The Music Business Buddy
A podcast that aims to educate and inspire music creators in their quest to achieving their goals by gaining a greater understanding of the business of music. A new episode is released each Wednesday and aims to offer clarity and insight into a range of subjects across the music industry, all through the lens of a music creator for the benefit of other music creators. The series includes soundbites and interviews with guests from all over the world together with commentary and clarity on a range of topics. The podcast is hosted by award winning music industry professional Jonny Amos.
Jonny Amos is a music producer with credits on a range of major and independent labels, a songwriter with chart success in Europe and Asia, a senior lecturer in both music creation and music business at BIMM University UK, director of The SongLab Ltd and the author of The Music Business for Music Creators.
www.jonnyamos.com
The Music Business Buddy
Episode 35: How Songwriting Camps Work
It is time to analyse one of the music industry's best-kept secrets: songwriting camps. Ever wondered how some of your favorite songs come to life? Join me, Jonny Amos, as I take you on an insightful journey into the collaborative realm of songwriting camps, where creativity knows no bounds. From the dynamic team structures typically involving a producer and two top liners, to my personal stories from the vibrant Scandinavian music scene, this episode offers a unique glimpse into how these camps function and what makes them crucial to shaping the hits we all love. We'll explore how cultural differences across Europe influence the songwriting process, providing you with a holistic view of this fascinating world.
Curious about the roles within these creative hubs and how they've adapted to modern challenges? This episode dives deep into the essential contributions of pure lyricists, particularly in projects involving non-native English speakers. As we navigate through the transition to online songwriting camps during the pandemic, we uncover how these changes have reshaped the creative process. Moreover, we’ll dissect the financial intricacies involved, discussing everything from funding options to the rights associated with camp-generated songs. Join me as I explore the debate surrounding producers' entitlement to songwriting credits, providing insights that are as valuable to budding songwriters as they are to seasoned music professionals. Tune in and gain a comprehensive understanding of the songwriting camp landscape.
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The Music Business Buddy. The Music Business Buddy. Hello everybody and a very warm welcome to you. You're listening to the Music Business Buddy with me, johnny Amos, podcasting out of Birmingham in England. I'm the author of the book the Music Business for Music Creators, available in hardback, paperback, ebook format. I'm a music creator with credits on a variety of major and indie labels. As a writer, producer, I'm also a senior lecturer in both music business and music creation. So, wherever you are and whatever you do, consider yourself welcome to this podcast and to a part of the community around it. I'm here to try and educate and inspire music creators from all over the world in their quest to achieving their goals by gaining a greater understanding of the business of music.
Speaker 1:Okay, so in this week's episode I'm going to be talking about songwriting camps, and there's a few people that have come to me and said can we just learn a little bit more about songwriting camps? What are they? Where do they take place, why? How are they funded? What are the outcomes? Look like All that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:Ok, so let's just start with the basics as to kind of what is a songwriting camp. So the purpose is to supply songs to recording artists. There are some variables to this which I'll break down shortly, but the fundamental idea is to put a group of people together that can work in small teams to create songs usually one song per day and is written with an artist already in mind. Now you get some camps that just operate for one or two days. You also get others that last for up to a week. Generally speaking, in my experience camps usually last between three and four days. Now, generally there's very often around about 20 to 25 music creators on each camp, typically with teams of three, but sometimes you can just get two, maybe sometimes more. I think sometimes more than four can be difficult in my own experience, but generally it's teams of three with one producer and two top liners. So that means two people that are contributing towards the lyric and melody arrangements and then a producer that may generally oversee the harmonic structure of the song and the production behind it.
Speaker 1:It's very important to have producers on song camps because it means that you're actually coming out of each day with a finished quality, ready to go product that's generally at a kind of working tape level by the end of the day. So that generally means that you've gone from scratch, from nothing in the morning all the way through to the end of the day where you can go OK, yeah, the song's kind of there, now it just might need a bit of polishing up or whatever. Now that then means that you move on to a brand new song, maybe with a new team, the following day, where you're writing a different song for a different artist. That process is then repeated until the final day where perhaps there is often a listening party where everyone gets together, maybe has a drink or two, some nice food and listens back to everything that's taken place throughout the last few days. Okay, now I'm just going to insert my own experience and my own observation here of others that I've been involved with many camps. So I myself have put camps together.
