What we now call ‘production music’ has become through various stages of evolution. Its origins are probably in silent movies, when cinema pianists and organists would watch the film and supply a live accompaniment. At first, they could use bits and pieces of music production, either from memory or collections of written music, but soon volumes of specially composed or arranged incidental movie music were published, with cues arranged and categorised to match the different screen actions or moods. Perhaps this is why this extract from Krommer’s Double Clarinet Concerto is certainly a well-known tune!
A Review Of ‘Production Music’
Soon, music became available on discs, and with the development of TV from the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s, there was clearly a sizable demand for readily available music, that has been known as mood music, atmospheric music and, of course, library music. Much of this was of extremely high-quality orchestral and jazz, though using the proliferation of synths from the late ’70s it gained a track record of being cheap (but not necessarily cheerful). Originally a united states term, ‘production music’ is currently on the whole use here in britain, as producers have wished to promote a newer generation of library music which includes shed the previous image.
Production music has traditionally been distributed on vinyl or CD but it is now also available via download. A production music clients are basically a publishing company, or possibly a department of any publishing company, that specialises in marketing, licensing and collecting royalties for production music. The end user is generally a film, TV or radio production company – but tracks can also be used for computer games, websites, live events and in many cases ringtones. Users choose tracks they want to include in a programme and might license them very quickly, through MCPS in the united kingdom or another licensing agencies worldwide, in a set licence fee per thirty seconds of music. Frequently this is cheaper, quicker and fewer complicated than commissioning a composer.
A lot of the TV music from the ’60s was jazz-oriented; composers such as Henry Mancini and Elmer Bernstein set the regular in this way. Library music producers followed suit, and may corner some great jazz musicians in touring bands who had been pleased to supplement their meagre club fees with several sessions.
Today, a significantly larger proportion of production music is pop or rock. This is due to some extent to your demand from modern TV producers, but another factor is the digital revolution. Producing convincing pop music has stopped being exclusively the arena of companies with big budgets for big studios and vast swathes of session musicians. The regular still must be high and using real musicians wherever possible is definitely a bonus, however it is now feasible for a person with the talent plus a decent DAW to contest with the major boys.
Production music CDs might seem like ordinary albums…
Production music CDs might appear to be ordinary albums…The current proliferation of television stations has inevitably thinned out your viewing audience for many individual channels, thus causing advertising revenue, and therefore budgets, to be slashed. Apart from the few in the very top, TV and film composers experienced to get accustomed to concentrating on lower budgets. Often – but by no means always – it has ended in either (at worst) lower-quality commissioned music being produced or, sadly, fewer live musicians being involved. Seizing an opportunity, the library music companies stepped in with a brand new generation of music having much higher artistic and production values, that may be licensed easily.
My Approach To Composing
After I am commissioned to music production online, it may either be on an entire album, or even for a variety of tracks to become a part of a ‘compilation’ album to which several composers contribute. I have got produced six complete albums in the last several years contributing to another 30 or 40 single tracks. My first commission was to get a jazz album called Mad, Bad & Jazzy, which presently has three sequels. The title says everything, really – the tunes is mad, bad and jazzy – as well as a good title can obviously assist with marketing, by signalling to producers exactly what to expect through the album. The fashion containing dominated my writing is slightly left-field or quirky jazz and Latin, with a sprinkling of indie, classical, electronic and merely plain bizarre.
I work closely with 1 or 2 producers from the company (Universal – formerly BMG – in this case), who work as overall ‘executive’ producers. They know from the whole concept and marketing plan of the album, and customarily I’ll have an initial briefing meeting with them to talk about this. They then leave me to complete the composing and production, and definitely will drop from the studio every so often, especially as tracks evolve or completely new ideas appear during the course of production.
An album will contain about 16 tracks, and although they can be as short as one minute, I love to think of them as ‘real’ album tracks, so I will often cause them to between two and four minutes long. I also include various shorter versions lasting thirty seconds, 20 seconds and 10 seconds, along with short ‘stings’. It’s easier for that producer to build these at the mixing stage than to try and create them from a stereo master later – much more about this in next month’s article.
…although the sleeve notes are meant to help the TV editor very quickly. Note the extra one-minute, 30-, 20- and 10-second versions, along with the short ‘stings’.
…nevertheless the sleeve notes are meant to help the TV editor in a big hurry. Note the extra one-minute, 30-, 20- and 10-second versions, as well as the short ‘stings’. Because my producers at Universal, Duncan Schwier and Jo Pearson, know the way I work, the briefing session is extremely much a two-way flow of ideas. I never determine what I’m likely to be asked to do, but briefs ranges through the precise for the vague, including:
Writing a thing that fits a very specific commercial demand, like lifestyle programmes or quiz shows, or to fit popular search phrases including ‘s-ex in the city’, ‘money’, ‘countdown’ or ‘stop press’.
Taking inspiration from an existing track, composer or style, being very careful to not infringe any copyright or ‘pass off’ as something copyrighted.
Taking inspiration purely from a generic film scene, such as a car chase, slapstick comedy sketch or s-ex scene.
Building a dramatic feel or emotional atmosphere.
“Just have a certain amount of fun and find out the things you think of, Pete.”
Frequently I may also suggest using existing tracks I’ve already produced for an additional reason, for example cues from the commissioned score which has now passed its exclusivity date, demos I did for something that were not actually used, or pieces I wrote simply for fun.
