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I Write Too Many Songs! What Should I Do?

I’ve written a LOT of songs. Last time I checked it was over 2,000! Impressive? Maybe, but many of these are unfinished: most need lyrics, either in whole or part; some need a chorus; and so on.

At first—back in the 1970s—I recorded them onto large reels of tape, but that was insane: I’d have a printed list of tracks with vaguely descriptive names and fifty or more song snippets on a single reel of tape. To find song #46, buried in the middle of the reel, I’d have to play hide-and-seek, shuffling back and forth, until I stumbled upon the little jewel I was looking for.

Then came cassettes, so I found out I could buy cassettes with only 5 minutes per side and stick one song on each side. So I bought a box of 200 cassettes and started transferring songs to these. It seemed for a while that my random-access speed was a lot better, now, but still ridiculous.

The next advance in technology was the Sony Mini-Disc system: a 3” recordable CD that can fit in palm-sized recorder/player and had random access: At last (I thought), I can get better organized! Of course, they were discontinued after a few years, when….

Cellphones can now hold thousands of MP3 files, and almost instantly recall any file.

But this still didn’t solve the problem of categorizing the songs (rock? country? soul?), rating them so I’d know the good from the—ahem—less good (shall we say), tagging them by tempo, mood, etc.

I suppose I could have set up an elaborate spreadsheet system that rated, categorized, and cross-referenced every song, but, jeez, that didn’t sound like a lot of fun. Surely there must be a better way….

Introducing SongwriterdB

Well, yes, there is: SongwritersdB! I decided to bite the bullet, hire a team of programmers to create my ideal system, and then offer it up to the world of songwriters to see if it would be just as helpful to them as it is to me.

Here’s basically what SongwritersdB allows you to do:

• • Record directly into the program (I will use the term “app” for convenience).
• • Replace and append audio to an existing song.
• • Type or copy/paste in your lyrics to each song.
• • Add a title (or leave date/time as a default title).
• • Add comments to each song (“Old-style Motown vibe”).
• • Tag with the genre (Rock, Blues, Rap, Showtune, etc.).
• • Tag with the tempo (Uptempo, Midtempo, Ballad).
• • Indicate if music is completed, lyrics completed, a demo has been recorded, etc.
• • Indicate if it’s been copyrighted and/or registered with ASCAP, BMI or SESAC (PROs).

Searching

But what good is all that information if you can’t find the song you’re looking for? So I insisted that the app include a robust search engine system that allows you to do a text search through titles, lyrics, and/or comments fields, and by any of the other fixed fields, such as tempo, genre, star rating, completion status of lyrics and music, whether it’s copyrighted and/or registered with a PRO, etc.

Here are a few examples of how you can use the powerful search engine:

• • Search for all your completed songs that are uptempo, country, and copyrighted.
• • Search for all your incomplete songs that are jazz ballads.
• • Search only for those songs that have completed music but incomplete or no lyrics.
• • Search for that song that has the word “daddy” in the comments field.
• • Display all your songs that are in the process of being demoed.
• • Display all the songs you co-wrote with Sammy (by searching the Comments field).
• • Display only your five-star-rated songs, whether completed or not.

I think you get the idea!

Sorting

Next, I made sure that you can do a quick Sort not only by name, but also by date recorded, date imported into the app, or date last edited within the app. This way you can quickly pick up where you left off, by displaying the most recently worked-on songs at the top.

Remote Recording

Since this is a desktop app (for now), what do you do when you get that flash of inspiration and you’re out and about, far from your desktop? The app comes with an auxiliary phone app (for iOs and Android) that allows for quick and easy audio recording of your brilliant idea, that is immediately saved to the cloud (Google Drive or Dropbox), so that when you get back to your house, a quick refresh on your desktop will immediately pull in the just-recorded song for finishing up at home.

Two more features that are unique to SongwritersdB:

Albums: These are like playlists you create of your own songs, for quick playback. For example, you may want to collect a half-dozen of your own favorite rock songs and put them in an “Album” for listening as a group. You can easily rearrange the song (and Album) order via drag-and-drop.

Lyric View: This displays the title and first line of each song—or the first two lines of each song—for quick visual scanning. This helps jog your memory about unfinished songs, so you can say, “Jeez, I forgot about that one---that’s pretty good. I’m gonna finish that one up!”

Importing Songs

But how do you get all your existing songs into the app, in the first place? Songwritersdb allows you to directly import individual song files or entire folders of songs, or via drag and drop, into the app, from your local drive or cloud drive.

Play Window

A pop-out Play window allows you to continuously play any number of your songs, again to remind you of what needs to be finished or maybe even pitched to a publisher!

Sharing

All songs can be easily shared with a collaborator, directly from within the app, with attached lyrics and comments. This is a great way to send over your latest song idea for comments, help, etc., to a collaborator.

In conclusion, I created SongwritersdB because I, myself, was frustrated with not being able to get a handle on the hundreds of songs I’d written. No more!