Serve The Song

Open mic nights at local bars, coffee shops, libraries, and other places are a great outlet for songwriters looking for an easy way to take their music to a receptive audience.  If you’re a newbie to public performance then playing some open mics when you’re just starting out is a must.  If you’re a more experienced gigger, you might use open mics to try out your latest songs on a real audience, or use your open mic performance to promote an upcoming full set performance in the area, or at the same bar.

Here’s a list of some of the best go-to resources for finding a great open mic.  If you know of any other directories out there, please share them in the comments section.  Or if you’d like to promote a specific open mic, give it a shout out below and be sure to include the city, address, and start-time!

openmikes.org – This is a great resource.  Search nationwide by zip code, and find open mics in your neck of the woods.  They recently added embedded Google maps which makes the whole process even easier.  Another great feature of this directory is the comments section for each open mic listing.  User’s give some very helpful (or not) reviews of each spot, how it’s run, their experiences, tips, and advice.

Craigslist Open Mic Search – Craigslist is still a tremendous resource for just about anything.  This link takes you strait to an open mic search for New York City.  If you want to search in your city, and you’re new to craigslist, and you have come out from under the rock you’ve been living under, here’s how to quickly search for an Open Mic:  Click on your city, click on community, in the search box, type “Open Mic”, click submit.

Myspace Open Mic Search – There’s more to Myspace than posting mp3s and skinning your profile with nauseating designs.  The classifieds section is  pretty robust.  This link takes you strait to search results for “Open Mic”.

NJ Open Mic – This is a directory for all open mics and open jams happening in the glorious state of New Jersey.  It’s separated by the day of the week which makes it nice.  However if you’re not local to the dirty Jerse, then nothing is nice about this site.

Gigglechic.com Open Mic List – This list has a decent amount of open mics from a few specific regions.  There’s a detailed submission form for folks to post their open mics to the site.

I recently wrote a guest post over at Mad Stratter about creative chord structure in songwriting.  Going along with a general theme of addition by subtraction (which I talked about in another post), the basic idea is to strip your chords of extra clutter and noise by choosing the most essential building blocks.

Read the full article and be sure to check out the rest of the Mad Stratter blog for a ton of great Stratocaster info and more.

photo by geishaboy500

This is a guest post from Cliff Goldmacher, a songwriter/producer with recording studios in both New York City and Nashville. Along with teaching workshops for songwriters around the country, he’s a regular contributor to EQ Magazine.  For more about Cliff, visit www.cliffgoldmacher.com

As a result of recording and producing literally hundreds of demos, I’ve learned that it is always better to “Prepare and Prevent” than to “Repair and Repent.” Here are a few steps you can take to help make your demo recording experience more successful.

Song Preparation:

It may sound obvious but make sure your song is FINISHED. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve had clients come into the studio only to start rewriting a part of the lyric or melody. It is significantly less stressful (and quite a bit less expensive) to write a song when you’re not paying the studio an hourly fee.

You can also benefit from trying a few rough recordings at home before you get to the studio. The simple act of listening back to a song instead of performing it will reveal any weaknesses or issues that need to be dealt with before the studio clock is running. The last of these rough home recordings will become the definitive work tape.

The Rough Recording:

This is any simple, inexpensive recording that you do on a hand-held tape recorder, mini disc player, mp3 recorder, etc. Generally a piano or guitar plus a scratch vocal will do the trick. The key here is not a perfect recording but rather an accurate representation of the song structure. In other words, it doesn’t have to sound great as long as the chords, melody and lyrics are correct. The purpose of this work tape is to provide the demo vocalist and session musicians with a final version of your song that they can learn from.

The Players:

Let’s start with the demo vocalist. It’s always a good policy to get a copy of the work tape and the lyrics to the singer a week or so before the session. There are several reasons for this. First of all, the singer can let you know what key the song should be in to best suit their voice. This way, if you end up recording instrument parts before the singer does their part, you’ll know the correct key. Secondly, the more time the singer has to learn the song, the less time he or she will take to sing the song when the studio clock is running.

When you get to the session, it’s wise to have printed lyric sheets for the engineer, musicians and vocalist. The lyrics should be typewritten and have each chorus written out in full. The reason for this is that you’ll be using these lyric sheets to mark spots that need fixing (or spots on certain takes that you like) and having “Repeat Chorus” written for the second and third choruses won’t allow you to take good notes. The better the notes you take on the lyric sheet while the vocalist is recording, the easier it will be to tell the vocalist what works and what needs to be fixed.

The session musicians do not need a work tape in advance. They will be learning the song from your work tape when they get to the session. You can save a little time by writing a chord chart of the song if it’s something you’re comfortable doing. If not, the session musicians should have no trouble doing it for you quickly using the work tape you bring to the session.

After that, it’s up to the singers and musicians to bring your song to the next level. There’s nothing more fun than listening to world-class musicians and vocalists record a song you’ve written. The more you prepare in advance, the more you’ll enjoy your studio experience.

Cliff Goldmacher is a songwriter, producer, engineer and the owner of recording studios in both Nashville and New York City. Cliff is also a regular contributor to EQ Magazine and Pro Sound News.

Cliff Goldmacher
Website: www.cliffgoldmacher.com
Email: cliff@cliffgoldmacher.com
Phone: 615.320.7233
Biography

This week’s links roundup is all things design and art related to the music world. Artwork, graphic design, and photography play a huge role in the presentation and appreciation of music. From concert promotion, cover art, web design, band photography, t-shirt design, you name it… great design matters. Here’s a batch of links to get your creative ideas flowing.

35 Beautiful Music Album Covers – From Smashing Magazine
The album is not dead!  At least when it comes to cover art.  This is a great source of inspiration if you’re planning an album or EP release.

Best Album Covers of 2008 – From Rolling Stone

Band Logos from Band ID book – From Sleevelessness

60 Concert Posters From Ten Amazing Artists – From Smashing Magazine
Lots of great stuff here.  This is a great display of styles from different corners of the design and music world.  Tremendous variety here.  I personally really dig the work of Mike Klay.

50 Amazing Gig Posters Sure to Inspire – From Well Medicated
Another helping of sweet concert poster art.

Billboard Top 40 Design Showcase – From Smashing Magazine
This list reviews the website of the Billboard’s Top 40 artists.  Whether you dig the mainstream stuff or not, the work that went into the web presence of these artists and bands is top notch.  Is your website ready to compete?

50 Hot Myspace Music Layouts That Rock – From Mashable
90% of the design on myspace is crap.  It’s unfortunate that the most popular network for bands and musicians is littered with so many awful and ametaur design layouts.  These are the exceptions, which are quite exceptional uses of the Myspace medium.

The Best Damn Live Music Photography – Flickr Group
Flickr has become a great time consumer for me.  This is an awesome collection of music photography.  Could be a great place to post and promote your concert snapshots of your band.

T-Shirts Countdown Chart: Music T-Shirts – From T-Shirt Countdown