Speaker 1:I've also participated as a music creator in various camps over the years in quite a few different countries, but predominantly in Scandinavia. Now there are a lot of variations to the camps, but generally the reason why they happen is because you're working in partnership with other songwriters and music publishers, and those music publishers are working in partnership with record companies. So the record companies that will say right, we've got these artists here and they need this type of song, and then that is then put forward as a brief that's then sent to the publisher. The publisher then present each brief maybe two or three briefs, maybe more each morning during breakfast time and then the writers are then put into their teams of three and then they go ahead and pick which brief they want to write to and then they go ahead and work on that song that day. Now I've noticed quite a few different cultural differences when it comes to songwriting camps. Now, if I just speak about European camps for a minute, because there are differences, obviously in different parts of the world, I've noticed a distinct difference between Northern European camps compared to Southern European camps.
Speaker 1:Now, typically speaking, I am generalising enormously when I say this, but I'm basing this on my own experience and I'm going to talk about the observations of others shortly. But in my own experience, scandinavian song camps are quite sort of long, brutal camps in the best way possible. By the way, I say brutal, what I mean by that is that you'd start the day, you know, relatively early, you'd have structured meal breaks and you generally wouldn't go to bed until the song is completely done. All bells and whistles in the mix. So that might mean that you're starting at sort of you know, nine o'clock in the morning, having breakfast being put into your teams, looking at the briefs for the day and, other than your meal times, you're basically just going to, you know, work on that song. From everything, right so, writing the song, putting the backing track together, recording vocals, vocals, completing the mix. So it might well often be that you're finishing around 3am and then you're back up again the next day and you're working on the next song.
Speaker 1:Now, that's quite different from the things I've experienced in more southern European countries Spain, greece, etc. Whereby the culture is that you kind of finish around six o'clock, seven o'clock, and then everybody goes to dinner. Now, the latter sounds a lot nicer, doesn't it? But when you're a producer it's not quite as much fun because there is an immense amount of pressure on you to, you know, put something together that sounds pitchable. Now, there's not always a pressure from publishers or those that run camps to be able to have a song, that it must be absolutely finished at the end of that day. I have been on camps like that, but generally speaking in southern Europe it's not like that. You're generally given a bit of follow-up time, you know, in the preceding weeks that follow the camp to kind of tidy it up, work on the mix, maybe record some more vocals or something like that. So there is a distinct difference between different parts of european song culture there.
Speaker 1:Okay, so let's have a look at the economics of songwriting camps, because there's a lot of variables to this. Now, traditionally speaking, songwriting camps would be funded, perhaps sometimes by a record company. That would then put some funding to a publisher to say, right, can you bring together all these writers over here? And then hopefully they come up with something good, and then the return on that investment is that we've got these useful songs for our artists. That's one route. We don't see that as much in this era, but it's certainly something which I've witnessed in the past. Another route would be where the publishers actually fund the writing camp and they would invite writers to come along. Maybe the publisher is working in partnership with other publishers and then some financial input comes from the other publishers and the writers don't pay a penny. They give up their time to work speculatively on a camp. So the writers are not paid there. Writers get paid if their songs are successful right, but in terms of the costs that cover the camp, it's not always in that situation on the writers to pay for it.
Speaker 1:However, what I have seen in the last five, ten years especially, is an increase in the business model behind songwriting camps, and there's nothing wrong with this. I'm not going to criticise it because it is what it is. It's just straightforward economics. Very often, this I'm not going to criticize it because it is what it is. It's just straightforward economics. Very often, songwriters are expected to pay now and again. Nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 1:The key thing to bear in mind here is what you are actually paying for. So it could be, for example, you're paying for travel, accommodation, venue setup, maybe equipment hire, something like that. Generally speaking, producers would bring along their own laptops, interfaces, and there would often be monitors and cabling at the venues, whether it's a studio or residential sites or wherever it is. Now, if the songwriters are therefore expected to pay for it, my advice would be that the songwriters should probably look to retain their rights. If If, however, the writers are being funded to be there by a publisher, then the rights of those songs should probably sit with the publisher. I'm generalising there, but there has to be some give and take for the business of this to work. So those are the two ways to look at it.
