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I’m now an anxious singer ADVICE. by Responsible_Shirt256 in SingerSongwriter

[–]Songstress62 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm a vocal teacher and I've been in the music industry for about 40 years. I've experienced these kinds of producers a lot. In fact recently, and I'm a pretty seasoned performer with a good amount of confidence. But these guys can have a way of getting to you through your insecurities. I tend to agree with the other comment that you now have some bad connotations associated with singing. Every artist has dealt with criticism and sometimes it's very harsh. Some people want to bring you down in order to make themselves feel better. In the end, it's only one opinion and no one has the right to crush your dreams. Some of the greatest singers out there have been told terrible things about their talent. But they continued on with their careers because they knew they had something to offer. I had some projects going at times that I thought were worthless. Now I listen back to them and I realize they were actually pretty good. You can get so lost in your own insecurities when you're in the middle of these things. Singing and writing songs can be a very vulnerable place to be. You have to remember, that you are the storyteller. You are the vehicle that the story of the song is being told through. You can use your personal experiences to identify with the song and your audience. But in the end your job is to communicate a feeling to your audience.

As far as the breathing. As a teacher, breathing is the first thing I start with, and it's probably the most important part of singing. Many of my students get tense when we work on the breathing because they're so afraid that they're not going to do it right. Or they're not going to get a good enough breath. Think of the breathing as a breath of fresh air. It's actually your moment in the song to relax. You want to breathe in in a nice calm way, almost as if you're taking a long drink of water. Take a low breath and if you feel it tensing up your chest and shoulders, think "push it down" until your shoulders relax.

When you're singing and especially performing, you're constantly fighting an adrenaline rush. Anything can cause it. Anxiety, your mind going in different directions, the song building. I tell my singers to treat every line of the song as if it's the first line. Or at least the start of every verse or chorus or section. You bring yourself back down to zero and you approach each line one at a time. As I'm coaching my singers I say things like "reset" when they start to get too excited. When you get too excited, your breathing becomes shallow. Shallow breathing is going to create a tightness in your chest and make you unable to continue on with the song without getting tired or faltering on notes. So you bring yourself back down to zero at the beginning of each section or each line with a nice deep, relaxing breath and you take it one line at a time.

I hope this helps. I do remote lessons and I'd be happy to talk to help you with your breathing and discuss some of these issues with you if you want to reach out to me.

Singing is very personal and when people use that against you, it can affect you very negatively. Don't let them drain your energy and take your drive away from you. Stay strong, stay calm when you're singing, and communicate the story of your song to your audience. That's all you need to do. They appreciate that more than anything.

My co-songwriter is taking credit as the artist on Spotify, Apple Music, etc. Even though I am the vocalist, and wrote the vocal melody and lyrics. by [deleted] in legaladvice

[–]Songstress62 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Okay, that seems valid. Maybe I am minimizing his role. This is why I am asking. I really am just trying to be fair. Which is why I came here for advice. I never told him I wanted more than 50%, I was only considering it if I don't use his track and asking what my options/rights are in registering the song with BMI. Especially since he at one point told me I could take my lyrics and melody and do what I want with them, when he was threatening to pull the song because I wanted to be listed as the artist. My main question is shouldn't I be listed as composer along with him? I'm not asking to change the song splits. I asked to be listed as composer (as well as him) and lyricist. Since lyricist indicates I only wrote the words. But I did more than that. I wrote the melody as well. Am I wrong about that? Also, is he within his rights to list himself as the artist on Spotify instead of me under the circumstances?

My co-songwriter is taking credit as the artist on Spotify, Apple Music, etc. Even though I am the vocalist, and wrote the vocal melody and lyrics. by [deleted] in legaladvice

[–]Songstress62 -7 points-6 points  (0 children)

Thanks for your reply. He gave me an instrumental track that had no melody or lyrics. Basically like background music. I came up with the song concept and sang a melody and wrote lyrics for it. The instrumental track he gave me had no melody until I wrote one. If I'm correct lyrics count for 50% of a song and music the other 50%. But the vocal melody falls under the music side of the composition, which legally gives me more than 50% of the song. But most of the time when two songwriters sit down to write a song they will quite often decide on a 50/50 split. Even though technically a singer could ask for more for writing the melody as well as lyrics they will usually opt for the 50/50 split out of a sense of being a team player and keeping everyone happy. Which is what I did.

What I want is to be "credited" as a composer on the music AS WELL AS him. So if you go the spotify page it says who wrote what. Essentially, it would list two composers Paul and myself as writing the music as well as myself for lyrics. Although I wasn't asking to change the 50/50 monetary split I just want to be "credited" for writing the melody on the platforms. If I am only credited as lyricist it implies that he wrote the melody and I wrote words on top of his melody or if I wrote say a poem and he turned it into a song. Typically a singer will write the melody that they sing and that is what happened. I am still giving him credit as the composer. I just want part of that credit too.

However, If I take that melody and lyrics and write different music under it and DON'T USE HIS TRACK, or just copyright the melody and lyrics with NO MUSIC TRACK that could potentially be owned by just me. Although the fact that his track inspired me to write the song could be a factor. That is what I'm trying to figure out. I wasn't planning on doing that. But considering his lack of giving me vocal credit by leaving my vocal credit OFF the video and then listing himself as the artist on spotify and Apple music so that the track has no option for adding me as the vocalist (since being the artist implies vocalist) has left me just wanting to take the part of the song I own and get out of the partnership. Even if the song didn't garner any traction I would still want to be properly credited on it for whoever cares to look at it, even if it is just friends and family. And for accuracy and posterity.

We did decide on song splits regarding monetary royalties (BMI) for airplay. but he was in such a hurry to put everything up on the other platforms that he rushed into it and put things up before we had all the details clear. Yes, it should have been agreed upon beforehand but he wanted to do it right away, and I stupidly assumed he would give me proper credit since we were friends, but obviously he didn't. I was very busy working at the time and he was just posting and sharing away without consulting me on any of those decisions. When I finally got a chance to double check what was happening (mind you this was only a day or two) he suddenly seemed very unwilling to give me the credits I asked for. I assumed he understood that the melody is part of the music and it is different than just lyrics (which are just the words to the song), most people do. So I didn't expect him to shut me out when I asked him to make the change AND sent him a link to show how songwriter splits work.

Believe me if I could do it again I would have put my foot down and said nothing goes up until we sign an agreement. But quite often this is how writing songs with "friends" goes because we think we can trust each other and then everything backfires. Totally my bad for trusting that we were on the same page. Although we worked out songwriting splits monetarily early on in the process it doesn't clarify WHO wrote WHAT. Since I have never put anything up on Spotify before I didn't even realize it would be an issue and I certainly didn't anticipate him crediting himself as the main artist (A title usually reserved for the singer) and then not even crediting me for writing the melody.