This is an interesting thread and I have thought about these things many times. Over the past few months I have been examining an idea at the root of what Couchgrouch seems to be advancing: Maybe the ones we look to for mentoring are not the ones we need to be looking to, especially when we have to pay them.

There are some facts I don't often see faced by most folks in groups like this. (1) It is hard to be a professional songwriter but most of us want to do it. We desperately won't to have a song on the radio. (2) It is even harder to have more than one song make it to the radio. (3) We can't see it on the internet but all the music posting sites should give us an idea: there are a lot of people who write songs and those people inundate Nashville with songs whether they live there or not. There really are publishers who receive over 1,000 unsolicited songs a year (which is about 4 per mail delivery day) from outside of Nashville. (4) Most of us like most of the writers in Nashville will never - repeat never - have a song recorded for commercial release.

Most of the folks I know who offer a critique for a fee have had success but most have had only one radio success and for most, it was quite some time ago. Some have stayed in Nashville and have done various things connected to writing and, in my mind, have more credibility than those who are not there. Two of the "big" critiquers are Jason Blume and Barbara Cloyd. Jason has had several cuts including a top 10 and Barbara had a number one cut. Their big chart records were years ago but they have stayed in the mix. I've seen both make presentations and have heard recordings of both in a teaching session. Both have been upfront in my opinion about what they offer and their credentials. I have never heard either ever say they have the magic answer. I have heard Jason say "there is a lot of luck involved but sometimes you can place yourself in a position to be lucky" and I have heard Barbara say "I am a very little fish in a big pond."

Songwriting success is a lot like gambling. I have gambled in the stock market. I noticed after a while and a lot of expense that the experts - names respected who have websites and services and teach seminars - weren't right much more often than I was. Their techniques worked sometimes but they didn't work just as often. And a lot of it had to do with the amount invested. If you have 1,000 shares and a stock goes up 10 cents, you've made $100 not accounting for commissions. You can apply that to songwriting. It may not be true for gambling, but in songwriting, if you do more things that usually work a higher number of times, you stand more chance of winning. Jason Blume has always said he teaches about tools that most hits utilize. I sometimes wish it were different for it causes me to change how I write but I begrudgingly admit it's good wisdom.

I'd love to be as successful and as well known as Jason Blume.

One of the things Jason says to do is to analyze the current hits. I listened to every song in the top 60 a few weeks ago. I didn't use listen to the ones on top. I went to the bottom rungs of the chart and went to every myspace page I could find and listened to every one I could. There were a lot of groups. I didn't like hardly any of the songs but there they were, on the charts. The songs were uptempo and more rockish than I like. But I learned some things I need to incorporate into my writing.



Last edited by eb; 03/22/08 12:59 AM.