“What are music supervisors looking for?” asked the audience member during a panel at the most recent TAXI Road Rally convention. Rookie question? Maybe. But everybody in the ballroom wanted to know the answer!

Music supervisors are looking for whatever music works best with a particular scene. Music supervisors are NOT looking for music that is simply great! And that’s probably the biggest misconception among musicians.

The right music is better than great music. Music that’s both right and great is what music supervisors are really looking for! Music that gets licensed for film, TV, and commercials always fills a need.

Music That Makes Viewers Feel…

Plugging music into a TV commercial about a new anti-depressant? You’d most likely need a somewhat stripped down mid-to-uptempo, singer/songwriter style song with a lyrical theme about, “It’s a great new day,” or “The sun is shining, I feel good,” or “I’m living and loving my life.” You want prospective buyers to feel what the product is going to do for them.

In this example, the ad agency wants viewers to feel good about life instead of being depressed. The music and the lyric need to add up to making the viewer feel good!

Even if you had the greatest Heavy Metal song ever written, it probably wouldn’t be right for that TV spot. The same is true for scenes in feature films and TV shows. Music supervisors are looking for songs or instrumentals that enhance the emotion they want you to feel when you watch that scene.

Other considerations can include the time period of the film or TV show. The hit series, Mad Men exclusively features music from the 1960s to help authenticate the time period and make viewers feel like they’re in that era, along with the characters.

Music Has a Job To Do!

Music can help finish a thought or complete a story line. Ever notice the music that plays along with those montage scenes at the end of a lot of TV shows? The lyric often completes the thought or tells the rest of the story. A lyric that says, “I’m broken hearted and moving on” could work well for a scene with no dialog, that shows a character sitting in a candle lit room, all alone, trying to figure out what to do with her life after her boyfriend dumper her.

Conversely, oftentimes the music supervisor is looking for music that’s not too “on the nose.” They don’t think it’s “cool” to use a song that matches the scene or story line too closely. Most music supervisors wouldn’t be looking for a song with that same, “I’m broken hearted and moving on” lyric, for a scene in which the character just said, “I’m broken hearted. I just need to move on.”

As a friend of mine who is an interior designer would say, “That’s too matchy-matchy!” We already knew what the character was doing because of the dialog, so what was needed lyrically was something that supported the underlying emotion.

What Is That Emotion?

Well, it could be sadness. It could be relief that she’s figured out that it’s time to move on. A lyric that says, “Sadness can’t stop the world from spinning,” could work for that scene. So could, “The time has come, the weight’s been lifted.” Both support the emotion, but they aren’t too “on the nose.”

What Music Supervisors Are Looking For, Made Easy!

Everything you need is right in front of your face. It’s called your TV! Watch any show, and take notes as to what kind of music is used. Ignore the score. Pay attention to source music, like what might come from a jukebox or a car radio. Pay even closer attention to featured uses that have no dialog over them.

There are also several sites on the Internet where you can search for the music used on episodes of your favorite shows. Get to know each show’s musical signature, and you’ll start to see patterns emerge. And while you’ll never be able to predict exactly what music supervisors are looking for in specific scenes, you will get to know the genres, tempos, and lyric themes often used.

Another quick and easy way to see what supervisors are currently looking for is to scour TAXI’s Industry Listings. Looking at the Industry Listings is a great way to grab a consolidated look at current and immediate needs from some of Hollywood’s top music supervisors.

You can also sign up here to get fresh, daily updates when Music Supervisors need something in a hurry!

Giving Your Tracks the Right Title Can Get Your Music in More Films and TV Shows

You might think that writing great songs and instrumentals is the best way to license more of your music. You could be right, but here’s a really simple tip that I’ll bet you never thought of — give your songs and tracks better titles that make them easier to find.

Imagine that you’re a music supervisor searching for music to license for a Television Show or Movie. As you type in your database query, “uptempo, male, country, instrumental,” trying to find the perfect track for a rodeo scene, the database spits back 231 options with titles like, Country Instrumental, Male Country Instrumental, Country Kicker, Texas Hold ‘em, and so on…

If you had titled your track, Rodeo Rider or Rodeo Ruckus, the music supervisor’s eyes would be much more quickly drawn to your track than the others because the title is specific and conjures up a visual image. Remember, music supervisors may be music people, but they work in an industry of visually oriented people. Also noteworthy is that a good portion of the music selected for Films and TV Shows is actually temped in by video editors — most definitely PICTURE people.