I generally take six to twelve months to compose and record a complete album, when i want the tracks to sound great, and not just like the stereotypical library music of your ‘old days’. I usually start off with programmed tracks, though before presenting these as demos I’ll cause them to as convincing as you possibly can by including as much real instrumentation as I can – saxophone, flute and a bit of guitar and bass. Something that isn’t a live instrument must have a reason to be there, like a drum loop that can’t be recreated or possibly a particular rhythm that needs to be quantised to fit the genre. I furthermore have a vast variety of unique samples recorded and collected during my years working in studios like a producer.
When the early drafts are approved, I print scores and parts from Logic and book sessions for musicians where necessary. This can be a crucial step for me personally – I book musicians I am aware and am comfortable utilizing. Once again, I don’t think ‘It’s just library music.’ I need to think that the musicians are thinking the same way: that they are contributing creatively rather than it being yet another session.
It’s great dealing with Duncan or Jo at Universal – they already have an excellent handle on which work. It’s also very good to acquire some fresh ears over a project when you’ve lived with it inside the studio for several weeks. I once presented a demo to Duncan along with his comment was “great, but the saxophone is too in tune, sounds like library music.” It was over a ska track and that he wanted it to sound really raw and rough. I used a couple of times to perform badly, difficult for a seasoned session player having struggled all his life to perform well. Ultimately I played the sax with the mouthpiece on upside down, and so i sounded quite convincingly like I’d only been playing for a couple of weeks.
Getting the music accepted or being commissioned to publish production music is every bit as competitive as some of the more traditionally glamorous goals for musicians and composers, such as landing an archive deal, publishing deal, film or TV commission. You need to send in your music on a CD you should make look as attractive and interesting as you can, though a well-constructed site or MySpace site with biography and audio clips can be just as or maybe more useful. A couple of calls to receptionists will help you to get the names from the right men and women to send your pitch to: a private letter surpasses ‘Dear Sir/Madam’.
The World Wide Web has evolved how production music is distributed, and many publishers now ensure it is easy to search for and download the tracks you want.
The World Wide Web changed just how production music is distributed, and most publishers now make it easy to search for and download the tracks you will need.The main thing to be aware of is your music should grab the eye from the listener quickly. In case a company is looking for writers, they will likely definitely listen to music that they are sent, but frequently they are inundated, so it’s entirely possible that they’ll only listen to the initial 10 or 20 seconds of every track (which can perfectly be the way their end user will listen to the item, too).
Most essential is not to attempt to second-guess what you think ‘they’ want, or what is ‘good’ or ‘typical’ production music. The probability is it’s already within their library and they don’t need any longer, and if they actually do, one of their established writers will have to do it. If you wish to come up with a good first impression, it’s far better to write down something that has some character, originality and flair; and, first and foremost, it should be something you are excellent at doing. The most effective possibility of having your music accepted is usually to offer something different, fresh and different.
Frequently, a piece you wrote as a demo for something diffrent that got rejected can be ideal, but paradoxically, pieces which have actually been used in TV programmes might not be great for production music. Frequently I’ve considered that music We have written for the film with a non-exclusive basis could be accepted in a music library but, as Duncan has explained, music written to some specific scene may work well simply to that scene, and could not necessarily seem sensible alone. Surprisingly, it can possibly be that production values for TV music are frequently not sufficient, particularly with today’s increasingly stingy budgets.
The production music company won’t like being told their job, but sometimes there is not any harm to help out with some marketing ideas. CDs or sections of CDs will become categorised to assist the end user, so you may consider doing the identical for the demo. Categories is often as vague as ‘drama’ or ‘lifestyle’, or they could be more specific to a music genre or era – for instance jazz, classical, World, ’60s, kitsch, indie, ska and so forth. Titles are exceedingly important, not simply as being a description but additionally to help you with searches. It’s the same principle as Googling: keywords or phrases in a title can be quite helpful, especially for online searching. On the other hand, there are actually limits to the amount of tracks that may be called ‘Car Chase’, ‘Celebration’ or ‘Feel Bad Blues’!
One important thing that I still find fascinating is the place where my music ends up. Anything you think your music will probably be utilized for, it might show up on something quite different, be that a feature film, TV drama, documentary, shopping channel, game show or gardening programme. To know how production music works, try putting yourself in the position of any stressed-out TV editor who desperately needs some terrific music for any new piece of footage the executive producer motivated to be added to your documentary three hours just before the deadline. There are various possibilities:
Check out a production music company internet site and do an on-line search, using various keywords that describe either the genre of music or the scene that has to have music.
Naturally, an experienced editor or director will already have a very good understanding of music that is certainly available, often calling on ‘old faithful’ albums or tracks, but could still keep an eye out for new and refreshing material.
Many production music companies may also aggressively market their music production blog, just like any good publisher should. This can mean contacting producers associated with a film or TV projects that are about to go into production, as well as strengthening close and ongoing relationships with their main clients, arranging everything that composers would do ourselves whenever we had the time and expense: courtesy calls, birthday cards, free holidays from the Caribbean, that sort of thing.
On this page, we’ve checked out the company dimension of production music: what exactly it is, who uses it, how it’s sold and, most importantly, how to get your foot in the door. But from your composer’s standpoint there are also technical skills which can be specific to production music, like the capability to create versions of your pieces which fit exactly to the 10-second format, so next month, we’ll be looking at techniques one can learn to help with making a professional-sounding production music library disc.