Scaling the Heights Means Making a Pitch : For songwriters, risking a little ego at a musical showcase is a key step toward striking a chord with a publisher

So you want to be a songwriter. You and 50 million other people, that is. But you’ve got something special--a tricky little number with just the right twist for Michael Jackson or Madonna. Or maybe Randy Travis or Luther Vandross.

Your song may very well be just what any or all of the above artists are looking for, but how in the world do you go about getting them to hear it? Don’t let anyone kid you that it’s an easy task, but fortunately a lot of assistance is available to help start you on that long road to Hitsville.

One small step in the right direction might be to check out the Los Angeles Songwriters Showcase, which produces song-evaluation programs every Tuesday night at the Woman’s Club of Hollywood at 1749 N. La Brea Ave.

The evenings are loose and easy get-togethers in which networking with other songwriters is a vital part of the proceedings. In the first half of the program, Cassette Roulette, songwriters’ demo cassettes are placed on a roulette-like wheel, which is spun to determine the order in which they are played. The expert of the night--recruited from a large publishing company such as Almo-Irving Music, ATV Music, Peer Music or Island Music, or sometimes a small company not associated with a large corporation--is obliged to listen to each tape for a minute and a half or so. Then he or she offers some constructive criticism and decides to reject the song or take it along for further consideration.

The second half of the program is called the Pitch-a-Thon. It features an artist, manager or producer who is looking for music for a specific project. No critiques are offered here, only a simple yes or no.

At a recent gathering, a guest expert from an independent music company listened carefully to each of the 50 or so demos during Cassette Roulette. His comments were often constructive, even for those he rejected.

With one number, he stressed lyrics: “Try to remember that your words should be telling a story.” With another, he gently chided the performance: “If you’re going to give your song the best shot, it really should be done by someone who can sing well.”

Best of all for the eagerly waiting crowd of writers and composers were those moments when he stopped the tape, smiled and said, “That’s a keeper.” These were pieces that he felt had possibilities for his company and that he wanted to hear again in the less electric atmosphere of his office. The audience reaction to these moments was always the same: a rousing burst of applause accompanied by friendly slaps on the back for the writer.

“The first time someone picks up your song is a very special moment,” says Janet Fisher, a songwriter who has been attending showcase sessions for a few years. “And it should be, because it represents that first real step into the profession--the first serious acknowledgment that you really have some talent.”

Len Chandler, former folk singer and, with John Braheny, a co-founder/director of the showcase, feels that the evaluation sessions are a vital part of the L.A. songwriting scene.

“When we first got started, nearly 20 years ago,” he recalls, “we had performers working live. Our intention at that time was to have the music come to life in its natural habitat: performance.

“We started out with people we knew--old friends like Janis Ian. One night, she actually sang ‘Jesse,’ ‘Stars’ and ‘At Seventeen’--all unknown at the time--in one evening. But as the events became better known, we began to get so many people with so many songs that we developed the idea of playing the material on tape.”

With the support of Broadcast Music Inc., the music licensing organization, Chandler and Braheny created the nonprofit Los Angeles Songwriters Showcase, whose weekly evaluations are open to both members and non-members. Each Tuesday night, for 50 weeks a year, songwriters can--for a fee of $7 for members, $10 for non-members--submit a cassette of their songs for evaluation.

The sessions are fine for writers oriented toward contemporary pop music. But what about the die-hards who still believe in the tradition of great American standards--the music best typified by the classic works of Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, the Gershwins and Rodgers & Hart?

ASCAP to the rescue. The American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers has been presenting live performance showcases in New York for several years. In April, it began a similar series at Hollywood’s Gardenia Restaurant & Lounge.

The opening event was hosted by veteran Broadway and Hollywood singer/actress Carol Lawrence. Seven numbers, about half of them performed by their writers, were presented to an audience that everyone hoped included artists and producers on the lookout for new material.

Monday night at Hollywood’s Cafe Largo, ASCAP will start another series for singer/songwriters, “Quiet on the Set,” and on Thursday and Friday, ASCAP’s Gardenia series will continue with a presentation of new songs that will feature the participation of Alan and Marilyn Bergman.

Michael Kerker, ASCAP’s vice president of musical theater and cabaret, makes it clear that these are not pop music presentations: “We’re focusing on material that follows the pattern of the great American popular song--standards. Up until the late ‘60s, you could always find middle-of-the-road people looking for that kind of material. It’s much more difficult now, but new, classic-style songs are still being written, and we want to give them the opportunity to be heard.”

