Posts Tagged ‘Articles’
Helping You Write Your Best Song
The heart of SongTown is helping you write YOUR best song. At the end of the day, that’s all any mentor or guide can do for you. I can connect you with many of the top people in the business, but if you don’t have a GREAT song, it’s not going to help you. If…
Read MoreHow Do Publishers And Songwriters Split Royalties?
We get lots of music business questions in SongTown and how publishers and songwriters split royalties is a common one. So, I thought I’d answer it in today’s post. The business side of music is not as complicated as it seems. Here are the basics of writer/publisher deals and how money is split. There are…
Read MoreTurning No Idea Into A Hit Idea – The Story Behind Darius Rucker’s Single “I Got Nothing”
“I’ve got nothing to write a song about today.” I remember standing outside Darius Rucker’s tour bus saying these words over the phone to a friend. She had just asked me what I was going to write with Darius that day. Here I was outside Chicago, having flown there to meet up with the tour,…
Read MoreWhat Is A Staff Songwriter?
There are many misconceptions about what it means to be a “staff songwriter.” So, I thought I’d make an attempt at clearing that up. In layman’s terms, a staff songwriter has signed an exclusive agreement giving a publisher some portion of every song they write. (During the term of the agreement.) So, if a songwriter…
Read More5 Song Collaboration Errors To Avoid While Songwriting – Or Dating!
Co-Writing songs is a lot like dating. It takes work to find and develop good co-writing relationships. And, not every date is going to work out. So, you keep kissing frogs until you find a prince, metaphorically speaking. If you treat songwriting relationships like REAL relationships, you can avoid some of these mistakes that I’ve…
Read More5 Songwriting Lessons From Master Yoda
Want to become a Master “Songwriting” Yoda? Here are my top 5 tips! 1.Believe As creative people, we tend to be self-doubters. It’s what drives us to look inward, to constantly question life around us, and, if channeled properly, will drive us to write great songs. It’s perfectly natural to struggle with believing in ourselves…
Read MoreSongwriting Success Was Just Around The Corner: How Could We Have Known?
I remember sitting in my small, cramped writing studio in Nashville 10+ years ago chasing this crazy dream of songwriting… One day I was co-writing with my two best friends and co-writers, Sonny LeMaire and Shane Minor. We’d been writing together for two years, mostly because we loved hanging out with each other and creating…
Read MoreThe Out-Of-Town Songwriter: Getting A Major Artist Cut If You Don’t Live In Nashville, NYC, or LA
The number one question that fills our email inbox is “How do I get a song cut by a major artist if I’m an out-of-town songwriter?” “I don’t live in a big music city” is the challenge. This strikes at the very core of why Marty Dodson and I created this virtual SongTown of kindred…
Read MoreHow Songwriters Get Paid: The 5 Minute Overview Of Songwriting Income Streams
Several people have asked about the different ways songwriters get paid. So, here’s the 5 minute overview: Publishing Draws for Songwriters. This is a monthly amount a publisher pays to a writer that is on a staff publishing deal. These are really advances on royalties that have to be repaid out of incoming royalties. Once your catalog…
Read MoreThe #1 Rule Of Songwriting – The Song Is King
If you’ve been hanging around SongTown for a while, you’ve heard Clay and I talk about the idea that “The Song Is King”. When we say that, we mean that, when we write, we are there to serve the song, NOT to serve our own interests. I believe that music and songs have a “life”…
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