Thanks, that is interesting. The days of being able to sell songs is over. I have always found it kind of funny when songwriters I know worry about their songs being stolen, and copyright them. I never copyrighted anything, and I always say if any of my songs get stolen, I will take it as a compliment.

But, as you have explained very well, there is also the problem of wanting to be heard. It would be hard to feel motivated to keep writing songs if we thought no one would ever hear them. It's human nature to want to be heard and appreciated. Knowing I will be singing at an open mic, as unsatisfying as that can be, does help me to stay motivated to write. 

I have joined some facebook groups for songwriters. I think I posted one song and got one like, and didn't want to try again. But maybe I will try posting more videos on facebook. The more songs we throw out there, the more likely someone will hear and like them.

You said songs are no longer of importance, and now people care about celebrity. Well it has been that way for a while. Most people are not connoisseurs of songs. If they know someone is famous, they will listen to them. If someone is not famous, they won't listen, no matter how good the song.

I am someone who cares about songs, and it doesn't matter to me if a song was written by Bob Dylan or the guy down the street. I care about the quality of the song. And I think, maybe, hopefully, people like me who care about songs can find each other and appreciate each others' songs. 

Talking to you about this has been very helpful. For one thing, it's good to be down to earth and to accept reality. I wish I could get thousands of hits on my youtube channel, but odds are against it. However, I can still keep posting songs everywhere, it doesn't cost anything but time.

Polly,
I wouldn't say that songs are not important. They still are with some people, particularly over a certain age. But not with a majority of the population as they once were. There was a time when the "newest hit songs" record stores, the top 40, or 20, people played their records at parties, etc. Music was then in the forefront of our existence. As kids and teenagers, we had the magazines and shows that appealed to us. Most everyone listened to the same formats.

With the advent of the Internet, social media, etc. now it is in the background of our lives. It is not as important because it is everywhere. And we are so diverse as a world population, it is nearly impossible to provide for more than small or medium groups of people at a time. Again, when you increase the supply to limitless and free, you get this. 

There will always be people who like music, and there will always be people who make music. A few will find various degrees of success, but probably overall, like the rest of society, it is fleeting. It's sad, in many ways, particularly those of us who remember those now long ago days. But life moves on. 

For those who try to "get heard", we'll always try to do that. It is a never ending effort. If you feel compelled to perform, even if it is for avery limited group, do it well. You never know who's listening.
MAB

I was a teenager in the 1960s and music was the center of my life. And we had to get it either from the radio or buy the records. So yes, now it's different. I can find almost anything I want to hear free on youtube.

Technology has made music and theatre available to everyone, but at the same time made it very hard to make a living as an actor or musician. 

I feel compelled to force myself to perform, and I'm not giving up. The more we do it the better we get. It takes so much concentration to not get distracted by wondering if people are listening, what they are thinking, etc. But it really gets easier with practice, so I do the open mics. 

Polly, at the end of it, that is about all you can do. Continue to write, continue to play, continue to build what you can. What are you wanting to accomplish aside from just "playing in front of more people?" Not that you have to have "goals" that you will feel a failure if you don't accomplish, which is kind of nuts, in the face of the reality of today's music industry.

If it is to play for more people, it seems to me you are actually doing that. It's pretty much what we all do, wanting to share what we do with as many people as we can. That is something eminately achievable. With every time you play, either live or online, you have the ability to reach someone you didn't have before. It's all just the law of averages:

The more you do something, being active, puts you into and around more situations, i.e. being invited to more podcasts, putting you in the proximaty of other people you didin't know before, playing on a venue that you didn't know about before, meeting someone you didn't know before. That provides oppotunities for more people to see you and pass on your information to others. 

That's what we do for "NICHEING" which is pretty much how all music is now. You find an audience, continually attempt to expand that audience, and attempt to constantly keep moving forward. It seems like you are doing that, so that is what you keep doing. The things we have discussed on this thread, building realtionships with other writers, possibly co-writing (which you are uinterested in, which is fine also) and finding other avenues to present yourself, are about all that any of us can do. 

