This is Part 1 of a series in which I’m going to talk about creating and promoting a song. Many independent musicians (myself included) have a lot of questions about how to make DIY music promotion work.
Over the course of this series, you can follow along as we:
- Finish a song collab
- Make album art and Ad creatives
- Submit our song for distribution
- Develop and implement a promotion plan
- See what happens
We’re gonna get to that, but first we need to finish the song! So let’s start with that
Some Background
It’s probably a good idea to talk a little bit about the song we’re working on huh?
Well, if you don’t already know, Lodge Cove Collective is intended to be about collaborating…. and this song is another collaboration.
Our first release started out as a poem by Catie. We worked together to turn it into a song. You can read more about that here. Since then, I released a couple of singles on my own.
So now we are working on another one together. Once again the main theme of the song and lyrics came from Catie.
The Collaboration Process
It’s ongoing, but here’s how it generally works for us. My self-appointed job when we work together is to take her lyrical themes and ideas and come up with the backing instrumentation that fits the vibe.
I also chop up her lyrics to fit whatever musical arrangement I come up!
Somewhere along the way, I usually send her a demo of some of the instruments, and me attempting to sing the melody.
Emails are exchanged…. ideas are discussed…. changes are made….
This tune is going to be a little different than ‘Thief’… I ended up making her do all the vocals on that one. But this time around I’m doing some vocals too.
Current Progress
I’m already thinking ahead about things like album artwork, promotion strategies, etc. I should probably be focusing solely on getting the song finished up…
My self-appointed job when we work together is to take her ideas and come up with the backing instrumentation that fits the vibe. I also chop up her lyrics to fit whatever arrangement I come up with, ha ha.
At the time of this writing, I think the arrangement is nailed down. The instruments are recorded, along with most of my own vocals.
We’re still going back and forth on some of the details, primarily who’s going to be singing which parts. Once that’s sorted, Catie can record her vocals, and I’ll proceed to mix, master, and submit it to Distrokid (our preferred music distributor).
What's It Gonna Sound Like?
Well, I tend to categorize the genre of this stuff as “Alt-Country”, but even a niche genre like that is kinda broad.
I think it’s going to sound like something between Thief and About A Song…
Thief was a little more “produced”, and “About a Song” purposely was not. This will also be the first tune we’ve both done vocals on, so there’s that.
Next Steps
We have to finish the song obviously! Then comes album art… promotion strategy.. all that fun stuff. And I intend to document the parts that you might find interesting or helpful.
If you want to follow along over the next few weeks, consider subscribing to our newsletter. I’ll be using that to let folks know what we’re up to.
Thanks for taking the time to read this! See you in Part 2.