Manners And Etiquette

I have written a number of columns recently that I thought were contentious and, surprisingly, the response has been very positive, which has probably lured me into a false sense of security. This column may sound to you like the musings of a grumpy old man … but I assure you that I think these issues are very important. These aren’t some International songwriting convention … they are my rules. You may not agree with them and you may feel free to argue with me but they have served me well for 40 years and I am convinced that they work.

Writer Credits

1. Never leave your co writer’s name off any recordings of a song.
2. If you are performing a song live, you cannot be expected to say, “I wrote this with … “ before every song (it gets boring) but don’t say “I wrote this song” if you had a co writer. This can be very hurtful to your co writer, especially if he is at the gig.
3. Never make major changes to a song without consulting your co writer. I once had a co writer and a bridge added to a song and the first I heard about it was in a record review. I still think the song worked better without a bridge. If your producer thinks a song needs changes, don’t do it and cut him in as a co writer without consulting your original co writer … it is ill mannered as well as dishonest.
4. The popular convention is that writer credits are shown in alphabetical order … if your name starts with “S” and your co writer with “C” … does your ego really insist that your name has to go first? I co wrote an entire album with Doug Ashdown several years ago … he listed the credits as Ashdown /Caswell on song 1 and Caswell / Ashdown on song 2, and so on throughout the album … but that’s Doug … he’s old school.
5. If you are doing the credits for an album cover, make sure the writer credits are included, otherwise it will look like you wrote all the songs yourself and you will appear mean spirited and credit hogging in the eyes of your co writers.

Co writing Etiquette

There are a few things that I am convinced are important in developing a good co writing relationship:

1. If you think you wrote most of a song, keep it to yourself and never let it leave the writing room. Chances are that the next time you write your co writer will write most of the next one. In a regular co writing partnership it usually evens up. If it doesn’t … don’t do it. If you count up the lines you wrote and try to get a bigger percentage, people will think you are a fool and will stop writing with you.
2. Any decisions regarding percentages are negotiable. I have often taken a smaller share when I thought it was warranted.
3. If you are not happy with anything that occurs in a songwriting partnership, either discuss it or quit but don’t let it fester.

Writer’s Nights And Showcases

These nights are important in your development as a songwriter but I almost never go to them any more because of the lack of manners displayed by the participants. If you and your friends / disciples talk all through the other writer’s sets and then expect a respectful silence during your set, you will come over as a self absorbed little jerk. Trust me, your” twinkle twinkle little star” antics will not endear you to other writers or potential co writing partners.

Be Humble

Don’t bore us on Facebook with how great your songs are or ask us to vote for you in some meaningless competition. Put the effort into writing better songs and getting them cut.

Don’t be superior. If you want to write with someone, approach him or her with respect. Never treat your co writer as your assistant even if you are writing for your album. Take the trouble to find out about your co writer (his or her successes, style and reputation).

See you next month … Maybe.

If you have a question regarding any aspects of song writing or are interested in my “one on one” private song writing coaching service (based in the Blue Mountains) contact me at allan@allancaswell.com

Making It Real

I love songs, I love well-crafted songs with great hooks but, most of all, I love songs that feel like they are talking directly to me. Song writing is an art and its main aim, like all art is to touch people. In this month’s column, I will try to give you a few hints on making your songs more believable and real.

The Voice

I tend to be an emotional writer. I write from the heart out. As any of my regular co writers will tell you, I will often choke with emotion and have trouble getting the line out. There are lots of ways to write a song … this is just the one that works for me. I treat lyric writing as a sort of method acting process. I ‘become’ the character I’m writing about … to get the voice right.

If all this sounds a little New Age and confusing, I’m sorry but if you want people to feel something, you have to first feel it yourself.

If it is a sad song, the emotional voice of the song needs to reflect it but it should never be allowed to be whiney or miserable. There should be a light touch about these songs, a sense of humor and a straightforward honesty … you can’t manufacture the emotion. It has to be there naturally in both the melody and the lyric. This often comes from the power of your hook and the way you build your song around it. If you write your song line 1 then line 2 then line 3 etc., you will find that you song lacks focus.

A happy song is often harder to write than a sad song … it needs to be up but not lightweight. Your song still needs to be believable. Just because you have a good hook, a nice guitar lick and a cool video, doesn’t mean that your song is going to reach people. Listen to what you are saying … do you think it sounds contrived and doesn’t sound like the way you talk? … If it does, it probably is.

If you are a man writing a song for a woman to sing (or vice versa) you need to think like a woman … come on … it’s called imagination … it’s part of your job description. Blokey phrases and attitudes aren’t going to cut it.

