Episode 96: Five Steps for the Modern Songwriter to Start Getting Placements

Don't miss out on the chance to supercharge your music career through sync licensing!

This exciting episode is cut from a live session hosted by Mike Meiers at the Austin Music Foundation.

In this hour-long deep dive into the world of sync, Mike shares invaluable insights on how to kickstart your journey as a songwriter in today's music industry.

Sync licensing isn't a sprint; it's a marathon that requires dedication and self-investment. Mike firmly believes that every songwriter should know the rules of the game.

Far too often, talented songwriters miss out on opportunities because they weren't prepared. Tune in to gain the knowledge you need, ensuring that when the opportunity knocks, you'll be ready to seize the biggest paycheck of your career.

Listen here or read the a.i. transcription below...

 

Hey friends, Mike Meiers here with the Songwriting for Guitar podcast episode number 96. Five steps for the modern songwriter to start getting placements. So back in June, I was able to speak at the Austin Music Foundation. This was my first time in Austin to it was amazing city and I gave a talk on five steps for the modern songwriter to start getting placements. These are five things that I think are crucial five things I've learned over time that are kind of make or break whether you're going to have longevity in licensing or it's just going to be kind of like a flop. And so if you're someone that hasn't received a placement, or let's say you receive one placement and but it hasn't been consistent, and you're looking for that consistency, this is something you're going to want to listen to. So this is my talk that I gave back in June at the Austin Music Foundation, five steps for the modern songwriter to start getting placements.

Unknown Speaker 1:32
Without further ado, I'd love to introduce you to Mike Myers. And take it away

Mike Meiers 1:45
Is it weird not being on Zoom is like for me, it's like all my chips on Zoom. So when there's a live thing, I'm just like,

can we change the gallery view? Can I find that? And it's just like you can unmute that. Yeah, you're out here. This is this is my first time in Austin. And it is a gorgeous city. This is so good. Like the culture. Everyone's so nice. Everyone is so nice. And it's so inclusive. And it's just like, it's wonderful. It's great. It's like this little gem in Texas.

Unknown Speaker 2:19
Can you guys can be more energetic.

Mike Meiers 2:22
So what are you I'm a huge caffeinated person. So if you're like me, talks fast, he's like he's all over the place. It's coffee. It's coffee. When I did my event, once there was someone that send me an email and was like, Mike, are you on cocaine? And I was like, I was like, I was like, Well, I was like, I'm just coffee. So a little of my background, because I'm going to talk about licensing. First thing when somebody says, I'm going to tell you about something you should ask them. Do you do this thing? And before you tell me so my background was I was a musician, I toured in a band did that for an extremely long period of time. And then eventually, like all things bands break up different iterations, we went through different drummers. We went through different this different that. And then finally, I was just like, I guess this is it, I guess music stuff for me. And then so I ended up teaching at a small Music School in Pittsburgh, which I loved. It was great. I started to teach guitar. But then halfway through, I was watching a show on my couch late at night. And music was playing. I was like, I could write that. That's not that complicated. I know what that is. But then there's this other voice that was like, that's great. Why arch? I'm curious, why am I not doing the thing? And anybody else watched music on TV and be like, I could do that. So complicated. You can raise your hand, you could say yes, you can do. Because there's so many shows, like think of in the past, I don't know, six, seven years, how many streaming services have popped up? So many? How many ads to see not only just like on TV, but whether on the ads, like you know, when you're trying to watch a video, you know, like, you know, cats on YouTube, and then suddenly it's just like, AB you're like music, I could still do music for this and then you move on to the cat video. So I was like, I want to do this. But here's the thing. I have no idea how I'm not sure how this world works. So then started my journey of figuring out music licensing. So it was taking a whole bunch of courses. It was being very, very uncomfortable coming to things like this where people are like, I'm gonna speak and I'm like, oh, go and see with my backpack being like, okay, flying out to LA and Nashville sitting there, having zero songs to show but literally just taking notes, listening to what's working, what's not working, going back home and applying it, doing it getting rejected getting it wrong, not getting accepted, but still being like we can't figure it out and then about two years in first placement and I'm like it was team bomb. It was too long. But still it was all So because I was like a prove that wasn't crazy. I was like, wait a minute, this is working because, you know, probably as creatives and visionaries, we always have this thing in our head that we get that we're trying to explain to other people. And it seems like we're speaking a foreign language to them. We're trying to explain what we do and what we want to do. And they're just like, so what do you want to do for a living? Like, why? How are you going to make money and you're like, oh, and that's how I felt, I remember coming back from a flight from LA. And my parents took me up, because I'm cool like that. And my parents were taking me back to my place. And they were like, So how'd it go? And I was like, good. Do you think I could borrow just like 500? Just for the bills for the month? And they were like, Yeah, it's fine. Do you think this thing's gonna work out and I was like, trust me on this, it's gonna work up. And after that first placement, a couple months later, there was no. And then there was another. And then there was another one and the placements went up to from like, that low grade of like, cool, I got a 500 to like, code. Now we got 1000. And then suddenly, the shows got better, too. It was like, oh, shitless, I know that that's a thing. And the payments got better. And then I got x, and then things were starting to rise up. So my goal today is to show you five things. And these are five things that I've noticed that are going to be universal. So no matter what happens 10 years from now, when it comes to licensing, these five things are still going to matter. So these five things are incredible. And my goal is to give you information so that when you're done that you apply this, because it's one thing when people tell you things to take in the knowledge, but to actually start applying it to your songs. That's the thing that's going to make you sick separates you from people that do it. And don't people that do it, they don't care if they're going to happen. They know that if they you know something doesn't happen, or if they screw up, they're gonna learn from it, tweak the process, tweak the system, do it again, people that just consume information and consume. They're always consuming. Like all the time, we probably have friends that do that, oh, once I get this course, once I do this thing, once I do this at pencil, it never happens. They're always consuming. So what's great about you guys, is you set the intention today to by being here. Because there's a lot of shit you got to do as an adult. Like, isn't there? Like you have to like, Why would you come here? Like, why? Because my, your knowledge, and it's just like an if that also unlocks another revenue stream in which you can make money. Is that a bad thing? No, because money is okay. It's okay to be an artist and make money. So we're gonna go through those five things. Now, when I say sync, let's say it's synchronization. So it's basically any form of media that you're putting into picture film. So that means there's so many different buckets. So the first thing when people are starting out in licensing, my best advice is which sync bucket are you going to focus it? Because they all have different rules, and what I mean by that, there's film and TV, then we've got trailers, then we've got things like commercials, but even within commercials, we've got web only commercials, then we've got like high paying commercials that marketing agencies are getting, then we've got things like podcasts, and we have things like underscore which are completely different. All these play by different rules, and are need different things. So you have to focus where do I feel like is my best focus right now. Because what happens early on is people see all this and they're like, I'm use it's perfect for everything. It's not. And I mean that with luck, it's not perfect for everything. It's perfect for a certain area first and you can refine it. So if we start with film and TV, it's fast. Let's start with reality shows. That is one of your best entry level things right now reality TV, because it's so right now what we could do is we could go to something like T mom and you're going to hear me talk about this website a lot, which you should write down, it's called to find so to find is going to be your best resource in terms of let's say researching the show, let's go to mom we'll type it in and then it's going to give you all the seasons and then it's going to show you every single song that was used for that particular season plus it's going to give you the link and it's going to tell you the same that was used so it's like we don't have to go watch any shows. All we got to do is just hone in on one particular show and start to do some research. So when we do what's great is you're gonna see that and you're gonna be like okay, reality TV always need songs. I think one season of Teen Mom I looked there was over they need a 231 songs. Now they're not all Bohemian Rhapsody. So you don't have to worry about it's like, I need to be just like no it there's a need for it. Now As we move up, like, for instance, Shameless, you're gonna find the songs, it's going to be a little bit different, there's going to be a different amount, probably about five per season, or five per show, I should say. And that means there's going to be more of a selective process, there's going to be really honed in. So that means that price points can be a little bit higher. But when we're talking about reality TV, that's the ground floor right there. That's your perfect entry level of starting to get into licensing. And it's not that $500 per show, usually. And that's not talking about the residual royalties on the back end, which we'll get into. But right there, that's a perfect entry level. Sometimes we're starting when someone goes like, Ah, I want to do a Google ad. Have you gotten a placement before? Nope. Let's start there. And so selective, because what's going to happen is you're going to in so high, then you're going to get disappointed, like, share, I can't do it.

