by Robin Frederick

from “Shortcuts to Songwriting for Film & TV” available in October 2010.

What is a rough demo?

A rough demo can be as simple as a guitar / vocal or piano / vocal recording made on a handheld recorder. Or it can be as elaborate as a concept for a complete track with drums, bass, vocal, keyboard, and guitar recorded on multiple tracks. Simple or elaborate, to be truly effective it should convey the essential energy and feel as well as the complete melody, lyric, and chord progression of the song. (See “U.S. Copyright Office” below for non-chord demos.)

Why you need a rough demo

> 1. To test your song ideas: One of the most important uses for a rough demo is to record your structure, melody, and lyric ideas so you can hear them as a listener would. When you’re involved in the physical effort of singing and playing your song, it’s impossible to step out of your songwriter role. Recording a rough demo allows you to walk away then come back later to listen with fresh ears, as an audience member would hear the song. Note your reaction as you listen. Where does the song lose energy or focus for you? Did the melody become too complicated to follow? Did the double chorus at the end feel too long? Go back and change those things in your demo, record your new ideas, then walk away and come back to listen again after an hour or so. Keep going through this process of interaction with your demo.

> 2. As a reference for yourself: When producing a song in your home studio, use the rough demo to keep in touch with your original inspiration. At some point in the process, you’re bound to reach a place where nothing seems to work, you’re sick of the song, and you’re thinking about speeding up the tempo because you’re soooooooo bored. That’s the time to go back and listen to the rough demo. It’s not unusual for the original feeling you loved so much to slip away during the production process. Your rough demo can be a lifesaver. In fact, there have been instances when the rough demo ended up on someone’s album because they were never able to reproduce that feel!

> 3. As the basis for a final recording: You can continue to build on and refine your rough demo to create a final master recording. If you used a simple, repeated rhythm loop for the rough demo, consider adding variations, fills, adding and subtracting extra percussion and drum sounds to the loop. Replace a keyboard part with a better performance or a richer sound. Replace a synthesizer bass line with a real bass player. Keep what you like, change or improve what you don’t.

> 4. For the U.S. Copyright Office: The copyright office defines a song as “words and music.” They don’t care about chords. They will accept a voice-only recording without any accompaniment at all. It’s the most basic rough demo of all!

Making a rough demo

Convey the rhythmic feel – Many songwriters like to start a song with a rhythmic groove to set the overall energy and feel of the song. You can choose a drum or percussion loop or strum a guitar or use a piano to play a rhythm part. If you’re not using a loop, you should record with a click or metronome track.

Include all the sections of your song – The rough demo should be a complete representation, including all verses, choruses, a bridge (if there is one), intro and ending. If you think you want a double chorus at the end, put it on your demo. If you want a short intro, put that on your demo.

Play the chord progression – Play chords exactly where you want them; change where you want them to change and be consistent. If you play a chord early in one verse, then play it early in the next.  Don’t be sloppy about this. You may end up using your rough demo as a foundation for building your final tracks. If you bring in a hot bass player (or play bass yourself), you’ll be using those chord changes as a guide.

Sing the melody and lyrics – If you’ll be the singer on the final track, don’t worry too much about pitch, go for spontaneity and feel. Get your initial, fresh interpretation of the song on tape so you can refer to it later.

Copyright 2010 Robin Frederick.</font>

I just checked through the top five songs in the Rock, Country, AC, and Urban genres and, guess what… in all four genres at least four of the top five songs were collaborations. In the Country genre, all five were collaborations!

Collaborating has so many benefits that it’s worth putting some real effort into learning how to do it and finding compatible songwriting partners to work with. It may take some time, maybe a few false starts, but it can more than repay you in the long run.

There are many reasons to collaborate: A collaborator can offer new ideas and nudge you out of old habits. If you fall in love with a line that isn’t working, a collaborator can point that out and keep the song moving forward. Working with a collaborator gives you added motivation, energy, and goals to meet. Chances are you’re stronger in one area (lyrics or music) than another; a collaborator can add strength where you’re weak. The cost of demoing your song can be half what it would be if you wrote it alone.

So, why not collaborate? Do you resist collaborating because you’re afraid that you’re not good enough, or afraid you’ll come up with dumb ideas… or no ideas? I totally understand. We all share those fears. Here are a few ideas that can help you get past them.

=> Give yourselves a chance to warm up. Start by playing a a few songs for each other. Find out where your tastes lie. Are they similar? Different? Agree on a style you want to write in to begin with. If your collaborator writes Classic Rock melodies and you’re writing a Modern Pop lyric, you may have trouble fitting the lyric and melody together.

