How to Keep Your Publisher, Manger, Agent, Producer and Label Happy

By Molly-Ann Leikin, Song Marketing Consultant

You’ve heard of the running of the bulls in Pampola?  When you’re famous, that’s exactly how people will stampede, tripping over themselves and killing their young, desperate to give you whatever you want.  They’ll take all of your calls before you even make them, answer your texts instantly, come to your parties, early, with cases of Cristal, and help your kids with their pre-school entrance essays.

Until then, while you’re still on your way up, and determined to catch someone’s life-changing ear, the job of making the population of your business entourage happy is all on you.  Period.

The good news:  your Publisher, Manager, Agent, Publicist, Label (PMAPL) can only make money when you do.  The bad news:  with sixteen hours in a work day, the bulk of their time is spent on The Guarantee.  If they represent artists who are making 18-wheelers stashed with cash right now, chances are good they won’t drop everything to put their team on your standby gig at Starbucks, North Eastern Outer Mongolia.  Know that.  Deal with it.  Don’t call and leave hate messages or deliver dead fish wrapped in the L.A. Times to their offices.  (Please note:  no fish, no newspapers.  That goes for all other dead protein, and periodicals, too.)

There are millions of talented people out there vying for your PMAPL’s time.  At this point, the person on the other side of the desk has all the power in your life.  Period.  Here’s how to keep your career moving forward, and eventually turn that all around in your favor. 

l. Set the ground rules with your PMAPL as to who will contact whom, and when.  Try to get a timeline commitment up front, so you don’t have to send the noodge mail, “R U shining me on or did U really die?”  Instead, suggest setting up a call once a month.  That’s fair and reasonable.        

2. Respect those ground rules.  When PMAPL’s start getting the “Where’s My Money” messages,  they will quickly lose interest and reassign your project to the back burner or the shredder altogether, preferring to work with professionals who respect other people’s time and priorities.

3. Don’t dump your drama on your PMAPL.  “Dude, my pick-up was booted, had to blow off my probation officer again, plus the kidlet is starting to look exactly like Arnold Schwartzenneger.”  You wouldn’t want anyone to lay that on you, right?  So only do and say what you would want to hear if you were on the PMAPL’s side of the desk.  Keep everything professional.

4.  Don’t try to get your PMAPL’s attention with ostentatious gifts.  You can’t afford the Bentleys they want.  At least not yet.  When you can, they’ll steal the needed funds, in plain sight, from your royalties.    

5. Remember that your PMAPL’s are your business partners.  They can only make money when you do.  Let them do their jobs for you.  Yours is to write/sing/perform, and attend every industry function, shaking hands, smiling, gathering business cards, asking when it would be convenient for you to call. 

6. Hang this on your fridge.

  © 2014 Molly-Ann Leikin  www.songmd.com  songmd@songmd.com

Molly-Ann Leikin (rhymes with bacon) created the Songwriting Consultation industry.  In the past five years, 6 of her clients have won Grammys.  Eleven more are Grammy nominees.  The author of “How To Write a Hit Song, Fifth Edition” and “How to Be a Hit Songwriter”, Molly is an Emmy nominee, has 15 gold and platinum records, taught songwriting at UCLA, and works by private consultation only.  She practices yoga, takes long, brisk walks and flosses, daily.   

Contact Molly for your Hit Song Marketing Consultation/Evaluation at songmd@songmd.com

For more information on the 19th Annual USA Songwriting Competition, go to: http://www.songwriting.net 

The Bridge, the Whole Bridge and Nothing But the Bridge

By Molly-Ann Leikin, Music Business Mastery Coach

There is no songwriter I ever knew who doesn’t have problems writing a bridge now and then.  And there is no singer/songwriter/producer among my clients who doesn’t try to negotiate his/her way out of a creating that section altogether. 

“I don’t need one, right?”

NOT.      

The third section of any song is as almost as important as the chorus.  So let’s talk about this.