But here's the thing you can, you just need to know where to start. It's like you're talking about step 37. And I'm like, Hey, why don't we start with like step four, and start right there. Because I believe anyone can do licensing. Like it's not there's a need for music. There's a need for great music, too. It's not just the need for any type of music, there's a need for great music. So understanding that bucket like for instance, still the film and TV, if we go to dark, haunting shows, for instance, Wednesday, that was a huge show of Stranger Things. That was a huge show. There are different types of songs that were needed. There are definitely for Wednesday, also darker things. So if you're a singer, songwriter, and you have some breathing things, and you want to focus on an emotion and feel, that's perfect, that's the bucket you need to be focusing on. Because if you're trying to take those songs, and you're forcing it into ADS, it's not going to work. You're going to be wondering why nobody's listening to you. Because you're not focusing on which bucket. So that to me is one. So we got to film and TV ads completely different. ads need to be upbeat, they need to be modern, they need to be popular, they need to have great, very specific targeted lyrics. Like that's where it because there's a lot of visuals that are hanging very quick, quick camera shots. So if you're not sure, like, I don't know what ads are going on right now. Another website, that's great. It's called eyespot. TV, that's going to show you all the ads that are happening. And not only that, it's going to show you like companies that were used, like how long it was used. What were the mediums was it web only was it used for web was it used for TV as well. And how long was that commercial area? Because maybe you're going to research something you notice like oh, that was like three years ago. Does that matter? We're getting a question. So if you got a question feel free. Yeah. I saw I start TV, like the letter I yeah, I and then spot just.tv Did not even count just.tv. Yep. You in find out calm. So that's for shells. If you're looking specifically for commercials and admirals, you're gonna go to eyespot. TV. So those are the two worlds because then if you're researching something, and suddenly you see like that commercial was three years ago, probably a lot has changed in those three years. So that's not the best point of reference. But perhaps as you're going through, when I was starting to go through like T Mobile, I noticed the theme. They love female fronted bands. They always rarely the genres were diverse, but in terms of lyrics, and in terms of like, who was a front and center that was female fronted very rarely as defined a male so I was like, Cool. So when I run into supplements like this, I know that's what I'm focusing on. Now when it comes to underscore. Now underscore is a little bit different. So do we have any producers here like Sondra, okay, produce awesome. So what's great about being a producer is you kind of have two, two ways you can look at this, you can start doing songs with artists. And I would suggest that kurang with artists are fantastic. Because when you do that, you're gonna find someone that has great voice, they have a great emotion and you can tap into that underscores another thing, and that is simply just Hughes. There's no lyrics, there's no melody, but you are painting the vibe of the show. I did a whole bunch recently for shark week, I did something that was an Australia show that was called Bondi rescue. And another one that was called extreme tow truckers, and this was all overseas, but a lot of it was short underscores, which were maybe a minute a minute, 45 seconds. So for me as a producer, I'm versatile and just maybe two or three genres that really focus on so if they said hey, we're looking for something that's Stone Temple Pilots, I'm like, awesome. We're looking for something that's like the aces and like we are scientists in Iraq. I know that ship. Folk Americana. I know that as soon as it gets into the realm that I don't know. I don't worry about it. Like because there's so many options out there. Focus, focus on what you know, well, when you're starting, when you're picking this bottle, focus on your strength. Can you branch out? Yes. Should you do that from the beginning? Absolutely not. Stay with what you know what is your sweet spot your zone of genius? Anybody read the big leap like 100 Anyone? Okay, so I'm going to tell books, you should read that book, he talks about something called your zone of genius. That's the shit that you're good at. And one thing music supervisors, definitely one is the thing that you're good at your zone of genius. You don't have to try to be someone you're not. They want that authenticity so much what when we think we think we think we have to paint who we are. But what I found throughout that is, oh, no, you actually got to be you. You have to be your authentic self. You got to be your authentic self and your lyrics, your production, you don't have to try to be someone else they would rather you not because they can sniff out a phony very quickly because they're inundated daily with emails from people that are like, oh my goodness, I'm the next Sacher Imagine me saying I'm the next Sacher. You can laugh a little bit more. That was good. That was good. Yes, sir, I believe. Thank you, I believe but it's like being authentic. And that was so hard for me at first, because I'm going to these events. I'm meeting all these people. I'm saying I'm just like, Shit, I really need to know. I realized I had much more successful songs when I have trust me, I have hard driver, terrible songs. But then eventually, I had another hard drive that was trying to get better songs, I realized I was just need to see me working in having that quirky personality. When I'd have an artist. It worked well, it didn't have to try to do everything. So my big thing is what bucket? So that's the big thing you need to focus, what are you going to focus on? Where are you going to spend your zone of genius? Listen. There we go. Now, we got to talk about the second thing, your music and your style is important to you, because we all feel attached to it. The question you have to ask is, is there a need for it? Because when it comes to licensing, this is where we're entering a service based industry. Because whatever, we tack something on where we're like, we want money for this. This is a service based industry, you're providing a service. So when it comes to this, if you are someone that says like, you know, Russian folk is my shift, that's what I make a lot of. Okay? Do the research. So think of your bucket and think about the shows, then ask yourself, is there a need for not Russia? I mean, I see cool, there's full can you find something that's similar to where that's what you need to do? Now, how many singer songwriters we have here? Okay, cool. singer songwriters are awesome, because I would say one of the most sing songs I have is called crazy. It's done with my friend Madeline, my friend Madeline thin. It's been synced over nine times, not exclusive. And folk Americana song kind of similar to the vein of like, Of Monsters and Men and Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. So it's something like that. But that was not necessarily present. Like where she was like, I'm crazy about that. She loves dark things. So we get into that, but we realized there's a need. Because if we're just giving them things that they don't want, here's what's going to happen. They're going to start being like every time they see your email, delete, because you're giving them things they don't want. And you're just emailing them constantly with things they don't need. But if they see your email, and the first thing is like, this is great, because they're constantly sending me stuff that I need. And you're probably like, Mike, how do I know what they need? Aren't you doing your research? Those two sites, I gave the tune spot and two to five. And then I spoke to the are you looking at what's getting placed? Are you writing down the titles too? Because as you know, creatives, we have to be like, Why need to be inspired? That's awesome. What you need to do is you need to look at titles, what titles are they using in these shirts? Can you take one of them? And maybe take a spin on it? Like, is there a theme going on to that entire episode? Is it empowerment? Is it and also to what kind of empowerment is it like badass empowerment, like, We're fucking kicking down the door and we're gonna get you empowerment, like we own this lace? Or is this empowerment like, through our soul, we're gonna rise up, there's a different feeling. So you can write a whole bunch of empowerment songs that are strictly badass. And then you can have a series of empowerment songs, they're strictly emotional. They're about like a serious scene where it's like, maybe like something like the good doctor on ABC, where it's like, they're coming together, and they're rising up empowerment. So you really have to think about that is the need. And then as you focus on the need, you focus on that subject matter because you've got some evidence to back it up, you realize that they do need that they do require that I've got these nice little pockets that I can start creating. And the reason this is important is because this is how people crush it. When it comes to licensing. They're doing this consistently. They're thinking about these things they're researching they're creating, how many of you create playlists.

