Editor’s Note: This is Part 1 of a 4-part series on reinventing the songwriting camp with NYU’s Clive Davis Institute and Songtrust. Stay tuned as we release the rest of the series.
This spring, NYU’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music teamed up with Songtrust to build a camp from the ground up. We wanted it to have a unique vibe that avoided the pitfalls of camps we’ve seen in the past, while generating more than just songs for everyone who attended.
What Is a Songwriting Camp?
A publisher, performing rights organization, or brand will gather a group of writers together to crank out a bunch of new songs in a concentrated time frame. There’s often a theme, or a reason to get these writers together—for instance, there might be a particular recording artist who is “looking for material.” Camps can run for several days, and during that time, guest speakers visit and give campers insight, and in some cases, feedback on the songs being written. There’s a lot of networking, and hopefully, a lot of songwriting.
Why Do They Call it a “Camp?”
Honestly, I have no idea. There’s no connection to camping, as far as I can tell, and I’ve been to songwriting camps that are actually out in the woods. No one’s hammering their name into leather belts. There are no canoes. But calling it a “conference” sounds too corporate; a “retreat" sounds too spiritual; a “workshop” sounds like work; and a “gathering” is for hippies—which is fine, but kind of genre-specific. The funny thing is, a really good songwriting camp combines elements of all of them, and my guess is that somebody couldn’t decide on one, so they settled on “camp,” and no one’s come up with anything better.
The Challenges: Why Traditional Camps Fail Writers
There are several drawbacks to the traditional songwriting camp, but they all boil down to a single, big problem: The songs that are written never get heard. I know, that sounds crazy, but it’s true, and here’s why:
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The song never gets finished. The camp ends, and the group of people who’ve been thrown together randomly go back to their corners of the industry. The song draft, meanwhile, remains tucked in the back of some hard drive that eventually gets lost in a move, or a flood, or just over time. This is unfortunate, because, as any songwriter can tell you: An unfinished song can’t do anything. But a finished song can do literally anything.
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The song gets finished, but never gets revised. There’s a sense that the song’s chance to get finished ends when the camp is done. Fact is, songs need to be revised and revisited. Sometimes, they need time in order to get perspective on what they need to go from, “Really good, considering we did it over two days in a camp,” to, “This banger could come out tomorrow.” The main divider between amateurs and pros is persistence over time, which creates follow-through, which creates a better finished song. Camps can’t do that.
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The song gets finished and revised—but unfortunately, it was written for someone who didn’t ask for it. As I said earlier, many camps will give a prompt based on a major artist who might be looking for material. “Miley Cyrus has put the word out that she wants to hear songs. Write something for her,” might be a prompt in a camp. So, everybody in the camp starts writing what they think is a great Miley Cyrus song. The problem is that every major writer in the world has also heard this tip, including the ones who already have a relationship with Miley. You might have the perfect song for her, but unless you have a direct relationship, the chances of her ever hearing it are on par with a gas station lottery ticket. More often than not, a song camper is left with a finished Miley song…minus Miley. That song can start to feel like yesterday’s lottery ticket.
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Oh, and there’s one more: I was told about a camp where an absolute A-lister who was “looking for material” showed up and waved to all the writers before they broke off into groups. In the rooms, the writers were then told that the A-lister who had waved and left would be listed as a writer and a publisher on everything written in the camp. It was described as “the price of doing business.”
Does that sound like a fun/productive/inspiring camp to you? Because to me it sounds like an A-lister’s limo needs to get keyed.
Our Solution: The CDI x Songtrust Blueprint
In order to sidestep these challenges, we came up with some guiding principles:
Get good people.
It sounds so simple, but it’s probably the most important step of all. Good people! Why? Because the goal of a camp is less about the songs that come out of the camp, and more about the long-term relationships that are made. Those relationships will write more songs than a single camp ever will.
Set the expectation that the songs will have a public life.
A “public life” can mean anything from being in a live set, to being licensed for sync, to being released as part of an artist project—but in order for any of those things to happen, the song has to be a) finished, and b) expressed through an artist who has a stake in the song.
Create a self-contained universe for the song.
We created three-person teams and assigned a role for each member: Artist, Writer, and Producer. We asked each applicant to prioritize which role they would most want to have, along with second and third options. Many applicants were equally great at all three roles, but we did everything possible to give everyone their first choices.
Curate the songwriting teams.
Teams were not chosen at random. In the application, we asked people to give examples of their work and to explain briefly what kind of music they were looking to write. (Those two things can be very different.) Then we took a lot of time finding compatible combinations.
Give them great resources.
The Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music has incredible rooms, and a seemingly endless inventory of instruments and outboard gear. We dropped these curated teams into the rooms, and let them cook.
Advantages of Building a Camp This Way
In general, the most likely way for writers and producers to get a song cut by an artist is by having a direct relationship with the artist—and in the camp we put together, the artist is right there in the room. This is how the biggest writers in the world do it, regardless how large or small the artist’s fanbase is at the time.
For the artist, the most likely way to express what they have to say is to be involved in the process of self-expression. Philip Lawrence writes with Bruno Mars in the room; Madison Love writes with Lady Gaga in the room; and if an artist in a camp wants that level of success, it’s instructive to learn from the process that helped others achieve it.
But the most obvious advantage is that the song can be written, produced, and performed by each team without having to ask anyone permission to give it a public life. The team never waits around hoping someone will pass the song to someone, who’ll pass it to someone else, who’ll give it to that major artist, who might listen to your song (after listening to songs from Max Martin, Amy Allen, and the biggest writers in the world) and decide to record it.
The Result: Giving Songs a "Public Life"
On July 28th, we packed New York City venue the Bitter End and debuted the inaugural CDI x Songtrust Songwriting Showcase with five phenomenal new songwriting teams. Team writers and producers jumped in on various instruments to accompany the artists in stripped-down combinations of two or three players. One artist performed to a fully-produced track. In the audience, teams with as-yet-unfinished songs showed up to support, alongside NYU students and the Songtrust team. Tucked in a corner, the CDI Summer High School program watched as these songs got their first public life. Even the guest speakers showed up, with colleagues from their various professional lives. Afterwards, a publisher came up to me and asked about one of the songs she heard, saying, “I think that could really work as K-Pop.” Sure. Yes, and K-Pop. I connected the team to the publisher, and I guess we’re all going to have to see what the future brings.
Personally, I felt that the songs had a spirit and through-composed nature that made them feel authentic to the artists who performed them. The recordings that we heard taking shape in the camp captured the intent of the songs, and not only are there plans to release them as singles, but there are plans to continue writing the rest of the album or EP that the first song implied.
In the meantime, songs, demos, and revisions continue hitting my inbox, and as I listen and offer feedback, I think of the old music industry saying that “everybody is one song away…”
All we know is that:
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An unfinished song can’t do anything, but a finished song can do anything.
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When a song gets a public life, there’s no telling who might be listening.
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My greatest hope is that, with every finished song, they’re one song closer.
Mike Errico is the author of “Music, Lyrics, and Life: A Field Guide for the Advancing Songwriter” and a professor at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at New York University.
