Stop Releasing Every Song

Taxi had a great Monday podcast with Ralph Murphy (of ASCAP) about songwriting goals and what makes a song a hit for radio or TV/film placements. One quote from Murphy really struck a chord with me: How many songs does a professional songwriter write a year? Murphy answered, “They write about 100 songs a year, demo 30-40 of them, and get a hit every third year.”

Whoa! 100 songs!

First, let’s define what type of professional songwriter Murphy is describing: These are the men and women in Nashville who write for a living, pitching songs to artists to record and perform. I’m assuming many of these songwriters don’t tour or perform as much as say, Jason Mraz, or even me. They spend most of their musical professional time writing and demoing.

So a songwriter who wants to be a performing artist shouldn’t feel overwhelmed with those numbers, meaning you don’t need to feel like you need to write a 100 songs a year to be considered a pro songwriter; however, this point is still relevant: you do need to write A LOT to find the great songs. It’s a constant journey.

Want to Spread Your Music? Then Stop Sharing It.

Right now the tools to share music are wonderful. Soundcloud. Bandcamp. CDBaby. Whatever we use to share music, it’s all at our finger tips. However, I see quite a few acts, ones that are pretty young, trying to release every song they write, often releasing demos the day, week, or month after they write them.

This is a bad idea.

Why? Well, how would you feel if a company who makes cookies released every product before demoing or taste tasting them? Mediocre products that aren’t worth your time ending up on your kitchen table–this makes us annoyed that we wasted our money.

I know music isn’t food, but it’s got to be satisfiying for the audience. The professional songwriters already exclude 60-70% of the material they write before they get to the demoing process! Then, how many of those 30 or 40 will actually get pitched to Toby Keith’s management?

Music, even if free, is spending a person’s time to listen to it. We all wish we had more time; we seem to have less as we get older. So when you request your (often small) audience to listen to works that are lacking, or aren’t fully developed, you are wasting their time.

Plus, they are learning to expect your music to be mediocre, and they will stop paying attention all together.

This doesn’t change for even the established writers. Author Joyce Carol Oates said in her book The Faith of the Writer that after she writes a first draft of her book, she puts in in desk for a year before coming back to it!

OK, we shouldn’t wait a year to release music, but the Internet is making new songwriters and artists compulsive. We feel compelled to share every new idea with followers, and we feel good to get that “like” on Facebook or a few hits on a Soundcloud recording.

But are we asking the right questions when the buzz dies quickly?

Why didn’t this song take off?

Why did Christina Perri’s new single get 140,000 hits on Youtube since March 22 and mine only get 100?

The new songwriter often answers, “I just need to get more people to listen!” This is true, but only a part of the story. It’s most likely that song or performance wasn’t ready for an audience’s ears yet either.