Gijs

I understand what you're saying about one site limiting the exposure. The issue is often that these type of sites attact people who want to sell, not buy. The question therefor is: How do you organize the marekting around the site in order for it to attract people who are interested in buying and not just selling. Or can you think of other ways to ensure an income (advertisments?). I came across an initiative in which all types of people worked together under one psynonym. The made all sorts of products and marketed it as iff it was all done by one person. That might work for this site... (Just trowing something out there..)

What we need is a collective. There are so many decent song-writer, composers = musicwriters out there that are trying to be independent and try to make it on their own. The trully great will succeed, I'm sure. And so will a couple of lucky ones. But for the rest of us it's an endless battle trying to earn some money with our mediocre products. I'm not bashing 'the rest of us', I'm just saying the average music-writer is mediocre, since that's what average means. I think we should focus on the possibilties of our internet-generation, instead of the negative points. In the past the average music-writer was doomed. No record-deal = no money. Today even mediocre music can bring in a lot of money, but not on their own. We need a collective. A place where new music is concentrated, without the promise of quality. There are a lot of people interested in new music, but who has the time and possibilities to search thru the enormous amounths and diversity of it. Let's not forget the countles platforms it is presented on. We need a couple of platforms that present this new music to the audience. A few places people will know to turn to if the want to find new music. The question is how do you organize such a place?

Mine would be "You never give me your money". First line from the song with the simlilar name from the Beatles.

Amen

I've tried to promote my music on various platforms. I've used reverbnation, myspace and some other I can't even remember. The problem always is that it takes tremendoes effert to get something of the ground on any site that is ment to promote music ( I don't consider forums such as this one a site to promote music). If you want to have some results you have to be very active. Therefor I choose to have one platform to promote my music on. In my case that's Youtube. I like the fact that you can become a partner. I think's that's a nice goal. And it;s a huge community with a lot of people who are on the site out of interest in (new) music and not just to promote their own music. The problem with sites that are devoted to promoting new music is, like Upperlines and Pskains said, that the people on these sites are only interested in promoting their own music. I use forums such as this one to be part of a community with like minded people.

Nancy Sinatra - These Boots Are Made for Walkin'

Yeah, if your are looking for amazing melodists I can recommend listening to Bach (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faJrlrRJa9A&feature=fvst), Beethoven ( ), Chopin ( ), Mozart ( ) For every example I gave there are certainly 100 other examples of astounding melodies by every single composer I mentioned. Besides that I didn't mention Schubert, Rachmaninoff, Lizst, Debussey and many many others how also wrote an insane amounth of unbelievable melodies ALL great melodists from our age drew there inspriration from. Really, there has been written an insanly amount of incredible music in the past 300 years. You cut yourself short like a midget to a T-rex if you neclect all this, because it 'doesn't sound 'cool' or for what ever reason you can think of.

Lol, we do!

Yep, I missed the point. I assumed you ment populairity with succes and you didn't.

All though where quite on the same level. When you say: 'Good means something different to everybody. That is excactly my point of view. I still don't agree, however, when you say 'Good is a measure of succes'. If something is succesfull it doesn't necesarily have to be good. That saying popularity equals good. And I think that equation has been proven wrong a lot of time in the past. I think what we can do to make this thread worthfull for the OP is to state what we personaly think makes for good lyrics. I'd say interesting topic, immatiative use of words, steady rhyme, double rhyme, build up/form.

Yeah, you're right. Art is subjective. There might be some fysical laws we haven't discovered yet that even disprove theories that I metioned above. So maybe 'the thruth' doesn't excist at all. Who knows.

Ok, good post! I agree in the sense that other people can help you grown as a writer (of any kind). The problem, however, remains that the OP asks what are 'good' lyrics. You can say good lyrics are lyrics that are proven to be populair. It was a populair believe that the earth was flat a few centuries ago. Does that mean that that was good? We have discoverd that that was in fact bad. With lyrics this kind of total rejection of ideas will not be able to happen probebly, but when Beethoven premiered his Grand Fuque a lot of people left the room. They where saying that his harmonic language was not good. This was a populair believe. Does this mean his harmonic language was indeed bad? It was a leap forward and it is now considerd populair believe that is was, indeed, a leap forward. IN the baroque erea fourths between two voices was considerd bad, because they felt is was to harsh, to dissonant. That was a populair believe. We believe now that a clash of a c major with a an c minor chord is dissonant. Whil people still think about it that way 100 years from now? Tritones where considerd devlilish. This isn't a populair believe anymore. The same goes for lyrics. Populairity/ what others think might display the populair believe at this moment, but it will most likely change. If you always test your lyrics/music/art to the populair believes you will sty within that circle. That's a deathcentence for creativity. If you look at the most populair artists from the last 80 years. Where these considerd populair by the time they started out? Or did they develop somthing that has grown populair. Galileo was convinced the earth revolved around the sun in stead of the other way around in spite of what almost everybody else was saying around that time. Who's point of view is more populair now? I agree that you can learn from what others tell you about your art. But you should not try to listen to them in terms of good and bad. You are the only one who can dicide what is good and what is bad. First of all, because it's all relative and subjective. Second of all because populairity is by no mean a token of what's good and what's not. It is kind of a responsibilty to try and find out for yourself what's good and what's not. If you make the wrong decision you might never earn something with your art. And it's true that aiming for a populair market is one way to earn money. But if that is what the OP wants to know, then he asked the wrong question.

Writing instrumental 'songs' doesn't have to be that different from 'normal' songs. It kind of depents on the style you are after. If you want to write classical-periode style music there are other things to focus on then when you want to write baroque-type compositions. You could write 12-tone like Schonberg, or avantgarde. Maybe you could pick a style you like and listen to some composers from that periode. Read some theory that explains something about the style. You can spend a lifetime learning about one style-periode, so there's lot's to explore I'd say. In essence you often use baroque, classical, romantic, etc. idioms for pop-songs as well. So it will probebly be beneficial for your songwriting process too. I would suggest a book by Schonberg, named 'The essentials of composing'. It explains what the basic elements of compostions are and builds on that to teach about writing more larger forms. This is all directly applyable in songwriting as well.

Maybe you can be a bit more specific. What excaclty can't you get right? The riffs? The rythm? Something else? Everything else? Everything?

Well, ok. Then what are those criteria? You say a great melody, but what makes a melody great? You use the word good and great, but isn't good subjective to begin with? Maybe the confusion is that the OP can be interpreted as the question: What are criteria for lyrics that are most likely to become popular. But populairity and 'good' are not interchangable words. But I won't be putting words in your mounth. What are the criterai for 'good' lyrics? And in what way can you objectify the word 'good'?

There are some good tips in here. I don't agree that good lyrics are dependent on how many people hear them, but I understand where you are coming from. In the end I dont think there is a formula for good lyrics. It all depents on your own personal taste. If you like the lyrics, that means they are good. Probebly one of the most difficult things in making music is there are no rules. That gives alot of freedom, but also a lack of direction. And the most succesfull (in terms of expending the horizon) are those who made their own rules. The best advise I can give you is dicide for yourself what makes good lyrics and what not.