JPF Home Page Forums General Messages Songwriter Message Forum Gaining Traction (a game plan)

What have you done and what are you doing to get your first cut?

Are acting as if you already are a pro writer?

Who are you cowriting with?

How many songs are you writing a year?

how many radio ready demos have you made?

how many up and coming artists are you cowriting with?

how many workshops and conferences have you attended?

how many days have you spent in the town where your kind of music happens?

I like Ande's list, mostly. With respect to the Vandiver "numerical score" list, I agree with big Jim. That's a survey of how well you're doing sucking up to the Establishment. That's fine, but I would caution would-be suckers that the Establishment does not appear to have the slightest interest in sucking back.

Ande's list attempts to measure how well you're doing improving yourself as a writer, and I think that kind of measurement is important. I try to do it myself.

I think co-writing is important, not because of the "must play well with others" mantra that comes out of Nashville, but because it forces one to evaluate and improve upon other people's ideas, and develop some humility with respect to one's own. Both of you (or all of you, if there's more than two) have expanded your network in the process, too: there are more people aware of what you do. And that's not a bad thing.

Joe