There is an art to speaking to the boss. I once watched the owner of a multi-million dollar company go into sensory shutdown as one of his employees provided too much detail to a simple question.
I’ve found that the key is to put the data into a few easy-to-label buckets, paint a picture of how those buckets interact, then try to speak in absolutes. For example, “The products team is overloaded. They’re too busy to answer all these questions from accounting. We need to carve out a day next week for that to happen.”
To a busy boss with just sixty seconds of time to focus on your needs, that’s all they need to know. Simple right? Yet it remains hard for many employees to speak in broad strokes like that.
I think this same concept is what distinguishes a track in our production music library that sells from a track that doesn’t sell. We’ve noticed that when the emotional intent behind a track is focused, easy-to-understand and articulated well, the track does well in our catalog.
Check out these recent hot sellers:
(*To hear this Music Bin, click on this link, scroll down and look for the list of tracks in the left hand column)
http://www.musicrevolution.com/?binid=104
When I hear these tracks, the first thing I notice is how wonderfully 1-dimensional they are.
In the production music world, 1-dimensional is a high compliment. A musician who can tightly zero in on one emotion, one genre, and one melodic motif is a musician enlightened enough to know his/her place in the larger puzzle. Here are some specific examples from that Music Bin:
“Sexpensive” by Kora3000 is pure adrenaline. The musical elements are straight from Depeche Mode. Kora3000 wasn’t trying to touch anyone’s heart with this track, just increase their heart rate a bit and make sure they remember what century they’re in. Simple.
“Rock Pop Run Away” by Sergei Stern is also energetic. And it’s serious too. No horseplay allowed whilst this music is playing. But what makes the writing so genius is all the space he leaves to be filled by a VO and/or visuals.
Stern understands he is a supporting actor, not the star. Actor Michael Caine seemed perfectly happy getting an Oscar for doing that exact thing.
Big thanks to these terrific musicians who’s talent and creativity help make MusicRevolution the production music marketplace.
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Mike Bielenberg is a professional musician and co-founder of http://www.musicrevolution.com, a production music marketplace where media producers and business owners can license high-quality, affordable music from a online community of musicians.
