Songwriting Credits

[artificialreasons]

How do u determine what members get songwriting credits for a song? Is it just whoever is in the room when it is created, who writes the riffs, who comes up with the structure, etc.? also if a drummer influences a riff with a beat, does that give him credit as a songwriter?

 

[Stormbringer]

all members of a band are responsible for a song, but e.g. in our band it happens that one 'writes' a song, and tells the others what to do in general.

 

[ShaneBarnes1982]

With my band the whole band usually ends up the the writing credits. Me and the other guitarist, and the bassist, all have a hand in writing riffs and whatnot, and the drummer comes in and plays a beat, therefore, writing the drum line, and as for lyrics, everyone has their say for the most part. So it's a full band effort

 

[artificialreasons]

Originally posted by ShaneBarnes1982
With my band the whole band usually ends up the the writing credits. Me and the other guitarist, and the bassist, all have a hand in writing riffs and whatnot, and the drummer comes in and plays a beat, therefore, writing the drum line, and as for lyrics, everyone has their say for the most part. So it's a full band effort

I don't think writing the drum line qualifies as writing the song...guys like Richard Christy(death, iced earth) and um..the old guy from slayer, god im having a brain freeze, anyways they dont get credit for songwriting but i guarantee u they write their drum parts.

 

[ShaneBarnes1982]

Originally posted by artificialreasons

I don't think writing the drum line qualifies as writing the song...guys like Richard Christy(death, iced earth) and um..the old guy from slayer, god im having a brain freeze, anyways they dont get credit for songwriting but i guarantee u they write their drum parts.

Well I just would think the drum line would be needed to finish the song, hence the drummer coming in and doing his thing and getting the drum line in, hence completing the song, and getting his part in songwriting. But ah well, it's the bands decision who they feel wrote the majority of the song, my band usually just credits the entire band for writing.

 

[AjDeath]

It depends, if someone, say the guitar player comes in with a whole song done and the band goes with it like that then he gets the credit, if you guys are jamming and start the writing process from there, the whole band gets credit, If you come up with a riff and bring it to the table and the bass player comes up with another part and you 2 finish it, Hey the variables are infinite. I myself write a whole song, take the best riff(s) from that song and bring it to the table, I have written a whole song and tuaght everyone how to play it, but I find that as our band has Three guitarists, if one person writes an entire song than it deosn't really sound like the rest of the material you have, after all it is called a BAND for a reason. I also arrange and the other guys depend on me to tell them what to use and what not to and how many times and in what order, that is what arrangers do, also I write some of the lyrics, usually our vox man does but sometimes I get the urge. I don't use material that is not absolutely 100% my best, doing this may take a little longer to write, but the product is 100% better. If I write a song and there is a weak riff, I replace it with a better one with more flow, I do this when the guys come in with a song too, but when they here the riff I have for their song or they here a riff put into another song they don't complain. I guess I got a little off subject, our band gives credit to the whole band, also I feel that drums can change the whole feeling of a song from what you originally intended, therefore I think drummers deserve more credit than they get.

 

[Brand]

First off, Dave Lombardo played only what Kerry King and Tom Araya would let him. And secondly, writing a drum line definitely counts as contributing to a song, and should therefore be given credit. I think its stupid to dissect it and say "this dude wrote the riffs, and this dude wrote the lyrics". If you're a band, write songs like a band. Unless you're someone's bitch, and Jon Schaffer or Dave Mustaine own you.

 

[TheShattered]

That was hilarious...I was like, "yeah...what he said" when reading it, and it turned out to be my band's singer. Heheh

 

[epicous]

Or they can establish the credits by "author of lyrics" and "author of music".

 

[Mattias the Bitch Boy]

Song writers are the ones who write the song's main melody (usually the vocals). No drumming counts as song writing. That doesn't mean a drummer can't write a song of course, but it won't be through playing a drum beat. Grooves cannot be copyrighted, only melodies. This is because evil White people wrote the laws. If groovy Black people had done it, it would have been the other way around probably.

So if a dude writes a song on his geetar then asks the drummer to come up with something cool on top of it, no credits for him! Same for bass lines and geetar solos. Of course you can still say that they wrote the song, if you wish, but it's not neccessary by law. Take the Beatles for example, according to the song writing credits, Lennon and McCartney wrote all the songs together from what I've heard. In reality, Lennon would probably write some of the songs himself and McCartney some of them by himself. And Lennon, for example, may have written a few more songs, but to simplify, they just wrote "All this shit by Lennon and McCartney" and shared the profits equally.

So this can lead me to answer the question about demo recording. Typically, a very rough demo will really only require that the song's melody is performed. For metal it would most likely be a geetar and vocals, although it would sound terribly boring. Vocals alone would probably be enough too. For pop music, piano and vocals are common. This is all that's needed to record the actual song and to get it copyrighted. Everything else that gets added to it later won't actually contribute to the song writing as long as the melody is unchanged.

 

[Mattias the Bitch Boy]

Or they can establish the credits by "author of lyrics" and "author of music".

Oh yeah, that's another thing, lyrics and music are seperate. For some reason, lyrics are soooo important to a song, no matter how crap they are or how fast they were written, that whoever writes them needs a song writing credit, even if that person didn't write any of the music.