I've been going thru LOTS of music submissions in the last week, I'm working on a new project. I'll give details later. But anyway, I'm going thru many many emails. roughly 50-100 a day. So I'm going to give you all some guidelines on submitting music to an A&R, manager, etc.
1. Leave contact info. (name and phone)
2. attach the music. Don't give a link instead. Nobody is going to go to your myspace or soundclick. Nobody want to have to go to mediafire or some other hosting site to hear your potentially crappy (or good) record. Just attach the song as a mp3.
3. Make sure it's a MP3, not a wma, ogg, wav, mp4, avi,etc. Most emails applications can play mp3s. Gmail allows you to play the mp3. nobody wants to have to download your potentially crappy (or good) record. People rather stream it. mp3 are universal.
4. have a decent bitrate. the age of dialup is over. there is no reason to send it at 128 or lower. 192 or 256. This is really for songs not beats.
5. only send music that is professional mixed and ready to go. don't send 'works in progress'. obviously this really only applies to artists, not really producers. Beats are works in progress, but they should be mixed very well. A poorly mixed record or beat will ruin it.
6. Don't expect feedback. Giving feedback is a pain in the ass. there is no good way to do it, it is always negative. I don't want to be the bad guy and have to give negative feedback. If the music was what I was looking for, I would send a reply to send things further. If you you get a reply like "Thanks for submitting, but that's not what I'm looking for" or something like that or no reply at all, take that as feedback, that you need to work a little bit harder and get a little bit better. You might need improvement, no big deal, just keep working at it! So if you don't get feedback consider that as feedback stating you need to improve. If they like the music they will contact you!
7. Limit your submissions.Don't flood someones box. You'll be surprised how quickly a email account can fill up. Only send the best, If someone like what they hear and want to hear more they will contact you.
8. Identify yourself and your submissions. Sometimes people are looking for several things at once. I might looking for a record for R.Kelly and I might be looking for records for a new girl group at the same time. So if you are sending music in, specify what the music is for and what do you do. An producer might send in a few songs that are terrible, but the beats are hot, so I might want the beats not the songs. So specify what you do, who you are, and what the music is for
9. List the other people involved. Give credit to the people who worked on the project. If you are an artist, give credit to the producer. If you are a producer, give credit to the guitar player or the session singer. You may not make the cut, but your people might.
10. Don't send a forwarded message. (fwd an email from your phone is cool) But don't send a email forward from someone else. Just compose a new email. You'll be surprised on how many emails i get from artist forward from the producer.
11. Blind Carbon Copy (BCC) If its a blast (mass email), don't CC it to everyone. I may not want my email known to everyone on that list. BCC it.
12. Make sure you encode your info in the mp3. Make sure you leave your name, the title of the record, your phone number, your email, and the credits of the people who made the record. Make sure you have this encoded in the actual mp3. You never will know where you music might end up, and you might want that person to reach out for you.
I hope this helps. Keep in mind, redundancy is a good thing with your music (on the business side).