Okay, so there's one big piece of advice, create a playlist have similar artists to you, or what you want to create, that are getting place use to find as kind of your resource. Because if you can start to collect that, and we all do mundane shit, we walk around you have to do, if you have your earplugs in, or whatever you use, and you start listening to this, you're gonna get past the point of like being like, Oh, it was cool, you're gonna start analyzing it, and you're like, oh, you know, it was interesting, that verse melody, I was pretty like, sad, it was kind of like toxic. But when we get to that chorus, the reason I think that did well, or why they use that is because like, that really comes up. And then that's where they say the thing in the title. It's not convoluted, and you're like, I wonder what this is about. They're sick, like, they're like, we will write like they have it there in the title, I can understand why that ship got you so much. So the best advice is to start collecting the playlists, because your time is valuable. Like when you're sitting down to whether you're staring at a blank dos screen, whether you're pulling on your guitar, or I'm gonna start writing, that is valuable time. So if you've done some research between now and then listening to what's working. And the reason I'm paying attention is because this is the thing that I hear again, and again and again, and again, from music supervisors being like, why does this work? They're just throwing me songs, they haven't researched. They can't tell me what this is like, they can't tell me the emotion, the mood, the field, what am I supposed to do with this, they're not gonna reach out to you and be like, Hey, I just wanted to let you know, it doesn't hit the mark, because they're inundated daily with hundreds of songs. So your goal is to make their job easier when they think of my name, I want them to be like, Ha, so easy, because I deliver consistently. So the big thing you can do right now is just create a playlist, start doing it, sir. Hello, coach. I talk about playlists all the time. I'm like, So Sarah, what's the playlist? What's the playlist? But here's the thing when she focuses on that, a fucking kills it, and you've crushed it, because you're getting better at just focusing on the bare central structure of the song. We're not even talking about production. We're talking about the core of the bones, like just the bare beginning. Because when we think a saint, we're like, Oh, it'll be taken care of in production? No, it won't. I always shudder when I hear that, because I'm like, What makes you think he's gonna be taken care of in production? It won't. The bones of the song, the structure need to be solid. So it's just like that core, when you sit with that intention, half the playlist that you've listened to think about what are you going to write, I'm going to write something that is, yeah, that is an empowerment, I'm going to write a badass one. So that's going to dictate to you melody chords, feel all of that you've set the intention well, before you've even picked up an instrument. Because that matters. So far, what we've covered is first saying which bucket. So the goal is when you're done, write down your bucket that you're focusing on. And then think, on the second thing, okay, on my genre stuff, is there a need based on our research? And if not, what are the things that are close enough that I can start branching to that concert referencing, so that when I meet, because Natalie is a sweetheart, I've talked to her and she's awesome, I love that you're here, you've got a music supervisor, you've got a library, it's so close to home, that you can go down, if you build a rapport, and over time, she knows your name, and she knows the quality that you keep on putting out. That's awesome. Because that's always going to be someone that you're going to rely on. And that is my whole goal. This weekend, I was with an awesome music supervisor and friend, Jody Friedman, when we were in a vet, and I used to know John, by going to events, and I would see him speak at your high school, he could be friends. I thought we could be friends. And every time I tried to make it happen, it's never happened. You know, it's like one of those things did you know when you meet someone at a party, or just, I'm gonna set it up, I'm gonna go up to the table, and I'm gonna be happy. So good, immediate never happened. But when it did happen, was when I started sending songs that work. And then he was like, Oh, thanks for this. This really works. Well, I'm added to the catalog. And then over time, we connected. And over time, we became friends. And over time, he began sharing and being like, Hey, I'm looking for this will call me up. Hey, do you have any of this? Now? How's that? It's not because I'm lucky. It's not because I just went to an event, listen to what was needed, and made sure I delivered that. And I was consistent. And that's how you start to bridge that gap between wanting to be in TV and then eventually getting there. To me. It's just like, it's that service mindset. And say that again, I'll probably say we're serving them as a service based industry. Now, let's talk about the third thing, and this to me is super important. This now gets into the song. Let's talk about dynamics, and your candy hooks. This is the thing that is absolutely necessary if you're going to do licensing. Now the first thing is dynamics and what I mean by that So if I were to export your song as a WAV file, would it just be one huge lump across from start to finish? Or would I start to see these waves, these dips, these builds these dips, these builds build slow rises. Now why does that matter? Because remember, this is being added to picture. So they're going to require you there's a different there's a hierarchy, if you will. So yes, there's you, then there's the music supervisor. And eventually, there's this guy, that's the music editor that has to put this all to all the picture. And we want to make the music editors job as easy as possible. If he's given a choice between the song that is one long wav file, and something that has clear edit points and clear cuts. And he has to do 13 shows, which one is he going to choose? He's gonna go with the one with clear evidence, why it's going to be a breeze that he doesn't have to go in. He doesn't have to be like I have to. So the big thing that I'm always looking for is we're writing and I'm not even talking on the production stage, I'm talking about as we're writing it, are we are we conscious of like, as I'm playing my guitar, am I dynamically indicating where it's gonna rise? And then we're gonna build are we interesting where we want those drops, and if we aren't, what's going to happen there. So dynamics are huge. If you look at a lot of songs, they're working on TV, you're gonna see there's a lot of edit points where you're going to hear maybe the vocal, but then cuts the instrumental and goes back to the vocal and instrumental, one of the longest placements that I ever got. That was two minutes and 15 seconds, it was really long song. It was a birthing scene. And they used it when the song was called, like flaming the night. And then from start to finish, it went from different variations, like we gave them a version that was just starting to stick in the instrumental and then it came up, and then there was the vocal thing cut away, and then he splice in the ending sound. And then he splice back to her vocal. So there was a lot of edit points, what made that process a hell of a lot easier. We had clear at that point. So when I was producing this out, I was conscious, and I was looking at this, are we building up, always back away from my project? And be like, do I see kind of like that roller coaster build? If I don't, I'm like, something has to be taken away. And the reason is, because I want this to get place. So there's always my ego, sometimes I'm like, Ah, but it's good. I've gotten placements, it'll work. If you don't think no, it will not be like that, because there's always gonna be someone that's going to deliver that as well. Simon still competition with someone else. So how am I going to make that easier? Give them what they want. I'll make sure there is a clear that point, I'll make sure that the dynamics are built. I'll make sure that we're varying some sections, because most songs have three courses we got first, second and final. Is there variation between all three? Or is it copy paste? Variation, variation will always be better. Because if you've got like, let's say, first horses a little down, second horse really builds up. And there's a melodic hook that changes just slightly. And the third one, not only is it like built up even more, but you've got countermelodies, you've got things that bring it to life. There's that song, we'll have a life for a long time. But just I said that sounds crazy, got licensed nine times, because we have three different types of horses. We had three different things that were used, so that each project because you're right, you're creating things that have been created, you're going to TD for things that have already been filmed. But you're also thinking ahead for things that have to be filmed. And you want.

