Hey Patti – I actually moved to Nashville about 3 years ago after a few years of traveling down twice a year to do exactly what you are doing. Here is some advice from my experience FWIW.
Do your homework and set up appointments with publishers
before you actually make the trip. There is a book out there called “Songwriter’s Market”. Get it. It has the names and contact info of publishers in town. When I first started taking trips down here I used this book along with a download from the Yahoo Yellow pages to build a database of publishers. Then I stated calling for appointments. This is pretty hit and miss, and most won’t want to talk to you, but hey, it’s worth a shot.
Warning: you may end up talking to some folks who are less than savory. If they start talking about you putting any money up, run like hell. Most reputable publishers will put their own money into a demo & pitching a song if they like it (I know there is one poster here who is paying for some mentoring and is quite happy with the results – so no disrespect meant to him, in fact he is keeping me posted for when I finally get more of my stuff re-recorded).
When you get in town, stop by the Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI)
http://www.nashvillesongwriters.com office. They are really nice folks and helped me out a lot when I visited town. I would suggest a membership too. It’s $100 per year and they have great resources to get you started. They also have critique services by mail and local critiques every other Thursday evening (if it hasn’t changed) where you take a tape in and they (a panel of professional songwriters), with a roomful of other songwriters listen and throw out critiques of your song. It can be rather humbling, but a good learning experience. I would actually suggest joining NSAI several months before you travel down. You will get some very good guidelines on approaching publishers and how to put a standard, professional looking package together for them (don’t worry, it’s not that involved).
A publisher listening to your song is a whole new experience. Don’t be intimidated by it. The first trip I made down here, I hooked up with a publisher that was very helpful (he didn’t sign me, but he was still helpful
). On the first visit, he listened to one verse and part of a chorus of the first song, lyric sheet in hand. He stopped the tape and proceeded to rip the song apart. Ditto for the other two on the tape I gave him. By my last trip (before I actually moved down here) he was listening to nearly all of each song. Some of them were new and some of them were rehashed songs he listened to before. I could tell I made progress by the critiques (but he still didn’t sign me
). Once I moved down here, life happened (that’s a great song btw
), between new job, new house, new child, I really haven’t done anything for 3 years (coincidentally the age of my beautiful daughter
). I am about to get back in the game again.
Don’t be surprised, if a publisher sees some potential in your writing, they suggest you move down here. That’s what happened to me. They won’t help you move or anything, but depending on you situation, it may be a good move. The downside is there are many thousands of songwriters in this town all trying to get cuts. It only happens for a very small percentage. The upside is that there are many thousands of songwriters in this town all trying to get cuts and only a small percentage get them. However, if you have happened to network with one who gets a break, then you are that much closer and higher up on the ladder (you still have to write the killer songs though
).
As far as songwriter demos go…you
can submit just a guitar (or piano)/vocal arrangement. I would not recommend it if you can do better. However, I also would not go and spend a fortune on recording a demo until you know you have a really good song as you will likely be changing it again and again. That’s why I got into home recording. From what I’ve heard the demo should be straight forward with lead vocal way up front. A four instrument demo is pretty common for country music (guitar, piano, bass, drums). There just should be enough backing music to get the musical point across. Instrumental breaks and guitar solos are a no no (I learned the hard way from the pained expression from the publisher who sat across the desk from me) unless they are absolutely necessary to develop the song in some way (like a short instrumental bridge may be ok). At the risk of sounding self inflated, I will post a link to my one and only song that I took a serious stab at re-recording. I was told that it was a good quality songwriter demo in an NSAI critique (the song itself is another story – he said it was well written but it didn’t jump out and grab him). Oh well I still like it. It’s here in this thread
https://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?s=&threadid=74776
If someone offers you a publishing contract,
do even more homework. Smaller publishers (which is who you more than likely will be dealing with, at least for a while) can be great or terrible. The upside is that a good one generally work harder for your one song than a major would. Your song has less likelihood of sitting unused in a gigantic catalogue. The downside is that there are a lot of shady publishers and most of them are the smaller one. I was offered a one song deal by a publisher here in town on the above song. After consulting with some folks at NSAI I decided not to sign it. I think (not sure) I made the right choice. However if you never sign, you never get a deal.
Seriously, since I have been in your shoes not too long ago, don’t hesitate to ask any questions either here, pm or my email (link in my profile should work). I don’t know if I’ll have the answers, but I went through this all very painfully not knowing what the hell I was doing and did learn a few things along the way.
Good luck
(sorry…maybe I should have just written a book)