That's all any of us can do.
MAB

Polly, in one of your posts above, you mentioned spending a lot of dollars to hire a band and get demos made and how you weren't going to do that - probably rightly. There are some things you can do yourself to add a little color to your songs. Using Garageband or another inexpensive DAW, you can add some midi instruments behind your guitar. Being midi, the quality would not be like a real band, of course, but used well, they can help. Others use programs like Band in a Box (I do). Again, it's not a real band, but it can bring a song alive, especially if you view it as accompaniment (drums, bass, etc.) behind your voice and guitar. There's some learning involved, but it's fun.

@gavin

I use garageband, and I have made recordings with vocal harmonies and other instruments. Since I know how to play some other instruments I don't need midi. It does make the recordings more interesting.

I have not being doing any multi-track recordings recently, because I want my recordings to sound the way I actually sound when performing at open mics. I want to know what I really sound like.

However I agree it could be a good idea to start making multi-track recordings again. It takes a lot of time, but it really is fun and you can get some good results. 

@mabbo

Thanks MAB. Yes, I guess I am already doing a lot of that. Trying to meet other songwriters, trying to have my songs heard.

Before the pandemic, I used to get together with others to sing and play. Can't really do that now and I miss it. But I can still write ever more songs, and make videos and recordings.

When I first started playing at open mics, my goal was just to be good enough at singing that people would listen to my songs.  That was the main obstacle, because I wasn't loud enough and people couldn't understand the words. Now I think they usually can, although not in that video I sent you. (I didn't even realize, since I know the words).

I play some fancy guitar accompaniment and get lots of compliments on that. So I reached some of my earlier goals. I want to keep improving at getting and keeping an audience's attention. I will never get anyone's attention if they love hard rock. But if they love folk they might listen.

"I play some fancy guitar accompaniment and get lots of compliments on that. So I reached some of my earlier goals. I want to keep improving at getting and keeping an audience's attention. I will never get anyone's attention if they love hard rock. But if they love folk they might listen."

Polly, at the end of all that, that is about any of us can do. Everyone just need to understand what is likely to be at the end of this pandemic (which in ways, I'm pretty sure is not ever going to end. I think the shut downs and effect on most everything is part of the permanent "new normal." ) This is pretty much what it is going to be. More and more and more people doing this, less and less actual venues coming back ("songwriter" venues, were already on a steady decline, going to more "contest" type things, Thank you "American Idol and THE VOICE" reality shows) and less and less money, which is what keeps the doors open on these places. 
Whenever you increase the supply of anything, you decrease the value and the easier and cheaper it is for the general public, the less is actually spent on it. 

So there are just going to be more people. As for my opinion, for what it's worth, I see the end of a "professional aspect of music, going to a completely amateur music force. The "anyone can do it" aspect will be the norm, not the execption. That means being heard is going to almost always be among our friends and close contacts. And if that is it, so be it. It's close to that as is. And as streams continue, the current things that are happening ,less and less money on even the big hits, the less and less opportunities to get things past a certain level of audience, you are seeing that going on now. 

So I would suggest that you always be grateful for what you get, always try to create things that are responsive to your audience and constantly try to expand your audience. Do your videos, keep your music out in as many ways as you can. And enjoy the journey. 

Enjoyed the thread. Take care and best of luck to you in the new Millenium.

MAB

Thank you MAB. Maybe music is going back to how it used to be, before there was a recording industry. People just sang and played together for fun. That's what families did when the work was done. Then people like A.P. Carter came along and started recording, and some musicians became rich and famous.

So now, a lot of songwriters think it's still like that. And because they love their own songs, and their mother tells them they are great, they think they will be famous. 

My goal was always more realistic than that -- just to have fun and to be part of a songwriter community. Even that is harder than I expected. But it's a reasonable goal, I think. I need to have projects I can work hard on, and songwriting fills that need.