So the song is called crazy and fun. And it was by the guardhouse. And that's Yeah. So there's tons of variation, because you want that song because the energy and the time that you're putting in this, you don't want the song to be a one off his Yeah, you can get a placement. But to get another one, to get another one. To get another one, there has to be some thought and intention behind it. Yeah. Most of us, it's gonna be ended anywhere, same same deal. So I still want to build in what I'm doing. Like for instance, I get a whole bunch of shark we I think I did like 20 different songs for shark week, I was still treating it the same where it was like if you looked at the wav file, they're clear edit points, I may give them different versions. But I want to make sure that if they chose that one full version, that there's still a clear drop, there's still still a clear edit point. So I'm very conscious of that consistently. And I think that's why it continues with queues. I always want to make sure that they get a couple I don't want just one but I want them to take maybe like six or seven within a season and get placed because when that gets replayed in America and other countries that's residual royalties for me The only way that's going to increase is if I'm conscious of that dynamic way. And the reason I say this, again, is one of the first music licensing conferences I went to, somebody raise their hand was like, What should I put in the title of my email when I reach out to you? And the guy, this was, I did not expect this answer. He was like, What's your name? It was like Andrew, he was like, Andrew, I don't give a fuck what's in your title. And I was just like, oh, that's intense. And then he was like, but what I do care if it's a good song, and like, there's some bills, and it's not just a bulky wav file. He was like, I have an assistant that weeds through my emails. He's he's getting inundated with emails constantly from people being like, this is a perfect song. Okay, well, what makes a perfect song? Well, there's got to be a standard before it gets to him. Because his job is not to go through everything. His is to go through the ones that made it through like the first test. And now he's going to do the listening test. He said, his first test is just looking at the wav file. And then I heard that again, looking at the wav file, and I'm like, That's harsh. I was like, but they put the Yeah. So do you recommend sending uncompressed mixes, we'll get we'll get into the delivery of those things. So because that's a whole other video, which I will get into the delivery of that. But when we get into the delivery, he was like, I if it's a huge wave, I'm not gonna listen tonight. I just hit delete. On your 20, shortcut, or short read songs, what's your average night? So usually, for underscore, it's dependent, it's dependent on the company, what they give you the parameters they gave me was they wanted at most 1,000,045, I give them 15 seconds giving them 30 seconds, five seconds, I give them different mixes. So there's tons of other things that are in there. But men 45 is kind of your average, that was the average, if it goes a little bit under that's fine. Yes, and I will talk about the delivery of that too. But the wav file is super important. That is huge. And so you can still does that mean it needs to be fucking built with all these instruments that you don't use? What if you're just like, I'm a singer, songwriter. I have organic sounds I want organic, you can still build does, let's say it's just your guitar. One of the songs the guardhouse did to that was hold on that was just, it was just guitar for like the first two minutes. Does your guitar have dynamics? Let's just start there, you record your guitar? Can I still see that roof have build up and build down your vocals single vocal, you have overtop of it? Does it still build up and build out. You don't have to add infinite drums. If that's not you, you don't have to add kicking 808 cents again, I'm not telling you to change your identity. But I'm like, hey, here are some of the rules to be aware of that will increase your chances and make you stand out from 1000s of other people that are not even thinking about this. But purely just throwing songs at the wall, hoping something sticks. But if you have a formula and you've got a process you're developing, guess what? Your chances increase, and that we can certainly do better and better connections. Okay, so let's go into the next part of part three. And that's ear candy hooks. Now what do I mean by that? It's just something that grabs the listeners attention and keeps them holding. Because when we write a song where like, how many of you have had a friend that goes, let me play the song and start playing the song start slightly tuning out and they're like, just wait to the chorus, just wait to the chorus, just wait through the course. Here's the thing. That's not gonna happen with the supervisor. They're gonna listen to the first couple seconds of your song. And they're gonna jump, they're gonna jump. Now what they want to do is they want to make sure that there's something pulling the listener in, is there a small melodic hook that maybe isn't vocal, but it's just something whether it is let's say you're still doing something that's similar to a monster as men? Is it a lyric guitar and piano? That's just a melodic free notebook that's repetitive that links now why is this important? We ignore most of the transitions when our songs we think about versus we think about courses, we think about bridges, and we're like, that's amazing. But bridging the listener to the next section to the next section, we assume they're going to keep on listening most of the time they want it. There's like over I think daily is probably increased since the statistic but over 60,000 songs are upload to Spotify today. Not all of them are good. But they're uploaded to Spotify. So again, it's a numbers game. It's a think there's lots of music out there. We can't assume everyone's going to stay for the full duration of our song. So what's going to increase those odds again, are we thinking about the transitions that we're making? If we're going from verse to chorus? Are we just like stumbling into or recreating that Trump right there? We decided to right there. That's where it's going to be. And there's going to be a slight melodic hook that rises. That brings us into chorus. So transitional points in your songs are the moments for ear candy hooks. Those are the things that end up being used. There's a lot Lots of times, the lyrics have not been used at all, the melody has not been used at all in our songs. But some weird little thing that I did at the front end with like a whistle, a piano and a guitar, that was the hook. That's the thing that's replayed over the scene, why that was great for a transition into the next scene, it was great in the dialogue, because we don't know what scenes are going or what section of our song are going to be used. So it's up to us to make sure that we are being very intentional with that structure. And as I'm saying, this is a lot of work. I'm thinking about this all on the front end before I even sit down to write. Because I want to make sure the time that I carve out for writing, especially in early on, I was doing a weird teaching job and marketing for them. That was like a lebenden knife, which were weird as ours. And I think the time that I had to write these pockets are very, very tiny. And so I had to be super intentional with my time. If I wasn't, it was gonna be waste of time, I would be building out things. And I did. I build out a lot of songs that as I was building, I was like, it reminded me of a saying that when my first band recorded an album, there was an engineer, who was an old 60s guy that clearly did lots of drugs, his name was duck, and he would just he would turn around, he was like, you know, I can't polish a turd. And then he'd like lean back, and sweat, you can't. So if you're building this out, and you're like this isn't working, it's always back to the structuring the bones of the song. I'm going to constantly say that because yeah, production is great. A music supervisor would rather have a great song that's like a single guitar vocal, the piece of great story, a great feeling a great mood, a great image than something that's slightly built, that's kind of lucky. They rather they're gonna gravitate towards that 100% All the time. So ear candy hooks. So far, we've got the buckets, we're choosing the buckets of sink that we're doing, then we're asking questions if their need for it. And if there is awesome, if there isn't if there's something similar to our genre that can find it's working, so it's not going to be a stretch. So if you're a singer songwriter, I'm not saying you got to make a hip hop album. No, you don't have to, if you have to create the things that are relevant to you that are still within your wheelhouse, and there's lots out there. The next thing is the dynamic structures. Those are super, super important. Okay, now, are you guys still with