A method I sometimes use is to write the song from a male perspective so that, if a woman sings it she sounds strong and resilient or reverse the process and write a male song from a female perspective so that he sounds sensitive and caring.

The Language

Your lyric should always be a conversation between you and the listener. The language should, wherever possible, be language that would use when talking to someone. Your song is not a poem or a short story it needs to have a natural rhythm and rhyme about it in order to work with the tune. You also can’t use ugly words with hard vowel sounds … you need to find words that tell your story but still sound good.

If you are writing a story song through the eyes of a character, you have to think like that character and use the language that he or she would use … an old man using phrases that belong to someone younger will sound forced and contrived. Anachronistic language can sometimes be really effective in a “character” song but you need to avoid it in a song where you are trying to be cool and cutting edge.

The Cliché Of Rhyme

Look I know rhyme is important but it only a tool and, badly used, it can stop your song from sounding believable and real. If you insist on rhyming brain and insane, love and dove or even fire and desire you immediately lose credibility … play with the lines, use half rhymes or less predictable hard rhymes to make your point in a slicker but more believable way.

Theft

I touched on this, rather unpleasant, subject in a recent column and had a number of requests for more information … so here goes.

In terms of actually making money out of your songs in Australia (particularly in country music), the opportunities are few and far between. This isn’t helped when the artists who record your songs don’t do the right thing. It’s not rocket science. The process of looking after the rights of the songwriter is relatively simple but often ignored.

I hate to point the finger at my fellow independent artists but that’s where the problems occur. The major record companies, as a matter of course, account to AMCOS and writers get paid. This not always the case with independent albums … backyard burns and lack of policing by some manufacturing plants means that thousands of dollars worth of unlicensed albums are being produced. The studios get paid, the printers get paid, the musicians get paid, the producer gets paid, the publicists get paid, the hairdresser gets paid … only the writers miss out and, without them, the album wouldn’t exist.

Some people pay the AMCOS licence on the first 1,000 but forget it after that, which is nearly as bad. I have just paid to licence another few hundred copies of my “Behind Bars” album. Most of the songs on the album were written and are now published by me. The reason I paid for the licence was because I had 2 covers on the project as well as a number of co writers and their publishers. If you are a self-published singer/songwriter and you record an album of, solely your work you will not need an AMCOS licence for it.

The Responsibilities Of The Songwriter

1. Make sure that you have your songs registered correctly with APRA and AMCOS. They are great organisations but they have yet to develop the software to read minds.
2. Make sure all your co writers and publishers are credited and the percentages are correct.
3. When you pitch a song to an artist make sure that the correct writer credits appear on all correspondence. I hate it when my co writers aren’t credited … it is embarrassing as well as a red flag that the album probably hasn’t been licenced properly. If an artist thinks that you wrote the song by yourself, it will appear that way on the record label.
4. If you (or your publisher) are not a member of APRA/AMCOS they obviously can’t pay you even if a licence has been purchased for the album. You need to join. If you are making money from your songs you are entitled to membership of APRA and AMCOS. The alternative is that you can be paid directly by the artist or record company but this is messy.

The Responsibilities Of The Artist/Record Company

1. Part of the cost of every album you make should always include the payment of songwriting royalties.
2. It is your responsibility to supply AMCOS with the titles and authors of the songs on your album
3. A licence needs to be obtained from AMCOS for each pressing of each album. This is a legal obligation not an optional exercise.

Live Performance Royalties

As a songwriter (and particularly as a singer/songwriter), a significant percentage of your income is derived from the live performances of your songs. If your songs are performed in pubs, clubs or theatres etc, you are entitled to receive royalties. This operates very much on an honor basis and is hard to police. The point is that, if someone performs your song and fails to put it in their Live Performance Return with APRA, it is costing you money. Worse still, artists who claim to perform songs of their own when they haven’t are, in effect, stealing from writers who otherwise would have received these royalties.

It’s ugly but songwriters are losing hundred’s of dollars of their rightful income by deliberate or inadvertent cheating on the royalty system. Educating artists and songwriters can hopefully, end the inadvertent cheating. The deliberate cheating is a crime and can have severe legal implications.

Tips And Traps For Young Singer / Songwriters

I’m aiming this month’s column at singer / songwriters because these days, if you are a singer you are expected to be a songwriter as well, regardless of whether or not you actually want to write songs. If you are a specialist songwriter most of this still applies.