As for the lockdowns lasting forever -- that's what I think. A sort of mass insanity has taken over the world. It's a virus, we always had viruses, they always killed the sick and vulnerable. But now fear of infectious diseases is going to be a permanent focus of our lives. Governments will use this opportunity to clamp down on and control us. We will always be "protected" from "dangerous misinformation." And central banks will take ever more control over economies. I had not read 1984 in 50 years, and decided it's time to read it again. 

Very correct. We will probably go  back to that time. Any money made will probably be by private patrons, like the old days of Popes and rich citizens to commission paintings. There will be the "15 seconds of fame" (Andy Warhol said 'in the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes' I think he overshot that.) and people will be in the public eye for a very short time. We are already in the "era of celebrity" so people like the "Kardashians" are the fame we see momentarily. But a large part of those in music who are famous, will not find the "riches" that go along with it. 

Good luck to you and I hope opportunities come your way.
MAB

@mabbo

Well I don't expect any opportunities, and I don't know about luck. But what about someone like Billie Eilish, for example? I heard some of her songs and some are pretty, but there have to be thousands or millions of songwriters who are better. Why does someone like that suddenly get selected to be considered great? 

Most songwriters are not good, and of the ones that are good most are not very special. But of the songwriters who are good and have written really special songs, most don't get a hundred million hits on youtube. I am just curious about that. I heard a Billie Eilish song the other day that was much worse than some of the songs by amateurs I know. Although I have heard others that were pretty. But just having some pretty songs can't explain it.

Well on Billie English or how the music business works at all, I am not really going to be of much help. I don't try to figure out how celebrity happens. If anyone could, the majors would just do that, and not waste money on the endless ones that fail miserably, after putting a lot of money into those as well. 

I will often check out these people just to check out what everyone is talking about and they generally end up exceeding my low expectations. The one short clip I saw of her, did that. I think we're in the "lowest common denominator" era of the culture. Whatever is weak and mediocre, seems to win out over anything with some class or worth. And since "Class and worth" is in the eye and ear of the beholder, who is to determine?"

I moved to Nashville in 1988, and immediately started hanging out with some amazingly talented writers and artists. Out of my "Freshman class" several went on to great success, hit records, record deals. Some of those had better songs than their big hits, but some things worked over others. At the same time, many of the people we all hung out with who might have been more talented, had better songs, etc, didn't pan out. Some would say that I was that. At many times I was consdered "the next big thing." At one point even my back up singers got a very substantial record deal. Who did I tick off? Nobody. Just happened that way. Some things work and some things don't. 

MAB

@mabbo

I don't pay any attention to popular culture, and don't even have a TV. But a friend had mentioned Billie Eilish and he was completely amazed by her talent, so I listened to a couple of youtube videos. They had minimal and unimaginative lyrics, the production was expert, and the music was pretty, but nothing special. Many teenagers could have written her songs. So, as you said, some fads get started and there is a snowballing effect. Why did Facebook take off, when there were so many other similar ideas around at the time?

What I really want to know is how I compare with the other singer/songwriters I know, and maybe I will eventually find out, if I just keep on showing up. But one problem is the lovey-dovey factor. When people like each other as friends, they can't be objective about each others' songs. I have seen miserable songs praised to high heaven.

Something to always remember. There is very little that is "Universally liked." We can all agree that Elvis and the Beatles were amazing, but even in their days they had their detractors. And we've all heard songs on the radio or television, seen movies or television shows, and wonder, "How in the world did THAT get on there?" And at the same time, hear other songs, see other movies or television shows and wonder "How is THAT NOT a giant hit?" 

Part of the mysteries of life.
MAB

@mabbo

Oh I understand that people have different taste. When I first heard the Beatles I was a kid, and I was absolutely blown away. But no one else in my family even liked them.

But I was saying that I see truly bad songs, sung by truly bad singers, get showered with love. Emotions can overpower thoughts. 

I am capable of hating songs even by people I love, but that might be unusual. Most people seem to judge songs by who sung them, are they famous, do they personally know and like them, etc. I judge songs by their lyrics and music, and quality of performance. I don't care at all if they are famous or not, and I don't care at all if I love or hate the singer.