Here’s a great exercise to help you learn how to choose better titles. Watch a TV show or movie and take notes about the types of scenes you see: a break up scene, a car chase, or a crime scene investigation. Next to each of them write down where they each took place: a beach breakup scene, a San Francisco car chase, and a crime scene investigation lab. Get the idea?

Your titles? Beach Break Up, San Fran Car Chase, CSI Lab.

Make it easy for picture people to SEE where they should be using your music and I can almost promise you that more of them will!

I recently had a member of TAXI’s forum ask what the difference was between a production music library and a music publisher. Great question! Here’s the answer I posted:

Production Music Libraries and Publishers are both publishers, and it’s my observation that the best music libraries get most of their best placements by doing hand to hand combat — meaning that they develop relationships and actively pitch. Another observation is that Film and TV music supervisors really don’t like to search databases for music. They’d rather email or call a human, have them cull a few tracks they think would work and pitch them, whether by email or in some cases, in person. The world’s biggest and best music libraries have sales forces all over the world.

A straight up music publisher like Warner Chappel or Universal Music Pub might have as many as 250,000 (or more) titles in their catalog (spanning decades) and a staff of creative people who act kind of like TAXI, in that they tell their writers which songs are best, give their writers some creative advice and hand-holding, sometimes in the form of pairing up co-writes, as well as pitching their songs to artists, and yes, even film and TV opportunities.

A couple of major differences are that publishers like Universal typically don’t sign single songs. Instead, they sign songwriters, give them an advance against future income, and the songwriters need to turn in a song or two per month (that meet the pub’s standards), depending on the number of co-writers they will be splitting the income with.

To get a staff songwriter deal, it typically takes having a song that’s already been cut to get the publishers interested. Once they know there’s an income stream, they’re much more interested. They often want a piece of the existing cut. Another way to get a pub deal is to get a record deal and be the songwriter in the band, or for yourself if you’re a solo artist. Once you’ve inked the record deal, a publisher will often offer you a pub deal because there is some probability that the record will generate mechanicals, and with tons of good fortune, performance income as well through airplay, etc.

A big difference with libraries is that they typically don’t give advances (unless you’re creating custom projects/CDs they commission you to create to order), and many of them offer non-exclusive contracts on single songs. I think it will be quite some time before the majors do non-exclusives, as they’re interested in building equity. Exclusive rights build equity, much like equity in stocks or real estate. Eventually, they cash in their chips and sell off the entire catalog for what is called a multiple, similar to selling a business for X times net profit.

Gotta stop now before I write a book. Hope this helps,
Michael

Dear Passengers,

I’ve been having one of those weeks where “signs” are everywhere. You know what I mean… little signs that keep pointing to things you shouldn’t or can’t ignore.

For me, the signs have all pointed to the same thing – songwriters, artists and composers missing opportunities that are staring them in the face.

The first sign was getting a call from a top Film/TV publisher telling me that 70% of the TAXI members she contacted with deal offers didn’t respond. When queried, the members told me they weren’t sure if the deal offer was real or legitimate, even though the company rep told them she found them using TAXI.

All they had to do was ask us to get clarification! It was what I would call a gold-plated company. The one I’d want to sign with if I did Film or TV music.

My next sign was getting several emails in short succession from musicians telling me they didn’t think their music was good enough. They were stopped dead in their tracks by their own fears. I wrote to you about that a few days ago.

What Broadcast Quality Means

Specifically, there seems to be a lot of confusion about what the term Broadcast Quality means. I’m going to clarify that for you in this email.

The misconception seems to be that you must record your music in a state of the art studio to achieve Broadcast Quality. Not true! I’m going to give you some great examples in a minute.

In the Film and TV Music world, Broadcast Quality can often be achieved using nothing more than a few tracks in a home studio. You can use a relatively inexpensive condenser microphone and a couple of basic pieces of outboard gear or plug-ins to get the sound you need.

Meet Denny Earnest

Let me introduce you to Denny Earnest from Montana. Denny has been a TAXI
member for a very long time, has signed dozens of tunes with Film/TV
publishers through TAXI, and has had enough film and TV placements to
create a nice income from them. Click this link and listen to Denny’s
tunes, “Coming Up Slowly” and “Tiesco Select.”

