The West Coast Songwriting Conference was a success for me. I loved the experience and learned a lot.

“Makin’ Memories” made some waves. One professional songwriter who also teaches songwriting at Foothill and led a song screening session said, “It’s a hit”, and an old-timer in the songwriting biz who I think has a long and strong track record liked it a lot and suggested that I forward to an exec that just picked up Denis’ Loiseau’s Stompin’ Grounds. Denis is my co-writer on MM so the double-connection could prove valuable in the case. The songwriting participants clearly liked it.

An industry exec liked the music to Eight Lanes of Danger (ELD) but not the lyric, so it would involve a major or total re-write of the lyric to salvage it.

One TV/Movie music exec “picked up” my 7-song CD (but it wasn’t an enthusiastic pick-up and I believe it will go nowhere—though it is always a good sign and compliment to have work picked up.)

In an industry where only a very small percentage of songs fall into the “A/A+” grade—and then only a small percentage of the ones that do actually becoming money-makers, most of my first 7 song collaborations fall into the “B” category, with a couple in the “C” grade, and one in the “A-/B+ grade, (but possibly fixable to an “A/A-). For someone so new at songwriting, the fact that B songs are being generated more often than not is being noticed by music industry execs and fellow songwriters. I was one of the newest songwriters at the conference, yet my collaborations were often some of the ones most enthusiastically responded to by the execs, panelists, and fellow songwriters. I owe much of that to my collaborators, and to my supporters who listen to my stuff and provide feedback.

I now have permission to present my stuff directly to about 10-12 industry execs, and more execs and industry insiders now know who I am by name and/or by sight. That can prove useful over time. I also made lots of new contacts for possible collaboration, and perhaps demo creation.

Denis Loiseau in particular introduced me to several industry execs and professional songwriters, and he has a home run in Stompin’ Grounds which got picked up by 5 or 6 execs!

After this weekend, I plan to attempt to put all of the songs I’ve worked on into 3 categories: Pitch, Fix, or Ditch. At this point, most of the 7 completed songs ae likely to end up in th Ditch category. MM (which is a Fix to Pitch), ELD which needs more study of the feedback to determine if it’s a Fix or Ditch, and “That’s What I Get” (TWIG) which we need to see if what we have so far is worth more time or whether we briefly set it aside to focus on fixing and pitching MM, and deciding what to do with ELD.