Wayne Cohen is a songwriter, record producer and song tutor whose songs include Top 10 hit singles, downloads and #1 albums, which have sold more than 5 million, in the U.S., UK, Europe, Australia and Asia. He works from his NYC studio Stand Up Sound, as well as in London and Los Angeles. Wayne's 30 years experience as a songwriter and educator has also given him the ability to turn his toolkit into a song tutoring course that benefits songwriters around the world, in individual and group tutoring sessions, via Skype and at his midtown Manhattan, NYC studio Stand Up Sound.
Wanna break through? Write a breakthrough song, Part I
I recently judged a battle of the bands here in NYC during which I was really impressed with the energy, dedication, focus, musicianship and marketing abilities of the performers. However I was struck that out of the five bands I judged, only one of the vocalists wrote a hook that I could remember after I heard it once. In fact, the band that I gave the highest marks to were an instrumental group that I thought had the best melodies!
In that moment it occurred to me that now, more than ever, when so much music is available to anyone with a mouse and an internet connection, a breakthrough song is what you need to make an impression. People will tell you to get the right haircut, imaging, packaging, marketing and production to break through, and they are not wrong, but if you don’t have at least one breakthrough song, none of the rest will matter. If you want to get noticed, creating or finding that breakout song is your job #1.
You are saying to yourself, how is this possible? Are you in denial, thinking ‘Isn’t my guitar sound enough to get me a record deal?’ Don’t worry, there’s a songwriter inside of you, you just have to find it.
So how do you do it? Well, Ringo Starr was somewhat right when he sang ‘you know it don’t come easy’, but I know there is a way for you to express what’s unique about your take on the world, and channel that into a hook laden melody with a cool breakout lyric concept and a hot beat..., in other words, a breakout song.
Call me a crazy curmudgeon, but really it’s a pretty simple equation...You have to reach into yourself, think about what you’re feeling, and then start feeling it, to begin your path towards that breakout song. When I write I like to decide which of my feelings can represent an urgent universal truth I feel needs to be shared with the world. To get me in the mood, sometimes, I like to start from the point of ‘righting a wrong’ or ‘wronging a right’, because it’s unlikely anyone outside your circle is going to care much about something that’s not urgent and universal. Remember your lust for world domination?
For example, I was writing a song recently called ‘Live On’ which started out as a thank you from a veteran artist to his long time fans. It was a catchy title with a good melody and a good beat, but lucky for me there was not enough urgency to it. So I put it away, and I say lucky, because the next day I had a co-write scheduled with a young unsigned female bluesy rock artist who needed a single. I realized that if I took the same concept, twisted it into a plea for her lover’s long lasting passion, and added the ‘L’ word to the title, suddenly the same song idea became an urgent universal cry for clarity from one lover to another. Recently that song ‘Love Live On’ by Laura and the Tears has been released as a single, playlisted on BBC Radio 2 and is available for sale on the iTunes Store. The lover in question has been duly served, and it remains unclear as to what will happen… :-)
In any case, my point is that it can take a bit of sweat equity to create that breakthrough song, but you never have to give up, you just need to dig a little deeper, because yesterday’s trash could be tomorrow’s treasure…
P.S. After that battle of the bands I was asked by the memorable hook vocalist why I didn’t vote for her. I told her that although her song was the best, her band was not, and since it was a battle of the bands I could not justify voting for a band that wasn’t up to snuff. By now you could be thinking ‘what a hard core son of a gun this guy is’ and you’d be right. But I hope she heard me when I said that her song was the best, because in the long run that will serve her. Now she just needs the right band, and several more of those kinds of songs.
Tune in next week for more in Part 2: Wanna break through? Write a breakthrough song: Tools of the Trade
You can contact Wayne here.
Wanna break through? Write a breakthrough song, Part I
I recently judged a battle of the bands here in NYC during which I was really impressed with the energy, dedication, focus, musicianship and marketing abilities of the performers. However I was struck that out of the five bands I judged, only one of the vocalists wrote a hook that I could remember after I heard it once. In fact, the band that I gave the highest marks to were an instrumental group that I thought had the best melodies!
In that moment it occurred to me that now, more than ever, when so much music is available to anyone with a mouse and an internet connection, a breakthrough song is what you need to make an impression. People will tell you to get the right haircut, imaging, packaging, marketing and production to break through, and they are not wrong, but if you don’t have at least one breakthrough song, none of the rest will matter. If you want to get noticed, creating or finding that breakout song is your job #1.
You are saying to yourself, how is this possible? Are you in denial, thinking ‘Isn’t my guitar sound enough to get me a record deal?’ Don’t worry, there’s a songwriter inside of you, you just have to find it.
So how do you do it? Well, Ringo Starr was somewhat right when he sang ‘you know it don’t come easy’, but I know there is a way for you to express what’s unique about your take on the world, and channel that into a hook laden melody with a cool breakout lyric concept and a hot beat..., in other words, a breakout song.
Call me a crazy curmudgeon, but really it’s a pretty simple equation...You have to reach into yourself, think about what you’re feeling, and then start feeling it, to begin your path towards that breakout song. When I write I like to decide which of my feelings can represent an urgent universal truth I feel needs to be shared with the world. To get me in the mood, sometimes, I like to start from the point of ‘righting a wrong’ or ‘wronging a right’, because it’s unlikely anyone outside your circle is going to care much about something that’s not urgent and universal. Remember your lust for world domination?
For example, I was writing a song recently called ‘Live On’ which started out as a thank you from a veteran artist to his long time fans. It was a catchy title with a good melody and a good beat, but lucky for me there was not enough urgency to it. So I put it away, and I say lucky, because the next day I had a co-write scheduled with a young unsigned female bluesy rock artist who needed a single. I realized that if I took the same concept, twisted it into a plea for her lover’s long lasting passion, and added the ‘L’ word to the title, suddenly the same song idea became an urgent universal cry for clarity from one lover to another. Recently that song ‘Love Live On’ by Laura and the Tears has been released as a single, playlisted on BBC Radio 2 and is available for sale on the iTunes Store. The lover in question has been duly served, and it remains unclear as to what will happen… :-)
In any case, my point is that it can take a bit of sweat equity to create that breakthrough song, but you never have to give up, you just need to dig a little deeper, because yesterday’s trash could be tomorrow’s treasure…
P.S. After that battle of the bands I was asked by the memorable hook vocalist why I didn’t vote for her. I told her that although her song was the best, her band was not, and since it was a battle of the bands I could not justify voting for a band that wasn’t up to snuff. By now you could be thinking ‘what a hard core son of a gun this guy is’ and you’d be right. But I hope she heard me when I said that her song was the best, because in the long run that will serve her. Now she just needs the right band, and several more of those kinds of songs.
Tune in next week for more in Part 2: Wanna break through? Write a breakthrough song: Tools of the Trade
You can contact Wayne here.