For review:  contemporary songs usually have at least three sections – the verse, the chorus and the bridge.  Ideally, for each section, the melody line, the chords, the rhythm and the words are different from each other.  Whatever you’ve done in the verse, don’t do in the chorus or the bridge, and whatever you do in the chorus, don’t do in the verse or the bridge.  If you find you overlap or borrow from earlier parts of your song, revise the bridge so you don’t.  This isn’t just a chord change.  I mean melody, rhythm and the words. 

To me, song structure is like a simple, wooden, kid’s puzzle.  The verse is a triangle, the chorus is a square and the bridge is a circle.  That isn’t a square, a circle and another circle hoping to be a triangle when it grows up.  A triangle is a triangle.

As there are three different shapes in a song, each shape is a different color.  Let’s say the square is red, the circle is green and the triangle is blue, or ciel d’Albuquerque, if that’s how you roll.   

Listening to the top forty for twenty minutes will convince you that bridges in contemporary songs are often longer and more rhythmic than they ever used to be.  Although a decade ago the bridge was a pretty standard eight bars or two lines that rhymed, now a bridge is often an irregular number of seconds long, and sometimes, ‘way past 30.  Listen and you’ll hear that in a hit song, the bridge can include several rhythmic hooks and doesn’t have to rhyme anywhere.   

Many songwriters/producers who consult with me - even some of my Grammy winners - are so relieved to have finished their verses and choruses, and have such great tracks, they convince themselves that their bridges should be instrumentals. 

NOT.

I try to tell them gently but firmly that an instrumental break is often the excuse for someone to pop out a CD or delete an mp3.   We are, after all, in the original Shark Tank.     

Let’s be practical.  Suppose someone wants to use your song/track in a movie, but the scene is3:20and your song doesn’t have a bridge and is only 2:44.  It’s much easier for the music editor to shorten a track than for you to create a bridge in the middle of the night - months or years after you wrote the song – only to find that the music supervisor faced a deadline and had to choose another track that fit the scene.    

You worked hard to get that music supervisor’s ear.  Don’t go flopsy now.

The bridge is a good place for a surprise and a twist – where something unexpected happens musically and lyrically that spins the song in an OMG direction.  I don’t mean a weird chord.  I’m talkin’ new melody and rhythm for an uneven number of bars, plus a story twist in the lyric, like the crisis at the end of the second act in a good movie or play.       

The chorus is still the most important section of the song, and the verse has to be strong enough to hold our attention for 25 seconds, more or less, until the hook.  But once we’ve heard two verses and two choruses, we, as the audience, need to hear something new.  And that’s where your bridge goes to work bringing your song home.

© 2013 Molly-Ann Leikin

Molly-Ann Leikin is an Emmy nominee.  The author of “How To Write A Hit Song” and “How To Be A Hit Songwriter”, she has written themes and songs for over five dozen TV shows and movies, including “Violet” that won an Oscar.

After lyric, song and instrumental marketing consultations with Molly, six of her clients have won Grammys, nine more have Grammy nominations, and so far, 6238 of Molly’s protégées have placed their work in TV shows, movies, on CD’s, in commercials, and their songs/tracks have been downloaded all over the web.  It starts with a consultation – in a private meeting or phone call with Molly or in one of her small, personal classes.  www.songmd.com and songmd@songmd.com

 For more information on the 18th Annual USA Songwriting Competition, please go to: http://www.songwriting.net

How Do I Sell My Songs?

by Molly-Ann Leikin, Music Industry Mastery Coach

Songwriters always ask me, “how do I sell my songs? Can you show me how to sell my songs? Please help me sell my songs.”

As songwriters, we don’t sell our songs. Anybody who tries to buy your music is a thief.

Nobody buys lyrics, either. That, too, is a scam.

As songwriters, we earn royalties when our songs/tracks are recorded and released on CD’s, performed for profit on the air – radio, TV, online, and licensed for use in TV shows, movies, commercials, and downloaded all over the web.

When CD’s of our work are released for sale, the songwriter usually gets half of the royalty income, called a mechanical royalty, which at the moment, is 9.2 cents per track per copy sold. When this money is collected, our publishers send us royalty checks each quarter.

