In 2000, I was in Las Vegas for one night to play a gig with a cover band. We were to follow Bill Cosby at Caesar’s Palace for a corporate client whom I can’t remember. Of course I can’t tell you everything that happened in Vegas, but I can tell you the next day we were annoyingly denied access to the famed art gallery at the Bellagio Hotel because some stupid movie was being filmed with Julia Roberts, George Clooney and Brad Pitt (*claimed under FAIR USE):

I remember asking our singer, “Have they ever been in a movie together? Wow.”

Quirky, fun background music with a low IQ is an elusive style for many musicians because it’s not necessarily what they’d compose on their day off. This classic soundtrack composed by David Holmes, however, served as the yardstick for many advertising campaigns in 2001 that required “clever music that makes you smile”.

Media producers can find a bank vault full of Oceans 11 sound alike royalty free at MusicRevolution.com.

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Mike Bielenberg is a professional musician and co-founder of http://www.musicrevolution.com, a production music marketplace with over 15,000 tracks online where media producers, video producers, filmmakers, game developers, businesses and other music buyers can license high-quality, affordable royalty-free music from an online community of musicians mbielenberg@musicrevolution.com.

Recently, Art Holden, President of PresenterMedia www.presentermedia.com, interviewed me to ask my thoughts about selecting the right royalty-free music for use as background music in PowerPoint and other presentations. We thought that this interview would be useful for our readers on MusicRevolution.com www.musicrevolution.com. Here is a summary:

Art Holden, PresenterMedia: Many of our users are looking for ways to help their presentations stand out.  How can selecting the right music make a presentation shine?

Mike Bielenberg, MusicRevolution.com: Music is that extra bit of polish that can help one presentation stand apart from another.  Getting this right is like undergoing a military inspection from the colonel and not just having everything in top shape, but actually having  a big sign outside saying, “Welcome, Inspector!”. Getting the music part right communicates that you hold yourself to a higher standard.

Art Holden, PresenterMedia: What defines a business music track?  Are there certain instruments, tempos or musical styles that represent business music?

Mike Bielenberg, MusicRevolution.com: You want to keep it very, very middle of the road. Just having music at all says quite a lot so there’s no need to push the envelope of musical innovation here. Energetic classical music or some upbeat acoustic guitar music will be fine 98% of the time. Stay away from big bashy drums, screaming guitars or song lyrics. This isn’t a TV commercial.

Art Holden, PresenterMedia: What are your feelings on sounds effects?  Do things like button clicks, and transition sounds help or hinder a presentation?

Mike Bielenberg, MusicRevolution.com: Having a subtle sound effect occur when you move from one slide to the next  is actually doing the audience a favor.  If I, as an audience member, am jotting down notes, daydreaming or answering a text message, It’s helpful for me to have an additional queue that the speaker has moved onto the next slide. Just being honest.

Art Holden, PresenterMedia: Why should I license a professional background track, can’t I just use a popular song I have purchased?

Mike Bielenberg, MusicRevolution.com: The laws about this are very clear. Unless you are using a piece of music in the public domain (which fortunately includes a lot of good classical stuff), you need permission from the copyright holder to use that piece of music in a gathering of people outside of just family and friends. A business pitch made to people you barely know requires this permission. There are tons of production music sites out there with super-reasonable prices and great service that can meet this need.

Art Holden, PresenterMedia: What common mistakes do first time users of background music make?

Mike Bielenberg, MusicRevolution.com: Using a popular song that alienates audience members and shows that they didn’t do their legal homework.

Art Holden, PresenterMedia: Do you have any specific examples how the right music has elevated a project to new heights?

Mike Bielenberg, MusicRevolution.com: In the 1990′s a good portion of my income was earned composing soundtracks to meeting openers for Coca Cola.  They wanted big accounts, like McDonalds for example, to know they took those relationships very seriously.  The largest sum of money I’ve ever been paid to write a single piece of music was a fund-raiser video for GA Tech alumni. Every week when I drive through downtown Atlanta I see two very large buildings funded by money raised in that campaign.

Art Holden, PresenterMedia: Can you tell me a bit about MusicRevolution.com?

Mike Bielenberg, MusicRevolution.com: MusicRevolution.com is the brain-child of my good friend, Chris Cardell who used to run the stock image company Jupiterimages. We saw how the stock photo industry moved to a point where the best deals in stock imagery were coming from amateur photographers, hobbyists, and professionals who had made their work available online for licensing. That was a big shift away from the offline hegemonies that previously existed. We knew the same phenomenon would occur in stock music so we set up a comprehensive website (http://www.musicrevolution.com) to help musicians upload and sell their music online at prices they choose. We’ve been very blessed to receive tens of thousands of music tracks from in incredibly talented community of musicians. All of that music is available for license and download from our website. And yes, our license does include corporate presentations!

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About PresenterMedia: (www.presentermedia.com) Our goal is to provide a world class PowerPoint and presentation resource at an unmatched value. We are a dedicated group of artists located in Sioux Falls, SD USA. Over the past 10 years, we have created hundreds of thousands of 3D animations, PowerPoint templates and clipart for sites like Animation Factory, Clipart.com, JupiterImages and Getty Images.