Speaker 1 37:29
us? Okay. Are you guys still with me? Yeah. That's wonderful. Are you so that was that was I'll take a stroke. Okay, I'll take it from. Okay.

Mike Meiers 37:47
Hey, it's Mike. I'm jumping in the middle of episode to let you know, I have a book that's coming out. Yeah, a book. You know, over the past decade, I've gathered so much thought on teaching songwriters, really understanding the pain points in terms of what hinders they're playing, to write great songs. And most of the time, it's not complicated things. It's things that get overlooked again, and again. And again, this is the framework that I've developed that I've taught in my courses, coaching clients that on retreats, songwriting retreats that I've taught again, and again, and again, I'm making available in this book. So if you're someone that wants to better understand their guitar, utilize it to its full potential to write better songs, just head right now to songwriting guitars, book.com. And you can preorder my book right now. And you're going to receive an immediate download of the audiobook which has extra content and the Kindle version, you're going to get available ASAP. So as soon as you preorder the book, guess what, you have these available at your fingertips so you can start diving in now. So remember, go to songwriting guitars, book.com to preorder the songwriting guitarist. Okay, let's jump back into the episode

let's talk about themes. Because this is another thing we always talk about, well, here's what the song is about. That's great. And I think that's awesome. But what are the themes that you're going to cover because the the site that I told you to find if you go into any of those shows, you're going to find these, you're going to find continuing stories that are their continuing things that are going to point you in the direction of like, oh shit, like, this shows really dark or it's just like, I know what this is like, when you go on Grey's Anatomy, you know what you're going to get? You're not going to be like, what's in a Grey's Anatomy show? It's going to be some heartfelt song that's either going to build you up or it's gonna wreck you. That's gonna make you be like, like one of my mentors, students safety, who, for years was a VP of creative I'm at Warner Chappell. Like, she's so much associated to the person she discovered and like, actually allowed her to live for two years was like Sheryl Crow. And when she tells that I'm just like, shut and she was like, yeah, she was super nice. That was she was so amazing. She was like, Mike, I just wanted to Grey's Anatomy. And I was like, okay, and she was like, did you go through music and Grey's Anatomy? I was like, I know. She was like, they're just like, emotional. She said, like, each country would watch an episode seeing the song. She was like, in tears. Okay, so what is that? What's working with that? Okay, well, it's the acting, it's the scene. What at the same time, it's also the music that amplifies like, your music is going to amplify a scene, or it's going to hinder it. It's not going to use it for himself, it's going to use if it amplifies it. So themes, like, right now heartbreak is a great clip. But like, what are the emotions? And even the subject matter that we could go even deeper with heartbreak? Like, yeah, we could go to chat to continue to be like, what other words for heartbreak and turn and get all these words, but we could go to things like rhyme zone. And we could start diving even deeper. But like, what type of heartbreak isn't a mutual heartbreak? Like, we know it's not right. But you know, we're gonna part ways together. Is it also to you cheated on me, and now I'm like wreck forever, and I have to pick up the pieces. Is it gonna be a hard day? It's not, it's not going to be romantic love, but platonic love. If there's one thing I hear also, too, from music supervisors, consistently, more platonic love songs, please the briefs that I see consistently over and over in our sink membership, we did a challenge where we were like, write a platonic love song, please write up a sonic club song. Because they're inundated consistently with tons of love song. But what about the love between two family? The love that you have for a friend, like a really good friend in the past? Like, what would that song be like, that describes that love in a non romantic way, but still feels like there's a deep connection. Like we could go really deep into the subjects. And again, this is even before we even started writing the song, we're thinking about this, because we're thinking about their needs for this. So that subject matter that we dive into is deep, because then the subject matter, we're going to reach out into the emotional fields. Because if I'm talking about, okay, the loss of a very good friend, what what what emotions are going to pull up. And the reason this is important, what let's say we write a great song that hits all of those marks, you're gonna have to eventually enter something that's called metadata, which is going to simply be the fields like categorizing the subject matter? What does the sound like? What are the emotions this hits? You need to be thinking about this? You can't say I can't tell you the number of times people have sent me emails and been like, so what does it sound like? It was this feeling? I don't know. Because if my first question is like, Well, what was your point of reference, I can't help you. What was the emotion, the subject matter, you're kind of going for, you know, kind of like a Grey's Anatomy song. That is so vast, and so they. And again, what bums me out is like, they carved out that time to write. And they wasted it, because there was zero intention. Now, I'm not here to make you feel bad. Like this is not part of my process. That's okay, it can start to be part of your process, you'll find that it gets refined, it should constantly be refined. Because so many people are like, I want to go for I want to get a publishing deal, I want to get a record, I want to get this I want to get that one of the best best areas stills licensing, because it's an ever growing industry. Like seriously, this is, again, I'm in constant need. So the more focused you get on this specialist metadata, like think about the subject matter, but the emotion, the emotional fields that you're going to get behind there, you are going to increase your chances. And that's my goal of why I'm doing this is my goal one here, because I want you aware of all of this, and taking the notes so that when you go back, you're like shit, I'm gonna start putting this into practice. Because here's the thing you're going to put into practice, and the first couple songs are going to force you're gonna go. Yeah, do it more, do it again. And you're going to do it again, and you're going to be a little bit better. Do it again, I guarantee if you did this for the next three months, the quality of what you start to pump up is going to be so much better, because it all boils back to intention. And I know people sometimes will be like, Why don't write like that I write by inspiration. Yeah, you'll get inspiration when you start carving out playlists. When you start consuming and seeing visually what's happening. Your idea as fast it's just gonna be on fire. You're gonna have so much heat, you're scribbling down ideas. You're getting Voice Memo ideas, so that when you sit down and start doing the intention, right, like it's all If you're going to be like, you're going to hit the mark, it's going to happen to hit the mark consistently. Now the last one. Now this is gonna get a little bit into the publishing side, though legal things. Yeah. Good question.

