Keeping Up with the Competition
To get a staff job at a publishing house, you have to be better than someone else who is about to be let go. To get a cut on an album, your song has to be better than songs written by the artist, the producer, all their friends, cousins, friends of cousins, and all the writers at the publishing companies who handle the artist's and producer's songs. You have to have an edge. To compete, you must not only be a great songwriter, but also a well-informed one.
Once you start writing “ahead of the market,” you may have to wait for some of the more conservative people to catch up. If you have a cutting-edge song that a publisher doesn't get, run it by him again in a few months if the style is still hot.
As a professional songwriter, part of your job is to keep up on current hits and top artists. You need to know what kinds of songs are being cut and which artists are selling the most records. This helps you decide what kinds of songs to write and where to pitch them. Of course, you shouldn't write anything you don't like. A better way is to find what you do like about current hits and styles and then use that to write a song that you, and everyone else, will love.
Reading the charts and trade magazines helps you keep up with current formats. When people talk about the charts, they're usually referring to the charts in
Knowing what's playing on the radio helps you to write songs that get played on the radio. Having an idea what will be the next trend can help you decide what musical directions and lyric styles to experiment with to stay competitive in the marketplace. Writing in a current style can be the difference between being a “good” songwriter and a professional songwriter.
One way to keep up with all the trade magazines without starving to death is to have each person in your peer group subscribe to one publication, then share the information. Your local library may carry
