JPF Home Page Forums General Messages Mentor Questions Forum TAXI

"You spend $300 a year to be involved, and $5 per song submission...and IF THEY LIKE IT, they may or may not pitch the songs in the right places."

Hi Lyle. This is not how Taxi works. Taxi is an A&R company who screens music for the industry.

How Taxi works is, A&R reps/labels & music publishers/music libraries come to Taxi and let them know what they need. For example:

CONTEMPORARY COUNTRY SONGS for a new Male artist who's a cross between Kenny Chesney and John Mellencamp are wanted by the Dir. of A&R at a Major Nashville Label. Fun, driving uptempos are preferred, but energetic ballads are OK too. Great, conversational lyrics are also sought. Please submit one to three songs online or per CD/cassette, include lyrics. All submissions will be screened and critiqued by TAXI and must be received no later than Nov. 29, 2007.

Then the Taxi members who feel they have a song or songs that fit that description submit. The screeners, who are music industry professionals, then listen to all the submissions, and choose only the ones that fit the listing to a T, and "forward" (pass those songs) along to the listing party. At that point, Taxi's job is done (about 6% of submissions are forwarded). The listing party may or may not sign the forwarded songs.

The advantage to the Taxi member is to make solicited submissions via an organization that is set up to help you improve your submissions until they are making the grade. Most new members don't realize how high the bar is going to be, and most new members take awhile to understand how to read the listings and match their submissions to the listings. In addition, although production is less important for song pitches than it is for film/TV pitches, it is still crucial to have clean demos with great vocals & good playing.

You will find people who don't like the Taxi model, and you will find people for whom Taxi is not/would not be a fit. My personal feeling is that a Taxi membership should be just one of the ways that you approach the industry & pitch your music. As a 3 year member, I can tell you I didn't get any forwards in the first 2 years of membership, although I made many submissions. I decided to use my Taxi membership as an education tool. Because of Taxi, my composing skills and my producing skills improved to industry standard. I know, because in the spring of 2007 I finally got my first exclusive publishing deal through a Taxi forward to an LA music publisher.

In addition to this, the Taxi Road Rally (Taxi's free-to-members Music Conference) is one of the best music conferences you can go to. The price of a Taxi membership is the same price you'd pay to attend the Ascap conference.


If you are interested in joining Taxi I recommend you a) sign up to get the free bi-weekly listings sent to you so you can see what kind of opportunties there are, b) get some professional feedback on your work from NSAI, Jason Blume, John Braheny or Pete & Pat Luboff (which you should do in any case if you are interested in pitching commercially viable work & want to make a good impression), and c) consider joining the Taxi forum to get some feedback on your work and some help on deciding whether Taxi is going to be part of your marketing / business plan for your music.

cheers
Hummin'bird