Speaker 2 45:13
So we're mostly referring to talk about everything from the point of inception with doing things get placed. What about things like looking at from after that recording have songs recorded? Nine years ago, two months ago, seven years ago, and getting things back into place? Is that? Is that completely off cable?

Mike Meiers 45:34
Or is that just one part? It's still it's still you have to use that and still use that form of measurement? Is there a need for it? Where are you going to pitch it? Like, which flat? Are you going to pitch it? Is there a need for it? If there is awesome, what does it sound like? And what are similar artists? What are the emotional targets that you're hitting? Okay, what is the subject matter? Is it falling a lot of the dynamics in the ear candy books? If the answers are like checking all the boxes, cold, there's no reason. Now if you're like, oh, you know, there, it's kind of, then I'd be like, cool. That's where I would pause and be like, is your time better spent, especially building that relationship, taking stuff you already have, or building something that is more catered to what they need. Most of the time that I found, it is much easier to cater to need, with new information. Because even like if taking this information, I don't even bother to go back to my old songs like that will hard drive that I have. I could there's lots of work. But I'm gonna spend hours and basically rewriting the whole song. Oh, yeah. My time is better spent just because now I've got all this information. So my thought is like it has to hit the checkmarks. And then probably this last check mark definitely has to hit. And this is the legal side. Because this is where it's going to be hit. It's going to be a yes or no. So if you are writing this, do you have a co writer? Are they signed to a pro are they signed to ASCAP, BMI? CSAT, those are the two. Overseas they're different. I think it's so canon Canada, there's a couple different ones overseas, do they have to they also have a publisher, because this is going to be the thing. If they're already signed to a public, let's say they're signed in one chapter. Okay? That's going to be that is going to be not what we would say, one stop. And one stop means I could take a song. So if I bump into Natalie on the street, and I go, Natalie, I just got this song that I just produced for this artist, and I want you to play and choose shit. I just gotta agree. And this is perfect for it. And I'm like, Great, I'm gonna afford your sheets that are one stop meeting. We own 100% of it. There are no other like big wave corporate publishers, we are the independent publishers. We own the master recording the master version, like the recorded version, we own everything. And I got the One Stop sheet two that we both signed, which gives me permission to accept on behalf of her and she's like sweets, that deal can be done right there. Now, let's say she's not signed to her own independent publisher. She's not published herself, but she signed to Warner Chappell, that's not one stop. She would then have to go to Warner Chappell and be like, Hi, I like to use the song. And they go well, we'll take your request, and we'll get back to you. And I only know this because it's the beginning I wrote with a couple of people that were signed to publishers were curb word. And it was a nightmare. Because the process was so long going eventually, the two songs that they wanted to place they were just like, we're good. We're just gonna let those go because the process was dragging now one SAP ensures that everything's going to be easy. So that means if you've got a pro rider is registered with their pro and you've registered with your pro so ASCAP, CSAC, BMI, whatever it is, so you've got your writer, IPI and you've got your publisher, IPI. Those are important, they are not the same. You've got to have to have those in your split sheets. Yes. It is. So there's a number like, you know, for instance, mine is like, you know, Mike Myers is my writer IPR and then my IPI number would be number six, something and something and then my publisher name is LLC publishing, and then there's a number under that LLC. Ah, that's a great question. No idea, but it's important. It's so important. It's like Catholicism. i That was my answer in Catholic school. I don't know it's like they told me it was important.

Speaker 1 49:44
Party information Yeah, there we go. Boom. Perfect. interested party information interested party.