A large chunk of the money earned by songwriters comes from performances for profit on the radio, TV and online. Here’s how that works: there are three performing rights societies in the US - ASCAP, BMI and SESAC. (Most countries outside the USA have their own societies). To collect performance royalties, you have to join one of the societies. They keep track of when and where our songs are broadcast, from a 5000 watt station in Beserk, MI, to a 100,000 watt station in Manhattan, and send royalty checks directly to us based on the number of paid performances logged in their random samplings. As songwriters, we also receive checks for foreign performances in most countries around the world. A few still refuse to pay, but we’re working on that. Domestic royalties are distributed quarterly. Foreign are distributed semi-annually.

Since we rarely know where are songs are performed on the air, and when, it’s always a delicious surprise going to the mailbox and finding a royalty statement, plus a nice, fat check, showing our songs have been sung and performed on the radio, in movies, TV, and downloaded in countries whose names we can’t even spell.

But we don’t sell our songs. Ever. Ever. Ever.

For more information about how to market your songs so they start creating income streams for you, I’ll be glad to set up a personal consultation, either by phone or email. Thank you for understanding that for legal reasons, any material sent to me without my consulting fee, must, regrettably, be deleted immediately.

© 2013 Molly-Ann Leikin

Molly-Ann Leikin is an Emmy nominee. The author of “How To Write A Hit Song” and “How To Be A Hit Songwriter”, she has written themes and songs for over five dozen TV shows and movies, including “Violet” that won an Oscar.

After marketing consultations with Molly, five of her clients have won Grammys, seven more have Grammy nominations, and so far, over 6200 of Molly’s lyricist and composer protégées have placed their work in TV shows, movies, on CD’s in commercials, and their songs/tracks have been downloaded all over the web. It all starts with a consultation. www.songmd.com

For more information on the 18^th Annual USA Songwriting Competition, go to: http://www.songwriting.net

Getting Your First Big Yes In Songwriting

By Molly-Ann Leikin

This morning, as I took my walk up the hill behind my house, I realized that if I stacked all the no’s I’ve been told from day one, they would block the Alps.

On the other hand, the yeses would barely make it past my ankle.

Nonetheless, I am enjoying a great career in the music business.

Over the years, I’ve probably heard more no’s than most songwriters, because I wasn’t a groupie, I wore a bra, didn’t do drugs, and I wasn’t anybody’s daughter.

But after seven years of “you can’t be serious,” a publisher at Warner Brothers asked me to write a song for somebody, and I was back with it the next day at 7:24 a.m. Waiting on WB's front step, which is totally out of character for drive-around-the-block-once-then-split me, I was cool when WB guy rolled in at eleven. He didn’t use my song that time, but he appreciated my passion. After 398.2 days of this, he signed me a staffwriter.

Yes, I am talented. But everybody's talented. I just wanted it more.

Do you?

© 2012 Molly-Ann Leikin

Molly-Ann Leikin is an Emmy nominee. The author of “How to Write A Hit Song” and “How to Be A Hit Songwriter”, she has written themes and songs for over five dozen TV shows and movies, including “Violet” that won an Oscar. Through co-writing and song marketing consultations, four of Molly’s clients have Grammy nominations, another won an Emmy, and so far, with Molly’s help, over 6000 of her other lyricist and composer protégées have placed their work in TV shows, movies, on CD’s and in commercials. Molly would be happy to discuss a co-write or consultation with you: 800-851-6588 songmd@songmd.com www.songmd.com

For more information on the 17th Annual USA Songwriting Competition, go to: http://www.songwriting.net 

The Money Hello By Molly-Ann Leikin, Co-writer, Song Marketing Consultant

Your new project is finally finished. Time to switch into marketing mode.

But you don’t know anybody. Sleezeballs, maybe, but no one legit.

First, lose the sleezeballs.

Then, compose a snappy introduction. Use it at every industry function, and in all contact mail.

I call it the money hello. You’ve only got a few seconds to convince busy strangers that taking the time to read or hear your pitch, let alone listen to your work, will lead them to an instant eighteen-wheeler full of unmarked hundreds.

Try something like this:

“I’m Jalapeño Pincus. I write and sing New Country, there are ten hit singles on my new CD,

Word is there’s nobody better than you at what you do, so I want us to meet before I sign with someone else.”

