john

Hey Anvil Head! Welcome to the Songstuff family! I can understand moving to Bandcamp, though I think you can grow your fanbase faster, with more dedicated fans, using your own site. Of course it depends on your overall strategy.

I know this. I am very aware of the mechanism. I just don't think of abstraction as being fiction. I was merely giving examples of why I don't think of it as fiction from the writer's perspective. They have not carried out the fictionalising. They enable the reader/listener to do that.

Ideal. Good luck. If these suggestions don't quite cut it I can suggest a few more

I'm looking in to adding similar here

Just an FYI for members, it’s about adding a donation/tip jar for example your PayPal.me url.

I have to disagree, it doesn’t need to be fictional to achieve that Mike. Ambiguity, generalisation and other mechanisms make it very achievable. “I love you” Utterly true if I say it to one person. Untrue to say it to others. If I say “I love Karen” “I love my wife” “I love her”, they are all true because I know I am writing them about my partner. No fictional element needed. All you need is to adjust your perspective according to abstraction. “I rode my Kawasaki Z1” “I rode my motorbike” “I drove my vehicle” “I went to” “I travelled” all are true all are non fiction, there is no fictionalising involved, no made up or invented story. Does the listener fictionalise? Possibly, but not definitely.... if I as the writer write “Sue is tall and slim and I made her my wife”, and it is true for me, I as the writer did not employ fiction. As a listener if my wife is Sue and she is tall and slim, they did not create fiction. Yes we are thinking about a different Sue, but it isn’t fiction. It’s abstraction, which is not a fictional process. Now, if a listener has a wife named Sue who is squat and fat, then they have to fictionalise To adapt the song. That is true for any listener where details don’t tally with their truth. There is an art to writing lyrics that are non fictional but open to interpretation, and they can be emotionally charged too. if I replace Sue with She, it is still true for the writer, but now a lot more listeners can think it true for them without any fiction at all. Similarly, simile, allegory and metaphor are not fictional concepts

Hey gang When you are writing songs, do you prefer writing personal, reality based songs, or fictional/imagined/projected songs? Do you find it easier to write one type over the other? How is it different for you to write one way over the other? For me, I write a lot of personal songs, and for all I write a lot of fictional songs too I tend to take situations I know and I am familiar with and project those feelings and perspectives onto the fictional or distant scenario. It helps me to make some kind of personal connection with the song. So, what do you do? Cheers John

Hey Aaron! Welcome to the Songstuff family! There’s a few things that help writers block, but for me, using a process works best. It’s a very simple approach and although for most the process contains similar elements, songwriters can have entirely different processes. You can even build in variation, and elements like free writing. The idea is to put together a set process that ticks all the right boxes for you. For me I use a rough framework of ideas. For me, everything flows from the idea, through the emotion, to writing. My process has also evolved over time and it continues. So, say an idea catches my mind. My brain may or may not churn out a very rough melody or a few words or lines in that moment. That’s ok. I want ideas to flow. I just want to control that flow. I Pause writing, set them aside and turn back to my idea. I then think of perspective on that idea. Often the idea is stimulated by friends, family or the tv. So I have topic and perspective. I think on that, I imagine it and most importantly I feel it. I then search for a provisional title using a number of techniques like writing prose, word clouds, mind maps or simply lists. Prose I tend to find better for writing out a story that will be represented by the lyrics. It can give you characters, events, reactions, sequence and a lot more. If the lyrics will deliver a message, developing that idea can work well in prose. You can tailor your process any way to suit you. Having a frame work and somego to tools makes a world of difference.