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Mike Bielenberg is a professional musician and co-founder of http://www.musicrevolution.com, a production music marketplace with over 16,000 tracks online where media producers, video producers, filmmakers, game developers, businesses and other music buyers can license high-quality, affordable royalty-free music from an online community of musicians mbielenberg@musicrevolution.com

This 30 second usage of  the Lyle Lovett song “M-O-N-E-Y” at the The Firm starring Tom Cruise was a brilliant directorial choice on the part of Sydney Pollack.

It encapsulates three story themes at the same time: 1) A wife setting the mood for a romantic evening with her husband 2) Their new home in Memphis, Tennessee where the blues was birthed by artists such as Howlin’ Wolf and B.B. King and 3) The very dark truth now being revealed to Jeanne Tripplehorn’s character that her charmed new life is just a front for the mob and her most intimate life moments ever since she arrived have been recorded by a surveillance team.
This music synchronization demonstrates an incredibly effective storytelling technique that other media producers can use with royalty free blues background music.

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Mike Bielenberg is a professional musician and co-founder of http://www.musicrevolution.com, a production music marketplace with over 15,000 tracks online where media producers, video producers, filmmakers, game developers, businesses and other music buyers can license high-quality, affordable royalty-free music from an online community of musicians mbielenberg@musicrevolution.com.

With Christmas less than one month away and Black Friday just a few days away, we thought that we would highlight some of the royalty-free production music on MusicRevolution.com (www.musicrevolution.com) that would be suitable for background music for your retail establishment to create the right ambience to help drive your sales this holiday season or anytime of year. Black Friday, which is the day after Thanksgiving Day in the United States, marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season and is usually the busiest retail shopping day of the year.

A search for “retail” yields over 1,300 royalty-free retail music tracks—
http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?keyword=retail&application=0&mood=0&genre=0&instrument=0&influence=&vocals=1&results=20&x=37&y=9A search for “background” yields over 1,000 royalty-free background music tracks—
http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?keyword=background&application=0&mood=0&genre=0&instrument=0&influence=&vocals=1&results=20&x=25&y=2
MusicRevolution.com has a Retail music CD, “Retail, Vol. 1” (available in both physical and download CD format) with 10 hand-selected royalty-free music tracks for background music for your retail establishment –
http://www.musicrevolution.com/cd_details/retail_vol_1/
MusicRevolution.com also has a Holiday music CD, “Holiday, Vol. 1” (available in both physical and download CD format) with 10 hand-selected royalty-free music tracks for Christmas and the Holiday season for your projects and for background music during the holiday season–
http://www.musicrevolution.com/cd_details/holiday_vol_1/
And for background music for your retail establishment, restaurant, business, fitness club or website, MusicRevolution.com’s Internet Music Stream offers nine unique playlists that provide a continuous stream of royalty-free background music for your commercial environment. MusicRevolution’s Internet Music Stream playlist includes a “Retail Dreams” stream and a “Holiday Magic” stream—
http://www.musicrevolution.com/music_streams
With over 16,000 tracks of royalty-free production music online, there are many other possible music choices for your retail background music or any other project during Black Friday and the Christmas shopping season on MusicRevolution.com. We have the royalty-free music that you need.

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Chris Cardell is the co-founder of MusicRevolution.com https://www.musicrevolution.com,a production music marketplace with over 16,000 tracks online where media producers, video producers, filmmakers, game developers, businesses and other music buyers can license high-quality, affordable royalty-free music and custom music from an online community of professional musicians. Cardell has been involved with digital content and E-Commerce since the mid-1990’s.

It’s hard to know whether the dialog between an auditioning Johnny Cash and legendary record producer Sam Phillips depicted in the film Walk the Line actually took place. Nonetheless, the speech Phillips gives is profound if you’re a struggling musician (*claimed under Fair use):

I’ve spent hundreds of hours at gigs or in the studio with musicians who pay their bills by taking whatever work comes their way. And every single one of them, me included, has a clear picture in their head of the masterpiece they could write tomorrow if they only had unlimited budget, unlimited time and someone to ride their ass.

Johnny Cash was lucky to have Phillips provide these resources.  Together they created a huge portion of the musical vocabulary we would hear today in a Johnny Cash royalty free sound alike.

But the rest of us, hoping we don’t get hit by that bus anytime soon, should loop this speech, brilliantly delivered by actor Dallas Roberts, in our  heads until we finally sit down and write that very first note.

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Mike Bielenberg is a professional musician and co-founder of http://www.musicrevolution.com, a production music marketplace with over 15,000 tracks online where media producers, video producers, filmmakers, game developers, businesses and other music buyers can license high-quality, affordable royalty-free music from an online community of musicians mbielenberg@musicrevolution.com.

