Ott, Peggy and anyone else this fits,
Understand that I am NOT dissing your efforts at all. You are doing what you can, and anything that you do to make your music better and more attractive is a good thing. Yes, we still have to have demos, which are DEMONSTRATIONS of our work. We have to have well recorded songs to attract people to us to begin with so yes, it is a bit of 'chicken and the egg" elements.
But what I am trying to do is get you to understand how everything that has to do with entertainment has changed. And this is true with television, pod casting, radio, motion pictures, and all types of music. The uses of music have expanded but the ways it is delivered have changed dramatically and forever.
I read the things you talk about and try to respond to them based upon the practical application I and pretty much every one who does this has gone through. most times, people who go and get expensive (or even inexpensive) demos, enter contests, put songs in film and television libraries, hire song pluggers, etc. are like the equivilent of saying "I make the most high definition, well crafted, polished television there is. It is 9 inches wide and is in black and white and of course, it doesn't get cable or satallite and has to use rabbit ears to get a reception on two channels, BUT IT IS AMAZING!!!"
That is great and admirable. But no one would buy it because we live in a different world now. All televisions are large plasma color screens. They are all cable and satallite compatible, and all can pick up all kinds of signals from the thousands of cable and satallite services and channels out there. Black and white is just done.
Same with making the best horse and buggy. There is no way to get that on the Interstate.
So now, the DEMOS, done by writers writing their songs, crafting things by themselves, and putting them up on web sites or making up CD's, without having some artists, or inside people involved in them, are pretty much the horse and buggies and black and white televisions of this era.
My suggestion to you is to get out of the living room in your areas and try to find artists to work with. Yes, your demos will come into play at a certain time, but only AFTER you have established some relationships. And that is just not going to be done totally online. If it was, there would be several million less people trying to figure out how to do this. They would be doing it.
But of course this takes it back to a more basic issue with me. The Internet has put many many misconceptions out there. And it has also put out OVERREACHING EXPECTATIONS. the entire idea that you can 'send something in' to anywhere and get it any attention whatsoever has never made any sense to me to begin with. It has never happened like that and never will.
Contests have always been a very small niche market. It is fun, and can be rewarding in some prizes, money, possibly a trip or other things, but very fleeting and song pitches for the "real music industry" have NEVER and will NEVER work that way. And contrary to all the claims of them, there is nothing that is going to change that.
So what I am doing is to try to get you to see that, WHY it has gotten that way and the realities of all of this. In that way, you won't go spending time, money, or effort in the wrong directions.
Now I could be 100% wrong and some major artist or song come out of a contest, or someone puts a song out there and it become and institution. It can always happen and sometimes things like that do. But usually there is much more involved than most people realize and is not as cut and dried and NEVER just about "sending something in."
So what I am trying to do that here is just educate you the best I can. you can take it or leave it. But it is NOT PERSONAL. Just reality.
MAB