Photo courtesy of Oliver Chesler

September 26th, 2010 – You may have noticed that I haven’t written in a week. I probably should have posted up a “on vacation” notice…oh well. I just got back from San Francisco/LA and I picked up a Native Instruments Maschine so check back for a review on that soon.

I also chose this week to install the Seagate Momentus XT I posted about a while back. I decided to do a clean install of my operating system which means that I’m finally on Snow Leopard. This also means that I have no excuse to move up to Logic 9, which I’m installing as I write this.

Since this is going to take a while, I thought I’d write about producer-songwriters. When you hear that term, you might think of such artists as Timberland, The Neptunes, David Foster, Butch Walker, and any other number of very successful producers who also co-write many of the songs that they produce. In the old days, a producer was the person who put together the songwriters and performers (not always the same people), and took care of the money side. Today, while this is still part of a producer’s job, many producers are expected to add to the creative process.

This secret sauce could mean as little as suggesting that a chorus be repeated once more, or as much as complete songwriting, producing, and mixing. I would imagine that many of us that are toiling away at home, are doing everything ourselves, so we would fall under the category of producer-songwriters.

One thing that sets us DIYers apart from contracted professionals (for example, in house producers), is that we can say no; you’re your own boss and are the only one that answers to the consequences. It may mean turning away good money, but you have the power to do what you want.

Let me explain why this is important. When I started working in music, I was an in house songwriter-producer. Since I had bosses, I had to write for, and record whatever and for whoever I was scheduled for. While some clients were awesome to work with, some were not. Over time, the “were nots” dragged me down and I started to dislike work. About that time, the owners had a falling out and the studio closed down anyways.

Don’t get me wrong. The time spent there wasn’t bad; in fact, I learned tonnes, and my skill level progressed much faster than if I had been left on my own. However, now that I’ve experienced that environment, I’m not eager to go back. I, like many of you, have a regular job that pays my bills so I have the luxury of choosing who I want to work with. This also means that I can work on projects that won’t necessarily make any money, but are creatively rewarding.

I know that hitting it big is an alluring goal, however I would argue that creating music that feeds your soul is more important. These may not necessarily be mutually exclusive, and everyone perceives this relationship differently. All that I’m saying is to sit back and consider where you are now, and where you want to be.