The letter you don’t want to write is: “kno job kno fud wiffe run offf w truk n trukker gotta sail mi songs t mak bayl..” Nobody wants to hear your sad story. Or deal with your give-me-strength spelling. So re-read what you write before sending it. And rewrite it, too. Just as if it were a song.

A powerful, short intro is essential to capturing someone’s attention. It’s like getting to the hook quickly in a song. While composing your message, be sure to ask how, and in which format, to submit your work, to whose attention, at which address, the anticipated turn-around time, and how to mark the message/package so it won’t be mistaken for spam.

Let me know how you do.

© 2012 Molly-Ann Leikin

Molly-Ann Leikin is an Emmy nominee. The author of “How to Write A Hit Song” and “How to Be A Hit Songwriter”, she has written themes and songs for over five dozen TV shows and movies, including “Violet” that won an Oscar. Through co-writing and song marketing consultations, four of Molly’s clients have Grammy nominations, another won an Emmy, and so far, with Molly’s help, over 6000 of her other lyricist and composer protégées have placed their work in TV shows, movies, on CD’s and in commercials. Molly would be happy to discuss a co-write or consultation with you: 800-851-6588 songmd@songmd.com www.songmd.com

For more information on the 17th Annual USA Songwriting Competition, go to: http://www.songwriting.net 

Top 10 Best Songwriting Books by Jessica Brandon

We have been receiving questions "Can you recemmend us the best books on songwriting?", "Is this the best book ever on songwriting?". Here is our Top 10 list of the best songwriting books:

How to Be a Hit Songwriter: Polishing and Marketing Your Lyrics and Music by Molly-Ann Leikin
Molly-Ann Leikin is the award-winning songwriter and songwriting consultant who helps good songwriters all over the world become hit songwriters. Whether your work just needs a little rewriting, polishing or some strong connections, Leikin will guide you step by step to the top of the charts.

Tunesmith: Inside the Art of Songwriting by Jimmy Webb

Jimmy Webb is a legendary songwriter wrote household hit songs such as "MacArthur Park", "By the Time I Get to Phoenix", "Galveston". This book he write covers technical matters from basic chord theory and rhyme schemes to the protocol of pitching songs, Webb draws on a trove of personal anecdotes from a career spanning more than two decades.

How to Write a Hit Song by Molly-Ann Leiken. Molly-Ann Leiken presents an insider's look at the challenging and rapidly changing role of a professional songwriter. When someone with a house full of gold and platinum records sits down and says, "This is how I did it!" the rest of us are blessed to listen and learn.

Writing Better Lyrics - by Pat Pattison This book does exactly what it's name suggests, it will help you write better lyrics. It has so many exercises and ways to generate lyric ideas.

Melody in Songwriting: Tools and Techniques for Writing Hit Songs (Berklee Guide) -by Jack Perricone. This book examines hit songs and learning from them. This book will make you appreciate the value of this idea.

The Craft and Business of Songwriting by John Braheny. Examples from world class songwriters such as Paul McCartney, Lenny Kravitz and TLC. This book has been a bible for songwriters for a long time. 

Songwriters on Songwriting by Paul Zollo. I have learnt a lot from this book. Popular songwriters (songwriting giants) including Carole King, Paul Simon, Frank Zappa, Randy Newman, and Madonna discuss their songwriting methods and the way their classics came to be.

The Craft of Lyric Writing -by Sheila Davis. This is a good book with a strong focus on the lyrical side of songwriting. It is both educational and entertaining.

6 Steps To Songwriting Success: Comprehensive Guide To Writing And Marketing Hit Songs -by Jason Blume. Jason has had songs recorded by The Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, and many others. He has also won the USA Songwriting Competition (First Prize) in the past. Learn from the pro himself!

The Songwriters Idea Book: 40 Strategies to Excite Your Imagination, Help You Design Distinctive Songs, and Keep Your Creative Flow by Sheila Davis. Everyone wants to be original, and this book can be a very helpful tool towards that end. It's great book to help break you out of your normal way of approaching lyric writing, not to mention aid when you are blocked.