As the new kid on the block, you will be copping advice from all sides about what the first single should be, what you should wear, who should direct your video for CMC, what The Industry is looking for this week etc. You will also get a lot of advice on songwriting, which can be really dangerous … especially from people who have never written a worthwhile song in their lives. Your songs are the start of everything you do … with a bad song, great production, nice clothes and a good film clip can’t save you. I wouldn’t presume to tell you what to wear but after 40 years and 500 recordings of my songs, I am prepared to send a little songwriting advice your way.

Your Audience

Contrary to what your advisors may tell you, this isn’t pop music. A large proportion of country music fans are “grown ups”. No one expects that you can have a great deal of life experience to bring to your work at 19 or 20 years old but
endless songs about your latest boyfriend/ girlfriend are not going to really touch people raised on a diet of Dolly, Kenny, Willie and Reba. When I first started playing professionally, I was given some great advice “You’re here to entertain them … not educate them”. Everything should be in balance … give the audience what they want to hear before you give them what you want them to hear.

Listen To Where Your Music Came From

You can’t write in a vacuum. While I would always caution you against copying other writer’s songs, you can learn so much by listening to artists and writers who have earned their place at the top of the tree. Listen to how they work your emotions, how they set up the hook and how the lyric works seamlessly with the tune. You may never have heard of Loretta Lynne or Merle Haggard but they’re all there on YouTube. I worked with a very talented young songwriter recently and she asked for a list of songwriters she could listen to … and this was someone who already had a good knowledge of country music.

Co Writing

When I first started writing songs, I learned so much from writing with more experienced writers. They taught me things in 5 minutes that took them years of trial and error to master. Songwriting is an honorable profession … I now hand on things that took me years to learn. I still learn every time I co write. A new writer brings enthusiasm, a lack of fear and preconceptions and a sense of what is cool. What the older writer brings to the table is discipline, technique and a sense of what works. By now, your advisors have probably told you there is no future for you unless you write own songs … if that is true, you should, at least, explore co writing as a way to come up with the songs you need.

It’s Not The Kind Of Song The Industry Wants

There you go, using the “ I “ word again. No one ever made it big by being the same as everyone else.

1. You can’t have an album full of singles. What some people see as ‘fillers” are often the songs that will define you as an artist. The fact that they are not lightweight, hooky little pop songs in no way means that they are not important.
2. Merely getting into the charts or on CMC is no guarantee that your album will sell or that people will show up to your shows. Trying to write songs like the one’s on the charts only guarantees one thing … that you won’t develop a voice of your own
3. If the song you are writing doesn’t immediately scream HIT, don’t give up on it. Merely writing it is helping you develop your skills and you never know …people may love it.

That’s Old School

Yes, I know it is but that’s what a lot of country music fans want. They’ve been making country records since Jimmie Rogers back in 1927 and there has been a lot of history and quality since then. Taylor Swift is a talented writer and singer but country music probably only needs one of her … maybe you should try being you instead. Maybe, the question you need to ask yourself is … are people still going to ask you to play this in 10 years time.

See you next month … Maybe.

If you have a question regarding any aspects of song writing or are interested in my “one on one” private song writing coaching service (based in the Blue Mountains) contact me at allan@allancaswell.com

Independent Of What?

By now, you know that my time of writing this column is running low and, in the interests of political correctness, I have avoided the subject of this month’s column for some time … time’s up.

I have grown tired of the pathetic “us versus them” attitude of independent and “mainstream” artists. Being an independent artist is something to be proud of, in terms of creativity and taking ownership of your future not something to hide behind or use as an excuse for your lack of success. The “Industry” doesn’t hate you because of you are an independent … you are the industry. If you are not happy with the Industry … change it.

I write my own songs, make my own records for an independent label (Shoestring), book my own gigs and invest my own money in my own career … I guess that makes me an independent. It has always been a roller coaster ride but I don’t regret it. I am not jealous of other people’s success because I know that they have worked hard for it. If you are prepared to put all your resources, time and effort into your dream and go into hock to finance recordings, travel, film clips, publicity etc … I admire you for it … you deserve to succeed. That you deserve it doesn’t mean it will happen for you and the cold hard fact is that no one is twisting your arm.

My guess is that there would be, maybe 15 to 20 acts signed to major labels and hundreds independent artists. We all make up the Industry but by sheer weight of numbers, the Industry should be independents based. If it is not, it has more to do with our own unwillingness to band together to make the pie bigger, than it has to do with some faceless people who run “The Industry” and are trying to steal our share of it.

If we spent less time hustling each other on Facebook to vote for us in some dumb award or flawed chart and more time writing better songs, making better records and getting our act out in front of people, we would be better off. Winning awards because we have lots of friends on Facebook doesn’t say much for our ability as an artist or writer.

