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I JUST WANT TO WRITE!
TRY SOUNDTRACKS If you love playing music, but have kids or a career that only allows you a few precious hours a week to enjoy writing, this is a good outlet for you. Local cable, local television shows, commercials and even game companies are always needing music accompaniment, and someone who can crank out nice ten to thirty or sixty second tidbits that sound good is always in demand, especially if you are local, work fast, and better yet, have a high-speed modem and can send them .wav or .mp3 files of work in short order. Film companies, especially small independents and student films, love using new talent, especially if you will work for cheap or just exposure, because they can just pay you simple royalties, not have to pay big licensing fees they might for well-known tunes or ones by big-name artists. Get out your phone book and do web searches and find any that are local, and non-local ones willing to listen to new material. You never know if someone will decide your song should be used behind a great love or chase scene that may put your song on the map. Chances are, people will remember the song, and you never have to lose your anonymity or privacy because most folks don't bother to check credits, or find out who wrote that bit, even if there is an album made of the soundtrack and your name ends up on the liner somewhere. GET PUBLISHED Most writers in Country, Western, Pop and Children's music know the people who put out the album are often not the songwriter. Sure, these are highly competitive fields, and a hit song may not at all guarantee continued success or even a lot of money, but it's a great way to make money on the side if you succeed and everyone will mob the star who recorded your piece, not surround your apartment or follow you around grocery stores, hoping for photos or autographs. To be honest, my initial dream was to write a hit for Barbra Streisand, not being the lead singer of my own rock group, and I let myself get sucked off into rock music for ten years rather than continue to hone my pop writing skills. If you want to get in this field, you really have to keep up on what is hot, be able to extrapolate 2 years into the future, and pitch the best you know in hopes that it will still be trendy enough to get picked up whenever someone gives you that chance, not stay busy coming up with enough material for a three hour gig at the local coffee house so you can each make ten dollars for three hours' work. Sure, you make even less songwriting, and studio costs can be awful, but, with a little training, you can do almost all your work out of your home, and just hire a good singer for your demos. Soundproof a closet well, and the only costs you will have are the singer and the CD you burn and the postage to ship it. Again, you can do this and never leave your home, which is great if you are wheelchair bound, mortally shy or have too full a life to spend a lot of time in auditioning and messing with huge egos-leave that to the label that picks up your tunes, and learn to just let your songs go and not care if some singer decides to change a few things around. As long as you get paid, it's all good. Keep up with who is needing songs and where demo pitches are happening on the web, in industry magazines, and keep a current list of label addresses and who the rep is, and just send out material as often as you get a chance. There are paying as well as many free lists, so don't let a lack of funds keep you from giving this a try. |
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