Mike Meiers 49:54
Yeah, so there's a writer IPI, that means you get there because when we get into your rights, your Streaming rights and just your royalty rights, there's two, there's two strings. Now let's say for instance, that T Mom show that got place, I got an upfront payment of $500 that we split with a co writer, but then we get back in royalties. So that means every time it plays, every time it's time It airs every time is streamed, I get a little bit of that for my writing. And for my publishing, so it's important to have those two, like if I just would ASCAP go and just do the writing. And let's say it did get placed. unclaimed money just sits there. So don't have a publisher. It's not that the others get it, it just floats there. And a lot of people are leaving money on the table just flowing because they don't have a publisher. So you could just end if you're with ASCAP, you just go up and you go click publisher. To do it, you type in whatever name you want, you've had same thing with BMI. That's it, then you've got your publisher, we've got your rider API, which is so important. Now you got to make sure they have that as well. If they don't, do not pitch and hound them. So they got it work. Honestly, if they don't have that, that's a huge benchmark for me, and collaboration, because I'm like, I don't really want to do this seriously. Because it's like, it's like basic, is getting just right around a writer and publishing. If they don't have any of that, to me, it's like they're slightly dabbling. Like, they don't mind it, but it's not a goal. And the last thing is, it's that master recording, since I produced it, we always split the master recording 5050. So that's the final recorded version. That's like everything. So we've got publishing, writing, and the master. Those are all your rights. And if you own 100% of that with your co writers, and you have legally have that on a split sheet, and then on that one stop sheet, which the One Stop sheet, again, allows you to pitch on behalf of your co writers, and vice versa. Let's say they're they go to Nashville, they meet someone they're like, oh, there's some from symphonic dis disorder. That's awesome. They're amazing. And they want to use it for the scene. And shameless, I gave the thumbs up. Awesome, because we have that one statue, I trust them, they trust me. And that also means it's non exclusive. Because there's two worlds in licensing exclusive, not exclusive, not exclusive, I can pitch to as many libraries as I want. For instance, that song crazy, that got us placed over nine times that was placed by different licensors, because we put it in multiple libraries, gave them the information, and it was able to pitch multiple, multiple places. And that's wonderful exclusive means it's either going to be a one, three or five year deal with just that company, we are tying that song to that company. I do not recommend that at the very beginning. If you only have a few songs, don't do them. The reason is, create more, you can always test one or two with a company. But don't put your entire catalog in the hopes that they're going to place it. Now here's what may happen, maybe one or two, and they start scoring some placements. Cool. Then you start living because you realize they're pitching my shit. They're answering myself, I love that. But if they're not, you didn't put all of your songs there. But start right with nonexclusive. Especially if you got like two or three, start meeting people start posting them to other places. Now, one thing I would highly recommend not to sign up for is tax. Now this is a big thing I know this is taxing, you'll see email from people that will be like you should you should replace this text. Here's what I will say, you'll pay a nominal fee. And then you've got to pay a little bit to then get your song listened to. But they're the same pitches that you could be doing independently for yourself. I have a friend and one of our coaches Josh oil, who was one of my coaches when it came to production at the beginning, he built a company called three three records. He had like hundreds of placements already. And he created this cool little spreadsheet because I asked him about this text man, it's gonna be great. It's like here, let me show you put expression. And they did a calculation of all the money be spent trying to submit for that year with vaccine and which ones resorted to like sending to the library in which result in replacements not. Then he pulled up another spreadsheet of independently pitching the same songs to different companies resulting in way more placements. So my best advice at first is you'll want to be like it'll be easier to just get someone else. It'll be easier. No, it's just as much work. What's better is what you're doing right now. Building relationships. Half the shit that I get now is because I've just built up a relationship. Music no matter what area that you do, it's going to be a relational ship business. And my goal is when they see me, they're just like, This is great. Mike is easy to talk to. It's fun. He's a little over caffeinated. And that's okay. I know he's likes delivery, he's not going to send me stuff that's not worth my time. I'm also not going to hound them. So let's say you've got all your stuff in life. Let's say legally, you've got all of it, and you're good. You're good to go. And you're here. I'm gonna go Senate and you and I'm here we go. Rule number one, do not attach an mp3 to an email. Please don't, don't do not send any attached emails because they will go right into their spam box, or they will not even the thing that makes their eyes roll immediately is like five attachments. No, they are going to ignore them. And you will be blacklisted. You don't want that. So what do you do? My biggest suggestion is you could use things like Google Drive or Dropbox, I think there's box there's so many different options, services, OneDrive, whatever. For music licensing, there's one called disco. Like, like disco like you would do like disco.ac. It's an amazing Australian company, go figure Australians making amazing things. And it's a great music licensing company in which supervisors share songs, playlists. Now what I love about disco is like, I could create a playlist of songs. Let's say some one particular song, let's say I send it to daddy. I don't get a notification when it's straight.

Speaker 1 56:29
They listen. Or they listened again. Refresh the downloaded my playlist.

Mike Meiers 56:36
Because please do never do this for a while. Then respond to them. Let's say maybe a couple days later being like, Hey, listen my song flesh mark? Nope, nope, nope, nope. Please. No. Because again, they're getting inundated with tons of other people that would be like, Hey, do you listen my song? Do you listen to my song. If they listen to your song, they liked it to let you know. That's it. There are times I've sent songs, I have not heard a thing. And my assumption was, there was no need. That's cool. I'm gonna move on. But then suddenly, I get an email months later, Hey, Mike, just want to confirm this is one stock, it's going to be placed at it up and we checked the Listen. Yes, they do. What usually music supervisors, libraries, they'll download what they like, if there's no need for it currently, but they see a potential on it, they put it into a separate drive, because that's where your metadata comes in. Because then they're going to search later on you like need impairments, and see a pop up, they will place it when there's a need. So your goal is after you send, keep on sending, keep on connecting with new people, but then start the whole process again. And you write and you create things. And then you get all the legal stuff involved and you send it off, and then you do it again. Because it is also a numbers game. It is a numbers game. If you're creating, can you get a placement from one or two songs? Yes. Can you build a career in licensing and create money from just one or two songs? No. So what do you do? You have to have a system and you have to have a process. So that means all the sugar I'm talking about when it comes to thinking about what bucket you want to do. Then moving into the next one where it's like, okay, you got the bucket? Is there a need? If there is what are similar needs? And where are you focusing? Awesome, then we're moving to dynamics here. Then we're moving to like the themes, the emotions, any if you aren't doing this filter system, when you go to click Send you it's not like a risk or like, oh, maybe it's not gonna work. You've actually done some prep work. Which is great, because there's a lot of other people that are not doing prep work. You think music licensing is a huge industry of people. I hear this phrase from folks saying it's oversaturated. And I really do it. No. Then it's not oversaturated it looks like it is because like one of their people getting placements. It seems like a lot. I get spammed on Instagram by all these people like, Hey, do you want to use sunglasses? And do you want to say, No, trust me, it's not oversaturated people that are doing it consistently and well. It's not a lot. And actually, it's a very small community. And the same thing with music supervisors, if you think of all the shows in the world, so let's look at the whole freaking world. There's usually just 1000 Music Supervisors and that's it. So think of all the programs 1000s 1000s upon 1000s of programs and only about 1000 music supervisors. What I find it all these events, music supervisors talk, they know each other, they share stories, which is good or bad. Because if you are known for being constantly hounding constantly delivering news as it wasn't For the past four, they're going to talk about, they're going to share like, what if they're like, what I've also found is they're a very supportive community. They talk, and I've had a lot of situations where they've been like, hey, this sounds great. I don't have a name for it. But I wanted to introduce you to. Because there was a filter system that I passed, and now a trust. And it's like, slowly unwelcomed into their world. Why? Because it's a very small world, their reputations online, because here's a nightmare scenario, let's say, let's say you did all the right things with the emotional all the first four things I said, but then the last thing, the legal thing you didn't do. And let's say you lie, and you were maybe like somebody didn't have publishing as a big deal, or you didn't have one sec sheet. And the last thing I didn't mention was a work for hire, how many people have hired out musicians to play on their stuff? How many of you that come to sign to work for hire? Work for hires are incredibly important. Because that is protecting you. Because let's say you didn't get the word for hire. You need a music supervisor. They love this. I think you're awesome. And you're like this great. This is one stuff, right? And you're like, oh, yeah, register with my friends. Great. It's awesome. It gets place on NBC. And so let's say it's like mid level place in the 5000 hours. Yeah. guy who played guitar, and I work for hire. They use this part. And then he calls you up. And he's like, Hey, man. So what am I going to get payment? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, I paid you already. I did work for hire. And you're my friend. So I trust. Yeah, man, that's not going to work. Because that was a huge placement. And you know, I really contributed to that scene. I really played that hook over and over again. That is a nightmare scenario, because then what's going to happen is he complaints, the music supervisor finds out, you've just burned that bridge that you just took to build that bridge. And then not only that, but you've also burned a few bridges for that supervisor. Because now their reputations like, oh, they passed stuff that wasn't even clear. You can just stop licensing right there. You know, because that is not that is a nightmare scenario. Has that happened? Has I've seen people build poor 1000s of dollars into a production and not talk with their work for hire is the first question when they come for a console. And we're like, I'm like, Cool. Is there work for hire? No. They're my friend. I trust them.

