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Hi folks,
I currently have a guitar student, a lady who sang a huge pop hit in the 90s.
She is writing an album in Spanish.
She has asked me to help with pronunciations and phrasing on the songs.
She is not a native Spanish speaker and I haven’t yet heard the songs.
I write songs in Spanish myself.
My thoughts are that if I help with lyrical and pronunciation corrections, alternative lyrics that might rhyme better, construe meaning more clearly or flow better, this is effectively a collaboration.
If a whole sentence or phrase is just wrong in Spanish and would need re-writing then that too would be a collaboration.
If lyrics and sentence construction are essentially correct then I can just charge an hourly rate as I do for teaching her.
To be honest I don’t want to get involved in a collaboration on the album as I want to use my time focused on my licensing writing, her songs may not be geared to this market so unless there is a goal of making money on it it could be a massive waste of my time.
Just wanted to get thoughts and suggestions from you all on how to handle it as although I have collaborated with others in the past it has been a 50/50 agreement where we both got together and wrote songs from start to finish and both used our recording facilities to make it happen.
Would appreciate any thoughts.
Thanks in advance.
JDTo be honest I don’t want to get involved in a collaboration on the album as I want to use my time focused on my licensing writing,
I think you answered your own question there.
I had a slightly similar situation with a very famous actress who had a hit TV show at the time. She wanted to record an album and had a record deal with a major label. All she had were lyrics and I and a partner were to write the music. Funny thing she didn’t think we deserved writing credit! We dis-abused her of that notion fast!
If you want to do it I would go for both writing credit and payment. These things can turn into a nightmare very fast, at least in my experience.
If you want to do it I would go for both writing credit and payment. These things can turn into a nightmare very fast, at least in my experience.
Glad that someone was able to give a result. At the end of the day, anything that you put time & energy towards is “Business”.
The older I get, the more I am looking towards having less regret, and bitterness towards others. It just about always can be avoided when people are upfront & honest.
I’ve had this experience with artist/songwriters wanting my help. As long as they have both the lyrics and melody I consider myself a hired troubleshooter helping with things like chord substitutions, changing chord voicings for better voice leading (on guitar) suggesting alternative song structures, etc. And I’m paid by the project or by the hour.
you’re very welcome JD – happy to help.
I am happy to not get involved if it is co-writing her album as it may be a can of worms I don’t want to open!
I think it could be a lot of aggravation but that’s my 2 cents worth. On the other hand if she was a big name artist it might be worth it. I worked for a very successful songwriter that wrote with a very big name singer/actress. He was very frustrated and at one point mentioned throwing a chair across the room. That song went on to win an Oscar!
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