cowriting as a producer

hi there,

i have a pretty important question and there are probably more than one answer for this:

when you compose/produce a track for a dance tune and somebody puts lyrics and a vocal melody over it, what is the common practice as far as writing credits?

i know in the old fashioned world, whoever came up with the melody and lyrics gets a 100%, but what is happening in the dance/pop world?

how do i protect my work (the composer of the whole instrumental track) that inspired the artist to some lyrics and a vocal melody (which in the dance world are less important than the track!)

any help would be appreciated

thanks:confused: :confused:

The common practice is whatever you can negotiate w/ the lyricist... I would work hard for half...

But you should try to work that stuff out before - even just a basic agreement - 'cause it's always stickier after.

Yes, work it all out up front, before. Think before you act grasshopper. In the studio the engineer may help fine tune your music but that doesn't give him/her co-authorship privileges unless you want him/her to have it and he/she wants it. Most just consider it part of their job.

Little suggestions that improve the piece don't really count as cowriting unless they affect the overall flavor of the entire piece. Don't give YOUR stuff away. If YOU wrote the music then YOU should copyright the music. Make a lead sheet (yes, learn to read music, write it all out in correct notation) and send it to the copyright office with YOUR name on it. Then when YOU have YOUR music copyrighted, even if your friend lyricist adds lyrics, he'll have to ask YOU for permission to use YOUR music to sing them over.

Sounds cold and heartless but that's really the answer. You're in it alone kiddo. Look at it that way. You can have friends, but be careful what you share with them.

thanks for your answers guys.

about the situation, i am the producer/engineer/programmer/keyboardist all by myself and yes, of course i can read and write music.

about the leadsheet: in this case that would not be all mine, since somebody came up with a vocal melody on top of my finished instrumental track with all chord progression and hooks.

so i am wondering how much of the song my instrumental track actually is.

thanks

When I write songs I write everything, chords, bass line, melody. The melody is essentially the signature of any song. Jingle Bells? If you didn't write the melody then I'd question if your position is very strong with total ownership. Never ignore the melody. The melody is the single most important part of any song. It's what you can whistle all by yourself, without any other instruments, that will identify a song. Learning the melodies to songs was always the heardest thing for me to get my students to do. They wanted to take tangents on other irrelevant directions. Always learn the melody of a song, then you really know it.

Yeah?

I worked as a producer for many years, and let me give you a piece of advice.

I have seen so many people dickering stupidly over royalties, you would not believe it.

The funny part is, 99.8% will never make it and won't see a penny from their often hard or not so hard labour.

When your at home playing your stuff, of course you're going to be famous, naturally.

Who wants to doubt that, and now you have to take care of your future millions raining down on you, because you were so smart to keep most of the rights to your music.

You know what? You'll have bigger chances to win the lottery than making a decent living from royalties.

Conclusion?

Make it 40/60, 30/70, 20/80, 50/50%, whatever you like, but honestly at this stage of your career, and you might not believe me, it is not important whatsoever.

Just nod and say yes. I have seen friendships going under because of silly things like fighting over percentages and nobody has ever seen a dime.

You can always sue the bastard once he or she has the million in her or his hands. At least the stage for this quarrel will take place on a top level and not somewhere in a ditch with plenty of loosers.

I hope that helps.

I guess everyone has there own deals they make. I charge a production fee and split the writting 50/50. However I do help with the melody, sometimes with lyrics. If I can't make a deal like that its not even worth the time for me because I could just work on my own music instead. These days, in some styles of music, programming and production is the key element to the song. Your programming and skills are valuable and you should always come out feeling like you got a fair deal for your time. Think of all the hrs you are in the studio mixing after the singer leaves.

I agree with the things said above.

But studio time is payed by the hour. If the stuff that comes out of your studio shines and sparkles, it will increase your reputation and you'll get the money through the back door so to speak.

But to ask for more because you seemingly put more time and effort into a final product has nothing to do with writing a song. That is just the way it is. But a fair deal can mostly be found hopefully.

i may have to disagree with some of the stuff in here. The melody deserves a lot of credit, but I thin you're giving it *too* much, because the music also plays a driving role. Consider seeing bands in concert where they greatly change or alter the melody of their song. Personally, I hate that. However, the song is still the same. However, that's just a little disagreement, partly because I'm biased as a predominate music writer moreso than a lyricist or master of melodies.

In my band the credits read as music by _______ words by _______ arranged by parallex. And we copyright the music as a band. And technically, the band is informally copyrighted by myself because everything about the band is a creation of me, ergo its existence, the music it plays, and its members, and I ultimately dicate all the major decisions of the band, but that's because the rest of the guys are looking to me for direction. So the "band" in its abstract existence will follow me around where ever I go. In the event that I'm still performing in tens years from now, and eventually the musicians i'm currently playing with will go and pursue other things in their life, i will replace and continue to call the band Parallex, which is how I am still able to keep the music as mine.

when you compose/produce a track for a dance tune and somebody puts lyrics and a vocal melody over it, what is the common practice as far as writing credits?

You fill out a copyright form and take credit for composing the music. The person who wrote the lyrics can fill out the form stating that he/she wrote the lyrics. I would fill out two seperate forms so that you could use the music later on (with different lyrics) if you need to in the future (movie sound tracks, video games, etc.) That is standard practive in the music industry. Since you are in the dance world then technically they call you the producer (even if you didn't produce the track--ha, ha). If the artist if under contrac with a record label then you need to work out payment, points on the album, etc.

i know in the old fashioned world, whoever came up with the melody and lyrics gets a 100%, but what is happening in the dance/pop world?

Actually it's always been the same. Who ever gets writes the music holds the copyright to the music and who ever writes the lyrics/vocal melody holds the copyright to the lyrics.

how do i protect my work (the composer of the whole instrumental track) that inspired the artist to some lyrics and a vocal melody (which in the dance world are less important than the track!)

Inspiring the lyrics with your music is par for the course (no credit can be taken for that--ha ha) but you can get credit for the music. Getting credit for produing doesn't mean much unless the artist has a recording contract in place.

I hope it helps!

Trace