Go-getter or Ghermer: Which one are you?
Let’s just be honest with ourselves…
By: Jimi Heath Whitelaw

Quick!  Answer the following questions shamelessly honest; I won’t tell anyone, promise!  

1. You come to Nashville for a first time visit and the first thing you pack is:
   A.) Your collection of CD’s that your favorite writer has cuts on, you want an autograph baby!
   B.) 50 copies of your demo cd. You’re offering a listen to anyone at this point.
   C.) A bottle of booze…to make friends of course.
   D.) Clean underwear…cause mama says so.
   
    
2. While in Nashville you stop in at Noshville for a bite to eat.  Sitting at the table next to you are two hit songwriters, you:
   A.) Turn around and introduce yourself
   B.)  Turn around and offer them one of the 50 cd’s you brought with you.
   C.) Giggle like a school girl, “Oh ma gaw!  That’s ___.!”
   D.) Lean back just slightly so that you can hear what the top dawgs are discussing.
   
    
3. While in Nashville you just happen to be luck struck and end up at a bar drinking a beer with a top writer. Do you:
   A.) Tell him/her you are familiar with their material, write in a similar style and ask him if he would consider a co-write.
   B.) Tell him/her that you highly value their opinion and hand over one of your cd’s and ask if he/she knows any publishers that are looking for writers.
   C.) Show him/her pics of the fam from back home.
   D.) Just hang out and get to know what he/she is about, outside of songwriting.

 If you answered A or B to any of these three questions… you are a GHERMER! 

What’s a ghermer?  Glad you asked:
GHERM
 \pronounced: gurm\
verb
Definition:
 to inappropriately approach someone socially in an
effort to further one’s writing career.
IE: Jimi ghermed the crap out of Dave Berg by introducing
 herself and then asking for a co-write.  *Yep, it happened, hope he doesn't remember.*

Look, everyone gets excited when they venture out to achieve something.  It’s only natural to want to climb to the top of the ASCAP building with a huge ghetto blaster and play your songs so all of Music Row will listen and see your genius, but the simple truth is, things don’t work that way here.

This is a slow process and only those who are willing to invest the time and effort into making it do, even then…some still don’t.  To put it simply, if you were looking for a husband or wife, would you seriously start your search by walking up to random people on the street and ask them to marry you?  Of course not, that’s stupid…and so is gherming.

Gherming gets you no where fast.  It makes for a horrible first impression and immediately tags you as either a.) crazy or b.) very, very green.  Neither of which you want, so don’t do it!  These potential gherming prospects of yours are real people with real lives outside of songwriting.  The last thing they need is yet another dorko hitting them up for a co-write or for help making it in the business.

These are writers, people.  Outside of co-writing, (which they probably do with other hit writers and in many cases newer writers that their publisher sets them up to write with) they can’t do anything for you.  They can’t get you a deal.  That’s up to you.

Now, please don’t get me wrong, real networking is a whole other beast.  So it’s not like I’m saying go to Nashville and don’t speak to anyone.  You should be friendly, approachable and inviting.  But please, for the love of all things holy…DON’T GHERM.