Pay to get your song performed/recorded/mixed/mastered

  • Thread starter Thread starter ido1957
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In Nashville the songwriters rarely sing or play on the demos of their songs. I don't know what the prices are now, but when I lived there songwriters would pay $500.00 for three songs. The songs were recorded by studio musicians and singers. That price included everything but mastering. I imagine the price is still about the same. There were also guys that had their own studios and could play every instrument who would do it even cheaper. The singer's charged around $50.00 per song.
 
Greg_L said:
He knows absolutely nothing about writing a song or playing an instrument of any kind. How would he get some song he's written in his head to someone that could make it happen? This is what I'm curious about. Not the validity. Just how it's done.
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I get your point, and I agree that if you "write" you probably know something about theory and you probably play at least well enough to know what notes/chords and all that....

....but there are people who, like I said, are able to write lyrics and hum out a melody...and that can be enought to get a "song".

I mean....they could simply turn on a small recorder of the most basic kind (digital, cassettte, etc)...sing those lyrics into it with their melody....then hand that over to a bunch of pros and pay them...and you got a recored song.
Done.

You can't just go with, "I have a song in my head but don't know how to get any of it out on paper or into a recorder".
That obviously won't work.
 
That's what I'm wondering and what I figured. They'd have to sing or hum or whatever and get someone else to figure it out. Then what? I'm assuming the players would have to get a ton of leeway to do whatever with it, or it's a shitload of trial-and-error. Is this what you're hearing in your head? Is this? How about this? Lol. What a nightmare.
 
I have no idea what that means. It just seemed like the thing to say at the time. :eek:
 
I thought I said something profound once, but then I sobered up! LOL!
 
I'm always saying profound shit. That's why I'm glad the internet is here to keep an eternal record of my brilliant musings.
 
Greg_L said:
So what's his method? How does he, not knowing anything about how two notes work together, get his ideas into the hands that can play music and record it? Does literally hum a few sounds to someone and they run with it?
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I think so. Puts words on a paper and a melody in his head and he goes to a musician and hacks it out.

I have this horrible image of some grown guy trying to work out a new song for Britney Spears. It's like some comedy skit on SNL or something. I can't shake it... I need a drink. :drunk:
 
RAMI said:
Hehe....He's not making a point. He's asking a simple fucking question,which doesn't seem to have a simple fucking answer. :D
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I was agreeing with his point about how most songwriters have "some" ability to play music.

And I gave him a simple answer to the actual question:

miroslav said:
....they could simply turn on a small recorder of the most basic kind (digital, cassettte, etc)...sing those lyrics into it with their melody....then hand that over to a bunch of pros and pay them...and you got a recored song.
Done.
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:)
 
Chili said:
I think so. Puts words on a paper and a melody in his head and he goes to a musician and hacks it out.

I have this horrible image of some grown guy trying to work out a new song for Britney Spears. It's like some comedy skit on SNL or something. I can't shake it... I need a drink. :drunk:
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Yeah, that is disturbing.
 
miroslav said:
I was agreeing with his point about how most songwriters have "some" ability to play music. And I gave him a simple answer to the actual question::)
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Holy shit. I got to use more smileys :eek:
Either that or you might want to try switching to decaf for a while. :)
 
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RAMI said:
Holy shit. I got to use more smileys :eek:
Either that or you might want to try switching to decaf for a while. :)
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Maybe you should....;)....I had a smiley in my post.

Here....another one. :)
 
You're right....nothing worse than hanging a smiley way down like that after everything's been said....my bad.
I'll put them up higher for you next time.

:D
 
LOL @ you guys having fun at this shit! Wait, I need to place the smiley in the right place.


Up my own ass here < :)

LOL!
 
I was trying to get things going in L.A. in the 80's, and working with music classified ads there I met some really odd people.

One was Angelyne, the Billboard Queen. She paid to be famous by having billboards with her "sexy" likeness plastered around Hollywood and Beverly Hills. We discussed me being her guitar player. On a side note, all of the people that I auditioned for or with were always more concerned with what I looked like than with whether I had any musical talent. She really liked my cream white Gibson Explorer.

Anyway Louis, another contact I made through L.A. Weekly or some such rag, thought he was a singer/ songwriter. He sang for me several times his song he had written about a pyromaniac. We put it together musically, rented studio time at a small home studio there (something like $40 / hour) and banged out two songs; his and one of mine. I played the instruments, he sang his own lyrics. I still have the tapes that we took with us at the end of the day, my first solo songwriter / recording effort and Louis' "Pyromaniac." He couldn't play any instruments at all but he was able to convey the essence of his song to me just by snapping his fingers to the swing beat and singing. In the end he did his own one finger keyboard part in the studio.

I obviously got nothing for all my effort; I take that back, I learned a lot.
And it was great fun, I'll never forget it.
 
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