JPF Home Page Forums General Messages Songwriter Message Forum My First Nashville Trip!

I am really swamped with work, traveling and such, so I am having trouble finding time to finish up the Saturday Part II and the Sunday part 1 and 2 sessions -- in fact, tomorrow morning I leave for a 2-day drive down to the Florida panhandle. I'll be there 12 days, so I should find time to get caught up -- I hope. So today I want to explore a sensitive topic area as a side bar (I like side bars better than the actual story, sometimes): Amateurism versus professionalism. OK, this is a topic that I don't really know much about, so I just have to give you my opinion and let it go at that, Maybe MAB or others will chime in.

1.) One of the things that a co-writer from Saturday's session said to me (I think it was Bob) was "Don't tell any Nashville co-writer that you just write as a 'hobby'". Now, while I didn't say that, he could tell that I was one of those newbies that just wasn't sure where all this was going (ha, ha).

Now that statement wasn't meant derisively or in meanness -- it was just a fact and it makes sense. Most of these serious song writers are co-writing for as much the networking aspect as well as the better song ideas. There are no shortage of talented, potential co-writers in Nashville -- but there is a shortage of co-writing appointment time. So if you are going to co-write with someone, who are you going to pick a) someone who is going to play the tune out at writer nights, work on it some more, maybe show it around to his/her contacts/publisher/plugger, maybe want to pro demo it; or b) some guy who will go home and play it for his cat in his living room? It really is a no-brainer when you look at it like that.

2.) Another aspect of "Amateurism versus professionalism" is getting demos done. It seems to me that a logical extension of doing co-writes with serious writers is the inevitability of needing pro demos of songs that you want to pitch. Let's just say that Matt, Norm (two of MAB's group guys) and I co-write a tune and we are all excited about it. After a while Norm says "Hey I got this great female singer lined up, we have to do a full blown demo at Jay's and with the extra vocalist it will be $750 -- or $250 each." Now, I decide I have to pay mortgage instead and I just can't swing the $250 right now. I don't think Matt and Norm will hold it against me personally, but next time they want to do a co-write with a third person, maybe they will ask Becky instead.

I am one of those that caught in the housing reversal, so I don't plan to go wild on spending money (at least for the next year or so). I don't mind sacrificing "this" to get "that" -- I just won't ask my family to sacrifice on something that is just Daddy's (what's a word for "hobby" that doesn't say "hobby" -- LOL!). However, if you want to write "professionally", doing demos is just a cost of doing business, or so it seems. Maybe I am wrong here, but it seems that if you want to play nashville's game, you gotta play by the established rules -- and one of those rules seems to be you need pro level demos if you want to pitch. I realize that there are exceptions to every rule, but they are labelled "exceptions" for a reason.

Just a couple of thoughts.

Kevin