It makes sense that if you want good feedback on your songs, you’ll want to run them by good, experienced songwriters. After all, they’ve been there; they know the struggles it takes to get a song working, and can (hopefully) pass their experience on to you.
But have you considered musicians other than songwriters as people who can give you valuable feedback?
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If you consider the professional music world, once a song gets to the point where it’s recorded, a lot of good musicians have had a hand in getting it to that point. Yes, the songwriter has crafted something worthy of being presented to the world, but you’ve also got:
- other vocalists who might be doing backing vocals;
- instrumentalists who perform the song;
- engineers and other sound recording specialists;
- producers who guide the performance and recording; and
- marketers, who know the demands of the industry.
In short, there are a lot of people out there who know a lot about what makes music successful. And each category of people listed above have their own particular expertise. True, most of them may not be songwriters, but most of them know what makes a good song.
So if you’ve been scouting out people that you can run your songs by to get a better opinion than you might get by posting it to a public forum, think about the people in your own musical sphere who work, even just part-time, in the music world — players, singers, and so on. They can offer you a perspective that may not be a songwriter’s perspective, but is still based on experience and knowledge.
Those people may not be making music their sole career, but many of them have rubbed shoulders with some very talented people, and they get to know what works. Most of the time, these casual musicians can offer good guidance and excellent suggestions, even if songwriting hasn’t been their thing.
Written by Gary Ewer. Follow Gary on Twitter.
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