Are the showcases actually effective in delivering hit material? Among recent Los Angeles Songwriters Showcase success stories are those of Allan Rich and Jud Friedman, who hit the top of the charts with a song for James Ingram--”I Don’t Have the Heart”--and who first got together at a Pitch-a-Thon session. Another recent success, Joe Mele’s and Dick Winzeler’s “If I Told You Once” for Terry Steele, rose to No. 9 on Billboard’s Black Singles Chart.

Equally fascinating are the pieces performed at the showcase evenings and were not picked but later became hits. “The Janis Ian songs are pretty obvious examples,” Braheny recalls. “But that was from the period when we were still doing live performance showcases. A more recent example is Stephen Bishop’s ‘On and On,’ which was passed on at several showcases before it made its chart-busting breakthrough.”

Braheny feels that the technology of the music business has come a long way since the showcase’s early 1970s performance evaluations--to the point, in fact, where it has become very difficult for demos to succeed without some production. “Publishers say they only need a vocal-guitar or a vocal-piano track,” he says with a skeptical shrug. “But when they get master-quality demos coming in every day, they can’t help but be negatively influenced by something that’s shoddy and poorly recorded.”

The vast majority of cassettes played at showcase evenings have been produced with strong rhythm tracks and often with backup vocals and instrumental support. Most songwriters say that small, four-track cassette mini-studios--which allow for multitrack recording, equalization and mixing--have become a vital element in their basic list of equipment. Mini-studios are available from companies such as Tascam, Fostex and Yamaha for about $300 to $1,000.

Several songwriters have begun to use the Yamaha QY10, which they feel represents the next generation in support devices for songwriters. In a box the size of a videocassette, it can produce, sequence and record eight tracks of sampled sound while interacting with other instruments via MIDI, or musical instrument digital interface.

Beyond the Los Angeles Songwriters Showcase and ASCAP are organizations such as the National Academy of Songwriters and the Songwriters Guild, which provide somewhat different services. The National Academy of Songwriters, a 17-year-old nonprofit organization that has a general membership fee of $75 per year, includes “Gold Members” ranging from Paul McCartney and Prince to Stephen Sondheim and Brian Wilson.

“We have a wide range of opportunities for songwriters,” explains the organization’s executive director, Dan Kirkpatrick. “There are master classes in which people have the opportunity to talk one-on-one with well-known writers. Once a month, we do interviews--song-talk seminars, we call them--with successful writers at At My Place in Santa Monica. We have discounted legal advice, a health insurance program, a song registration service and a toll-free hot line for music-related questions.”

The 60-year-old Songwriters Guild of America is an active national lobbyist for all issues related to songwriters. Its activities include song critiques and professional interfacing similar to that of the other organizations, but, explains Los Angeles chapter director Aaron Meza, “we particularly like to stress the value of our royalty collection process, our song catalogue administration and our artist contracting services.”

“We tell writers that it’s to their best interest to be involved with all the organizations,” Kirkpatrick says, “because they each have something to offer. I like to see it as a kind of unified songwriting community in which we know each other and try to help each other whenever we can.”

But Chandler, despite his belief in the value of the many entry-level opportunities and support services for writers and composers, is quick to point out that the road to a No. 1 hit can be a long one.

“Having a song accepted by one of the experts at our LASS evenings--or at any showcase, for that matter--is only the first step,” he says with a wry smile. “After that, the expert--let’s say he’s a publisher--has to convince a producer that the song has potential, and the producer has to persuade an artist to record it.

“Once the song is recorded, the record company has to decide if the song should go on an album or be released as a single. Then the promotion people have to convince the program directors of radio stations that the song can be a hit.

“It’s a long, long process. And the ultimate arbiter of whether the song’s a success is the public.”

Still, songwriters have to start somewhere and the weekly songwriters showcase meetings, the ASCAP performance showcases at the Gardenia, the workshops and song registration services of the National Academy of Songwriters and the information resources of the Songwriters Guild of America are good places to start.

“The way I see it,” says Fisher, who has recently placed a dozen songs with small film-production companies, “is that the different organizations all sort of complement each other. One does showcases, another has seminars, another helps with contracts and negotiations, but they’re all there to help the writer.”

Perhaps most important, the Los Angeles Songwriters Showcase, ASCAP, the National Academy of Songwriters and the Songwriters Guild of America provide arenas for meeting other people with similar frustrations, problems, hopes and dreams.

As theater music songwriter Kevin Kaufman, who frequently has attended songwriters showcase evenings and has taught a National Academy of Songwriters musical theater workshop, explains: “All these events are get-togethers as well as showcases. They’re great opportunities for networking--which is really important in this business. They’re the perfect way to make the move from being out there, dreaming about being a songwriter, to getting into the real-world basics of the music business.”