Speaker 1:Now, something else to consider is what happens to the songs after they've been written and recorded. And I think sometimes it can be such a fun experience going to a songwriting camp, but it's very important to remember what the purpose is. You know where are these songs going to go, who's responsible for the administration of the songs so that means the actual registering of the songs, but also who is responsible for pitching the songs, because you know the last thing you really want is to put your heart and soul into songs and then for them to sit dormant somewhere and you think, well, why did I go to that camp? Then you know it's good to think about what happens to those songs after the camp. If that's not clear before you go to a camp, it is worth asking about that Now, as the songwriting camp business model has evolved in recent years, we've seen it expand into other locations and kind of quite beautiful, tranquil, quiet places, and these songwriting camps are often referred to as retreats and they look very, very, very beautiful because they're in serene surroundings One of the things that I have noticed, and this is just something to watch out for and they look very, very, very beautiful because they're in serene surroundings.
Speaker 1:One of the things that I have noticed and this is just something to watch out for is that it's very important to try and build an understanding of the purpose of the camp. If the purpose of the camp is to make money, it doesn't mean that you can't be successful on it. But generally, the camps that yield the greatest results are those that are run by music publishers that actually need those songs for set purposes. So if the schedule of the camp is to have very, very short creative days mixed in with recreational activities, as fun as that might sound, it might not be as appealing to professional songwriters who are there on business to professional songwriters who are there on business. Okay, so in terms of suitable creators for songwriting camps, there's quite a lot of variables to this as well. There's a lot of different types of music creators that can be very useful to each other on songwriting camps. So here's some traditional kind of models of the kind of creatives that go.
Speaker 1:First of all, you have songwriting producers, and I say songwriting producers because they're producers that not only just concentrate on just backing track work or beat creation work, but also know how to work in the room with other people. Now, it might not be that. It might be that they can't sing or they don't sing or they don't write lyrics. That's fine, because it's good to be with those that can do that, but it perhaps should be on those songwriting producers to also contribute towards melodic and conceptual ideas within a song. There are also people that are top line writers, so and and this can vary, by the way, as well, because top lines generally are the melody and the vocal, but there are other variables that can be input into that so generally you get a lot of songwriters that who are top line writers, that maybe they don't produce but they're good at vocal production, so they can go off and record their own vocals and then send them off and send them to a producer. But also you get those that play instruments that maybe go right. Well, I'm a singer, songwriter and I play guitar and I'm usually quite self-contained and right on my own, but I can contribute towards this by being an instrumentalist on my piano or guitar, as well as what I can bring with lyrics and melody.
Speaker 1:Then there are other types of music creators that are just pure lyricists, that just focus only on the lyrical side of things. Those people are particularly useful in camps that are trying to write songs in the English language but are done by people that don't have English as their first language. English-speaking lyricists and native-born English lyricists can be very, very useful in those situations. In addition to that, very often you see a lot of recording artists at songwriting camps and very often the recording artists are not there to necessarily write for their own projects, but to use the skills that they have built in their own artistic careers and use those same skills to create songs for other artists that need them. I've also witnessed over the years many artists that will work on a song with a team on a camp that they then later release that once it's been pitched, maybe it hasn't been successful, or maybe the artist interjects and says, hey, I'm an artist in my own right, own right. I really want to use this song. Can I clear this with everybody that's in this creative partnership? I've seen many songs come out of camps like that that have ended up being released by the people that were on the camp in the first place.
