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@Michael L:
Howard Shore hires writers to score all movies.
Musicians who are better than him and I know,because I exchanged quite a few e-mails with one of his writers.The guys piano tracks and writing were phenomenal but he is forever stuck in the shadow of Howard.The six figure income is the carrot.
Can you say Hans Zimmer?
Writers or orchestrators? Delegating isn’t uncommon.
As far as accepting without or with barely listening, it depends a lot on the type of library. A royalty free, website-based library may take just about anything and everything. That’s to be expected. If a library advertises themselves to be more discriminating and pitch major TV networks, I’d probably scratch my head a lot more.
In the end, it is the quality of your track, compared to others, that will determine its placement success (along with some luck, I agree).
Nothing wrong with being discriminating as far as where you put your music. It’s already a mess out there with hundreds and hundreds of non-exclusives pitching the same TV shows.
🙂
” It’s already a mess out there with hundreds and hundreds of non-exclusives pitching the same TV shows.”
Just imagine being on the RECEIVING end of that mess. Think it gives the producers a warm and fuzzy feeling about composers? We are our own worst enemy.
I am a music composer & musician from Okeechobee, Florida. Currently I have over six hundred original songs that I am selling outright, with copyrights. Any one interested, let me know. Much music for TV, film, soundtracks, commercials, record labels, etc. Great investment. I am also accepting bids.
I found out this.
Be who we are.
Only upload to sites that are selling your music.
Serve up the best you can do with the best possible
skills you can attain.
Use the mics!
Recording real musicians give you more
performance dimensions
in your tracks.Program your sounds.
Be Original.
Sign with companies that have certain criteria and experience and expect the same from you ,great tracks
is the bottom line.THere is always more but I’ll give you an example of the libraries.
Jingle Jared and his circle lines himself up first before anyone else gets the gig.
Thats the library business for you with variables of course.Everything now in the business is not written in stone.
“Out of curiosity, how do you think composers can stop being “our own worst enemy”?”
One way to do it is to not go too far with with what the non-exclusive model encourages, which is to put the same tracks into a bunch of libraries willy nilly. It waters everything down in my opinion. I have done it in the past but have stopped, or at least treated non-exclusives that work for me a little more like exclusives and not send the same tracks everywhere.
Having your tracks in 10-20 different places can lead to real problems down the road, like if you have to remove one or more of them from multiple libraries because you have a good paying ad that requires exclusivity for a year, for example. Sometimes it’s not easy to make that happen and could potentially blow the deal.
“Out of curiosity, how do you think composers can stop being “our own worst enemy”? On the one hand, you advise not turning one’s back on any income stream but you also seem to be saying that we are causing ourselves problems by participating in some of them. What’s your approach? Is this just the way it is or is there a solution?”
You won’t like my answer. I should have qualified my answer. Retitling is one income stream that I have chosen to avoid, because I want to stay clear of the “mess.”
I’ve been in the library business for 30+ years. What I do is built upon relationships that I’ve established during that time.
I do not, now, and most likely will not, get into the retitling game. I see it as a short term gain and a long term problem.
My approach:
1) I have my own library that currently supplies music to five television shows (the result of 30 years in the business and networking)
2) I also write for exclusive libraries
3) I plan to put the rest of my catalog into RF libraries because:
a) I write in a lot of styles, many of which appeal to corporate clients and documentary film producers etc.
b) I do not write a lot of “MTV” style indie pop/rock cues
c) The backend for a 20 second cue on a show like Jersey Shore , or the Kardashians is often less than you would make selling the track on a RF site. Why throw your tracks into the gratis-license pool for $10?
d) You get to keep your publishing (it’s clean)
e) I have enough tracks to make it viable
4) If I was to put tracks into a non-exclusive retitling library, like Scorekeepers, it would be on an exclusive basis because I know that they market those tracks differently, to higher end clients, who don’t want retitled tracks.
5) When I get to the point of marketing (or selling) my library, I will be able to tell supes and producers that they aren’t going to be bombarded with these tracks from 20 different libraries.
This is what works for me. Your results/experience may vary. I am not convinced that having tracks in 10 different retitling libraries actually generates more income for composers. Logically, if your music is being pitched to the same shows by 10 different libraries it’s not really increasing your odds of placement, because it’s not creating new opportunities.
I’m talking strictly about instrumental music. I apply none of this to songs with lyrics. Licensing your “songs” if you are a singer/songwriter.performer is a whole different ball of wax.
I’ve said before this is a many tiered business. I focus on my niche.
“I’ve said before this is a many tiered business. I focus on my niche.”
And by that I mean Im happy doing what I do. I’m not trying to get somewhere else, by writing library music.
>Why throw your tracks into the gratis-license pool for $10?<
Hi Michael, I can confirm what you wrote. The average gratis-license royalty as reported on my July ASCAP statement was $1.95 for each placement. I can earn $20.00 for a royalty free sale, or ten times that! $1.95 just ain’t worth it! I’m so glad my custom composing/song writing work (non-library) has picked up!
Michael Nicholas said: “Hi Michael, I can confirm what you wrote. The average gratis-license royalty as reported on my July ASCAP statement was $1.95 for each placement. I can earn $20.00 for a royalty free sale, or ten times that! $1.95 just ain’t worth it! I’m so glad my custom composing/song writing work (non-library) has picked up!”
Kiwi said: “Amen to this! I definitely see this phenomenon each quarter. In my case, it seems to happen just as often with tracks from exclusives as non-exclusives. Actually, this whole conversation has me thinking of checking into placing more music into RF situations.”
I don’t know who created the myth the this business is a path to riches. For 99 and 44/100 % of writers it takes a lot of tracks to make a living. We’ve said it over and over again…1000+ tracks. There are exceptions. But, DO THE MATH. Will 1000 placements on MTV at $1.95 each earn you a living? at $20?…at $50?
Most writers will never come close to writing 1000 cues in a lifetime, let alone 1000 placements. Like Mark Petrie said early on (as Matt) 12 hours per day, six days per week for X number of years, writing whether you want to or not, and he started with an existing catalog. My point is. This is not a business that you can dabble in.
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