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Hello everyone

Has anyone heard of Songtown USA? Is it a good group to join to work on your songwriting?


Thanks
JaneK

Have you found a 'good group' here? What I'm wondering is if you know what you're looking for that qualifies as a 'good group'.

https://songtown.com/ I've seen some good advice from Clay Mills and Marty Dodson. You can get on their email list and get occasional emails and see for yourself.

I see they offer ten free videos. Have you tried those yet?

If you feel you've written some 'good' Songs, but want them to be better, maybe even aspiring to make them commercially competitive, then consulting with those who have had success may be worth your money.
If you're a beginner, just beginning to explore Songwriting as a studious endeavor, studying Songs to enable you to comprehend why YOU 'like' this one and 'don't like' that one, and learning to apply that same critical thinking to your own product, you might do better to continue studying on your own a while, before you lay your money down.

Find out what they're offering to do for you. Are you getting that done here on JustPlainFolks, or other Songwriting websites? Are you ready to move on to the more professional advisory services of Songtown? If money is no object, explore it. Let us know what you find out.

If money matters you might want to assess where the best place to spend/invest it is.
Do you have an instrument to help you write Songs? Yes/No.
If Yes: Can you play it?
If No: Maybe you should get one, and learn to play it.
Do you have Songs already that you think can compete in the market place, where maybe your investments will pay you back some day?
If Yes: Check out Songtown and see.
If No: Maybe more study, picking out ten Songs you like, or dislike, and dissecting them, seeing WHY you like/dislike them would be more valuable 'investment' of your time, and money now.

It's good to explore the sources of instruction and help and, if you've got the money, to take a chance. Just don't jump and lay your money down before you've gotten some free advice and feedback to assess where you're at in your 'skills' of capturing 'inspiration' and 'crafting' Songs. The difference between 'spending' and 'investing' is that 'investing' involves the expectation of Return-On-Investment (ROI).

Think it over, and decide.

Good advice from Gary.

Jane, if you're looking for a structured approach, I can highly recommend SongU.
https://www.songu.com

In addition to the many services they offer as part of the membership fee, there's also a 15-day free trial period.

Good luck.

Donna

Jane,

Usually if you need to ask if they are worth it, your instincts are already warning you. Go with your gut. Always remember this rule:

Rule: You cannot buy success of any kind. Why? You don't have enough money. Record labels CAN buy limited success. They do it all the time. But they can't buy LASTING success. A mere human can't buy any real success. So if you pay a company with ANY thoughts that they are going to get you closer to success, you're incorrect. If it worked, they would have the Record Labels as clients, rather than you. The hard truth is that no one can make you successful, only YOU can and sure, you will need a lot of help, but people who can help you work for a % of your success, not an upfront fee.

There are plenty of friendly people here who can and will be happy to help you advance your knowledge and writing. FOR FREE. Sure, we may suggest a book to read to learn many of the basics (I am happy to suggest a few). Many of the best Songwriting educators have participated with JPF as Mentors and many have come here and posted and helped people for free over the years. (A couple sadly have passed away, but many are still out there).

Look for books (often you can even find them in a library or a used book store) written by John Braheny, Jason Blume, Pete and Pat Lubbock, Diane Rapapport, Steve Seskin, Harriet Schock and I can offer more if you like and read anything you can find here or elsewhere by board regular Marc-Alan Barnette (MAB as he is known) as he's been there and done that and offers great advice here all the time. Additionally, there are dozens of others here who offer up excellent advice regularly including Gary above. I'll let you decide if you find my offerings helpful. One of my heroes here is John Lawrence Schick who you should pay close attention to if he offers up advice. He's getting more placements with major TV shows than 99.9% of others out there. I would keep dropping names but then I will leave good people out so I will stop here, but there's plenty more on or associated with JPF and all will help you without a charge. You just need to ask good questions and now and then it helps a lot of you actually take the advice. Often people come to get affirmation that they are doing it all right and ignore anything suggestions to the contrary. If advice comes without a fee, you'd always be well served to give it some serious thought. People offering tangible advice (meaning advice that not only offers criticism, but also possible solutions to go along with it) because among all levels of creators, it is ALWAYS easier to give quality advice on someone else's songs than it is to see the same weakness in your own. So one of the best learning tools you can get is to simply critique other people's work and offer up your thoughts on how to improve it. THEN you need to be smart enough to listen to your own advice to others to fix your own work. Often you have the answers in your head, but connecting those answers to your own work is difficult and only comes through repetition and hard work.