=> Create plenty of raw material to work from. Start by suggesting titles to each other. Use a newspaper or magazine and find short phrases that appeal to both of you. Choose a phrase to work on and make a list of questions you might answer in the song.  Then make lists of words and phrases that the title phrase suggests: images, actions words, associations, opposites, whatever strikes you. Create more material than you think you’ll need. Then, together, start assembling your chorus lyric. Try singing some of the phrases and start your melody.

=> Work long distance. You don’t have to be in the same room. Plenty of collaborations take place on the Internet. Organize folders and files so you can easily find mp3s and lyrics for each song you work on. Make sure it’s easy for you to receive music files. There are interesting sites like Dropbox that make it easy to share files. Use Skype for phone chats; it’s free and has better sound quality than a regular phone.

=> Swap songs. Work on more than one song at a time, so that each of you always has a song to work on. Trade songs every few days.

=> Give yourselves permission to do a job. Too often we think of songwriting as something we must be brilliant at all the time. It’s just a job, a hard job. Some days you do it better than others. Talk with your collaborator about experiences and expectations.

WHERE TO FIND COLLABORATORS

Clubs and music venues: You can find potential collaborators at clubs in your area. Try an open mic night. You’ll find singer-songwriters in a variety of styles. If you can, play a few songs of your own so people get a chance to hear what you can do.

The Internet: You don’t have to limit yourself to songwriters in your area; the Internet makes long distance collaboration easy. Do your research. Look for established web sites with forums where songwriters meet to share songs, get feedback, and find collaborators. The Muse’s Muse web site has a good one. Click on “Songwriting Message Board.” Spend some time getting to know the regular contributors. Listen to their songs, read their lyrics, check out their melodies. When you find someone you think would make a good collaborator, go ahead and contact them. You can also check out the “Collaboration Corner” on TAXI’s forum

Now, go find somebody to play with!

by Robin Frederick (author of “Shortcuts to Hit Songwriting”)

Most songwriters sit down to write when they are going through an emotional time, when feelings are running high. Many great songs — many hit songs — have been written from a songwriter’s private life – the joy, love, grief, and anger of the writer’s own relationships.

So, what happens when a songwriter who has been writing solely from personal experience begins to (or wants to) earn a living from their writing? Let’s say you’re a singer-songwriter with a record deal and you have to write ten new songs for an upcoming album… or you’re a staff writer with a publishing deal who needs to write on demand. Can you rely on your life to provide enough material to keep the songs flowing? Probably not. Even if you could, it might not be the kind of life you’d want to live!

Here are a couple of ideas that can help you get around this problem:

> Use the past.
You already know that as a songwriter you need to write from your heart; you want to express your own thoughts and feelings. If your life isn’t currently filled with drama, try reaching back into the past for an event that still resonates for you, a conversation, person, or situation that has stayed in your memory. If you’ve already written a song or songs about it, consider looking at it from another angle. Try putting yourself in the other person’s place and seeing it from their point of view or use something you’ve learned since that time to add a fresh perspective.

> Imagine a situation.
Shakespeare didn’t have to endure a visit from the ghost of his dead father in order to write Hamlet. By imagining himself in Hamlet’s situation, he was able to create dialogue filled with honest emotions that have moved audiences for hundreds of years. A good writer, whether of plays, songs, or novels, doesn’t have to experience every situation himself in order to write about it truthfully.

The poet John Keats called this ability to project oneself into another’s emotional life “negative capability.” By this he meant a writer’s ability to lose his own ego and become the character he’s writing about. I just call it empathy. A good writer is one who can feel what others are going through and identify with their emotions. As soon as you can do that, you can write about it.

We all experience empathy when we lose ourselves in a good movie, book, or TV program, when we cry over a sad ending or care about what happens to the hero. You can use these empathic feelings as the basis for new songs.

Do It Now!
Choose a situation from your past or watch a dramatic TV show or movie and pick a scene that interests you. Write out the situation in your own words. Try to get inside the emotions of someone in the scene — really BE there. Imagine your surroundings, the past that led up to it and what might happen next. What emotions are you feeling? What you want to say and do in this situation. Make a list of phrases and ideas that describe what you’re feeling. Choose one of these phrases and make it the title of your song. For a variation on this idea, choose your material from a cable news channel and base your song on real people and events.

In my book, “Shortcuts to Hit Songwriting,” there are several techniques that will help you develop a complete lyric from your title (Shortcuts #44 – #47), then use the lyric to suggest the raw material for a melody.

Based on “Shortcuts to Hit Songwriting” by Robin Frederick. Available at Amazon.com. Copyright 2009 Robin Frederick. All rights reserved.