(Foto: Devon (th) i aktion under "Meet The Publishers" i Promus)

Devon har tidligere boet i Aarhus, og kender derfor lidt til det danske sangskrivermiljø. Han er meget begejstret for kvaliteten, men savner større åbenhed omkring samarbejde mellem sangskriverne - noget der er langt mere udbredt i USA, og som han mener kunne styrke danske sangskrivere bedre.

Efter han vendte tilbage til Nashville, sendte han os derfor nedenstående..

Tjek det, og meld gerne tilbage via vores Facebook med dine kommentarer...

The Culture of Collaboration...

As a music business professional for the last 11 years living in Los Angeles and Nashville I have seen the value and necessity of collaboration in the creative music community. There IS a reason when you read Billboard Magazine and look to see who wrote the songs that you see sometimes more than 4+ songwriters on any given song. Especially in the urban market. Collaboration or co-writing is a foundational piece of the popular American music marketplace. I believe it also amplifies the art of the artists that we all know and love. Lets take a moment and be real honest though... there are some artists who don’t collaborate. That is ok. Sometimes they are strong enough or just too weird as songwriters that they can’t and won’t co-write.

It is AWESOME when an artist allows someone else (songwriter) to enter into their art and serve what they do. These co-collaborators are sometimes professional songwriters or “staff songwriters” who are signed to major or major independent music publishing companies. Other times they are just a group of artists who gather together and create something GREAT together whether they are professional or not. In my opinion, no matter if you are professional or amature... the practice of co-writing will be the difference maker in most everyone’s creative careers.

As a publisher for Sony I manage 10 staff songwriters and several artist writers. ALL of them co-write. ALL of them expect to co-write and ALL of them would agree that they are creating stronger, better, more artistic and more commercial songs when the collaborate. The most common question I hear from people outside of Los Angeles or Nashville who are coming to write songs in these cities with professionals is “how do we split up who contributed more or less during the songwriting session? Who gets more or less of a percentage of the songwriting and publishing?” The easy answer is this --- It should be equal. Even splits no matter what. If you were invited into the songwriting session with 2 other people and you contributed maybe 10 percent of the song you would still get 33.33% of the song. Why? Easy answer... because there will come a day when the same guy who contributed 10 percent yesterday comes up the 80% with those same people another day. The culture of LA and Nashville is to keep it even. I will be honest... if one of my writers tells me they wrote with someone who argued over percentages during a co-write... I will NEVER use that person again and will not hesitate to tell other publishers and writers to be careful of working with that person. The easy rule of thumb is this... ALWAYS choose relationship over money and ALWAYS choose even splits on a song over awkward splits between 3 people. Always be a servant while co-writing. Serve the song... not the percentages. GREAT songs win!! Owning 90% of a bad song means nothing. Is it worth ruining a creative relationship over a bad song?

No.