The Decision-Makers
There are a lot more people who can decide that a song won't go on a recording project than there are people who can decide it will. At a publishing office, the receptionist, copy boy, or janitor may also serve as a song screener; after all, chances are they are also songwriters, musicians, or singers. Even if they're not, they probably know more about the music business than you do.
Screeners may include the catalog manager (copy boy), executive assistant (secretary or gopher), and the intern — an unpaid student job for those who hope to land a job in the music industry after college.
Screeners weed out the songs that have long intros, sound “muddy,” or are just plain horrible. Most songs never make it past this first level: You'd be surprised at what sounds horrible after listening to a hundred songs a day for a few months. Screeners mostly handle mail-ins and drop-offs. This means that getting an actual appointment may sometimes bump you up a level.
Treat everybody in the music business with respect. Fortunes can change fast and that secretary could be a VP within a couple of years or the mailroom guy might get an artist deal. Don't be fake or overdo it, just treat everyone as you'd like to be treated.
After the screeners, there are professional managers and pluggers. Professional managers handle the day-to-day supervision of the staff writers and help guide their careers. Pluggers take songs from the publisher's catalog to pitch to A&R reps, producers, and artists. If you make an appointment at a publishing company, you may meet with a professional manager or a plugger. The top decision-maker at a publishing house is usually the creative director.
The Real Decision-MakersPeople who can actually decide to put a song on a record are the artist, the label's A&R rep for that artist, and the producer of the artist's recording project. It's usually tough getting a song to even one of them. If it weren't, we wouldn't need publishers. Sometimes the members of the artist's touring band can get a song heard, depending on how close the artist is with the band. Merchandise managers (the T-shirt people), bus drivers, live sound engineers, or the artist's personal assistant or instrument technician might get your song heard on a good day. Roadies probably don't have a great chance. Gardeners, dentists, and others probably aren't a good bet, as their professional relationship to these people is not a musical one. It's considered bad manners to try to pitch to the spouses or family members of the artist, producer, or A&R rep unless invited to. It's okay, however, to give anyone a free CD for his or her own enjoyment.
Don't expect someone connected to pitch for you just because you gave him or her a CD to play for a VIP. If someone's nice enough to take a CD, leave it at that. If he or she is impressed enough to play it for the person you're trying to impress, you'll hear about it.
You might run into problems trying to get the creative director of a big New York publishing company to listen to your songs. It's probably going to be easier to get someone at Bob's Bait Shop and Publishing in East Nostril, Arkansas to check out your stuff and give you some feedback. Heck, you might even get ‘ole Bob himself to listen if the fish aren't biting. The problem is that Bob probably can't do much for you, unless you'd be willing to accept night crawlers as pay.
You're really wasting time trying to get to either of these guys. One is unreachable (for now) and the other can't help your career. You need an attainable goal that moves you forward. Shoot for small- to medium-sized publishers in music hubs. These people won't be as easy to get to as ‘ole Bob, but with a little persistence, you can get them to listen to your songs and they can do something for you.
