by John Durant

Created on: January 29, 2007   Last Updated: March 31, 2007

How hard could it be to write a song? You just pick up up a guitar, strum a few chords, write a catchy hook, toss in a few verses, and before you know it the royalty checks are filling your mailbox faster than junk mail!

Right?

Wrong!

It's not that easy to write songs, but it's a skill that can be learned if you have the talent and a very strong desire to succeed. I've been writing for most of my life, and I thought I was pretty good at it; that is, until I moved to Nashville, the songwriter mecca of the world. I wasn't here long before I realized that I had a lot of work to do if I wanted to write songs for a living.

Aspiring songwriters need to join organizations like the Nashville Songwriters Association to help them hone their skills in order to survive in this business. These organizations offer song critiques, workshops, and networking opportunities to help you establish a successful songwriting career. They can help you with advice on copyright protection and other important issues relating to this business. I'm a member of the NSAI, and I think the $150/yr membership fee is money well spent.

Many professional songwriters have their own recording studios for recording their demos, and are also skilled musicians, producers, and engineers. I suggest co-writing with more experienced writers to help you perfect your craft. Your finished product will probably be better, and you can combine your networking and industry contacts to increase your chances of getting a song published.

Most major labels will only review song submissions from reputable publishers to save the time and trouble of having to listen to thousands of bad songs to find one hit. Publishers have mountains of demos to screen, and they want to hear songs that will compete with the best in the business before investing their time and money to pitch a song. It can be very difficult just to get a song signed with a publisher, and even a signed song isn't guaranteed to be cut. A lot of publishers and record labels have their own staff writers, and won't even accept demo submissions from outside writers.

Publishers and record labels prefer to work with folks that can write both music and lyrics, so keep that in mind before you pack your bags and move to Nashville, L.A., or New York City. If you write "lyrics only" or "music only", you have to be exceptional at those skills if you want to be competitive in this business. There are so many writers here in Nashville that can do both lyrics and music at a world-class level.

It's not easy to write music, and it's even harder to make a living at it!

Learn more about this author, John Durant.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.