Stick around, you might learn something. At least that's my opinion, I could be right. -Brian Austin Whitney May 28th, 2019

And...Your local library can get almost any book you want, through 'inter-library loans'. Sometimes they have a budget and will buy a requested book. Usually you have to get through the 'loaned' book within two weeks and return it but, if you're serious about becoming 'studious', studying, not just dreaming but working to educate yourself about working toward that dream, you can get through some books in that time span. Love your local library! DVD's may be available there to educate yourself. CD's to study Songs.

If you don't get through a loaned book in time, and think there was more to learn, check out Amazon and see if you can buy the book to own and become your reference library. I bought John Braheny's "The Craft and Business of Songwriting" for $8.00, if memory serves. It is more about the business, less about the craft. And the business may have changed in many ways since John wrote it.

I immediately realized how much I didn't know, and needed to if I aspired to make the transition from Songwriting hobbyist to commercial endeavor, trying to actually take my Songs to market.

I can't recommend one on 'craft'. I distinguish between 'inspiration' and 'craft', inspiration being what just pops into your head and out of your mouth, and then what deliberate changes you make to it to make it work better.

If you have not found 5 or 10 Songs you like, or dislike, and dissected them to see how they are Structured, to figure out why you like or dislike them, you're missing a great lesson, and a free one, in comprehending what you want your Songs to do. I like starting with free.

Thanks Gary, Brian and Donna for your advice.

Never heard of SongU. I will check it out.

Yes, I do all that music, lyrics, play keyboard, recording etc. I already write songs - but I'd like to grow.

I have done the free video courses they have on Songtown and their teaching seemed pretty easy on the brain, but I understand they are there to make a buck and you will be a little tiny fish in a big pound.

Yes, I do love participating in the song forums and when time permits I would like to participate more but being a newbie I think it takes a while for folks to warm up to you as I certainly can understand.

Since it is a free service you all are providing, I do not want to take up everyone's time posting songs, lyrics and stuff and asking for help etc. If I pay for the service, I should, and I use the word loosely "should" get something from that, or maybe I'll get nothing.

And I hear you can collaborate with people when you write on Songtown and I would love to do that (especially lyrics which I am weak on). And as far as writing commercially, I would love to learn.

I am getting some help in using my DAW from a studio since this is how I construct my song which is very expensive and not really worth it in the long run.

I will be retiring soon and will have time on my hands to do music so just thought it might be interesting to pursue as many opportunities I can while I am still alive.

Thanks again everyone for your opinions on the matter. I do value them.

Jane K

Here's Marty Dodson's blog that popped up in my email today:

Communication vs. rules…
I had a mentoring session with someone recently who was very frustrated. He had read a book by a leading songwriting teacher and had tried to apply all of the songwriting “rules” that the book taught. The end result was that he felt he was writing worse and worse songs the more he tried to follow the rules.

I told him a story about going bowling as a teenager. Neither I nor my friends were good bowlers, but one friend was getting strike after strike. Being the competitive people we were, my other friends and I kept trying to mess him up. Nothing was working. Finally, I said “I need to learn to bowl like you do! How many steps do you take before you release the ball?” The next time he was up, he counted his steps and guess what happened? Gutter ball. When he started trying to break down what he was doing, it messed him up.

Forget the rules!
So, I told the writer I was mentoring to forget all of the rules and to look at songwriting only from the aspect of communication. If you and I are having a conversation, there are no rules. But, if I want you to understand me, I must learn to communicate clearly. I asked him what “rule” he had broken in the song that had been critiqued. He said “I changed from first person in the verses to second person in the chorus.” I said “That’s not a rule.” He looked relieved.

I said “Johnny, you have always been a great friend to me. I appreciate the way you are always there when I need you. He is an awesome guy. I’m glad I got to know him.” Suddenly, he got it. He didn’t break a rule, he just communicated in an odd way. Just as you would be confused if I’m talking TO you directly and then I start talking ABOUT you, you aren’t going to know what happened.

Learning to communicate.
The more I teach and mentor, the more I see that it’s not about songwriting rules, but about learning to write (and re-write) until you are communicating precisely what you intend. If you do that, then there aren’t any rules.

Map out your song so that YOU know precisely what you are trying to communicate. Then, make sure that you are communicating clearly and forget the “rules”.