No, don't don't don't don't work for hire. This is a business world. This you need a legal agreement. Doesn't matter how small the parties. That's why never like if somebody's in the room, and they're like, Oh, you could get Jimmy to sing on vocals. We're not paying Jimmy. Nor are we getting Jimmy to sign a work for hire agreement. So again, you can wait outside, he is not going to be singing. That's not how it works. They don't go on by a handshake basis. They want papers, they want to protect themselves. Because the last thing is, then you've entered their small world, you've abused their trust, and then they kick you up. Because they're out with you. And they have to build up. The last thing they want to do is try to build up your reputation and they've got to rebuild theirs. So you've got to make sure that that Shin line because it's so important. So making sure you have your writing IPI, your publishing IPI, who owns the Masters, if you got a producer that produced it out for you, have you talked about what's going to happen with the Master? Do you own 100% of it? Does he own it? Have you gotten this in writing? These are all things to talk about on the front end? Before you record before anybody goes, let's record and let's get let's talk about the split. So I want to because my feet changes as a producer, if somebody goes like, Hey, I had someone last year reach out to me on LinkedIn, which is weird, because I never use LinkedIn. I'm like, I always forget where it's like so and so. And you're on LinkedIn, what she researched, found out that this is a song I did, it got a place to research producer it was made. She was like, could you produce this for me? And it was, like, Elissa song she sent me just the bare bones version was pretty good. Yeah. Okay, here's my fee. And I was like, Do you want to keep 100% of the master? Or are we going to share the master? And she was like, what was that? I was like, Well, every time that gets place, if I were sharing 5050, I get a little bit of that, that present because I know the master. She was like, No, I'd like to own the master. Okay, my fee is gonna be drastically different because this is one and done for me. If that gets placed at least two times on the show, she's pretty much recoup your money and probably made something she's running on. I think this is going to happen because he's had leveraged and gotten lots of placements before. So that means if I get him to production, he's going to make my song much more simple. increase my chances. So my fee is going way up. Like I tapped on an extra 1200. Because it was like, Cool. So you want to get the Master, I'm gonna do an extra 1200. She was like, Oh, wow, how about we split the Master, I was like, there we go, that's fine with me. Because at first, when I started, I leveraged percentages, it didn't have a lot of money, you can spend 1000s of dollars, but what I could share is I could share rights is I could build a relationship with a producer to songwriters who I thought have great voice vocals, I was like, I can do it really well with you, you've got a great voice, let's share, because then you're building up this hell out together. And I always want 150 50 When people ask me, Well, what should I do for a percentage, like, I was gonna 5050s I'm not going to go around with like these weird percentages of like 10.344. Or why? Because I want to do multiple songs with them. I just don't want to do one done. Because what's the point if I get one song placed with them, and that's it. And if I would have liked them a little more open to splitting with them. 5050, we could have done maybe like five or six, those could have probably landed a lot more. So again, it's networking and building relationships that are so huge. So that percentage rate, they're super important. So be willing to share that if you don't want to spend money. And if you aren't getting work for hires, remember, in writing, before they play a note signs work for hire, if they go like hi, don't really do that, oh, we don't want to really want you to play. You can bid but that's hard, because that's a little bit of confrontation. But you're going to have to if you want to succeed, you're gonna have to have sometimes some of those difficult conversations. And to be I have no problem even before all the things I told you. If I'm dealing with someone we're talking about, hey, what's the split field going to be like? And if they don't like I don't like talking about like numbers and things. Let's just right?

Speaker 3 1:06:47
No, no, he's again, what's your time, your time is so important.

Mike Meiers 1:06:54
I'm realizing this more and more that even if I got when I was, you know, teaching and doing that full time job, even if he had given me more time, I still wouldn't know what to do with it. Because I'm still developing some sort of processor system. But once I started developing the little chunks of time that I had was so more productive. They were more focused, I was getting things done. I was feeling good, too. Because things started to happen. I was like, why is that

Unknown Speaker 1:07:23
process and the system is processing the

Mike Meiers 1:07:25
system. Anything that has long term success. There's got to be a process in the system, and it needs to be refined. Every time I go to a conference, every time I meet a new music supervisor. Every time I listen to me new music, the things I'm telling you about playlists I do every two weeks, I refresh playlists, I get something new and I analyze because I'm just like I'm an I love to consume music. I'm constantly looking for things to expand my view. So that unlike so that when I go sit down with that intention, that wealth of ideas is just like overflowing with all these things are actually being used, as opposed to I'm going off of what I think might happen or what I assume is going to happen. But I've got evidence now to support that

and that does it for this week. It was edited produced by Chris values. I'm Mike Myers. Thanks for listening

Transcribed by https://otter.ai