Co-Writing

June 19, 2022 Molly-Ann Molly-Ann Leikin

Insider Secrets to Hit Songwriting in the Digital Age

Chapter Five

Co-Writing

In my book, Insider Secrets to Hit Songwriting in the Digital Age, there is a very important chapter on co-writing. THIS is essential reading.

If you’re invited to co-write in a contemporary situation, sometimes with up to ten people, it’s usually a positive, spontaneous, creative experience. There’s usually an artist who is part of the team, waiting for your song. You’re “in the room” with talented writers, producers, and avalanches of ideas, riffs, and rhythm. Somebody hums something, someone else throws out a title, the guy in that cute blue shirt suggests a line. One idea inspires another. This project usually has a tight deadline. You’re not just writing a song, it’s a whole track too. And it has a home, going in.

When it’s finished, even though it’s impossible to determine who did what, everyone in the room, including the kid who delivers the croissants, is your co-writer. Even if you wrote the whole melody, 10 percent of a hit is better than 100 percent of “maybe some other time.”

The key here is to be invited into the room. Here’s where networking takes over as your best talent. For example, if you wrote with Suzanne, who co-wrote with Angelina, who played bass on the second single with George and Jack, who is in Johnny’s band. That’s how the music collaboration business works today. Not only do you have to be original, have a resume, but you need to be a good networker too. It’s like social climbing, which I call collab-climbing.

Stay on it. You can do this. I promise. Just go after it, a few hours a day, every day. Then practice your acceptance speech as you prepare to revel as your name is called with the artist’s whole posse at the Grammys. Ask any songwriter. We all have our speeches ready, because y’never know.

It all starts with co-writing.