I've hit a point where I'm at a crossroads.

I can take a selection of my work, the Dozen plus songs I've written I'm reasonably happy with and try and learn to play all the parts properly, spend time rehearsing, re-writing and eventually recording them. Then learn to mix and produce properly. Then put them together as an album, learn to master.........market........distribute....advertise....become a one man Sony / EMI!!!
OR
Just keep writing songs.

Now I enjoy writing and being creative, but I feel that I'm only really doing half the process.
Of course we all want our songs to be heard and to as wide an audience as possible and to do that we really need to get every aspect of the song right.

1. The song must have that X factor. (You know what I mean)
2. It must be played well and with the correct groove / feel.
3. It must be recorded properly.
4. It must be mixed properly.
5. Advertising and marketing (Quote "kill yourself" Bill Hicks http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo )

So....how much time do I have to spend practising to get my skills in all these aspects up to the required level. Assuming I could?
OK I hear you cry....Put a band together!       
Well, about 10 years ago I was in a band playing pubs. We were playing covers, but unusual stuff like Robin Trower, Rory Gallagher and Santana so it was unknown to most of the audience. It went down well, but as the Bass player pointed out..... the youngsters were looking at a band their fathers age playing music their fathers listened to! 
So that options a non starter and any young band is playing their own stuff.
Now assuming I've found the band that are willing to take on my stuff, how much money do I spend on rehearsals, engineers and producers and the things I can't do right now? 

OK, so I've shared.....now here's the challenge. 

I've seen a couple of posts on this forum by "musicians" hiring out their talents.
So what if, on this forum, between us we could get a talent pool together. Work on the Creative Commons principle. Everyone to their talents.
Instrumentalists play, recording experts share their tips, producers produce.
Take a song and divide it up between the people best equipped to develop it and share the success pro-rata.
Look at it this way. I'm not going to pay a drummer £100 to put a drum part on one of my songs, but I'll quite happily give that same drummer 10% of the profit if that song makes money.

We have the internet. Sharing large files is not difficult. We, for the most part are amateurs, so we do what we can and no blame attached for uncompleted stuff as we all have other commitments. NO CONTRACTS NO DEMANDS, just "I'd like to do this part",or "I've an idea for this song you wrote", or "I need a piano part here" or "I liked your playing on so and so could you put something to this?".
The only rule is "MY SONG, MY DECISION, NO PREJUDICE, FAIR SHARES". You don't get paid by the hour you get paid by success and the enjoyment of being communally creative!

Now...I'm well aware that there are many issues with what I'm proposing and I welcome discussion on the detail, but as a trial......here's the BIG challenge. 

Inspired by the Xmas song competition, do you think we, on this forum could get....say 6 plus songs produced to near broadcast quality......to lobby the BBC for entry into next years .......... EUROVISION?

Bring it.

My actual talent doesn't extend far beyond writing lyrics (my voice is nothing special, I'm only just learning guitar and I have no recording equipment) but with rough sound files of the general tune of said lyrics (Literally video camera quality) I could lend some assistance to the project.

You'll never take me alive, dirty commie!  

This is a fantastic idea! I'd be well up for it!

I'll be happy to contribute to lyrics, melody, chord structure. And "deal" with all the groupies...

Peter

I'm in! Sounds like a brilliant idea! 

I think it is good idea and indeed challenging

it is good to see how this forum, i mean this beautiful forum, more and more becomes into a place to really work together

i have had some great exchanges with Kafla and Pablo so far (even though my part was only in the video field or mixing) and got some great collaboration on songs and lyrics with Liam from Neverwas via this forum. His lyrics work for my music and we could establish that collaboration via this forum

but i am getting off topic...i have been wondering what would happen if we take a song somebody wrote from this forum and ask all the songwriters with good to excellent voices to sing one or two tracks and then someone got to mix that into a forum choir, and overkill of vocals, i would love to do that, a sort of: do they know it's christmas at all charity single from the forum to be released next Christmas....

but your idea is even more challenging, and the difficult part will be that someone has to decide what to use and what not to use, else it is not going to work. I think that may be difficult on people who see their contribution being left out, but someone (and that would be you Mihkay) has to make decisions else the end product is going to be aweful, well probably it will be
so, you need to be rudeless

Hmmm. Insteresting
I'd certainly be up for a role in it. The only thing I can think of that might be a problem
is that we all use different software/recording equipment. I use Ableton Live 8, other use Cubase etc...
I'm not sure how that would work. But if any Tech-head knows. Speak up now

are wav files common to all systems  ?
which case it could be fairly simple xcept probably end up sharing mp3 files which isnt ideal..
there are companies like 'dropbox' and 'you send it' that allow large file sizes so be sent as attachmnts.
can be free, depends if its a private thing or not (i believe).  as i understand it, you have a drop box on your desktop and allow access to it for registered users and you can determin who has what etc, like your own postroom ...something like that i dont know its 1.30 in the morning fsake...

nice idea of helping each other out ...

yes dropbox is great we use it
im all for the collaberating that is one of the great things about the internet & music
knowing the mercenery & manipulating way tv works ... with talent playing 2nd fiddle to other considrations & the bizarrely awful standerd of eurovision songs i cant realy see hard work & talent getting us anywhere tho

Hi. I'd more than happily do some production for you. Let me know and will see if we can arrange anything.

I've tried doing some shared WAV stuff with some band members between cubasis and reaper and although it works in theory the tiny sync issues make it frustrating.

I'm love to help where I can, my musical background is in bass playing but I also play drums in a couple of bands at the miinute too (although I've heard better sequenced stuff on here then I can actually play!!)

Sounds like a great idea for a project and, although there could be countless issues I think if we all treat it as fun then what can go wrong?

As has already been said there are some very tallented people on this forum and every who want to be involved is unlikely to make the final mix.  That's life I guess!!