Artists signed to major labels are not a bunch of privileged silvertails. They are, generally, young artists who have talent, work hard and have what record companies see as having “market potential”

Suggestions that the mainstream artists “have it easy” are, frankly ridiculous. Whether you are an independent artist or a mainstream artist you are still expected to pay for everything yourself (the major labels may front the money but the artist would need to recoup all the costs before seeing any money at all).

The reason that being in the country music industry seems hard is because it is. There is no conspiracy to hold you back, no one is trying to stand in your way and I have found the best way to get your album reviewed, played and getting interviews to promote it. … Is to ask. I had an interesting conversation with a journalist recently who pointed out the number of calls he receives from independent artists complaining that “The Industry” is being mean to them but completely forgetting to tell him about their latest album or sending him a copy to review. The industry is relatively small. Done right, you can network your way to airplay and publicity or hire people who can do it for you.

The music industry demands so much in terms of time, money and commitment just to be a part of it. You need to love what you do to get you through the tough times. Having been signed, at various stages of my career to major labels as well as small independent labels, I have to say that I preferred the latter. I have appreciated the lack of interference in my work and though resources are less available I never feel that I have to take my place in a pecking order for the attention of my own label.

See you next month … Maybe.

If you have a question regarding any aspects of song writing or are interested in my “one on one” private song writing coaching service (based in the Blue Mountains) contact me at allan@allancaswell.com

Where The Money Comes From

The most asked questions from young writers always concern how to make money from their work. I have always avoided writing a column on this before because it tends to reveal the dark side of our “industry” … I am, however, running out of columns … so here goes.

A survey a few years ago revealed that the average Australian actor earns under $20,000 per year. Your average songwriter would earn substantially less than that. That said, when you come to terms with the fact that the most important thing is to create work that you can be proud of, it is possible to make significant money doing something you love.

APRA and AMCOS

Nearly all your income as a songwriter comes via these two organizations and you owe it to yourself to become a member of both. APRA pays you directly for any performances achieved by your songs, whether live, on radio, television or on film. The pool of money collected by APRA every year runs into millions of dollars and is divided up between all the writers and publishers on a pro rata basis depending on the relative success of your songs.

AMCOS does much the same job as its close relative APRA except that it collects money primarily from the sales of CDs and DVDs etc.

When an artist or record company releases an album a licence fee is paid to AMCOS and a royalty is paid to the writers and publishers of the songs on the album. If you don’t have a publisher you need to be a member of AMCOS in order for them to be able to pay you. APRA pays you the performance royalties direct (and pays the publisher’s share direct to them.

If you or another artist performs one of your songs live it should be logged on a Live Performance Return. The venues you play at are licenced by APRA and you are entitled to a share of that money if your songs are performed live.

Synchronisation Rights

When your songs are used in a movie or in a television show or on pay television there is a fee to be paid to you. This is negotiated, either by your publisher, or directly by you.

Advances

If you sign a publishing deal, you will often be offered an advance, this is effectively a loan against future royalties. This means that you are earning money ahead of time. There is a downside … if you pay off a loan with a bank you own your house … you can find that with a publishing company, they can still own part of the house 70 years after you die. You need to be really careful whenever you accept an advance from anywhere.

Theft

OK, now for the dark side … in your quest to make a living out of your songs, you will almost certainly come up against theft.

The more obvious methods of stealing from you are plagiarism and illegal copying and downloading, which are an ongoing battle but there are other methods, which are more sinister, because they come from your fellow artists and writers. If you are an artist and don’t obtain a licence from AMCOS you are effectively stealing from all the writers who contributed to your album. You are stealing from the very people who made your album possible.

A Leading Australian songwriter says: ” For a long time the record companies diligently paid their AMCOS Royalties to songwriters and songwriting was at least worth some money. Lots if you were successful. In these ‘post record company’ days the Independent artist rules the day. They need lots of great songs to get to move forward in their careers. Sadly the ‘License To Manufacture’ from AMCOS is often the last thing the Artist thinks about paying “

When you fill out your Live Performance Returns for APRA and claim to have performed your songs when you didn’t you are stealing directly from your fellow songwriters … feel good yet?

I know some of the artists who are stealing from me but, thankfully their talent is at about the same level as their honesty and the recordings would not have made much money any way.

See you next month … maybe.

If you have a question regarding any aspects of song writing or are interested in my “one on one” private song writing coaching service (based in the Blue Mountains) contact me at allan@allancaswell.com