Speaker 1:Now, of course, during the pandemic, we saw a lot of shifts towards remote kind of working. You know video call meetings, that kind of thing and one of the things that changed during that time were songwriting camps, because a lot of camps moved online. Some went back to running how they used to run, so to speak, once the pandemic was over, but many people who got used to kind of working or maybe even started their times in songwriting camps in the online environment have continued to do that. I know many companies in the UK, in fact, that still operate online camps, because they can pull together people from all over the world to work in at the same time through a remote level, without having to hire a venue. So there's obvious advantages to it. Some songwriters struggle to be as more more. It's a different type of creativity. Perhaps, let's say there is something more kind of slightly solitary about it. So, for example, one of the things that works quite well in online camps is where you have a top line that works perhaps on their own with their headphones, remotely, and then rejoins a call an hour later and says all right, I've got these ideas, I've recorded them, I've sent them over. See what you think. So the collaborative level is different. It's no better, better, no worse. It's just different. Online camps are definitely on the rise.
Speaker 1:Okay, so one of the questions that very often comes to me about songwriting camps is about the funding side of it. People say, oh, I've been asked to pay. This, is that normal? Well, it depends. Yes, is the broad answer, but it also depends upon what happens to your rights on that camp. Remember I said earlier that it's important to think about what happens to those songs once they're complete. Do you just go home with them and then it's up to you to pitch them? That's fine, but as long as you know about that in advance, that's useful. Otherwise, there's the assumption that somebody's going to pitch these songs when they might not. Now, when it comes to a place being funded by a publisher, literally just yesterday an artist reached out to me and said oh, this camp, I've been on it before they want to do a couple of SSAs on the songs that I'm doing on this camp that they've invited me to. They're not asking me to pay, but they do expect me to sign my publishing to them SSA, sorry, single song assignment. So to boil that down to English, it might be that a publisher says okay, so you'll come three days probably, come up with three songs, so let's sign those songs, assign those rights to those songs to this publisher for X amount of years, because we're funding your place on that camp. I mentioned this earlier, but it's something that it's one of the biggest questions that people come to me on songwriting camps with is to you know how that side of it works. So either you pay and you keep your rights, or you don't pay but you relinquish your rights. Those are the two options to mainly think about there.
Speaker 1:Now let's think about the role of producers on songwriting camps, because generally there's more of a risk on a producer and by risk what I'm really talking about is times, larger time investment, very often from producers, for two reasons. Number one, because it often takes longer to put a track together than it does to put a song together on a collaborative level again generalizing enormously there. It's not always true, but generally it is. Or secondly, it could be that a producer has already come in with a track, so something that they've done in advance of that session, that they've invested their time into. Now there's a couple of things to think about here. Firstly, what happens if the producer is putting together maybe a three or four hour evening after that song has been completed in written that day and the top line writers kind of go off and have an evening to themselves or maybe go off and write a new song and that producer is still working on that same song that those top liners worked on. Well, that's something that I used to think about and there is a camp that I used to attend quite regularly and the rule there was that if these top liners go off and start a new song, that the producer is automatically copied in as a writer on what they create that day.
Speaker 1:Now there's some people that would disagree with that and I can understand why. But the argument there is that the producer still gets the same equal share of the song copyright as the other top liners do, but it takes them longer to work on it. Now, I'm not saying one is right or wrong there, it's just cultural differences between different camps and things to be aware of. Here's another thing to be aware of when it comes to the rights. Now, of course, as we've mentioned before on this podcast, there are two rights to think about here. There's the song copyright and there's the recording copyright.
Speaker 1:So, generally speaking, the songwriting on camps in my experience and in the observations I have of others is it's always even splits, which is great. It means that you know you just sign a bit of paper on the songwriting split sheet, which you can get for free, by the way, from johnnyamoscom. If you go to johnnyamoscom this is not an advert, you don't have to pay for it but if you go to Music Industry Resources on my website, johnnyamoscom, you'll see two different types of split sheets that you can download and use for free as Word documents. They're really, really useful. I advise to use them, you know, as often as you can, whoever you're working with. It's very often the norm to see song split sheets on a songwriting camp.
Speaker 1:But my question is this what is it that you're splitting? If it's an even split, that's great, but what are you splitting? Are you splitting the song or are you splitting the recording? Now let's just go a little deeper into this to give you some further context. It could be that the producer is the recording rights holder, so you've kind of got those two copyrights right. Maybe you've got three writers, let's say, and the producer is one of those three writers, and those three writers all share even splits on the copyright of the song, not the recording, the song. However, that one producer out of those three might own the rights to the recording, and that should be clarified, because it could be that further down the line that backing track is sold off to a record company as part of the song placement. Now that means that when the song gets used, the royalties would be split between those three writers, but the upfront share for the license of the recording would go to the producer.
