also take care of it for you depending upon the situation. : )
Jules,Thanks 4 your well respected responses on this too, such a wealth of information on the ramp, I luv this being able to get different views, or sometimes just a re-enforcement of things we think we understand, or hearing it put a different way.
then again SOMEBODY has got to keep that MAB guy inline...hehe.. Marc lol i am so kidding, ..its wonderful that you spend even a moment here with your busy schedule, and we all are realy lucky to have your help, and oppinions. BTW in the music business forum i set up a new thread for info on Demos if anyone has a moment.
The copyright issue is always an important one and at times I am a little flippant about it. Again, it is because I hear so many thousands and thousands of songs. One of my most interesting happened at a workshop in Daytona beach Fla. It was a really cool thing but about 65% of the people there were above the age of 70. And I love these people. They are very interesting, have great life experiences, and are just a hoot to be around. I was very flattered they wanted to find out what a "young whippernapper" had to say.
One of the main guys had to be somewhere around 90. He came up to me, shook my hand and told me all the things he had been doing in his writing. Then turned his song in. It had the song, the lyrics and prominatly featured, the Copyright form attached. He wanted to make sure I knew that it was protected. And when I saw the title I knew it was gonna be pretty safe. It was called "My Old Jalop with the Shakey Top." Yeah, you can imagine.
As I got to the critique portion I got to his first. Yeah, it was written about 1925, was done in the style of the 20's and you could almost see this guy doing the Charleston in his racoon coat. It was pretty hard not to laugh. I just told him it was important to be current and for him to possibly write with younger people, say someone in their 70's. Just kidding. At any rate, during the next hour of the session, he kept sending me up notes, saying things like: "Mr. Barnette, I am glad you liked my song, "My Old Jalop" so much. If you can get it cut, I am willing to give you a part of the publishing." There was actually three of these while I was trying to review other songs. At the end of the workshop, he came up, chiding me that I don't need to "miss this opportunity to get this song cut." And then wanted to give me another song. And by the way,did I "notice that they were all registered with the copyright office?"
The point of this is that this is what I think of when I think of these copyright questions. If you are dilligent and intelligent about what you do, you find ways to advance your game. If you were really good at what you did, made a trip to Nashville, you are going to find writers nights every where in town. On those writers nights there are going to be hosts who have been around a long time in this town. And if your songs are at least half good, someone is gong to suggest someone for you to write with or talk to. And you will meet dozens of people who like what you do and suggest someone for you to meet. That will take you in dozens of doors. Each writer will lead you to at least three other contacts.
If you have songs that are that good, you go to BMI or ASCAP, SEASAC, NSAI, SGA. Or you find people like me, Barbara Cloyd, Jason Blume, etc. We will tell you if you have something special. Believe me, there are just not that many great songs out there. Most songs are not really that bad or really that good. Just average. I take people to writers nights because I want them to see mediocrity, In order to get better than something, you have to know where the mediocrity is. And 85-90% of songs are just that. On a writers night in this town, out of 25 writers doing 3 songs each, if you hear one that really hooks your attention, it is amazing.
Multiply that by hundreds and thousands, you have what we go through in this town. The people that can really do what it takes and have songs at that level, make their way through the average very quickly. Those that don't don't. It is that simple.
So I would worry a lot more about writing great songs than worry about copyrighting that song. Chances are if you have that strong a song, it is going to find it's way out. As I have been telling you, it may take 21 years to get it's chance but it will find a way. And if it doesn't and you have touched some lives, that is the deal.
I'm sure looking forward to attending your tour this month!
