INDIE
INSIDER
STOCK
SOUNDS
GETTING INTO THE BUSINESS
OF PRODUCTION MUSIC
I
By Michael Raine
t’s a tough reality that more music is being consumed
now than ever before, but it’s no easier to make a living
as a musician. That said, because of the ocean of content
on the internet, there are windows of opportunity for
musicians looking to make a buck. One of those is pro-
duction music libraries.
Production music libraries are curated collections of exclusive
tracks, mostly instrumentals, that are licensed for use in almost any
video medium – movies, TV shows, video games, advertisements,
apps, and the infinite types of videos found online. The composi-
tion style differs significantly from standard songwriting, but for a
musician with a solid understanding of music’s job in a video and
the necessary recording skills, composing for production music
libraries can offer some helpful income.
“Four-hundred hours of footage are added to YouTube every
minute. So, the need for production music is insane, if you think
of it that way,” points out Kate Cooper, music producer at Shutter-
stock Music and its Montreal-based subsidiary, PremiumBeat. “You
know, production music has historically been given a bad rap and,
historically, it hasn’t been the most exciting stuff. But, the thing
with production music – really good production music – is you
don’t really notice it when it’s there. It just elevates an emotion.
But you certainly notice it if it’s not there.”
In Cooper’s opinion, composing music for a specific project
(film, ad, show, etc.) is actually a little easier than composing a
good track for a music library. When composing for a specific proj-
ect, “you can write based on the images you have in front of you.
10 CANADIAN MUSICIAN
There are obvious cues and edit points, and there’s obvious things
happening in the narrative without the music that speak to how
the music is created,” she says. “Whereas, with library music, you
have to keep in mind that, ideally, the track is going to be used
many times, so it has to apply to or work in multiple applications.
So, you have to avoid things in the track that are going to make
it sound more custom. Off the top of my head, that is things like
huge breaks or stops that come out of nowhere or big builds that
come out of nowhere. It has to be a little more nuanced in that it
can apply to lots of things. That makes it a little trickier for the writ-
ing, I think.”
Typically, as you would probably assume, most production
music composers come to it with backgrounds as singer-song-
writers or playing in bands. In Cooper’s experience, “if you play in
a band and you’re the person who records the demos, that’s the
person that historically became a producer. But that is also the
person who begins writing stock music or library music because
they’re figuring out that they can make tracks pretty easily on their
laptop with a bunch of plug-ins and a little bit of gear.”
When it comes to getting a foot in the door, it’s really as simple
as submitting some tracks. Of course, before creating a useable
track, it takes some learning and research. Many production music
companies, including Shutterstock Music and PremiumBeat, ac-
cept track submissions through their websites. “We have a team
that reviews it, and we get inundated with submissions, but we
do go through everything,” says Cooper. “That being said, I think
it’s really important that when you get to that submission state,