Listen to Denny’s Tunes

There’s no question that Denny is an excellent player of many stringed instruments. There’s no question that these tracks sound great. There’s also no question that these are great examples of what Broadcast Quality can be. Can’t you hear these tracks being used in a movie or a TV show? Don’t you hear tracks like these all the time on your TV?

They often come from people like Denny getting signed by publishers through TAXI.

What makes those simple tracks Broadcast Quality is the quality of the playing and the clean, yet simple recording. Could you have done that?

Meet Bill Gordon

Next up is Bill Gordon from Miami, Florida. Bill is a top-notch pianist. I’ve been in his small home studio. He’s running ProTools in a room that’s roughly 15′x15′ in a little guesthouse. The console and the rest of his gear sit in the same room as his piano. Sound familiar?

Click this link and listen to the song, “Riverboat Blues.”

Listen to Bill’s Song

As you might have read in Bill’s bio, he’s had a bunch of great TV placements, all I believe, as a result of his TAXI membership. Broadcast Quality? You bet! Great playing and a nice clean recording from a home studio. Can’t you easily hear “Riverboat Blue” getting used in the background of a riverboat gambling scene in any movie or TV show? Could you have done that?

Meet Matt Hirt

Matt recently told me that even if he didn’t record and produce any new music for a year that his income would continue to come in from all the music he had “in the pipeline.” Meaning that his existing tracks would continue to produce income for some time to come. The gift that keeps on giving

Ready to hear a range of Matt’s work? And I do mean a range! If you listen to all the tracks on the page I’m sending you to, you’ll learn a LOT about what the market needs and hear some great examples of Broadcast Quality done in a home studio outfitted with ProTools, some great sample libraries and virtual instruments.

Also notice how Matt has named many of his tracks. I like the fact that his titles give you a good idea of what the track will be about. Here’s the link:

Listen to Matt’s tunes

You Can Do This!

I’ve got to believe there are many of you reading this who are saying, “I could do this too!”

That’s exactly the reason I’m writing to you today. So many of the “signs” that have been hitting me over the head this past week are telling me that the reason many musicians aren’t successful yet is simply because they’re afraid of the unknown.

Now you know!

You might be wondering how Broadcast Quality plays out for artists, rather than for people doing instrumental music only. Glad you asked!

Meet Mike and Ruthy

I spent a good chunk of a Saturday afternoon listening to TAXI members Mike and Ruthy from Woodstock, New York. As I listened to song after song, I kept imagining myself pitching their music to Film Music Supervisors. I also thought of you!

Why?

Because Mike and Ruthy have tons of songs that are great examples of what I would call lo-fi, home recording and production that absolutely works, and is absolutely Broadcast Quality. Click this link:

Listen to Mike and Ruthy’s tunes

Check out, “All the Time.” Wouldn’t that be a great song for a movie like Juno?

How about, “Alone on the Homestead,” for a movie like Cold Mountain?

And then there’s the gritty electric song, “I’m Going to Get My Girlfriend Out of Jail,” which would be great for an ironic scene in a Seth Rogin comedy or a heavy, serious scene in a film like Traffic.

Every song or track I’ve pointed you to would qualify as Broadcast Quality. Have I cleared it up and shown you that there may be tons of possibilities out there for you and your music?

Broadcast Quality is Probably Easier Than You Think

To summarize, Broadcast Quality does not necessarily mean that a track or songs has been recorded in a state of the art studio with a twelve-foot long SSL console. Much of the music you hear in Film and TV is recorded with ProTools or Garageband, with a relatively small amount of other gear – maybe some compressor/limiters and reverb units.

Reasonably good, clean recordings that are well balanced in the mix are often good enough. Mastering your tracks is not necessary.

You can ruin an otherwise Broadcast Quality recording by adding a wimpy, underperformed or pitchy vocal. While the tracks might be well recorded, a sub standard vocal performance can easily lay waste to an otherwise great track. I can’t overemphasize that enough!

My advice? Hire a singer or make the track an instrumental!

One final thought. Two to three minutes is a great length for Instrumental tracks for Film and TV applications, and buttoned, not faded endings are often preferred. Make it easy on your potential customers and they’ll love you for it!

I hope this helped.

Talk to you soon,
Michael