As a singer/songwriter, you often create your art in a vacuum. You write music and practice it alone. You spend time tweaking lyrics and adding chord changes to get it polished, then you wonder if it sounds good. A lot of times, no one else is there to critique your music but you. If you are lucky enough to have someone to listen to your music, it’s often family members or friends who may or may not be able to give you an unbiased point of view. At some point you need a second opinion, and a third, and a fourth. As an artist, you need people to tell you what they think so that you can create something your audience will want to hear. To know whether or not you have a good song on your hands, you just need honest feedback. In this article we’ll discuss ways you can get constructive feedback on your music.
Join a local songwriters group.
Most likely, your city (or a neighboring one) has a songwriting group. These groups meet regularly to share and critique songs. They are a wonderful resource for support! With a songwriting group, you can get honest feedback on your music from fellow musicians in a safe space. We recommend looking on Meetup.com or searching for local chapters of national songwriters associations such as NSAI. Additionally, Songwriter Universe has a great listing of local songwriting chapters by state (USA) and they also have a few chapter listings in Canada. Also check out Songwriters Resource Network for a list of local chapters of songwriters associations.
If you want to get honest feedback on your music, joining a songwriters group is the best way to go!
Perform at open mics.
Open Mics provide a great platform to test out new material or tweaks on old material. When performing at an Open Mic, there isn’t any pressure to put on a great show. All you have to do is get through a song and let the audience be the judge. When you play the song, you can gauge people’s reactions. Are they dancing, intently listening, or not even paying attention? These first reactions are very important in understanding what a general reception would be about your work. Another thing you can do is ask people what they thought about your song afterward. Also, there will likely be other artists in the audience who might be willing to share their thoughts as well.
Ask people at your regular performances.
If you are a regular performer, it doesn’t hurt to ask people what they think at your shows. Pay attention to which songs people respond well to. Look for obvious signs such as feet tapping, heads moving, hands clapping and general attentiveness to gauge whether your music is resonating with the audience. Try to talk to individual people and ask straight forward questions like which was your favorite song and why? Keep in mind that you will probably get more positive feedback at your live shows than in other environments because some people will just tell you what they think you want to hear or may not care enough to tell you what they really think.
Start a songwriter jam.
If you can’t seem to find a songwriters group, start one of your own! It’s likely there are other songwriters in your town looking for the same thing. You can start with just a few people. Make it a safe space and welcome musicians of all levels and genres to join you. Take turns playing songs and have people go around and offer constructive feedback and suggestions.
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Ask fellow artists.
There are other singer/songwriters all over the place! Start with Soundcloud and other social networks like Facebook and Twitter and start networking. Share your song with them and ask for feedback. Facebook even has groups dedicated to this kind of thing. In fact I have a great group you can start with, Indie Artists Better Together. This is a group sponsored by The Crafty Musician and the purpose of the group is to help independent artists network, share resources, get song feedback, gig swap, and encourage one another. I moderate this group myself so trust me, it is a very safe space. Consider this your invitation to join the fun over on Facebook!
Hire a Song Review Service
Alternatively, if you don’t want to spend the time networking and going to events, you can get instant feedback on your music from hundreds of people by hiring a service to do it for you. The Crafty Musician offers a song review service for a very nominal fee where you can have everyday listeners from the United States weigh in on your music. Responses are genuine and authentic. You will receive a visual report of feedback based on survey answers from actual listeners. With our song review report, you can identify what people enjoyed about your song, as well as identify possible areas of improvement.
Click here to learn more about getting your song reviewed.
Getting honest feedback on your music doesn’t have to be difficult. It just depends on how you want to go about getting it and how quickly you want it. If you want constructive feedback you might have to be a little more intentional in the way you go about getting it. Joining a group or like minded artists or taking advantage of a song review service is your best bet.
Hi, there is also this free music feedback service that we recently launched- https://music.opinionhut.com
It works like- give a feedback get a feedback (hope you think its ok that I post about this service here)