Feedback on Your Songs
New meme alert! Songwriters around the world desperately want feedback from other songwriters on whether their songs are any good or not and will pay for the privilege of having them reviewed by professionals and/or will engage in a community to get feedback that is technology enabled.
You know something’s up when Derek Sivers posts on the topic under the guise of ‘soliciting feedback’ from other songwriters. It sounds like he’s either building a company that is focused on providing this kind of feedback or he’s investing in a company that provides this kind of feedback.
Yet another in the ‘tools for hobbyists’ realm. Let’s sell a service to amateur songwriters telling them how bad they are! Maybe I’m too cynical.
I’ve had some experience with services like this because Garageband.com was originally configured with just such a feedback-orientation in mind. My songs got ripped to shreds. So, of course, some of my resistance to this idea is my own insecurity and personal fear. I understand that I should constantly be venturing out into the fray and having my artistic work callously dissected by cynical music industry ‘veterans’ that are so succesful they’re spending all their time listening to my songs. And of course I should assume they’re totally not bitter or anything and they’ll really be listening with an open ear. I should make that an assumption and I could, actually, if I was convinced.
But this whole idea is navigating a very difficult tension for me and one that makes me uncomfortable. At some point all this feedback just sullies up the notion of making art. I’m not building a bridge here. People’s tastes are different. In fact, from personal experience I can tell you that most people’s taste is bad. Is some kind of online panel really going to have better taste than some of my confidantes and colleagues that collaborate with me, play music with me and whose opinion I have a context for? Hard to say.
Out of the many pieces of feedback I received from Garageband.com, the one that stuck out was that I was hiding behind double-tracked vocals when I first started singing and I needed to use that effect sparingly and to create emphasis. That was helpful.
And you know what? On the mailing list I myself have sent out rough demos and asked people to vote on their favorite.
So as I wrote this post I think it’s clear that I’m fairly ambivalent about the whole thing. On the one hand, feedback is a good thing and we need to be open to it, even when it’s critical or negative. On the other, we must remain true of spirit and intent because ultimately the art needs to be about us as individuals. Can you imagine Picasso uploading some new canvas to some website and having an out-of-work painter who worked on some ‘commission’ telling him he needed to use a different brush or make it look ‘more realistic’? But on the other hand, I’m sure he sought feedback like everyone else. I just doubt it was in some crowd-sourced capacity.
Perhaps more to the point, this doesn’t feel like a business to me. But I could be wrong. Maybe it’s a really vibrant community and you can sell ads against the interactions and the web traffic. That works right? Ad sales are good right? Right?
March 2nd, 2009 at 10:44 am
Really I just miss the songwriting workshops I used to do in college and NYC, and wondered what other writers around the world were doing to improve their songs.
I was kinda hoping everyone would say, “Oh there’s a great community of writers at such-and-such email list and we all critique eachother’s songs to offer improvements.”
I always like asking everyone for suggestions, even if only 1-in-20 actually resonates with me. Like I heard Walt Disney in the 1950s would always put up all of their cartoons and ask everyone to tear it apart – how could it be any better? – how can it possibly be improved? – surely there’s a word or a note that could be better (by YOUR standards, not anyone else’s), and if so, wouldn’t you want to know?
I agree there’s not much of a business around this. Maybe a break-even kinda thing if there are other writers whose opinion you respect, they would need to be compensated for their time if you were asking for their feedback.
But c’mon Sam – no need to be so cynical about the “tools for amateurs” thing. I make tools/services/stuff that anyone can use, because I like finding ways to help people, and I don’t care if I make a dime or even lose money doing it, because it’s what makes me happy.
March 2nd, 2009 at 11:05 am
Thanks for commenting, Derek.
You’re right – I can be too cynical. It’s not just you I was responding to though. There are a few people I’ve been hearing talk about this kind of thing. I had kind of a weird experience with Garageband.com like I said but you’re right that feedback is important. I say as much in the second half of the post, although probably in a way that’s too strident.
Honestly, and again I admit this, most of my hesitation is fear that my work isn’t good enough.
Thanks for commenting, anyway. Great to see you on the site.
March 3rd, 2009 at 7:25 am
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