How to Choose the Right Music Licensing Companies

It seems like so many songwriters and artists have given up on the dream of getting a record deal with major record label. Flying around on private jets and trashing hotel rooms is a dream now long forgotten. Film and TV placements are the new “record deal.”

Most musicians don’t know how to choose the right music licensing company or companies, because they haven’t done their homework yet. They haven’t learned how to know which company has the best chance of getting them a film or TV placement period, and they often have no idea which company has the best track record for making the most money for the songwriters ad artists they work with.

Truth be told, it’s not all that hard to set up a web page that looks great, add a database that hosts music, post up a couple of success stories (true or not), and bammo, you’re in business as a music licensing company! Doesn’t matter if you’re in the cow pastures of Wisconsin, the heart of Hollywood, or the plains of Africa. Nobody does due diligence any more. “If they’ve got a cool web page, they must be real!” Uh-huh!

Things to watch out for:

Open submissions — Not ALL companies that allow any old Tom, Dick or Harry to submit to them are schlock shops, but many are. Accepting music from any and everybody seems appealing at first, but it also means that the music supervisors and music editors are going to hear a lot of mediocre music (at best), and quickly leave the site with nothing in hand.

Rating and filtering by fans and competing musicians — Music supervisors want filtered music. They want only the very best music. In many cases (but not necessarily all), music that has been selected or filtered by competing songwriters or artists doesn’t stand up to the quality of music that has been pre-screened by real music industry professionals. Why? Two reasons: The musicians doing the filtering have never worked at a music supervision company, a film company, a TV production company, a record company, or a Film or TV publishing company. They simply don’t know how high the bar is set. They also may not know that just because they personally like a particular song or instrumental track, it doesn’t mean that it will work well for TV or film music companies.

The second reason is that some less than ethical people will “vote down” the competition. It’s become somewhat common for musicians who want their music to rise will ask fans, friends and family members to visit the music web sites that have “contests,” to give them high scores and give the competition low scores.

Companies that are too quick to accept music into their catalogs – There are companies who will sign almost anything. even though the deals are often non-exclusive, it can be a sign that the company is just trying to fatten the catalog or music library for a later sale, and is more interested in quantity, not quality.

Companies that don’t have solid, long-term relationships with the industry — Music supervisors have go-to people that they’ve worked with for years. They trust their ears. They know they can rely on them for great music. If you can’t find solid evidence that those relationships exists at te company you’re about to sign with, you might want to keep looking and find a company that does!

If you’d like to lean more about how to get started licensing your music through production music libraries and how to pick the right film & TV licensing companies for your music, watch this series of short videos I did with Matt Hirt. Matt is a long-time TAXI member, and through diligent work, persistence and getting his music picked up by the best music licensing companies (mostly through TAXI, if I can be so immodest)  he’s created an income that any songwriter, artist or composer would be happy to have.

Watch the video. I promise you’ll learn just about everything you need to know about music licensing in a very short time.

Enjoy!

Michael

Dear Passengers,

Aristotle once said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.”

Every year, our members who come to the Road Rally, stop me and tell me how stoked they are that they came. They can’t wait to get home and use all the new songwriting and production tips and techniques they learned at the convention.

Their heads seem as if they are about to explode! It’s incredible to feel their energy. But I often wonder how many of them can sustain that level of energy and commitment once they get home.

For some I would bet that it wears off a week or two after the Rally. For others, it must last for a few months. But the members who amaze me, are the small percentage that make the commitment, make a plan, and stick with it for an entire year.

Those are always the people who start getting deals and begin to build their careers in music. I see them year after year, and I wish I could bottle whatever it is that makes them go home and stick with it. What makes them succeed, where others fall short?

I think that lasting change is brought about by emotion, because we require emotion to stay motivated. A soldier charging into a hail of gunfire to save his buddies is pumped by emotion and adrenaline. But that’s momentary - a transient effect. How can you keep that up for a long period of time?

Practice, practice, practice…

If you keep practicing, there is no question that you will get better. As you get better, the incremental improvements will motivate you to keep practicing. You practice more and more, and you get better and better! It becomes a virtuous cycle. Seems obvious, right?

But there’s another thing that happens with practice. Just like a golfer can train his muscles to repeat great golf swings, a songwriter can actually train him or herself to write better songs! While you brain is not technically a muscle, it is built to adopt to repetitive behaviors. They sink in over time.

Ask any songwriter who has moved to Nashville and become part of the great community of songwriters there. They don’t become better just by living in Nashville. It’s not caused by osmosis.

No, it’s because the people who are surrounded by other great songwriters who live there are motivated on an emotional level and they repeatedly write more songs. Each of them typically better than the last.

You don’t have to move to Nashville. At least not until you start to get some nibbles. There are two very concrete ways to increase your level of excellence in songwriting.

First, join TAXI and come to the Road Rally this coming November 5th-8th. It’s free for TAXI members, so you’ll save HUNDREDS of dollars compared to other music conventions. Our host hotel will soon be offering a special TAXI Road Rally rate of just $109 per night for a limited time (July 6th-20th). That’s $50 per night cheaper than what is was supposed to be, so you’re saving $200 over four nights!

But you’ll need to join TAXI in the next five days to get in under the wire on that deal.

Really Cheap Airfare!

I just found airfare (as I’m writing this) of only $239, roundtrip from New York to LA!

With the room rates and airfare so inexpensive, you could probably do the entire weekend for $800-$1,000 total. A few hundred cheaper STILL, if you join TAXI and use your guest pass and bring a friend or your spouse and split the room cost.

If you’re within driving distance of LA, this will definitely be your year to get the killer deal on coming to the Rally!

The second thing you should do is read two sections of our online forum.

Read this 1st to get motivated!

Read this 2nd to get motivated about the life changing effect the Road Rally has on the people who join us:

Remember what Aristotle said, “Excellence is not an act, but a habit.” You can quite literally train your brain to become excellent at songwriting. Your chances of success in the music business will go up by a factor of ten if you do that. I’ve just given you the tools.

Are you motivated? How badly do you want your music to be your income-generating career? That’s a decision only you can make.

Talk to you soon,
Michael

P.S. Remember, the killer deal on room rates will be offered July 6th-20th, so you’ll need to belong to TAXI to get those rates.

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