Music and Songwriting: Songwriting vs. Recording and Finding Producers
It was now January 2009 and I was in college in Houston, TX. I was still writing and had recently got some recording equipment. I told myself that I was going to do a Mixpaper. A Mixpaper was a mixtape for a songwriter. I started downloading all these instrumentals and writing to all these songs. I was still with my boyfriend so some of the songs would be about us. I grew to love him (not “in love” though) because we had a perfect relationship in the sense of: there were no arguments, we respected each other and us, the right amount of physical with the right amount of distance. I was taking 18 hours but since I didn’t work, I had spare time. My study group actually became my spare time. A couple of the guys actually were in a rap group and they would come to my place to record. But I knew they weren’t serious, because once you started talking actually building them as a business and drawing up contracts…they looked at me like I was crazy. I learned that I can always cut the fakers from the real ones out…just hand them one of my contracts. To this day that saves me a lot of wasted time. But I came to the realization that recording music is another job in itself. My choir techniques weren’t enough…I needed to know recording techniques. Besides the fact that my voice changed again in the Fall of 2008. The first few songs I recorded…horrible! And one song would take all day! I still put everything up on YouTube, music sites and whatnot. I had the mindset of, “It took me forever to record this shit so I’m going to post it anyway. I can’t get this time back. I don’t care if they don’t like the vocals anyway, just focus on the lyrics.” It wasn’t until Fall 2012 that I could truly say that I got the recording process done efficiently. I can record a whole demo in 30 minutes to an hour now. Anyway, on my 18th birthday I started my own company and became my own music publisher. This lady on LinkedIn had told me how simple it was to become your own publisher and why you should be under a publishing company. I definitely thanked her and took her advice obviously. Summer 2009 had come. I had finished my first semester of college. I broke up with my dude because I had just simply outgrown him. So I spent summer in Dallas doing online classes during the day, recording random stuff in the afternoon, and partying with my older sister at night. I began meeting a lot more people in the industry in Dallas and a few out-of-towners. I was in talks with two producers that I had received instrumentals from, but it lead to nowhere. I begin to realize that most people in Dallas were nothing but all talk.