If your ambition is to earn money from songwriting, it’s important to remember that a demo is more than just a permanent recording of your song for posterity. A demo is the advertisement for your song. It’s your billboard.
Like any advertisement you see on TV or in a magazine, your demo has to be able to attract people’s attention and stimulate their interest. Most importantly, IT HAS TO SELL.
Just like any other business, you have to invest in marketing and selling your wares. A demo is your most important sales and marketing tool—whether you’re trying to get a record deal for your band or yourself as a singer-songwriter, or offering your song to a music publisher, or pitching your songs direct to producers.
So it is crucial to spend time getting it right.
Most publishers, A&R reps and producers are busy people who continually work under pressure. You may only be able to get them to listen to your demo once. That means it has to make an immediate impression and hit them right between the eyes (or, preferably, between their ears) first time around.
In the advertising world, they give each brand a ‘USP’ (a unique selling point) in order to differentiate it from rival brands. In effect, the message of every ad you see is: “Buy this product and you’ll get this specific benefit” (the USP).
You have to make sure that your demo conveys your USP. It has to show publishers and record labels how they will benefit if they ‘buy’ into your songs and sign you up.
Whether you make a demo with your own home recording set-up or in a professional studio, the recording needs to measure up to the highest quality standards expected by music industry pros. But that doesn’t mean it has to be an expensive, full-band studio production with all the frills.
If the demo is designed to sell the song itself, it doesn’t require much production. It just needs to sound professional. All you need is a solid and tight rhythm track with a strong lead vocal that stays in tune. The vocal should be upfront in the mix so that listeners can hear the lyrics clearly. However, a good song should still stand out even if the demo only features one voice and a single piano or guitar.
An artist demo for a record label usually requires a little more production to show- case your sound and originality. It doesn’t have to be as polished as a finished record, but it must demonstrate your performance intensity, emotion, depth of musical substance … and your star potential.
If you’re a singer-songwriter or in a band, video demos are now a relatively low- cost option for getting your material noticed.
Many publishers and A&R reps now regularly search YouTube for new writers and artists. Lana del Rey, for example, was discovered and signed by Interscope Records after John Ehmann, the company’s senior director of A&R, spotted her video for ‘Diet Mountain Dew’ on YouTube.
But you have to apply the same quality criteria to a video demo as you do to an audio demo. Your footage won’t impress an A&R exec if it looks amateurish and the sound quality is terrible. So don’t just shoot it on a smartphone and upload it. Many recording studios now offer a video facility as well as audio recording. So use the best audio-visual technology you can afford to showcase your style and sound, and most importantly the song itself.
Remember, you’re running your own small business, so you need to take a risk and invest in the stuff you’re selling in order to make money from it. But, as mentioned earlier in this book, your product (your song) has to be right… and the quality of your audio or video demo has to make you look and sound like a pro.
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