Write on! ~Marty

hit-songwriter-marty-dodson-songtown
Marty Dodson
Co-Founder SongTown
Songwriter/Producer/Rule Breaker

Gary,

Thanks for your taking the time to help me decide what I am going to do - I think first I will hang around here for a little bit if you don't mind, your information is very useful to me. And you all are so nice!

I see folks here also put up songs for review, I have done one song here, probably not my best song though. But, your critique was very helpful to me. If you all don't mind I will probably put up a few more before I invest financially in any songwriting courses.

You know Marty Dodson is right, I feel there are no right's or wrong's as far as music. If it works it works. If it doesn't it doesn't. And picking apart and dissecting lyrics and music is really not the way to go; the emotion of the music could be lost very quickly. All the songwriter courses in the world are not going to do it for you unless you "have what it takes".

I have been a little disappointed in what I have viewed on some songwriter forums (not this one though) where they continue to argue about this rule and that rule. Sounds like they are bitter and jaded because they didn't "make it" and want to tell others how to write songs because a so called expert told them to.

Well, again I am having such a good time here.

Thanks so much

Jane

Though the business has certainly changed since John wrote that book, it breaks down the business in easy to understand concepts that are still true (i.e. how publishing works, how songwriters get paid, how co-writers work together and what % are they legally entitled to etc.) It was also by far the biggest selling book in the business and all the others copies his approach, even those which are most current. He INVENTED the genre of self help books for songwriters. Jason Blume kind of took over his work, though nearly all the current authors in the field were friends and followers with John before he died. John used to stay in my home when he toured and vice versa. Amazing man and amazing teacher. He's also the most likely to turn up in a library.

The Song U folks are also JPF Mentors and good friends of mine. Danny and Sara have been lifers in helping songwriters and their company which they built from scratch after many years of being staff writers and working with and for all the music orgs. of note. They are highly credible and honest and amazing people. See, I knew I would leave someone obvious out.

Brian

Often people don't want to hear it, but you'll get more by critiquing other people's songs than you will having them critique yours. A rule of thumb I suggest is to critique at least 5 songs for every 1 you post. And post exactly the length and type of feedback to others as you hope others offer you. If you do that, even if you aren't very good (in your mind) at first, not only will you learn a LOT, but you'll ironically end up getting far more critiques of your own work than you would any other way. Even if you don't think you are an expert enough to do it, all you need to do is explain how the lyric or song made you feel, what you liked or didn't like and any ideas of how you might do it differently in their place. Do that and you'll learn a lot without even realizing it.

Music is nothing more than lessons we write about ourselves to teach us something our mind and heart want us to know. We may not realize it, but it's a code we use because fixing ourselves is so hard to do and often we are the only ones who know the truth about who we are and what we really need. It's a trick our minds use to teach ourselves, the same as doing critiques of others will teach us about our own flaws and often the things you point out are similar to flaws your own work has. It's funny how that works if you know what to look for. -Brian Austin Whitney 5-30-2019

Thank you Brian, I am going to look into Song U also and I am glad I have a recommendation from you that they are okay.

There are so many sites that just want to take your money and make promises they can't deliver. I'm going to say it again!

You all are so nice and helpful; I mean that!

Jane

For anyone retiring soon, here is some advice; All your time, is ALL YOUR TIME.

Well?

Write that down!

That's the most profound thing you'll ever hear on the subject. You've never lived a lifestyle like that before where YOU had to decide what to do with all your time. You always had to get up and go to school, go to work, go home, get ready, go somewhere else, and you had to fit it all together because if you didn't then something didn't get done. You didn't have to decide. It was time to go to school, time to go to work, time to grocery shop or else you didn't eat.

Well, that's about to change. All your time, suddenly becomes all YOUR time. You still have things to do, places to go, but you have to decide what to do and when to do it. And then there will be lots of time that you don't HAVE to do anything. You can let that time pass, 'spending' it, or you can 'invest' it, with expectation of a Return-On-Investment (ROI).

Accept that challenge and you'll be a happy person. I'm learning after a couple years to do it a little better. It still isn't easy. I'm still not getting much done. But I'm learning to live this lifestyle I never lived before.

Yes, that is true Brian - You do learn from listening and critiquing the songs of others - of course the hard part is giving people a "useful" critique. I am getting better at that part though. At first I did not know how to critique - but I am catching on. Some folks on forums frown on the "attaboy" type critique but sometimes that's is all you can say about a song is that it is great.

