JPF Home Page Forums General Messages Songwriter Message Forum PAYING FOR CRITIQUES

Marc
I hope you didn't get the impression I thought you or anyone who gives critiques for pay are just in it for the money.
I did not mean that at all.
What I was trying to say is individual song critiques are minimally important. Most are simply one persons opinion of a song on a first listen. And the other thing is all Song Critique Professionals are not created equal.
The one I got where I was told to just Buy Jason Blumes book was an insult. There was no attempt to critique the song at all. The only thing I can figure is the critiquer didn't speak English very well.
Another time in a critique session the critiquer said a song was very confusing. I was in a room with 20 other songwriters. I asked for a show of hands who understood the song. Only one person said they were confused, the rest said it was clear to them.
That does not mean the critiquer was bad it just means that person did not understand the song.
I don't think the critiquer was very happy with me. I don't think I will be very welcome at that persons event in the future.

Of course there are songs submitted that lack focus, are unclear, folks mix pronouns to the point that you can't figure out who is who, who is the singer or the listener.
New songwriters often make the mistake of writing songs that only the writer understands. Other folks are not mind readers. That is certainly where a pro critique can help on an individual lyric.

But I also think that it gets oversimplified at times. Why can't we write something that actually makes people think. I know songs are supposed to be entertaining but so are children's Nursery Rhymes. But that's another subject. I recall many of those Nursery Rhymes we are so fond of were actually very controversial political parodies and satires cloaked in metaphors.

There is a number one song on the radio right now that I had to read the lyric several times before I figured it out. Without a written lyric I don't think I ever would have got it. Maybe I would have eventually. I thought it was just me so I asked some other folks about it. They don't get it either.
But we all agreed one thing, The song sounded great.