Originally Posted by Marc Barnette
Dana,

Another good question. It is good to have a target area. When I work with artists and other writers, I will find out the music that inspires them. I always ask three questions:

#1. What STYLE OR TYPE of song is NOT in your catelogue?
#2. Is there a style or particular song you wish you had written?
#3. If you could write a song for anyone, living or dead, who would it be?

The idea is to get into the range of a particular artist or type of song. But knowing that you probably won't get to that particular artist, you are actually looking for people who would be the NEXT artist of that type. Artists are influenced by other people, and studying those people give you a good general direction to go. Sometimes it is just randomly writing, but it does help to narrow the type of song you are doing.

Now you have to have it written in the general voice of a particular artist, the pitch needs to sound like what they do. So being very direct and descriptive in that vein, yet have enough leeway for others is always a great idea. And some times you may have to wait a while. For years, back during the "Travis Tritt/T.Graham Brown" era of music, late 80;s to early/mid 90's, I was hired to do a lot of demos for those pitches. I had the same "blue eyed soul" voice and was considered for a couple of record deals based on that. Then the "Garth era" came along and sidelined a lot of those artists, so that type of music was not pitched as much.
Get on down the road to today, and you find modern artists, Chris Stapelton, Eric Church, etc influenced by those artists, and others that come along are influenced by THOSE artists. So a lot will have to do with timing. And having a pretty wide variety of music.

As an artist you have to be pretty narrow in your focus. As a writer, you should be pretty wide in your focus.

MAB




Hey Mab,

Great insight into this subject!
Those are three really good questions, that I had not thought of…
What Song or Style is Not in your catalogue? Great question. When you ask this question are you speaking in terms of categories like Falling in “Love” falling out of “Love” or as you say “Angry Chick” songs lol or are speaking more in terms of Genre? Like Pop/Country/Metal?

What song do you wish you had written? Love this one too, in-fact, I was out last night at one of my favorite dive bars, and I had taken over the Jukebox, and playing music and everyone was really enjoying the playlist that I had going, so much that people would come over and thank me for it! I was playing a song in particular that I discovered and played it more than a few times, and people loved it every time and I was thinking, this is a song that I wish I had written! There too many to count on that subject, but it is one of the newer songs out that I really enjoy. It was also a great confirmation to the power of Music, man, everyone was just having a great time together listening to great Songs!

If you could write a song for anyone living or dead, who would it be? Another great one!

Mab Quote-
“The idea is to get into the range of a particular artist or type of song. But knowing that you probably won't get to that particular artist, you are actually looking for people who would be the NEXT artist of that type. Artists are influenced by other people, and studying those people give you a good general direction to go. Sometimes it is just randomly writing, but it does help to narrow the type of song you are doing.”

Excellent point! Really important, considering that most Artists’ now are ‘Self-contained’ We have to find Artists’ as you say on the ground floor, so this is a great point!

Artists’ being Influenced by other Artists’, not something you think about every day, but a great point to think about. We hear so little about other Artists influences (I think) maybe because they are fighting so hard not to be compared to other Artists’ especially ones that are legendary or heavily established…
It’s tough to be an original nowadays…

BTW, I personally think we need some more of them “Blue Eyed Soul” Singers! One of my Favorites is Michael McDonald! George Michael and of course Michael Bolton! Lol just noticed all the ‘Michaels” in here!

Researching your Artist to find if they will cover a song in the style you are writing in very important, definitely agree! You don’t want to say your song will fit an Artist like Celine Dion and/or Britney Spears lol
Songwriting homework, is important!
Thanks again for the great insight! -Dana

Last edited by Dayson; 01/23/20 05:36 PM.