I attended my second Durango Songwriter’s Expo this past weekend (it takes place in nearby Broomfield, CO despite its name), and left feeling in awe of the level of talent I experienced, and also more inspired than ever as a songwriter.
This industry event has been happening for 23 years, and brings together aspiring musicians of various levels of experience with industry pros like record label executives, high-end artist managers, and music supervisors - whose job is to “sync” music with ads, scenes in movies and tv shows, video games, etc. These industry folks not only speak on the panels during the day on topics such as music publishing and sync-licensing, but they are also at the head table during the all-important “listening sessions.”
Listening sessions are intense, and as a songwriter, you get a total of three during the weekend. There are two types of sessions - one is for Sync Licensing, to get feedback on whether or not your songs could be used in the media mentioned above - and the other is to get feedback on your songwriting and/or production quality if you like. During these sessions, you are in a room full of roughly 20 other songwriters all waiting their turn, which consists of 5 total min of attention. During those minutes, you present your two listeners (sometimes hit songwriters, label execs, big time producers, A&R folks etc.) with your chosen lyrics, before playing your recorded song(s) for 2-3 minutes. Then they use the last 2 minutes to share what they thought of your songs, again, in front of a room full of other songwriters.
It can be an emotional roller coaster for sure. Last year (my first), I chose to play three different songs at my three different sessions, getting as much feedback as I could as a songwriter. The first one left me feeling elated, before the second and third kicked my ass. One quote from a producer was “….so you’ve basically just got some stuff and a chorus.” Ouch. Fun times. But he was also right, or at least I knew what he meant. And it made me want to write better songs, which is the whole point.
One thing that made last year’s feedback difficult is that I played songs I had already mastered, so it was nearly impossible to incorporate their feedback. This year I was smart (I thought) and brought demos from the album I have in the works. That worked well for the songwriting feedback sessions, but I realized that the Sync people can really only conceive of viable song placement when they hear a mastered product. Lesson learned. What I also learned about the Sync world is that if you are writing decent music, and it’s well produced, it’s “sync-able,” meaning, there’s a legitimate place for it to land somewhere in the ty/movie/advertisement/video game sphere. The trick of course is getting in the room with music supervisors, getting your music listened to. And of course, like anything else in the world, it’s all about relationships.
Warren Sellers is a songwriting mentor of mine, and one of the “feedback givers” from Durango. He referenced the paper menu he used to get as a kid at a restaurant, complete with a maze and a connect-the-dots activity. In that game, any one or two links don’t really mean anything significant, at least they don't seem to. And they certainly don’t give a clear sense of the picture. But if you keep going, connecting one dot to the next, taking the next right step, a form begins to emerge. Perhaps hazy at first, but soon there’s a dawning “oh yeah” that happens when you realize that you’ve drawn a lion or a flower. Warren used that analogy for a life in the music business, slowly connecting dots with a variety of conferences, conversations, gigs, songs, blogs, emails, all of it slowly become more and more discernible as a life in the music business. I love that metaphor and have referenced it several times since I first heard it. Also feels like it needs to be a song, if it isn’t already.
I’ve been “at this” professional musician thing for more than 25 years, and I must say, I’m starting to get a clearer sense of the shape I’m making by connecting these dots. I’m going to have an empty next in the next year, and that’s got me dreaming about things like going on extended tour in beautiful parts of the world. Since I see all my therapy clients remotely, anything is possible. And there is nowhere on the planet without space for new songs, thank goodness.
Stay tuned, my friends. Lots of exciting things happening.