john

Well, stating the obvious, we have a mix here of lyricists, music writers and many who do both. Right at the moment I would say there are more lyrics only writers than music only writers here, but that balance does change. No matter the balance I would say there are many talented and passionate writers here at various stages in their careers writing for pretty well every genre you can imagine. Some are artists and perform their own material, others write for other artists while a good number write good songs but have yet to place many or any with a band. You don't get handed anything worthwhile on a plate. It takes hard work and effort and a willingness to learn. If you aren't willing to do that be prepared to be disappointed by your career as a lyricist. There is a long line of people who think they are talented, and a shorter line who are talented all of whom get nowhere because they wait for success to land on their lap while they focused solely on their art, plenty more who at least get some way because talent aside they worked damn hard competing for a small number of possibly successful opportunities. It's a tough business. It's good to be confident, it's great to have the support of your friends, but don't fool yourself into thinking you are better than every other writer. There are many, many, many thousands of great writers and even the best have some better songs than others... and importantly, good and bad is largely subjective and doesn't always match up with popularity. All that said there are plenty of potential writers here for you to collaborate with, be that finding a long term writing partner or different collab partners on a song by song basis. Make your pitch, share some examples like you have with your friends and who knows you might find a co-writer, some bands to play your tunes and who knows what more. Good luck with your writing

Please don't waste your money, or trash your track by signing a contract with them (BEWARE THE SMALL PRINT). In the opinion of ANY credible music professional I have heard voice an opinion about them (pretty well every every single pro and semi-pro I know and I know LOTS) they wouldn't go anywhere near them, even for a laugh. They have mentioned the words like - "criminals", "sharks", "dishonest opportunists", "thieves and liars", "snake oil salesmen" and the choice "f*cking bastards". If you are hell bent on such a self-destructive act, take your songs and the fees they would charge, burn them both and scatter the ashes. It's faster and spares you the pain of people repeatedly telling you just how stupid you were to be taken in by them, because that is exactly what they would do. It kind of ranks alongside giving your bank details to a Nigerian official who wonders if you would be interested in earning $40M if they can use your account to bring $120M into your country that they stole from a businessman who died while travelling their fine country! If I sound a bit harsh about this it's because I want you to keep your song, your money and your self respect.

Hi and welcome Douglas. Just a terminology check... as you don't sing or play (unless I have misunderstood you) I am guessing you focus solely on writing lyrics, and that you have 30 song lyrics, not 30 songs, as songs are the combination of both the words and music not either or. I don't say that to play down what you have, more so that you find what you are looking for and so does the band in question. It happens a little bit less in metal circles but another possibility would be to find a co-writer to do the music writing for your lyrics and then you could pitch complete songs to bands. That has many advantages to pitching lyrics alone.

oh and sorry to the OP for hijacking the topic, my comments weren't speciific to your track. Truth be told I hadn't even listened to your song. I'll listen next time, when I have a system to listen on. As it wasn't posted to the critique boards I guess you are more looking to promote than get any serious commenting.

I second that Steve. Once upon a time there were quite a number of electronic artists who seemed genuinely interested in discussing crafting electronic music here. Now so much is either loop based or using one or two core software tools (fruityloops, reason etc) I wonder if the artists venture much beyond the software makers websites these days, at least when it comes to discussing creation or mixing ideas. The tools can create such reasonable basics out the box these days many getting into creating tracks don't look far beyond preset combinations nevermind having any drive to really get into serious sound creation. It's seriously limited horizons with a pretty stagnant dance/electronica sound and production market by past levels of diversity. Sure quality is there, and there are always some quality artists but the sheer sameness of sound, of approach and result is shocking. Even worse there is little stigma now in not being imaginitive by the acceptance and use of presets in such a widespread way. Point is much discussion doesn't venture passed a chosen core tool. Kinda sad. The fact is the tools are great and the people at the top of their game use multiple tools just like they used to. But for lil guys who want to bang out a tune, they can do it with one package. close enough is good enough, even if a million other users have the same loops, fx and set up. No wonder it' stagnating. Hopefully enough will get bored enough with the same old same old that a decent movement of true creators will spark off again. These things always have gone in cycles. And Recycles lol

welcome to Songstuff. Are you starting a blog on Songstuff?

hiya Johnny, welcome to Songstuff

welcome to Songstuff BamBoocha!

Hey Tina, welcome to Songstuff

One or two observations: She is the star, yet video time wise she is very much not in the forefront. The balance is wrong for no good reason. Shot timing. Watch any pro music video, the changes in shot are timed to the music. It multiplies the effectiveness of the edit a thousandfold. You have some nice incidental shots but too few performance shots. In particular those performance shots should be at key points. To help balance it, I would have shot the main parts of the video in two key sequences, two different outfits, two different locations OR something more inspired by the lyrics, and used the studio shots, live and incidental as the filler shots. You know something simple, the singer wandering around "in character", thoughtfully walking around looking at scenes, some just thoughtful, others with her singing almost as a narration, other again with her with the guitarist in a few locations performing the song... some to camera, most not to camera. I agree with the comments on the black and white. There should be an artistic reason for the black and white. For example in the scenatios I describe above, black and white could have been chosen for the studio shots, lo fi home cinema for one of the incidental scenes to give it that home-shot feel, maybe obviously hand-held to underline that. You get the idea. The medium and the format is used to help distiguish between the scenes much like a change of clothes. Yet again, perhaps you can look to the lyrics to guide what scene would go where. Just now it appears more as a disconnected sequence of images with no real pull through the song. Think of the video much like a movie or a song, with a beginning a middle and an end, with a plot to help pull it together. The plot could (and often is) related to the lyrics in some way, or it could be related to the emotion in some way. In music videos where that is not the case song performance is 95% of the video (or thereabouts). Use the edits to emphasize the beat, the rhythm, the lines, the musical sections and sectional changes, the emotional feel and the energy, even when you are doing videos with strong representations of off stage relaxation and fun. Timing IS king. Everything has a good reason. If you don't have a good reason, then don't do it I hope this helps.