THE PROCESS
The In House Music Productions Songwriting Philosophy
The following ideas simply pertain to the song writer and co-writers’ direction to having their songs heard by the right people in the music business. And most important, the song writer needs to make sure he/she knows how to protect their publishing rights to their work from the start. The popular music recording industry constantly needs new “commercial” songs. An ideal new hit song begins with an original idea listeners will immediately identify with and can’t wait to hear over and over again. This idea consists of a catchy musical chord progression, a lead vocal melody line, alluring lyrics, a tempo everyone can tap their foot to, and most of all, an unforgettable song title everyone can relate to. These bits and pieces of a song do not usually all happen at once. A good song can start with simply a cool melody. This melody can inspire a writer to call upon personal experiences that have been yearning to be expressed through “poetry” put to music. In an ideal song writing world, a writer’s songs will tell stories, or express ideas, everyone can relate to.
Here are a few steps a song writer can follow in order to get their new songs heard by the right people in the music industry.
1. Simplicity is one of the most important guidelines a writer can employ to catch a music publisher’s attention. For instance, if a writer chooses to record their new song using far too many instruments in a demonstration recording session, the song’s presentation has a strong chance of loosing its appeal and getting lost in the production.
2. Song writers have been known to allow their ego to get in the way of achieving one of the most important goals. They may loose direction and fail to get their songs heard properly. Granted, many
song writers are also recording artists. They have that magic and talent that many song writers do not possess.
3. A true music industry professional can hear a “hit” song all by itself, without all the bells and whistles of a full band. If a song is over produced in a recording session it might get overshadowed by lead guitars and background vocals.
4. A good song can be expressed and demonstrated by using a simple acoustic rhythm guitar or piano track and a solid lead vocal track. At times the writer can not play their instrument, or sing their own song as well as a professional musician. Hiring a professional musician and singer is ideal to have your new song evaluated by a potential music publisher. If a song writer is not associated with a music publisher a good song deserves to be recorded as well as possible in order to command a music publisher’s attention.
5. Once a new song is recorded the studio personnel should mix the session using their experience and state-of-the-art equipment in order to present the writer the finest end result and gain an advantage in order to have the highest confidence when playing their songs to a music publisher.
6. The studio needs to make sure the writer receives their songs mixed down and saved using many different formats; CD, AIFF, MP3, M4A (mpeg-4), FLAC, WAV, WMA…, to name a few. Their songs need to be saved in more than one format to give the writer the opportunity to demonstrate their songs on different types of playback equipment.
The Recording Session
Important steps to follow when recording a new song with a musical instrument and a vocalist:
1. Your song needs to recorded as simply as possible without loosing the essence of the idea.
2. If the songwriter can not play an instrument very well, and can not sing like a professional, the song needs to be recorded using an experienced musician and an accomplished vocalist.
3. When the recording session includes an instrument and a vocalist the recording session still needs to be clean and polished. Recording situations may be different from one studio to another and depending on the producer of the session. One session could simply have the writer play an instrument into one microphone and sing the song into another microphone at the same time. The most ideal recording would have the instrument track recorded first and the vocal track recorded, or “overdubbed”, second. This type of recording gives the studio engineer the advantage of mixing the two separate tracks together, giving the result a much cleaner finished product.
4. Once the song is finished with the initial recording the studio engineer will make copies of the master recording. The copies will be used by the writer, or the publisher of the song, to demonstrate to artists in the music industry in hopes artists will consider performing the songs on their albums, or on social media venues.
If a song writer, or the song’s music publisher, decides it’s necessary to use a full band to record a new song, the following basic steps are used:
1. The recording studio needs to be equipped with basically two options. A first option would involve using a full “live” band; drums/percussion, bass guitar, rhythm guitar, keyboards, electric guitar, vocalists, etc. A second method would employ “digital” instruments. There are many music instrument programs available to studios to record a full band, plus any additional instruments at the discretion of the recording session’s producer.
2. Once the instrument tracks are recorded the vocalist(s) would overdub background vocals tracks and a lead vocal track. The engineer would mix the session, make the appropriate copies and the song writer and the session’s producer would finally have a the product for the music publisher and possibly the writer’s manager to show the song to performing artists and recording companies in the music
industry.