This article is brought to you courtesy of USA Songwriting Competition. For more information on thew 17th Annual USA Songwriting Competition, go to: http://www.songwriting.net

The Easy Way to Write Hit Melodies

By Molly-Ann Leikin, Song Marketing Consultant

www.songmd.com

To write stronger, memorable, singalongable tunes, here’s the process I use.  It has worked for 88% of my clients.  The 12% who didn’t have success, just plain didn’t do it.

My way isn’t the only way to write a melody, but if you are having issues with this part of your songs, here are six quick steps that work. 

When my songwriter clients send me their songs for consultation, and there is a problem with their tunes, it’s usually because these writers are playing chords, expecting them to do the melody’s job.  They can’t.  But when the notes come first, voila. 

The entire second chapter of the fifth edition of my book, “How To Write a Hit Song”, is about writing stronger melodies.  All of chapter eleven in “How To Be a Hit Songwriter” focuses exclusively on advanced melody construction. 

In both books, I define a melody as a series of single notes, with rhythm – something we hum or whistle.

Here’s how I write a melody.  There are 532 songs that are now on or have been on the charts because the writers tried this process:   

l. Put your guitar aside for now.  I know that sounds blasphemous, but when you change the process, you can change the result. C’mon.  Try it. 

2. At a keyboard, keep your left hand behind your back, while you choose individual notes with one finger on your right hand. Don’t play chords.  Just choose notes.  I’m watching…

3. Record everything.  Listen back, tweak what you’ve got, record, listen, tweak, record again, listen again, tweak, record.  Repeat this for a week.  Save all takes.  Then, at the end of that week, listen to everything.  

4. Assuming you like what you’ve written and rewritten, use those notes – no chords – just those notes – as your chorus melody.

5. Repeat the process for the verse melody, then the bridge, making sure the rhythm and melody of each section are completely different from the other two, and from anybody else’s song.

6. When you’re satisfied that the melody of each section is original and irresistibly singalongable, THEN add the chords. 

Let me know how you do.

Molly-Ann Leikin is an Emmy nominee.  The author of “How To Write A Hit Song” and “How To Be A Hit Songwriter”, she has written themes and songs for over five dozen TV shows and movies, including “Violet” that won an Oscar. Through marketing consultations with Molly, four of her clients have Grammy nominations, another won an Emmy, and so far, with her help, over 6000 of Molly’s lyricist and composer protégées have placed their work in TV shows, movies, on CD’s and in commercials.She’d be happy to set up a consultation with you:  www.songmd.com, songmd@songmd.com,  800-851-6588.

For more information on the 17^th Annual USA Songwriting Competition, go to: http://www.songwriting.net

Tearing Down Walls With Your Teeth by Molly-Ann Leikin

Have you looked at the Billboard charts lately, and wondered – why aren’t I there?

My songs, production chops, my voice, my performance – I’m as talented as anybody out there, and then some. So why is someone else having the hits, and not me?

Often, the difference between you and the guy in the front row at the Grammys holding the award, is one more phone call.

As sensitive people, we don’t have built-in hustle muscles. The irony is, we need them more than ever. Truthfully, no matter how talented, if you’re not willing to tear down walls with your teeth, stay out of the music business. The race is to the hungry, not necessarily the best.

The odds are against somebody swooping down and discovering you while you stay home singing to the squirrels. But, if you are brave enough to make one call a day, every day, to one new music contact, at the end of a year, you’ll have 365 new people in your business life. If only 10% of them ever listen to a note, that’s still 36. And all it takes is one.

Remember: the difference between you and the guy in the first row at the Grammys with the award in his hand, is one more phone call.

Make that call.

© 2011 Molly-Ann Leikin

Molly-Ann Leikin is a Career Mastery Coach and Songwriting Consultant.  An Emmy nominee, Molly has 14 gold and platinum records, plus four ASCAP Country Music Awards.  She's the author of "How To Write A Hit Song" and "How To Be A Hit Songwriter" and has written themes and songs for over four dozen TV shows and movies, including "Violet” that won an Oscar.  

Molly has helped launch the careers of thousands of singers and songwriters, three of whom have Grammy nominations. She can be reached at: www.songmd.com or 800-851-6588.

