74% of Songwriters Make Less Than $10k A Year:

[Notes_Norton]

||: Get up and Boogie  Get up and Boogie (That's right)

Get up and Boogie  Get up and Boogie (That's right)

Get up and Boogie  Get up and Boogie (That's right)

Boogie Boogie :||

From Silver Convention, that's all the lyrics, and repeated ad nauseam. And it was a big hit.

Perhaps I should write songs. My hackneyed lyrics were better than that.

 

Notes ♫

 

[craigb]

[Grem]

Here I go stepping out the norm...

I still remember the first time I ever heard The Police. The guy and his girlfriend was all excited about them and was gushing about how great this new band sounded. They started with Roxanne and was in love with it. I hated it. Still do. I just don't get it. At all. I don't own anything by The Police (not that they need my money!).  I didn't like to listen to anything until the Syncronicity era. Then I got into earlier songs "Message in Bottle" and "Every Little Thing She Does". And the more I listened to these songs I realized how great Copeland was. Andy too for that matter. In fact I realized they all were really exceptional musicians. 

And the same thing happened when I first heard Ozzy's first solo album, and AC/DC's first album. Friends would come over gushing about these great new bands. Just didn't like either. However, I came to like and really enjoy Ozzy. When I had to learn "Highway To Hell", I kinda started to like AC/DC. But when Back In Black came out, I went ape shzz over it. Learned every song. But they fell out of favor for me with the next album. And I really haven't like anything they came out with since BiB.

BOT, this song writer right here don't make no money from my songs.  

 

[Bapu]

BREAKING NEWS

I've spent waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more on buying tool$ to make songs than I've earned from them (hint $0.00)

[Brian Walton]

Never once met a songwriter that actually works 40+ hours a week, every week, for years on songwriting.  

[craigb]

7 minutes ago, Brian Walton said:

Never once met a songwriter that actually works 40+ hours a week, every week, for years on songwriting.  

Are you counting all time on the recreational drugs and alcohol that they took to be creative? 😂

[Brian Walton]

8 minutes ago, craigb said:

Are you counting all time on the recreational drugs and alcohol that they took to be creative? 😂

If they were actually trying to write songs during this time, then yes.  But  most can't keep up with a 40+ hour dedicated work week actually proactively doing both.

[Notes_Norton]

15 hours ago, Brian Walton said:

Never once met a songwriter that actually works 40+ hours a week, every week, for years on songwriting.  

When I was working for Motown, I met Eddie Holland. He, his brother, and Lamont Dozier made a career of writing songs and producing records. They also made a fortune. 

I suppose teams like Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller or the Gerswins, and others, spent a lot of time writing songs.

Sometimes I think the death of the professional songwriter and the necessity for the artist to write their own songs has made pop music a little worse. Think of the songwriters of the Brill Building or Tin Pan Alley who spent their careers writing, rewriting, and polishing their songs. Making a career of how to make the song better, without having to take the time out to tour, record, rehearse and so on. 

Bacharach/David, Otis Blackwell, Boyce/Hart, Mann/Weill, Pomus/Shuman, Sedaka/Greenfield, Goffin/King, Hamlisch, Spector, Greenwich/Barry, and so many more.

That's not to say there aren't some very talented people who can both write and perform their songs, I just think that we lost something when that became a requirement.

Elvis Presley, Gene Pitney, Bobby Darin, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Aretha Franklin, Tom Jones, Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, Andy Williams, Ella Fitzgerald, Barbra Striesand, Diana Ross, and so many more wouldn't have graced our eardrums if they were required to write their own songs.  Conversely, so many great songs wouldn't have been written.

 

Notes ♫

[pwallie]

 

[Brian Walton]

7 hours ago, Notes_Norton said:

When I was working for Motown, I met Eddie Holland. He, his brother, and Lamont Dozier made a career of writing songs and producing records. They also made a fortune. 

I suppose teams like Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller or the Gerswins, and others, spent a lot of time writing songs.

Sometimes I think the death of the professional songwriter and the necessity for the artist to write their own songs has made pop music a little worse. Think of the songwriters of the Brill Building or Tin Pan Alley who spent their careers writing, rewriting, and polishing their songs. Making a career of how to make the song better, without having to take the time out to tour, record, rehearse and so on. 

Bacharach/David, Otis Blackwell, Boyce/Hart, Mann/Weill, Pomus/Shuman, Sedaka/Greenfield, Goffin/King, Hamlisch, Spector, Greenwich/Barry, and so many more.

That's not to say there aren't some very talented people who can both write and perform their songs, I just think that we lost something when that became a requirement.

Elvis Presley, Gene Pitney, Bobby Darin, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Aretha Franklin, Tom Jones, Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, Andy Williams, Ella Fitzgerald, Barbra Striesand, Diana Ross, and so many more wouldn't have graced our eardrums if they were required to write their own songs.  Conversely, so many great songs wouldn't have been written.

 

Notes ♫

Yes, those are all massive exceptions who basically worked out of a places that pumped artists in.  The fraction of 1% that were in such a spot (and deservedly so).   But even so, I'd bet most of them were also not working 40 hours a week year after year doing it.  There would be pockets of time they might be doing that much, but even studios tend to have a lot of downtime where someone isn't working on their craft all day long.  

Same with the notion that full time guitar players play 8 hours a day - that only last so long.  In fact, when you here the stories of Satch or Vai having those "practice routines" of playing that much in the early years of development - it is always in the context of how crazy that is.

Edited August 16 by Brian Walton

[Notes_Norton]

I don't know about that. 

I'm a full-time musician, and I'd say I work more than 40 hours per week.

• I gig
• I set up and tear down gear
• I learn new songs and make the backing tracks myself from scratch (drums, bass, comp parts) - very time sonsuming
• I write aftermarket styles for the audio-accompaniment app, Band-in-a-Box
• I'm promoting my duo and BiaB biz via my e-mail list and social media
• Even listening to the radio/YouTube/CDs and other sources is work, part 1. Do we need to learn this song? Can we? 
• Even listening to the radio/YouTube/CDs and other sources is work, part 2. What makes this a good song? Is it the melody holding the pitch while the background chords have ascending voices? Is it that the 2s and 4s are so far behind the beat? Is it because the B section too the song out of the tonic key in an unusual and delightful way? And so on and on and on and on ||: and on :||

Basically, I'm working 24/7. I'll even wake up mid-night and scribble something I need to do on the pad by the bed.

I'd say something similar happens via a professional songwriter.

There is a story about Doc Pomus, He had polio as a child, and as a result, couldn't dance. He got married, at his wedding reception his bride was dancing with just about everybody. Still at work, he penned (and later refined) his song Save The Last Dance For Me, by the Drifters. I can see him at the reception writing, “But don't forget who's taking you home, And in whose arms you're gonna be, So darlin' Save the last dance for me”.

When you are self-employed, you get to pick which 16 hours of the day you are going to be on the job.

 

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

[57Gregy]

At last, a group I can truly belong to.

[Terry Kelley]

But with Bandlab ... !