I just had the honor of being on an expert panel at the Summer NAMM Conference here in Nashville, and the topic at hand was "How to Get the Best Vocal Performance from a Singer in the Recording Studio." Before I showed up, I jotted down some notes, and as I promised the people in the audience that day, I'm putting it in a blog post. And since most people skip all this intro text, I'll get right to it...
Do you ever get creatively frustrated in your songwriting? Do you ever feel like you get stuck and don't know how to finish? Or start writing without even fully knowing what your song is about? Do you ever feel like you just plain suck at songwriting?
You're not alone, my friend. We've all been there. But, before you throw your guitar across the room and tweet about how "adulting is hard", read this. I want to help you.
In today’s internet age, it’s entirely possible to collaborate with someone on the other side of the planet. It’s wonderful as a producer to be able to hire someone in L.A. to track vocals for me on one of my songs when their sound is exactly what I want and no one that I know in Nashville will fit the part. I’ve learned in this process what I need from a singer in situations like this, and today I’m going to discuss several aspects of what a singer needs to keep in mind when they are tracking their own vocals on their own gear to send off to a producer.
As a service provider, you want to be great to work with, and you want to give the producer something that sounds fantastic and goes into their track easily and quickly. If you pay attention to the following points, you should be well on your way to that goal.
Well we found another site that is illegally giving away our music without our permission and with zero compensation to us. I found out when a friend of mine who is rather new to being violated in this way contacted me, asking what she could do about her band's music being on this site, wondering if I knew anything about them. The first thing I did when I got to the site was search for Worldwide Groove Corporation. This is what showed up...
In my last blog post, I discussed ways to write several songs at once and how to keep them from all sounding the same. Today I'll talk about writing a lyric with a singular emotion quickly. [Scroll to the bottom if you'd like to hear a finished product of something we did last week.]
One of the few remaining lucrative frontiers in songwriting and production is for film and TV licensing. Not only do films and TV shows need songs for IN the shows, they also need songs for the advertisements ABOUT the TV shows. Each of these contexts has special requirements lyrically and musically. Today I'm going to specifically talk about the types of lyrics that are appropriate for use in an advertisement for a TV show...
There are certain aspects of being an indie artist that I can't think about too much or I'll end up with an ulcer. Today I'm going to share one of these issues with you, simply because I don't think people realize it happens. But it does. And as someone who is not under the umbrella of a record label, and would need to pay out of pocket for attorneys, we end up just taking it up the rear and trying to move on.
I was promoting our new instrumental release today when I got a reminder of a long standing violation of intellectual property which is still coming back to bite me. What am I talking about? Well, I'll tell you what I'm NOT talking about...
Search this site.
