Do you need to read music to write songs?  This question has come up time and time again over the years I have been writing songs and articles about songs, and it has always been a contentious issue.  This morning I read yet another article, a set of arguments as to why you must read music if you are to be taken seriously as a songwriter.

It came from someone who does read music, who has done so since he was very young, and who also teaches it.  One of his arguments was based on a quote by another instructor: “Words were invented so you don’t have to carry a brick around with you in order to tell someone about a brick.” He said reading (and therefore writing) music means you don’t have to carry a guitar when you can simply carry a tune.

It’s this whole idea of must that gets me.  I’m not sure about you, but the only descriptions I’ve ever heard of someone pitching a song to a publisher or record label was to either play it for them live (“carrying the guitar”) or playing it for them on a recording.  I’ve never heard of anyone passing a stack of sheet music across a desk and saying “Here, read this!  Isn’t it brilliant?” Maybe in the 1940’s. Whenever someone tells you you MUST do anything, they are either full of themselves or trying to promote something they’re selling.  I won’t even use that old argument “well, the Beatles didn’t read music!” because it isn’t even about who can or who can’t.

There are different scenarios you may experience as a songwriter, of course.  If you work with musicians who need to have music notation in front of them in order to play your song, there are ways to do that, including learning it yourself.  No argument there.  Is it beneficial to learn to read? Some, like the author of the blog I read this morning, would say yes. Others would say that it makes them think too much when they’re writing, and thinking can often stifle creativity.  Theory, and notation to some degree, is the “math” behind the music.

I am not against reading music, and I am myself able to do so.  What I’m against is absolutes.  To write a song, you do not have to write and read music.

IJ

Let’s face it.  A huge number of us, myself included, are not going to make it to the big time with our songs.  I’m not trying to be negative here, just realistic.  I have made some money over the years from my work in television, and when I first started recording my songs in the early 90’s, I sold a few CDs when I was out there performing all the time.  I even made a little money from mp3.com when I first signed up for it because a few of my songs were chosen for their playlists.  Do you remember mp3.com?  Then you’ve been on the web as long as I have!  It was actually kind of exciting back then.

I thought the web was going to be a great way to get that exposure that I couldn’t physically do myself;  it would get my music out there to the big, wide world that I didn’t have the time or money to travel around myself.  And slowly, everyone else had the same thought.  A few clever people took notice of this and they created websites where music could be uploaded and distributed to anyone who was interested.  What could be better?

The other day I read a statistic that more or less floored me.

It was on Hypebot, whose Twitter account I follow.  It stated simply that 4 million songs on Spotify (20%) have never been played.  Never.  And that’s just Spotify.  I checked the stats for my own albums, which I had uploaded and paid distribution fees to Reverbnation for.  Half of the songs I had up there had never been played.  The rest had maybe a couple of plays, the odd one more than that. One song had a fair amount of plays, perhaps because of its name “Shades of Grey”.  Yep, that was a happy accident because I didn’t name it that way as a ploy!  I wrote the song well before the book became popular.

I wonder how many songs on Spotify have had one play, or maybe half a dozen?  That makes the picture a lot more gloomy when you think of it.  How much are we paying to have our music distributed to iTunes and the rest of them, only to have no plays, or maybe one or two?  We get maybe a third of a cent per play, if that, and the distributors get a hundred thousand times that because we paid them.

Now don’t get me wrong.  I understand that most of the work is up to us.  We have to be promoting ourselves and our songs, we have to be out there performing or trying to draw some attention to our music, in order to get those plays.  I haven’t been performing for a number of years now.  But I allowed vanity to get in the way of logic.  I paid money to have my CDs distributed online, and even when there were hardly any streams or sales, I kept them up there for another year, and then another.  I wonder how much money these distribution services like Reverbnation make from vain people like me?

I have finally smartened up, and recently began the long process of taking them down and removing my Reverbnation account.  I say “long process” because it isn’t easy.  There’s no such thing as a simple “delete” button that gets rid of everything in one fell swoop.  No, you have to remove your music, you have to make sure that any money coming to you gets paid out (which is very little, but I withdrew it anyway), and then you have to try and remove your profile.  Even weeks after I removed my music, they tell me that I can’t remove my profile because I still have my CDs for sale, which I don’t.  I’m emailing them to try to straighten it out, but I anticipate more mess trying to take down my profile in the coming days.

