datamusicata

I got a post from Derek Sivers, the fellow who started CD Baby, the other day. He wanted me to give him my input on feedback. It was a blanket post and I suspect he asked thousands of folks to do it. We’d have to go to his blog site to do it, so it was obviously a good idea in terms of generating traffic. But the question was a valid one and I salute him for asking it.

Where do you get your feedback? When you create something or are in the process of creating something who and where do you go for feedback.

My first rule is to not show anyone anything until there is a fully formed something to show them. Their lack of enthusiasm could kill a good idea in its nascency, just because you couldn’t present the idea in such a way that it had any resonance for them.

For initial feedback, I always go to the classics. Songs or recordings that I think set the bar. I play my song against that song. I play my mix against the best mixes I ever heard. How do they compare? That’s the first step for me. Then I go outside for feedback.

The first thing to do regarding feedback is to recognize what you are selling. If someone is crazy for traditional folk music, you don’t want to show them a jazz tune, even though they might get it. Their feedback is going to be couched in their experience and their preferences.

I believe a live audience is perfect for feedback. If you can present your song in a professional and musical manner, then the audience will respond. Regardless of what they try to tell you and sell you, the bulk of humanity likes a good melody; likes a lyric they can relate to; likes a rhythm they can respond to; and likes it when a song sets up a mood and maintains it.

Secondly, you can try to get some of your friends to listen, or if you are involved in any songwriter clubs, in the rounds, or open mics, you can get some valuable feedback from that. But you can’t rely on that always.

I remember writing a song a while back and it seemed like everything was there, but I truly couldn’t tell if the song were any good or not. I played it for my wife. She told me it was the worst song that I ever wrote. That set me back a little, but I looked at the song and thought, no, there’s nothing wrong with the song, it must be the way that I am doing it.

So I rearranged it a little bit and then played it for a songwriter friend of mine, and asked him what he thought. He told me he couldn’t get over how I could go up the neck and hit the complicated fingering of the chord inversion I chose. Which was code to me for, “the song sucks but here’s an e for effort”.

Still I thought the song had merit and weirdly enough, I liked singing it. So I kept singing it and rearranging my guitar part, and slightly changing lyrics if I thought I could clarify something.

Then I got some fan mail regarding the album The Eternal Contradiction and the song that I was struggling with. This fellow called it the best song on the album and perhaps one of the best songs ever. My my, I thought, somebody somewhere has this wrong. Is it me?

One night, I decided to open with the song, as I had been playing it for about thirty minutes in the dressing room. The crowd cheered. And it has become the song I open up all my sets with and it seems to be consistently cheered and revered.

So I think the final answer has to do with actually owning the song before you show it to anyone. Make as certain as you can that everything is right where and how you want it to be and then present it like that.

Finally, be willing to change anything that might not be working. And you can tell. The audience drifts away and begins talking. The friend you are playing it for begins to look at his watch. There are clues. You just need to pay attention and in the final analysis, follow your guts. If you think the song is great then don’t stop working on it and performing it until everyone agrees with you, or you have irrefutable proof that the song sucks.