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More Than Meets the Ear:
The Science of Cutting a Killer
Demo
By Ted Drozdowski
Ask the song hounds - producers, artists and other music bizzers
who sniff out hits in haystacks of demos - what it takes to find
a smash, and they'll often describe their special blend of
market savvy and musical sense as "ears."
Maybe ears get too much credit. What about the inner ear's
basilar membrane, which triggers millions of neurons that set
off a psychedelic light show of electrical impulses in the
brain?
As long as Nashville has been a songwriter's town, there's been
a lot of talk about exactly what makes for a great demo. Some
say all they need is a rough work tape - just a voice backed by
a single instrument - to spot a great tune. Others say a fully
produced demo is the key to understanding if a song or an artist
is worthwhile. It turns out the answer could be more
physiological than either side suspects.
 "How
a demo is perceived may lie at a sensory encoding level as
opposed to a cognitive level," said Jeremy Federman, a
researcher and Ph.D. candidate at Nashville's Vanderbilt
University who specializes in audiology and music perception and
cognition. As a former L.A.-based songwriter, Federman brings
more than one perspective to this discussion.
"When I was pitching a song to Bonnie Raitt's producer, he said
they didn't want fully produced demos because they like to do
whatever they want to songs, with no preconceived ideas,"
Federman related. "But all of my demos were fully produced
because of an intuition that a lot of people don't really know
what they are listening for."
Federman cautioned that "music perception and cognition is a
brand new area of research and conclusive results are just
emerging." However, experiments have revealed that more
electrical impulses occur, while listening to or performing
music, in the brains of musicians than non-musicians because
more brain areas are activated, and that the basilar membrane
within the inner ear, which converts vibrations from sound into
signals in the brain, is more stimulated by a full band than a
solo performance.
"Other factors - the skill level of the musicians, the mood and
emotional state of the listener - can also affect perception,"
Federman added. "But more complex signals do generate more
excitation in the inner ear and brain. So it's possible that a
fully produced demo could get a better reception because it
causes more neurons to fire."
Meanwhile, the debate continues on Music Row.
 "As
a producer, I prefer getting work tapes," said Rivers
Rutherford. "That gives me an opportunity to hear my own
interpretations." But in addition to producing albums for
Montgomery Gentry, Jamie O'Neal and other artists, Rutherford
has penned smashes for Brooks & Dunn, Faith Hill, Tim McGraw,
Brad Paisley and Gretchen Wilson - and in submitting his songs
for consideration, he has learned that sometimes a solo demo
just doesn't do the trick.
"I've had it work both ways," he attested.
Rutherford has also found that the process of recording a
full-band demo might even improve a song's structure. Nine years
ago, he and co-writer Tom Shapiro had a guitar-and-voice work
tape of a tune they believed in. "But it didn't get any
interest," Rutherford recalled. "Then we went to demo it in the
studio, and I realized while hearing the band play that the work
tape was six to eight beats a minute too slow. So we sped it
up."
The result was Brooks & Dunn's No. 1 single, "Ain't Nothing
'Bout You."
At typically $800 to $1,000 per song, recording a demo with a
band in a Nashville studio is an expensive lottery ticket. But
if it hits, the payoff can be big.
 Tom
Hambridge won an ASCAP Song of the Year Award in 2007 for
co-writing Keith Anderson's Top 5 hit "Every Time I Hear Your
Name," which was shopped as a fully produced demo. Although he's
had tunes recorded by Rodney Atkins, Billy Ray Cyrus, Joe
Nichols, Montgomery Gentry and many others, Hambridge is, like
Rutherford, also a solo artist and producer, with albums by
Susan Tedeschi, George Thorogood and Johnny Winter among his
production credits.
"Because I'm a songwriter, when I'm producing I can hear a good
song whether it's just a singer with a guitar or a full band,"
Hambridge said. "But I always do full productions of my own
songs that I'm going to pitch, including background singers. In
Country Music, the bar is so high that you need to get your song
across in the best way possible. The greatest songwriters in the
world are here in Nashville, vying for spots on big Country
albums every day, and not every decision maker hears things the
same way."
This means presenting each of his songs in a form most likely to
help a variety of listeners hear its particular strengths. "Some
producers are wizards behind the board, but they need to know
what a finished song might sound like," Hambridge said. "A&R
staff may help pick tunes - or management or maybe even the
president of a record company. If a label or artist is really
going to bet on a song, the marketing department might be asked
for an opinion on whether radio will play it. And chances are
not all of those people are songwriters.
"Let's put it this way," Hambridge summed up. "If you really
want to knock somebody out, do you give them a shiny new car or
the old one that's back in the shed?"
HOW TO MAKE YOUR DEMOS REAL CONTENDERS
Before you or your engineer push the "record" button, here are
some demo basics and not-so-basics to consider:
- Get It Done: "A work tape is crucial," said Rivers Rutherford. "Specifically, it's a blueprint for demo studio musicians. Beyond that, with just one instrument, one voice, and a cheap
digital recorder, it might be all you need to bring a tune to
life. Just be sure you're got the structure of the song tight."
- Hit Your Groove: "Make sure your tempo is correct for the song
and that it's locked in," said Rutherford. "The groove has to be
on the money for a song to be convincing."
- Sing It Pretty: "You need a believable vocal performance of a
good melody," Rutherford noted. "You don't want to get too
over-emotive. This is a song-driven market, not a record-driven
market like rock 'n' roll, so you're just trying to get the
spirit of a song across."
- Buddy Up: A good studio crew can cut four or five songs in an
afternoon session. Tom Hambridge suggests sharing sessions with
other writers. "Sometimes there are five or more different
writers at a session, all splitting the cost to get good demos
of their best tunes."
- Trust Your Musicians: "In Nashville the session musicians are
the best in the world at getting demos done," said Hambridge. "Songwriters are not usually producers, but good musicians spend
so much time in the studio playing on all kinds of songs that
they often know exactly what you're going for. Listen to their
ideas."
- Polish Your Sound: Hambridge likes the sheen added to his
demos by a final run through the various compressors, EQs and
other devices used in mastering. "My demos sound like commercial
recordings," said Hambridge, "because that's what most people
are used to hearing."
- Get Personal: Once you've got demos to pitch, network through
artists' rights organizations, publishers, showcases, parties,
etc., - wherever you can find the industry people best
positioned to help place your song. And make friends. "There's
no guarantee that artists, managers or label people are going to
hear your demos," Hambridge said. "You've got to get out there
and make them interested in you."
© 2008 CMA Close Up® News Service / Country Music Association®,
Inc.
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