10 Tips For Composing Music for Picture Tracks That Sell

photo by brentbat

Here is another installment in the series on making money with production music libraries.  Today I will offer tips for composing tracks that sell and earn placements on television, films, video games, and other media.  This list of composition tips will help you meet the needs of television producers while setting yourself apart from the competition.

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1. Introduction / What are production music libraries?
2. Producing tracks that sell
3. Copyrighting your music
4. Registering with a Performing Rights Organization (PRO)
5. Submitting your songs to production music libraries
6. Leveraging your music placements to gain future music for picture work

10 Music for Picture Composition Tips:

1. Pinpoint a specific mood. Music placements are chosen because they perfectly match the mood of the visual scene they are supporting.  Try to envision how your composition might be used.  Would it be for a rainy day scene?  Winning the big game?  A horror sequence?  A bedroom scene?  Maybe a fast-paced car commercial.  Or a fun-loving kids television show theme song.  Often times, when you pinpoint a specific visual mood for your composition, it will end up being compatible with lots of other common moods that media producers look for.
2. Choose the right instruments. A big part of shaping your composition is in choosing just the right sounds for various parts.  From the start, you might have a general idea of which instruments you want to use.  Go ahead and lay those parts down quickly using MIDI.  Then spend extra time later choosing the perfect instrument.  For example, you know you want a piano.  Start out with a general grand piano patch.  Lay down the part.  Then go back and switch the patch from your typical grand piano sound to a darker, more muted aged piano - if that’s what will serve the composition well.  Here’s an article about effectively using MIDI in your composition flow.
3. Mix and match styles and genres. Music for picture is all about uniqueness and originality while capturing a specfic mood.  The majority of compositions used as background music don’t fall into one specific genre or style.  They mix and match elements from a variety of styles.  You might have an orchestral sequence layered on top of an electronica drum beat.  Or a country song with a soaring lead guitar solo placed within it.  My favorite thing about composing music for picture is the endless possibilities for creativity in song structure, style, and instrumentation.
4. Craft with dynamics. Many visual scenes will require a change in pace.  Incorporate a few different stages of dynamics within your composition to accommodate changes in a visual scene.  Start with a stripped down section, and move into a more full-bodied section.  Or incorporate an alternate arrangement every 8 bars.  Be sure to make these changes quickly - within 10-15 seconds of each other.  Music placements on television tend to last only 30 seconds or less, especially for commercial spots.  Dynamic compositions with a few changes will be more useful to television producers than ones that stick to the same repeated loop for two minutes.
5. Choose names that sell. The name of each composition should reinforce the intended mood.  Choose a name that paints a visual picture in the mind of the person choosing the music.  Most production music libraries are browsed by track name, so you want to create names that jump right out of the list.  Examples of good names are “Ticking Time-Bomb” or “Fields of Passion” or “Stormy Night”.  These are in line with the needs of potential music buyers.  Examples of names that get passed over are “Guitar Song 3″, “Track_8″, “Synth Mod XT”.  These names offer no information about how this track might be used.
6. Cover all the bases. When putting together your collection of music for picture tracks, be sure to cover a wide variety of styles, moods, genres, and potential uses.  You don’t want to limit yourself to only hard-rocking action sequence music.  Or only love-scene ballads.  Try and cover as many bases as possible.  A wider variety of tracks in production music libraries will earn far more placements and potential royalties because they fill a wide variety of needs.
7. Produce a quality mix. You might have composed the most amazing piece, with tons of potential uses on television or film, but if the audio quality and mix is no good, your track will sit on the shelf collecting dust.  Make sure you have a good handle on producing quality mixes out of your music production studio.  That means finding a pleasing balance of EQ, dynamics, panning, volume levels, and overall mastering level.  It’s quite possible to produce perfectly use-able tracks in a home recording set up.  If you’re not experienced with basic audio engineering, you might want to consider hiring someone to mix and master your tracks.
8. Not too short, but not too long. Your tracks should be at least 1 minute long.  2-3 minute tracks are good.  It’s probably not worth the time and effort to produce tracks longer than that, especially if you’re introducing new parts past 2 minutes in.  Most tracks won’t get played that far.  Barely any tracks will be previewed that far.  Plus, music supervisors may cut up your song and loop only the first 10 seconds.  You want to strike a balance between producing a useful length, and not wasting your own time producing tracks that are too long.
9. Watch and learn. While you’re chilling out and watching some television, pay close attention to the background music of the programs you’re watching.  This is where you want your music to be placed.  Take note of the instrumentation, arrangements, dynamics, moods, audio mix, etc.  Watch the commercials!  Don’t flip the channel or skip with your DVR.  Commercials feature background music that is quite interesting and often times very well crafted.  Mixing and matching styles is very common in advertising spots.  Grab musical ideas from the stuff you hear on TV.
10. Find a productive groove. Making money with production music libraries is all about quantity.  The more tracks you have out there, the more potential for placements in broadcast, the larger your royalty checks are.  Get into a working groove for your composition process.  You should be able to quickly knock out a quality music for picture track in just a day or two.  Do that for a month and you should have a solid 20-30 tracks ready to push on production music libraries.  The more your produce, the faster you become at making compositional decisions and mixing and mastering your audio.

Your Thoughts…

Share your production tips for composing music for picture.  What has worked for you?  What hasn’t?

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Related Posts

• Leverage Music for Picture Placements
• Make Money with Production Music Libraries
• Copyright Your Music for Picture Compositions
• Music Composers, Register With a Performing Rights Organization
• Everything You Need to Know about Production Music Libraries