Whose Career Would You Kill to Have(and what is stopping you from having it?) by Molly-Ann Leikin

Yesterday, when no one was returning my calls and my lunch date bailed after I paid for valet parking in Beverly Hills, I tore into my secret stash of peanut M & M’s and made a list of everyone, in every field, whose career I’d like to have instead of mine.  

l. Mary Oliver – the poet’s poet.  Her first collection was published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich when I was an intern there during my New York City Jingle Days.   

2.Whoopie Goldberg- the funniest woman in America, if not the world.  

3. Lois Capps – the member of Congress from Santa Barbara, CA.  Think of the changes me, my chutzpah and galloping Jewish guilt could make in the U.S. House of Representatives.    

4. Michelle Kwan – the epitome of grace and strength and miracles in a small blue dress.  She often skated to one of my songs, “An American Hymn”, and I’ve always wished we could change places.  (This comes from growing up in freezing Canada where little girls were sent out in storms to amuse themselves. ) 

5. Lady Gaga

The trouble with wanting to be any of the gifted people I listed above is we already have one of each.  We don’t need two.  What our world could really use is you and your unique contribution. By trying to imitate the success of somebody else, you will miss yourself completely.

Do you well, learn how to get your name in the papers, and maybe someday, you’ll be an even bigger star than Lady Gaga, who, y’never know, could be sitting on the edge of her egg, gobbling peanut M & M’s, shushing the cattle from which she derives her wardrobe, so she can hear your new song.

© 2011 Molly-Ann Leikin www.songmd.com
Molly-Ann Leikin is a Career Mastery Coach and Songwriting Consultant.  An Emmy nominee, Molly has 14 gold and platinum records, plus four ASCAP Country Music Awards.  She's the author of "How To Write A Hit Song" and "How To Be A Hit Songwriter" and has written themes and songs for over four dozen TV shows and movies, including "Violet” that won an Oscar.   Molly has helped launch the careers of thousands of singers and songwriters, three of whom have Grammy nominations.  She can be reached at: www.songmd.com or 800-851-6588.

Presenting Yourself as a Pro

(By Molly-Ann Leikin)

In Nashville, one of the most successful songwriters of all time writes on Mondays and Wednesdays, then spends the rest of the week wearing another hat altogether.  The man is not a tunesmith on Tuesday, Thursday or Friday.  He is in business.  That’s when he pitches his songs.

Business people make professional-sounding phone calls, write professional-looking mail email, texts, and check their spelling. They arrive on time, look solid and immediately gain the respect of the person on the other side of the desk – in our case, the guy with the contract and the money.      

Recently, while interviewing candidates for a job in my company, people I’d spoken to at length on the phone who sounded like great possibilities, showed up late and stoned in flip flops.  They texted during our conversation, spelled songwriting with two t’s and didn’t know who David Foster was.  Folks - that’s not it.
If you looked at yourself in the mirror, would you hire you?  Would you want to do business with the person you’re looking at?  Do you appear to be a solid investment?  And most important, do you know what the guy on the other side of the desk needs - not just what you want him to want?    

It would help if you consider yourself a potential business partner, not somebody begging for a shot.  That sure changes the dynamic, doesn’t it?       

Do you have a business card?  If not, get one.  A clever one.  Make it as original as your music.  After all, nobody can stuff a CD in his wallet.  At least not yet.        Always remember this:  you have something to contribute to the literature of music that nobody else but you can, because nobody else but you is you.  
Present it in a professional manner, and you’re half way home.

© 2011 Molly-Ann Leikin
Molly-Ann Leikin is a Career Mastery Coach and Songwriting Consultant.  An Emmy nominee, Molly has 14 gold and platinum records, plus four ASCAP Country Music Awards.  She's the author of "How To Write A Hit Song" and "How To Be A Hit Songwriter" and has written themes and songs for over four dozen TV shows and movies, including "Violet” that won an Oscar.   Molly has helped launch the careers of thousands of singers and songwriters, three of whom have Grammy nominations.  She can be reached at: www.songmd.com or 800-851-6588.