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Continued from page 52 It depends on the genre. That’s a fair question. If you’re doing Pop/R&B or a straight-up Pop record, your demo better be almost a record or completely sound like a record. In that genre, nowadays the demos are expected to be record quality. As a matter of fact, a lot of times producers will produce a track that doesn’t have a melody yet. It’s got a chord change and a rhythmic pattern, but it doesn’t have a melody, a vocal or a lyric yet, and then the artist will work with somebody who will just do the melody and the lyrics. So, yeah, in that genre of music the quality on the demo has to be exceptionally high. For a singer/songwriter, it could be a guitar/vocal. Country can go either way. If you’re an incredibly talented Country writer and you know all the rules of Country writing, and you’ve got a great guitar/vocal demo, it’s gonna fly in Nashville. By the same token, you could have the most polished produced demo on the planet, and if it’s a B-plus song, it’s not gonna get cut. Audience member: I have a quick one on the subject of custom critiques. Say I send a track in for a listing and screener #76 says, “Perfect, except for this.” I know it’s too late to come back and try it again, but say if I want to pay for a custom critique and come back after I’ve worked on it and say, “Did I fix it?” Can I get that same screener—even though I don’t know screener #76’s name—to listen to my song and tell me if I’m still missing it, or I got it, or I’ve still got some work to do? Robin: That happens a lot of the time. The truth is, if it were really, really close, it would get forwarded. The screener is not going to return something on a tiny, niggling little point. They’re not like that. So sometimes they’ll couch it and say, “I really like this song, but it could use a little bit of work on the third line of the verse.” But the truth is, if it were just the third line of the verse, they’d be forwarding it. I wish I could tell that to everybody. The screeners want to tell you what your strengths are, they want you to know what you’re doing right, because that helps people get better at what they’re doing right. But they’ll pick a couple of things, depending on the screener’s background and expertise. We have songwriters, we have producers, and we have publishers who are screeners. They’ll all look at what their own area of expertise is, and they may miss those other areas. So my feeling is—and I’m really glad you brought this question up today— that you should look for a trend among the screeners’ comments. Rather than going out and rewriting—and especially don’t spend money on re-producing something that you’ve made a tiny little tweak in. Instead of that, get an instrumental mix of your

song if you find that the screeners are saying that the second verse really needs to be strengthened. There are three or four ways to do that. Different screeners will say to you, “Well, I think this would work better if you punched up the second verse and put in more contrast between your verse and chorus.” Be prepared to sit down with your guitar or your keyboard and try those changes to see if you like them, because you are the ultimate decider. Does it move me more? When I was a TAXI member I got suggestions, and believe me, a couple times I did them and I went, “Wow, why didn’t I think of that?” You can’t think of everything. There were other suggestions and I thought, “No, I’m not gonna change that.” So look for a trend. If all the screeners are saying you need more attention grabbing in your chorus, or

maybe more contrast in your chorus, then think about putting a bigger interval jump at the top of your chorus, a stronger change of pace in the phrasing of the melody and the lyrics. If you have an instrumental-only mix, most of those suggested changes are in the lyrics and the melody. You can change those just by recording a new vocal. It won’t cost you redoing the demo, and it won’t take you much time. But above all, sit down first with your keyboard or guitar to see if it moves you, if you like that change. That’s the test. And then look for a trend among the screeners before you make any changes. OK? And I’m sorry to say, that we’re out of time. I hope this was helpful. Robin Frederick, Kevin Houlihan and Karl Louis. Thank you all! [Applause]

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Recording - December 2012

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