We're talking wannabe strategies here. Not much of this is relevant for writers with vip contacts and a superhighway to decisionmakers in the muzz bizz. They can pretty much do whatever they want.

But for the rest of us, concerning the subject on demo quality, I think there are put way too much faith in studio demos. Cause like Jim and many other states, nobody is actually listening.

Demo quality is important, sure, but only for those who gets their songs considered by artists, and that means a very exclusive club of the top of the line songwriters.

Basically, demo quality is just a strategy to get professionals to listen to your work.

The reason the thread slides into discussing co-writing as a strategy, is just because of this. 'Pitching' songs is just not a reliable strategy for getting songs into the market. It's highly unlikely an outsider will ever get a song cut in the record industry, just by submitting it to a listing or having a publisher pitching it.

In the tv/film business it seem to be a lot more likely to get 'first contact' as an outsider, so to speak. And if you go though organizations like Taxi, they can be a shortcut to get a network, but you'll still need great quality songs (in the meaning, they fulfill a demand in the market) and great demos (or 'broadcast quality' songs).

But to get song on commercially released records, the network coming from co-writing needs to be an accompanying strategy to great songs with great demos. If you truly are a great writer, parts of your copyrights will be a valued commodity for others. I've had a couple co-writing contracts where the one who's instrumental in getting the cut is getting 75% of the publishers share, and as I see it, the extra 25% is a great incentive to be very active in promoting the song. Business is about creating win-wins. Your songs aren't worth anything anyway, on the shelf.

Think about having a product, but no one to sell it to, or a bad presentation to show it with.. it's just unthinkable, you'll get ahead. Songwriting is about excelling in all of these three basic requirements at the same time:

- Great songs (raw material)
- Great networks (co-writers ect.)
- Great presentations ('demos')

If you have two of these, no matter which, and still don't get anywhere, working on making the third, is the way forward. And most likely one writer can't get to the top on all of this at the same time, even more a reason to collaborate and co-write.

Mike, I think leasing might be the way to go. I would let the band lease the jet, and I would work my way over for the ride, as the Steward. laugh