This is the usual thing, which is what is holding you back. And I’m not saying that there is something, but most people have a feeling of us and them, you know, and the US is, you know, how do I get my songs out there? It’s so competitive. there was just recently a stat, you know, a year or two ago there were 70,000 songs a day being uploaded to Spotify. Now the number is closer to a hundred thousand. And then in my deck here, royalties these days with streaming really suck.
And, you know, you can maybe get a million streams and you could buy, you know, the morning cup of coffee or something. Another big thing is how do I even meet people or find the right people to play my music for? I live somewhere like in the middle of, I don’t know, Eastern Europe, or I live in India, or I live in po bunk Idaho.
Like how do I get in there? And we’re gonna answer some of these questions. There isn’t one specific answer, but there are many things I’ve learned and I’m gonna share with you. what happens when you send music and the people don’t answer you back? I mean, that not just happens with songwriting, but sometimes you’re best friend and you don’t know what’s going on. And then a big, wonderful self-sabotage is, oh my God, this is my big song.
Somebody’s gonna steal it if I send it out, or AI is gonna copy it. So these are all the things that are very normal common and things that are like little speed bumps for us between here and the success that we’re dreaming of. And sometimes we have to acknowledge them, see them, and just gently step over them because especially the last one, if somebody’s gonna take my song, you know, I have to say that, usually people want a golden goose, not a golden egg.
So if you’ve written a song that’s great, most professionals really wanna work with you and get the second one, the third one, the fourth one. They want you to be a lifelong collaborator or source of great music rather than taking your one song. So the solution is the same thing that’s causing the problem. That gosh darn interweb thing that we, you know, that we love to hate and that we’re talking on right now.
And the other side of that is, is there’s never been a better time for you to directly find people, connect, collaborate, put your music out there. You know, it used to be this tiny little dot, you know, where you’d have to throw a dart and a mile or a kilometer away. You hit that exact.to get your music heard by a publisher, a record company, a main radio programmer.
And now, you know, with all of the solutions that are online, there are many possibilities. So let’s dig into them right now. Solution number one, contact directories. And you may say, what do you mean contact directories? I don’t know how many of you know this, but there is a country music tip sheet. And what it is is called the Rax as in Music Row, which is in Nashville.
So if you have a country song or a country pop pop song or a Bluegrass or Americana kind of thing, or blues, there is a actual subscription based magazine that’s very legit and it’s very old school. Like they literally say so and so, so-and-So is looking for a song, we need an uptempo female, you know, here’s the name of the producer or the record company executive please.
And then they’re very descriptive. Please send no more than three songs. Send a lyric sheet contact and for a subscription fee, you can sign up to the ax and suddenly know who is looking in Nashville for your next or first big hit. Another one is called the Music Registry. And the music registry is a specific guide where you can literally locate almost anyone in the music business and know how to contact them.
There’s one for record companies, there’s one for film and TV soundtrack supervisors. There’s one for managers. And I’ll, I’ll just tell you a, a little story is that I had a song once that I really wanted to share with Willie Nelson, even though he is a great, obviously an iconic songwriter. And I thought, oh my god, Willie Nelson, he lives in Hawaii and he lives in California and I’m in New York.
And I looked up the manager thing and I looked up the name Willie Nelson, and I suddenly discovered his manager was actually in New York City and lived two blocks away. Like I didn’t even have to send something or email. I could walk over to the office and hand them a tape. So don’t underestimate, and please feel free to write down these two things. the music registry, which has a number of different guides to how to be in contact with people.
I, I wanna also say don’t underestimate the power of the assistant or the secretary. ’cause they are the doorway to the person or people or company that you want to get in touch with. And sometimes, you know, the saying, the people you meet on the way up are the same people you meet on the way down. Being really nice to people Is a wonderful thing. And I’ll tell you another little secret.
I don’t know if I’m repeating myself from something later, but I have found that, you know, these sort of big time people, sometimes they get 300 emails an hour or something crazy. So I will often write, especially let’s say for the record company, or if there’s a supervisor and it has an address, and I’ll actually write a letter to people. How many letters do you get in the mail? Actual letters these days, not bills or, or junk mail a month?
in my case, I, if I’m very lucky, I might get a letter a month. but it, it usually not at this point, everything is email and text and everything. So if you write a letter, a really polite letter, and let’s say you have the greatest song for Lizzo or I don’t know, someone like that, that, that does outside material, writing a letter first and then commenting on something about that person or that artist, you know, especially if you dig deep and they’ve released, let’s say an album and on the fourth song the bridge changed keys and tempos and it suddenly went to something else and then came back.
Knowing, adding a detail like that, that’s so specific and personal tells people that you’ve done your homework, that you’re not just sort of like, Hey, you know, you’re famous and I have this song and I want to get rich, so here’s my song.
Like, it, it shows them that you’ve actually done the work.
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