Music Publishing (Part 2)

Demo Pitching....

As I have mentioned in my previous entry, my main duty is to pitch my writers songs to producers, music labels for their artists. Just thought it might be interesting to share with you guys the steps that are included in the pitching process. well of course, the MOST simple way is to burn 10-15 demos at random on a CD-R and mail it out to all the producers and music label, then wait.... wait.... and wait for their reply, if they don't, then call them to see if anything suits, but i don't really like these kind of "blind pitching", i prefer "target pitching", meaning i know what they want and i pitch what they want.

Usually, the producers or A&R will call you to tell you what they need/want for their artists, but i do call them myself once a while. The most common stuff I get requested are:

1. Something REALLY GOOD + Pop (mostly ballad)

2. Any kind of song that has a GOOD melody and a GREAT Hookline (mostly ballad)

1. Kick ass award winning song (mostly ballad)

other requests, less common:

1. Rock (pop-rock, folk-rock)

2. R&B

3. Cover songs (from Korea, Japan or Scand.)

I've figured out, what they really want is, something canto-pop, but with a different flavor of arrangement,

a pop song with Rock arrangement = Rock song

a pop song with an RnB beat = R&B

a pop song with rap = Hip Hop

But luckily, during the past 1 year, song requests are getting more specific (or is it me knowing more about the rules of the game).

Anyway, the process is this, they ask for a song, i pitch a bunge of songs, if they like any, they will call to HOLD that song, meaning within a certain period, i am not suppose to pitch this song to others, there might be a few numbers of hold, the 1st hold gets priority to CONFIRM the song, once a song is confirmed, then I'll pass to the licencing staff.

If they confirmed a Cover song, then the process is little different, we have to collect the Artist Bio, the new Lyrics (translated in English) along with other information such as release date, estimated sales figures and send them to the original songs local office for approve. Usually, this process takes for ever, since the local office needs to get approve from the song writers themselves, and most of the time, these writers are impossible to find, some might be on tour, some might be on holiday etc... Korea and Japan usually takes less than 1 month, but USA and UK takes for around 2 or 3 months!!! European offices except Scand. offices, never replies....

Apart demo pitching, many clients do have specific request on who's demos they want, just to give you guys a few names that are in the Warner/Chappell HK family (in no sepcific order):

Jun Kung, Khalil Fong, Eric Kwok, Hanjin Tan, Fama, DJ Tommy, Edward Chan, Charles Lee.

Let me upload a few clips of these writers recent songs!!

anyway.... that's part 2, any questions???