Almost everyone in the business, including publishers, will tell you not to put a lot of money into a demo. It's just bad business sense. You will be shot down more than you will be signed. Even if you have the money to do a big production demo each and every time, the return on your investment is not worth it.

With that said, you're probably wondering, "I don't play an instrument or write music. How much is too much and do I just sing the song on tape and send it in?"

Some people will tell you that you can just sing your song on tape but, the fact is, a publishing company won't have a clue what the music sounds like and you most probably won't hear back from them. You objective is to impress them enough for them to call. Sure they are talented enough to know a good song when they hear it, but you are competing with 200 or 300 other people everyday and your chances are better if you put music to it.

Depending on where you live, you can call around and find a recording studio which offers demo services. Also, depending on what you want to record and why, you should determine if a demo service is what you need or if you simply need to find a local musician that will collaborate with you.

There are recording studios which will put music to your lyrics, hire the musicians to play, singers to sing and put it on tape for you. Before you decide on one, talk to a few local music or guitar shops. Someone will have heard of someone or actively use someone they recommend. They may also have opinions about who not to use!

First, it can cost anywhere from $200 to $500 or more per song to have them recorded. The largest expense in making demos is studio time so, if you have some money, get a few songs done at once. Many studios have a minimum charge for studio time and you can either record a few songs and you will still be within the minimum time. Other studios will have a per song charge. It all depends.

You can probably call a publishing company in Nashville to find a recording studio that caters to lyricists. When you find one, you can mail your lyrics and a tape with you singing the song to them and they'll put it to music for you. I've heard of some doing this for as little as $100.

If you are recording them to send to Nashville or where ever for a publisher to hear, don't overproduce them. Keep it simple. They want to hear the words and the melody, not an overproduced demo that competes with the words.

The Nashville Songwriters Association International is probably the best organization with which you could be involved. They will help you through all of these steps. They even have a critiquing service to determine if you are ready to begin sending your songs to publishing companies.

They also have monthly workshops that I personally found very beneficial. If you don't have a local chapter, you can still join and benefit from all the materials they have to offer. I don't think their site sells their services on how great they really are, but nonetheless you can still visit them and join online.

Toby Darling shares a little about how he goes about setting his lyrics to music and offers some advice if you don't play.

"When I write a song, I nearly always start these days by writing the lyrics first. This was not always the case, but I have found that it is difficult to get a song really focused on the title and chorus by starting with a tune. So having completed the lyrics, I set about setting them to music."

"I do this by sitting down with a guitar and simultaneously making up a melody which seems to fit the lyric, and playing around with chords, almost at random, until I find the melody and chords I like. Once that is done, I have basically finished the song."

"The nature of the lyrics will mainly guide the musical style of the song, which will influence the sort of melody/chords which sound best. This is just something you get a feel for the more you write, and listen to songs that have been a success in a particular genre."

"If you don't play an instrument at all, or can't compose melodies, you obviously have to find someone else to do this for you. At this point, I should say that I don't recommend paying anyone to do this for you. Even if they do come up with something original, and the product sounds great, it is still so difficult to secure a cut on a song (which is the only way you're going to get back your outlay), that its unlikely you will ever make back the money you spent. You would be very lucky if you even got offered a single song publishing deal on the song, and even then the chances of a cut are quite remote."

"So you find someone, either through the Internet, songwriting associations or locally, who wants to work with your lyrics, and comes up with a song. Before you can promote the song you need to get a professional sounding demo made. While there are certainly some people in the industry who can hear a good song with only a minimal arrangement, the majority expect to hear something that sounds almost as good as a finished master before they will take any interest."

"Personally, I don't have the time to book studios and session musicians to produce my own demos. Therefore, what I'll do is make a simple recording on my 4-track at home, with midi bass/drums, some live guitar and a couple of vocal tracks and then send that off to one of the studios I use who offer demo services. Here in the UK, I can get a song produced for about $100, and have had around 40 publishing deals offered on the results. I think the going rate is a bit higher in the USA."

"I never send my demos out blind to the major publishers or record companies. Although in the UK they will open the package and send a nice letter back, in nine times out of ten they will not even listen to the tape. What I do is subscribe to a couple of industry tipsheets so I know which artists and publishers are actively seeking material for particular projects and only target them. In fact, having developed links with a number of industry people now, I generally will just send them my new songs and see if they want them, in preference to a trying brand new contact unless I think I have something particularly suitable for that project."

"For the package, I send out I always try to make it look professional, with a typed label on the cassette and laser printed cover letter (keep it brief) and lyric sheets. One of the advantages of having a Web site is that the contact can always go there if they want to find out more information about you, and contact you easily via e-mail."

"Especially abroad, only a small number of the packages I send out are ever returned, and all too often they contain rejection slips. I know some songwriters don't like to send their stuff out for this reason, but I can only say that perseverance does pay off in the end. I have also found little consistency between publishers about which songs they like and don't like. Having said that, if you are getting only rejections on a song after trying say ten leads, I'd be inclined to stop plugging it."

Visit Toby's Web site if you want to hear some of his $100 demos, or get the addresses of some of the studios he uses.

Toby Darling
email: tobydarling@hotmail.com
office: T.Darling@OPENMAIL1.UENC4.sukeplon.simis.com

www.tobydarling.com

home:
7 Merchant's Place, Upper Brook St.
Winchester SO23 8HW
Hants, UK