I am not trying to discourage you from trying to sell your music.  By all means, do it.  But I think we all have to have a much more realistic picture of what is possible and who is trying to take advantage of our naivete.  David Byrne wrote an excellent column in The Guardian recently, expounding upon his opinion of streaming music.  He says “Not surprisingly, streaming looks to be the future of music consumption – it already is the future in Scandinavia, where Spotify (the largest streaming service) started, and in Spain.”  and then goes on “For many music listeners, the choice is obvious – why would you ever buy a CD or pay for a download when you can stream your favourite albums and artists either for free, or for a nominal monthly charge?”

This affects you, the songwriter.  Nobody wants to pay you for your work any more if they can get it for free.  And if they do pay anything at all, it goes to the services who host your music, and very little goes to you.  If you have a record label, then the label will take most of that.

There are bands and artists that are willing to pay to be discovered on these services, and maybe you are too.  But don’t let it go on as long as I did.  I’ve finally come to my senses.

IJ

UPDATE:  within two days I had a response from Reverbnation and I was able to completely remove my account.

A few years ago, an acquaintance of mine who had a recording studio in Nashville was telling me a story about an experience he’d recently had in the studio. Every year, all of the smaller recording studios used to hold open houses on the same day, where artists and managers were invited to come and check out the facilities so they would potentially record their next project there. This guy told me that at one point during the day, several well-known country artists were sitting in a room in his recording facility, jamming together as a couple of them played guitar. What struck my friend at the time was that some of them could sing, and some of them really couldn’t! He made a quip about how you could tell which ones needed Auto-Tune when they were recording and performing :-).

Some of you may have heard the word “Auto-Tune” before, but most, if not all of you have heard its effects if you listen to music. For those of you who don’t recognize the word, Auto-Tune is a digital technology that corrects musical pitch. To simplify that, music producers use the software to “fix” the pitch of vocals or instruments so that they are perfect. Even the best singers can be slightly off pitch when they are recording or performing, so the software could save lots of time and effort by simply correcting it either while it is being sung, or afterwards in post-production.

The first time you might have heard Auto-Tune in its extreme was in Cher’s hit song “Believe”, recorded in 1998. It was used as an effect to make her voice sound robotic in a few places in the song’s chorus, particularly on the line “do you believe in life after love?” If you remember that song, then you’ve heard Auto-Tune. But the fact is that Auto-Tune is used in pretty much every single pop song these days. Everything you hear in this genre has been “fixed” with Auto-Tune. In fact, if you go to a live performance, particularly pop or rock, rap or hip hop, Auto-Tune is used as part of the performance. At music awards shows, many “live” performances of songs are run through Auto-Tune. You don’t hear the actual, raw, live voice of a performer.

You might think, well, what’s wrong with perfect?

A few years back, there was a music awards show broadcast live on television where Taylor Swift did a live performance. She appeared to be one of the only performers who DIDN’T use Auto-Tune that evening. As a result, her voice was raw and real, and it was not pitch perfect. Immediately afterwards, social media came alive with comments like “Taylor Swift can’t sing!” and other, more critical responses to her performance. At the time, I remember applauding her for her guts, but I think since then she has probably given in to the use of Auto-Tune in her performances.  The pressure to be perfect these days, has become too great.

From a performer viewpoint, anyone and their dog can “sing” now, and YouTube has had many, many videos with animals or public figures “singing” songs that they actually aren’t, the creators using Auto-Tune and some fancy editing to create these videos.

But what has happened to listeners, particularly younger people, is that their ears are now conditioned to desire “perfect” sounds, and when they hear something that isn’t, it’s aurally offensive to them. Anything that is real and imperfect sounds like a mistake.  Not only that, but it becomes impossible to tell real talent from manufactured, certainly when it comes to recording.  And performers become so reliant on the software, they can’t live without it.

There are, however, artists who refuse to use it and a campaign against Auto-Tune that is growing.  In a 2009 performance on the Grammy Awards, for example, Deathcab For Cutie wore blue ribbons to protest the use of Auto-Tune in the music industry.  Even some recording engineers and producers are now trying to wean artists off the thing in an attempt to bring “real” back into recordings and performances.

So what’s wrong with perfect?  It makes everything sound the same.  Perfect pitch, perfect timing, perfect everything, creates perfect garbage.  And who needs more of that?  Let’s keep it real!

IJ