I saw a post for a publisher looking around for an Adele Style old school sort of love ballad. They said simple singer/songwriter arrangement would work and production could be A- so I finished up this one I've had sitting around for a couple years. they wanted a "break up but I will triumph" sort of message. Originally I stopped working on it as my lovely wife decided it must be a comment on our rather wonderful marriage and no plea to the contrary really ever convinced her. Seemed best to just drop it and move on. But . . . now she's convinced and I'm off and running with it again. It's pretty shallow work, rather pedantic and cliche, but that doesn't mean it's bad. Over all that's the stuff that sells because folks want music they can relate to. Anyway, it's just piano and voice so it was quick and simple.

Thanks Folks

Sound Cloud https://soundcloud.com/joesarahh/a-rose

Sounds great Joe! Hope you get the cut.


Regards,

Bob

Hi Joe. Good to meet you!

This is a very pretty song and I think it fills the bill perfectly. Your vocal is excellent and passionate. Perhaps the vocal could be just a little louder in the mix. In a couple of places the piano stepped on the vocal just a bit.

All that said, we think you did an excellent job on this. It's a terrific lyric and the piano arrangement is a perfect fit for the lyric and your vocal inflection. Good luck with it - we hope it makes the cut!

Alan & Di

Nice. I think that could work for the purpose.

I like the sparseness of the piano with voice for the start. I'd bring some additional instrumentation in, strings or cello, maybe violin, starting on the second chorus. Build it up in the second chorus. On the third verse, I'd have the full band join in with the groove. Then drop back to finish with piano and voice at the end.

I'd tune the vocals to pitch where they tend to slide sharp. Melodyne fixes the pitch without changing anything else.

Excellent write.

When your writing and recording for TV, there's no room for second rate or unfinished music. dot the "i"s and cross the "t"s. What you send has to be top of the pile in every aspect because no one is going to record it again. What you send is what they will either use as-is or reject because it falls short of the high bar.

This is a good write with a few nits that need fixing to let it show off it's full potential. You're competing against other composers who will be doing the detail work. If your song is perfect for the scene, but the production is lesser than another song.... they will chose the song that sounds "ready" over the one that fits the scene but isn't quite broadcast ready.

One more thing..... they won't buy it from you. They will license it. You own it, and you get paid every time they use it in the show and in reruns.

So.... if the Bachelor show doesn't pick it up, place it in a decent film and TV library ( or multiple non-exclusive libraries) because s song like that can be used in many shows that could potentially place a song like that.

Joe,

I hope you get the call because this is very good.Some excellent advise here on the production.My only thought was on the length; the third verse rounds out the song on an upbeat note, but makes it a little long for tv?

Robert

Good point that I overlooked. TV might spend 30 seconds on a "long scene".... but I have seen where they spend 60 seconds if it's really dramatic such as a sad scene. I don't watch the show you're pitching too, but I can imagine the breakup scene is dramatic and sad and could easily be 60 seconds or perhaps slightly more.

They will edit the song to fit, so run time isn't as critical as it would be for an artist radio placement. Still, 3 minutes is a better length. Be sure to give them good, clean edit points.

Also, a really good idea is to have an instrumental version ready to go. Lots of times they will just want the music to play with no vocals. Having it ready shows you're on top of the details. Having a long version, a shorter version, an instrumental version and a few cue cuts would be excellent.

Joe and Herb,

Reference the link and edit points. What I've done on the most recent songs we've submitted is send a full length with vocal (assuming their is a vocal), full length with no vocal, a 30 second instrumental clip, a 60 second instrumental clip and then the complete musical bed as stems. With stems, the music director can remix the song any way he/she desires if none of the other formats we submitted were suitable for their needs.

Just a thought FWIW.

Alan

Hi joesarahh, Thank you for sharing this with us! Fantastic work on the vocals! Well done!

I have gotten a general consensus from a couple different sources that the vocals are not as up to par as my usual work so I am going to take that seriously and maybe redo them. Also, I can clearly hear that the vocals are a bit low in the mix, irritating since they are a bit high in my studio mix. I have been thinking on the orchestration, part of me likes the idea of building instrumentation as that's the standard and it's what I have always done. Yet, part of me would like to put a few out that are this completely stripped down stuff because it's saleable for so many singer/songwriter style placements. Others I have sold (not the right word I know) have tended to be full orchestration. But, comments about the length are interesting because of course the song gets a tad dull as it goes on so long making a good argument for a larger arrangement to keep the interest. Got to think about that some. Anyway, I really appreciate the comments.

I agree on the edit points and sending in a full package of cues and cuts. I did that for the History Channel when they asked me to write a theme song but unfortunately, this particular listing is with Taxi so no such submission is possible. I have heard that if they like it they will occasionally write and ask for the full package so it's important to have it available for sure. You do have wondering though if I have really left good edit points for the producer. I need to take a hard look at that. Thanks so much!