Gary - Yes, when we retire we can "reinvent" our life so to speak without worrying about the 9-5 grind and do what we are best at without worrying about the "money" part. Of course, I will still be working part time (SS is not going to be enough) which is okay because having some structure in life is good.

Jane

Useful will only matter to you. You could write the most brilliant thing ever written, but if the person reading doesn't get it or agree, there is nothing you can do. So write to please yourself. People are so starved for ANY feedback, they will never be upset you took the time to respond. See, getting feedback is important but for different reason than giving feedback. Receiving it is a boost to your self worth, an opportunity to hear a hard truth, a far less devastating way to have someone disagree with you as long as they aren't launching a personal attack which is a different issue and not your fault as the receiver. Getting a thick skin against obvious moron trolls is not always easy, but it is necessary if you want your music out in the public square. When someone speaks actual truth to you and it hurts, you will know if it is of value in your heart if you are ready to hear truth. If you are not ready, it doesn't matter what anyone says to you, it won't change a thing. But if you take criticism at arms length and understand it is about a "song" and not YOU, then you can operate. Few songs, even by established professionals, are without flaws even if they are mostly really really good. So many pro's I know tell me there are nit picky things they hate about all their hits and wish they had done it differently in hindsight, even though they love cashing the checks. Artists rarely feel satisfied and that is healthy to a point. But you have to be willing to release it to the wild and see if it survives. The great thing is that you can always rewrite it or learn the lesson and write a new song avoiding a mistake to replace it over and over. Once you have dozens or hundreds or thousands of songs, your skin is sufficiently thick and you know it is just one of many so who cares what others say, you can only please yourself the rest is impossible to control.

Unless you are writing for a client, never worry about negative things people say unless they are true and if they are, fix them. If you are writing for a client, all that matters is their happiness no matter how you feel about it. Pro's understand this well, or they aren't very successful. Many of the big hits are well below the favorites of their creators. There's plenty of stories about this out there. So know that unless someone is paying you to make what THEY want, you should just write to please yourself and learn how to improve so as your personal standards and abilities both rise, you can learn the tricks and tips to keep pleasing your own goals and tastes in your music.

Good luck,

Brian

Thank you Brian

I appreciate all the excellent advice you have given me.


Jane K

Jane, I'm glad that Brian jumped in to back up my SongU recommendation.

I've been a member for many years, and have found Sara and Danny never anything less than straightforward, helpful, and passionate about what their site offers.

There is always a good selection of tutorials and weekly critiquing sessions (included in the membership fee). Plenty of pitching and other opportunities as well.

My only disappointment when I first joined was discovering that the forum there was/is barely active (which has always surprised me).

However, I quickly realised there were/are other ways to get valuable feedback there (e.g. the tutorials, weekly sessions, critiques from professionals, etc.), plus it's possible to contact members individually.

I'm currently collaborating with a fantastic composer (pianist) (mainly jazz & theatrical) in New Zealand, who contacted me a couple of months ago via SongU.

If you do the 15-day trial, let me know if you decide to enrol as a SongU member. I can send you a discount code to use when you register.

Donna

Hi Donna,

That 15 day trial sounds great! I might give it a try soon.

Thanks so much for the info.

Jane

I am careful about reaching out and joining groups, but I won't hesitate to say Songtown is AWESOME! It is one the THE best interactive songwriting organizations I have come across. I spread the word often.. Worth the price of admission. Marty & Clay are the real deal, successful, hit writers; down to earth songwriters sharing lots of knowledge in all areas; lyric, melody writing, collaboration, writing to tracks, the business and great networking. They keep a huge video library with all the lessons, live webcast free for all members. 1 monthly critique by a pro writer is included in membership, as well as forums similar the the great forums here on JPF. Like JPF, Songtown is a positive group, no slamming other members. We are all there to learn and share.
I have been a member for several years, have gone to in person gatherings, performances. I participated in a fabulous "Cowrite Crash Course" .. it sure did rid me of my fear of collaborating.
I believe you can join free for 30 days and take a look at what they have to offer ..
Joanne

Thanks you so much for your recommendation Joanne - I was trying to decide between Songtown or SongU - this helps me so much. The joining free for 30 days part sounds good also.

Hi Jane
I have always heard good things about SongU ... I see they have 15 day trial. Might be good to compare the two.
Good Luck! Have fun
Joanne