How to get your production music into the right hands via music libraries

Production Music libraries have become the
go-to music tool for many producers and music teams looking for the right music
to match their picture. A great deal of production music work used to be custom
work for hire, but that’s changing as projects face ever tighter timelines and
budgets–and as more and more people and organizations are creating video and
seeking out licensed music for it.

I’ve been working as a composer for much
longer, but ten years ago, I started uploading cues to libraries like Audiomicro,
which has become one of my favorites. It started out as a way to fill my time,
to keep writing for fun between scoring gigs. Revenue from libraries now makes
up 60% of my yearly revenue. I keep writing and it keep growing and to keep
building my rep. Like many dedicated production composers, I write all the
time, as much as I can.

Search is key to making the most of these
platforms, and that means you need to understand how to communicate what your
cue’s all about in a few short words, tags, and other features. A little
thought and common sense can go a long way to getting your cues found and kept
by producers.

Discovery
is a numbers game

Production music is a numbers game. Full stop.
You have to produce a lot of music. It is a biz for people who write well and
efficiently without a lot of torment. You can’t spend three days on two minutes
of music. Do that for your own compositions, but not for production library
use. These catalogs are growing every day. You can’t write 20 pieces of music,
submit it to Audiomicro, and then complain about your lack of revenue. You need
to produce.

Figure
out what it really sounds like

I think my experience in working with real
producers and doing custom music has permeated my sense of how to describe
things. If I’m writing a few sentences, I try to think about what my friends in
video or film might be looking for. How can I give them a sense of what this
is? No need for long description, no need to implant metadata. I want my reader
to understand what to expect. Match the mood of the music.

Is it moderately paced or driving? Is it
quirky or contemplative? Take up the space with the word. That list will be the
descriptors that make someone go, “Yep, that’s what it is, thank you!” Then if
you’re allowed, use reasonable synonyms to improve your chances of discovery.
For example, optimistic and positive mean the same thing in tags. Don’t know
exactly what people are looking for.

Give it
a title

Titles are metadata, hints to what the piece
is about. It needs to really sound like that title. It’s a mistake to give
something an abstract or very specific or personal title. It may be important
to you, but it won’t mean much to a producer.

When I start writing, I start with the title.
If someone is browsing via genre, like say, folk or pop, my titles need to
convey something. If they see “Warm Spring Morning,” and it sounds like a cold
autumn night, they won’t listen to anything else you’ve put out there. But if
it sounds like its title, you develop trust.

Often, I’ll come up with 10-15 titles before I
write a note. I want to come up with the pictures and images, words the evoke a
feeling or sound to me. I jot them down. I can write to that title. The music
and title need to have a real connection.

Step
away from the computer

Hear me out. It’s easy to get caught up in
data and dropdowns, but sometimes you need to take a few moments away from the
screen to sit and listen. Jot down a few adjectives or genres or other words
that come to mind as you do. You’ll have a clearer, more honest reaction to
your work, and you’ll save yourself the trouble when you need to add tags to
your cues when you upload them to a library.

Resist
the temptation to overtag

A cue with a ton of tags looks suspect. If you
have dozens of different mood tags, you’re likely seeing diminishing returns.
You’re likely stretching. You may win a battle by getting in search results,
but you’ll lose the war.

Producers with limited time want tags to let them zero in on their options as quickly as possible. When they see the word “pretty” and the cue is not really “pretty”, they are going to get frustrated. If you’re overloading pieces with every possible tag, you’re out of bounds. That will make producers not want to go back.

Length
matters

One client I worked for always wanted three
versions of cues: 60 seconds, 30 seconds, and “a thing.” (Don’t ask.) I’ve kept
to that approach, as it helps with the numbers game. You’re submitting three pieces
instead of one. You can legitimately fill up more data space and get bigger
hits.

It also helps clients who have a wide range of
needs. Lots of clients don’t want to do a lot of editing so 60- and 30-second
cues are helpful.

That said, don’t take shortcuts. You have to
do a good edit. Don’t fade out, anyone can do that. When you’re writing and
you’re in your DAW, if you have a sequencer say, when you finish the full
piece, make nice smaller pieces. Cut and paste and snip. Then add the final
ending you imagine for the piece. Producers don’t want to hear a chop; they
want to hear the last four seconds that would be the same as the end of the
full track.

There is no perfect or right way to make music, of course, and there’s no single answer to how to get that music to come up in an interested producer’s search. However, if you take a few extra moments to think through your tags, titles, and cue lengths, you’ll expand your repertoire and make its essence instantly recognizable, building trust and radically improving your chances at a placement.

Bruce Zimmerman

—

Bruce
Zimmerman is the composer
and owner of Sound Productions, a film scoring project studio located in
Windsor, Connecticut. Zimmerman began his career over 20 years ago, after
attaining a Doctorate of Music from the Hartt School of Music in West Hartford,
Connecticut.

Zimmerman has scored over 500
programs for clients such as AT&T, IBM, PBS, History Channel, Connecticut
Public Television, FOX Network, The Learning Channel, MasterCard, Pratt and
Whitney, Random House, Sony Kids Music, Simon & Schuster, McGraw Hill and
Warner Brothers. Zimmerman has won three Emmy Awards for Outstanding Individual
Achievement in Original Music Composition for his work in Public Television. He
is a member of ASCAP and the International Documentary Association (IDA).