Hey Gang We realise that there are no gigs going just now, so to help artists we plan to put out newsletters to our member with Live Stream announcements and to promote their livestream on Songstuff, Songstuff UK and within Songstuff and Songstuff UK social media accounts for any member of the community doing a music performance based live stream. Make sure you give us enough notice because we don't want to drown members in emails. So we plan to mail out on a Sunday and on a Wednesday. Deadline for submissions will be Saturday Midnight (UTC) to be included in the Sunday mail out and Tuesday Midnight (UTC). SUBMIT BY REPLYING TO THIS TOPIC We need: Where: platform and url to your account / stream Username on that platform When: Time and time zone Your music profile url An image we can include in the mail out. Any other info you think is needed. Upload your image(s) in reply to this topic. Although copyright permission is covered as part of site terms and conditions, in order to avoid misunderstandings and to be absolutely clear PLEASE INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING TEXT in your post: "COPYRIGHT PERMISSION I, asserting that I am the copyright owner or that I am acting with full permission from the copyright owner to grant such permissions, HEREBY GRANT SONGSTUFF IT'S AGENTS AND PARTNERS TO EDIT, TRANSMIT, RE-TRANSMIT, BROADCAST, RE-BROADCAST, DISTRIBUTE AND REDISTRIBUTE ON A WORLDWIDE BASIS any image(s) and their derivatives included within this post AND to use them within their promotion activities and the promotion activities of their agents and partners: specifically within email promotion, on Songstuff.com, on Songstuff.co.uk, AND within the blogs AND social media accounts AND portals of Songstuff, it's agents and partners, for the explicit purpose of promoting my music and live streams." NOTE: If you do NOT explicitly give us permission to use your image, your listing in our newsletter will not have an image (which looks a bit crap) and we will not promote you on Songtuff Pinterest or Instagram, or use your image on Songstuff Facebook, or Twitter. We need to be able to edit the image so we can add performance time and location and adjust size and image aspect ratio for different platforms. We need permission to distribute and redistribute so that we can upload the image to our social media accounts, to email it out and to add it to the Songstuff UK website. Worldwide permission is required becasue well the internet is available globally! These permissions are already granted to pretty well any site that you join (otherwise they could not function as a website) however we operate on a principle of informed consent re-seeking permission whenever possible. We would absolutely love to promote your livestream as fully as possible. By giving us explicit copyright permission you protect yourself and Songstuff protects itself. Can't say fairer than that! Cheers John

Nice neck of the woods. Anyway, good to have you with us. I look forward to loads of interesting discussions etc

Hey Ben, welcome to the Songstuff family! Good to have you with us. Where about in the UK are you? I'm in sunny (cough cough) Glasgow.

Hey Anthony, welcome to the Songstuff family. It's good to have you with us. Good luck with your first release!

Awesome. Just give a shout if I or any of the staff can be of help. Once you have a few posts under your belt we can help with a link on our social media pages and our own blogs etc

Hey Jon, I recommend you start a blog (here or elsewhere) that you can use for promoting your youtube vids. Every time you post a vid, create a blog post embedding the vid. When you make forum posts you can link to both. This way you will build traffic for your blog and video. Eventually the blog becomes a brilliant ongoing engagement tool

I would add Spotify in there... it's one of the main playlist platforms. It's good to know the playlists that people listen to, and obviously the list owners that artists would target if they were releasing a track. I know I am always looking for new artists to listen to.

Playlist is just a modern digital mixtape. All of the above... though some are better than others for artists, some are easier than others for connecting with fans. Running playlists can be fun and personal but there are strategies and tactics involved especially if you are an artist or writer looking to eventually connect with fans.

Seems like a good plan. There’s good things about distribution by CD Baby. This isn’t one of them. Pretty poor all in if they can’t even follow simple instructions.

Hey Ideini, a great big welcome to the Songstuff family. Where are you based in Scotland? I am in Glasgow.

Hey Randy Two lines to draw your attention to.... in YouTube Help: "An auto-generated channel is created when we identify a topic to have a significant presence on the site." and in the description for the songs: "Provided to YouTube by CDBaby " It would seem CDBaby ignored your instruction. Sadly this is not the first time I have heard of this happening with CD Baby. The trouble is that if they get plays they do not build your channel, and they do not count towards song plays that would enable you to switch on being a YouTube partner and therefor the ability to earn from ads. If I were you I would contact CD Baby and highlight you specifically asked for the songs not to be on YouTube. Similary, it would be worth considering adding your on YouTube Channel now. Ideally you should be able to claim those uploads and the plays that go with them. I have my doubts though. Better to sort it sooner than later. Cheers John

Hey Gost, welcome to Songstuff!

Welcome to the Songstuff family SonicFret! Good to have you with us. I love the sounds of both Les Paul and Strat. Very much the classic rock guitars of the 60s and 70s. Marshall valve amps were always my thing too. I had a great Marshall stack for a number of years.

Hey Josh, welcome to our family!

Hey Marcin, welcome to the Songstuff family!

Thanks for writing that up Connor. A useful reference for all indies

@John Selleck post above, I think the question is for you @SYMO if you use the name in that way, most members receive a notification of the mention