Speaker 1:Now, just to make matters even more confusing, if one of the top line writers had contributed their recording that then ended up getting used let's say, for example, they play on something or they sing on something and that ends up getting used and licensed. As part of that sale, they should also be remunerated by some kind of part ownership on the recording or some kind of fee to buy them out of that. So that's a different thing than songwriting. Just to put that into a slightly different context, let's imagine that a songwriter has toplined a song. They've recorded their vocals, but then their vocals are then replaced by a different artist when the song gets cut. That would not be an infringement on the sound recording copyright, because that original singer's voice is being replaced, which effectively removes them from the sound recording.
Speaker 1:Are you still with me? There's a lot of information there, isn't there? Okay, now let's think about after the camp. So one of the most amazing things to come out of songwriting camps is the fact that your network will instantly grow. Your reputation starts to glow and grow and you know more people that do what you do from different parts of the country, which then creates further collaborations in the future on different camps and in, you know, just, regular songwriting sessions.
Speaker 1:Now it's very important and this is very overlooked by many. I've had to learn this a hard way over the years, but it's very important to keep up, up to date and keep in touch with those that you co-own songs with, because you need to know who their publishers are. So, for example, let's say you wrote a song 10 years ago and all of a sudden, a few years later, let's say, like now, you want to pitch that song to a publisher, to a record company or whoever. You want to pitch it for a sync opportunity or whatever. You need to know what the status of the copyright is on those songs, because it may well have changed from when you wrote the song, and what I mean by that is that it could be that one of your co-writers didn't have a publisher back then, but now they do and they've done a back catalogue deal, which means that part of that song now is now belong or assigned to a different publisher.
Speaker 1:So when you go and pitch that song, you go oh no, I've been blocked. Why is it? Why doesn't this work? Ah, it's because that writer over there is now signed to Universal Music. Oh, I didn't know about that. You know, it's these kind of things that just need to be stayed on top of, because it could be, you know, I mean, I, as a music creator, as a songwriter producer myself, I regularly pitch songs and I have to keep on top of. You know, oh, that song was done in 2018. Who did? Did I write it with? Oh, it was these two writers. Right, who are they signed with these days? Because I'm going to have to put that in the pitch so that the copyright clearance is available. We know who owns what. You see what I mean. So it could be the things that you've done years ago or things you've done in recent camps. Just keep a track of who those writers are, who they're, etc.
Speaker 1:Now, another thing to think about is revisiting songs now I don't just mean generally. So I mean there's value in revisiting old songs from your catalogue anyway and just kind of looking at where they're at and could they be improved etc. There's a fine line between that and revisiting old catalogue and procrastinating for ages over songs. Try and get the balance right. It's hard, I know, but the reason I mentioned this is it because it could be that you know you wrote a song, co-wrote a song with people on a camp. You know you listen back to it and you think, well, you know the song's there, the vocals are there, the writing is there, but the production just isn't right. So let's revisit that song and let's give it a new production, just rebirth it, give it a new, fresh approach on the track. And all of a sudden you know you get that song placed. You know the amount of times that I ask people, I say, look, how did that song come about? How did you? Oh, we just we redid it like three years after we did it and that's how we got the cut, you're like, ah, okay, good, it's a thing, so it's good to think about that. Okay, little summary on songwriting camps.
Speaker 1:Feel free to reach out to me. You know you can connect with me, everybody. If you wish to you reach out to me. I'm easily found. Just Google my name Johnny Amos J-O-M-M-Y-A-M-O-S. The music business buddy. I'm on Instagram. People can reach out to me there or directly through where I host the podcast, or through the website, or whatever you like. Feel free to rate the podcast. That really helps as well. But, most of all, remember I'm just here to help you, right? That's the goal here, that's the purpose of this, and I get a lot of enjoyment from it. So hopefully it works for you. But don't be a stranger. Okay, reach to me anytime you like. Okay, that's enough from me for now, until next time. I'll see you soon. May the force be with you.
