How to Better Organize Your Song Catalogs & Sync Pitches
Give Your Ideas a Home on Songspace
Let’s be honest, most of us artists and songwriters are not very good with keeping our creative lives in order. That’s not meant to be offensive, I personally know the struggle is real. In this DIY world, it’s especially hard when working; between gig calendars, rehearsal schedules, social media profiles, emails, texts, etc., it’s hard to even know what you’re missing.
But the songs are the reason we’re doing this. The songs are what will live on forever. The songs are what will eventually make you enough licensing and royalty money to call this a career. And unfortunately, we tend to neglect organizing our song catalogs the most.
I don’t know about you, but I have had lyrics on napkins, scraps of paper, countless notebooks, some Word docs, on my iPhone Notes, in Twitter drafts, and so on. I have had some on my laptop, some on my desktop, and even some on Evernote. It’s the same with audio notes. I have had some on my iPhone, some of Evernote, some in Logic, Pro Tools – I even have a folder on my desktop called “Z music scraps” with just random .wavs and .movs of audio recordings.
It’s not sustainable, and it weighs on me as a songwriter that my words and melodies are just randomly floating around, uncategorized. If only there were some way to organize my audio notes, pair them with lyrics and save them for later editing. I do a lot of co-writes too. It’d be great if this magical place could be shared with many collaborating songwriters, all of whom could add audio snippets and edit lyrics. It would have to be mobile, because I am constantly being struck with a line or a melody in the strangest places while out and about. And what if I could place my whole catalog, songs already written and recorded, in the same place?
Well, I think I have found a solution and I want to share it with you.
It’s called Songspace, and it is like a playground for your songwriting.
“Technology for Music People” is how the company describes itself. From their site: Songspace is a music social network that powers the creative workflows of professionals, artists, and songwriters via the projects they share. Our company was founded on the premise that songs are the foundation of the music business eco-system, and that a natural network already exists between people who create, manage, and market them.
Let me unpack just how powerful Songspace is for the independent musician. First, you can sign up for free here: http://songspace.com.The free account includes up to 12 songs and 10 MB in storage. The Pro account is pretty much all the space you’ll ever need for your entire catalog for just $5/mo. They also have a Business account, if you are managing a lot of different catalogs and writers.
The platform is setup for your songwriting workflow in three sections: “Ideas,” “Songs,” and eventually “Network” (which is in Beta right now).
(1) Click the “New Idea” button and start writing lyrics.
(2) Then click on the Audio Record button and add music.
(3) Press Save, and then “Convert to Song.”
You can hear the world premiere of “I Love Performer Mag” here.
(4) And this is what your song looks like to prospective licensor or a co-writer, after you’ve edited the song’s information including a photo for each.
And when you sign up, we can work on finishing it together!
In addition to being a very powerful song creation tool, Songspace’s “Catalog” feature is great for songwriters with a lot of back catalog who are also pitching for sync opportunities. Like most services, you can upload songs from your own computer, but you can also sling links from SoundCloud, Spotify, YouTube, and even sync with Box. In one simplified “Song Edit” area, you can add metadata, ISRC, tags, descriptors, lyrics, and more. And when you need to pitch, you simply choose to keep it private or public and share the link.
Oh, and did I mention that Songspace is also mobile? It is, for both iOS and Android. So, you’ll never again lose that killer melody in your head while you growing old in the Department of Motor Vehicles 8th Circle of Hell.
So, what are you waiting for? Put the tools in your hand to organize your musical ideas on-the-go, get your catalog organized, collaborate with others, and pitch more effectively.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
-Michael St. James is the founder and creative director of St. James Media, specializing in music licensing, publishing, production and artist development.