Top Resources for Aspiring Songwriters

The passion that compels a songwriter to create courses from deep inside whether anyone ever hears the songs that flow from their heart or not. Still, there is an innate desire for their song to be heard. It is easier for those who can sing than it has ever been to have their music heard, but it is not necessarily easy to make a career from their music. Those songwriters who cannot sing but have a river of notes bubbling like a babbling brook from the core of their soul find it even more difficult. What opportunities are out there for a songwriter who wants a career in songwriting whether they can sing or not?

BMI and ASCAP have some great resources for songwriters. BMI is Broadcast Music, INC., which is an organization that makes sure that the silent heroes of the music business receive fair compensation for the work that they do. They do this through collecting licensing fees, paying royalties, and even through creating legislation to help protect the rights of songwriters and publishers.

ASCAP is the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers. ASCAP helps songwriters with everything from showcases, workshops, career development tools, songwriting tips, a network of songwriters, even Estate Planning so that songwriters can pass their creations to the next generation. Even at that, I have just touched on the tip of the ASCAP iceberg.

There are also statewide songwriter associations. BMI has a list of the songwriter associations by state. Memberships in songwriter associations are priceless. Songwriter associations provide opportunities for peer critiques (be sure to copyright everything before you show it to anyone), resources for competitions, opportunities to showcase your music before industry professionals, and create a songwriting community.

The songwriters association in Georgia is the GMIA. The Georgia Music Industry Association has a wide network of songwriters throughout Georgia. There is an abundance of resources here and a lot of great events for songwriters in Georgia. They have a music workshop and song critique every fourth Sunday.

One songwriter association is the NSAI, which is the Nashville Songwriters Association International. Along with the sense of community and opportunities provided by a large international songwriters association, the NSAI fights for the rights of songwriters. NSAI's legislation helps the songwriters maintain the rights to their property and get paid.

The songwriters associations help provide songwriters with tools to develop careers, but there are more resources also. Songwriting contests are another great resource. Be careful when you enter a songwriting contest that it is legitimate. Here are a couple clues to help you. First, who are the sponsors of the songwriting contest? Can the sponsors verify that the contest is legitimate? Is it too good to be true? Are the prizes unreasonable or from sources that can not be verified? Does the source of the contest have a good reputation? For example, the NSAI songwriting contest is done by the NSAI once a year. The NSAI has a good reputation, so it's easy to trust that it is a legitimate songwriting competition. Who are the judges? Do the judges validate the songwriting competition? For example, Josh Turner is judging The Music City Songwriting Competition. He has a link to it on his fan club website so he provides a form of validation for The Music City Songwriting Competition. Where did you find out about the competition? ASCAP has a list of songwriting competitions. If you find out from ASCAP, chances are, you can trust it. If you find out from someone you've never heard of and they can't provide any verification, beware. If there is plenty of verification and those associated with the competition have a good reputation, you have a better chance. Notice that I have not provided a list of competitions. I provide examples of a couple, but I also provide links for you to check them out. Always check them out carefully before you enter, and always copyright your work before anyone sees it. Even though a registered copyright certificate can take about six months, the certificate will be dated from the time that you applied for it.

Some other great resources for songwriters are songwriter magazines. These can be subscribed to online or in the mail. American songwriter magazine, Independent Songwriter, and others. The GMIA resource page has a list of magazines and online resources.

Computer software and technical resources are also available for songwriters. Finale and Sibelius have extensive music notation programs. The program that I use is Melody Assistant. Melody Assistant is user friendly, creates professional looking scores, and has all the tools needed to do whatever you need with the music except to translate from an audio file to a midi or notation. You can record an audio track, though. Before you buy, you can download a trial version. The trial has all the capabilities of the program except that you cannot save in any format except one. If you purchase the program, you will be able to save your files as midi, wav, mp3, karaoke, and several others. I recommend that if you decide to purchase Melody Assistant, you get the gold sound base also. If you are only using it to create sheet music, it won't matter, but if you use it to create audio files, the gold sound base has a much better sound.

What if you are a great singer who wants to record the music and translate it from audio into notation? Well, honestly, that is a very complicated mathematical thing to do, but there are a few programs that attempt it. Geoff Peters developed a program for people who are interested in learning about it. He calls it music explorer. Robi Polikar has also written a tutorial on it. One of the few programs out there for translating from audio to midi, which is the format that you will need to save in for creating the notation, is Intelliscore Ensemble. There is a trial version that you can download to see if it is what you need, and I recommend that you try it out before you buy it. I am researching more on this right now, so I will have indepth suggestions and resources for this in the near future.

Even with all the resources that I have listed, there are more, so if you are a struggling songwriter trying to make a career of your music, don't be discouraged. Keep the creative juices flowing. Once a piece is created, it will be there when opportunity crosses your path.

Resources for songwriters
http://www.nashvillesongwriters.com/

http://www.ascap.com/resource/resource-10.html

http://www.bmi.com/associations/listing

http://www.americansongwriter.com/

http://www.gmia.org/

http://www.sibelius.com/products/index.html

http://music-notation-software-review.toptenreviews.com/

http://www.myriad-online.com/en/docs/melodydesc.htm

http://www.myriad-online.com/resources/docs/melody/english/tutorial.htm

http://www.finalemusic.com/PrintMusic/

http://www.musicmasterworks.com/

http://www.intelliscore.net/ensemble_faq.html

http://www.sfu.ca/~gpeters/music/

http://users.rowan.edu/~polikar/WAVELETS/WTpart1.html