Thanksgiving Day is a holiday celebrated primarily in the United States and Canada. With the U.S. Thanksgiving Day, November 24, 2011, just two weeks away, we thought that we would highlight some of the royalty-free production music on MusicRevolution.com (www.musicrevolution.com) that would be suitable for your Thanksgiving projects and for background music during this holiday. We have some great royalty-free Thanksgiving music. A search on MusicRevolution.com for “Thanksgiving” yields 10 royalty-free production music tracks—

http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?keyword=thanksgiving&application=0&mood=0&genre=0&instrument=0&influence=&vocals=1&results=20&x=40&y=5

A search on MusicRevolution.com for “thanks” yields 10 royalty-free production music tracks—

http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?keyword=thanks&application=0&mood=0&genre=0&instrument=0&influence=&vocals=1&results=20&x=26&y=11

In addition to eating too much turkey and mashed potatoes, Thanksgiving is a time to gather with family and friends and reflect on the things that we are thankful for. A search for “reflection” yields over 100 royalty-free production music tracks—

http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?keyword=reflection&application=0&mood=0&genre=0&instrument=0&influence=&vocals=1&results=20&x=37&y=7

A search for “reflective” yields over 200 royalty-free production music tracks—

http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?keyword=reflective&application=0&mood=0&genre=0&instrument=0&influence=&vocals=1&results=20&x=33&y=6

MusicRevolution.com also has a CD, “Acoustic Guitar, Vol. 1” (available in both physical and download CD format) with a number of hand-selected royalty-free music tracks suitable for your Thanksgiving projects and for background music –

http://www.musicrevolution.com/cd_details/acoustic_guitar_vol_1/

And for Thanksgiving background music for your business, office, retail establishment or restaurant, MusicRevolution.com’s Internet Music Stream offers an “Acoustic Vibes” playlist that provides a continuous stream of soothing music perfect for Thanksgiving http://www.musicrevolution.com/music_streams

With over 16,000 tracks of royalty-free production music online, there are many other possible stock music choices for your Thanksgiving production, background music or any other project on MusicRevolution.com.  We have the royalty-free production music that you need.

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Chris Cardell is the co-founder of MusicRevolution.com https://www.musicrevolution.com,a production music marketplace with over 16,000 tracks online where media producers, video producers, filmmakers, game developers, businesses and other music buyers can license high-quality, affordable royalty-free music and custom music from an online community of professional musicians. Cardell has been involved with digital content and E-Commerce since the mid-1990’s.

     With Christmas less than two months away, we thought that we would highlight some of the royalty-free production music on MusicRevolution.com (www.musicrevolution.com) that would be suitable for Christmas and the Holiday season for your projects and for background music. We have some great royalty-free Christmas music. A search on MusicRevolution.com for “Christmas” yields over 300 royalty-free music tracks—

 http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?keyword=christmas&application=0&mood=0&genre=0&instrument=0&influence=&vocals=1&results=20&x=35&y=11

      If you are looking for a royalty-free Jingle Bells music track, a search for “Jingle Bells” yields 36 different royalty-free versions of the classic public domain music Holiday track—

 http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?keyword=Jingle+Bells&application=0&mood=0&genre=0&instrument=0&influence=&vocals=1&results=20&x=29&y=3

      If you are looking for a royalty-free Silent Night music track, a search for “Silent Night” yields 22 different royalty-free versions of this classic public domain music Holiday track—

 http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?keyword=Silent+Night&application=0&mood=0&genre=0&instrument=0&influence=&vocals=1&results=20&x=42&y=6

      If you are looking for a royalty-free The First Noel music track, a search for “The First Noel” yields 13 different royalty-free versions of this classic public domain music Holiday track—

 http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?keyword=The+First+Noel&application=0&mood=0&genre=0&instrument=0&influence=&vocals=1&results=20&x=30&y=8

      If you are looking for a royalty-free O Come All Ye Faithful music track, a search for “O Come All Ye Faithful” yields seven different royalty-free versions of the classic public domain music Holiday track—

 http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?keyword=O+Come+All+Ye+Faithful+&application=0&mood=0&genre=0&instrument=0&influence=&vocals=1&results=20&x=21&y=5

     A search for “holiday” yields over 1,000 royalty-free Holiday music tracks—

http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?keyword=holiday&application=0&mood=0&genre=0&instrument=0&influence=&vocals=1&results=20&x=39&y=4

     A search for “New Year” yields the following royalty-free production music tracks, including 10 different royalty-free versions of “Auld Lang Syne” —

 http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?keyword=new+year&application=0&mood=0&genre=0&instrument=0&influence=&vocals=1&results=20&x=35&y=3

     MusicRevolution.com also has a Holiday CD, “Holiday Vol. 1” (available in both physical and download CD format) with 10 hand-selected royalty-free music tracks for Christmas and the Holiday season for your projects and for background music –

 http://www.musicrevolution.com/cd_details/holiday_vol_1/

      And for Christmas and Holiday background music for your business, office, retail establishment or restaurant, MusicRevolution.com’s Internet Music Stream offers a playlist that provides a continuous stream of amazing Holiday music http://www.musicrevolution.com/music_streams

      With over 16,000 tracks of royalty-free production music online, there are many other possible music choices for your Christmas, Holiday or New Year’s production, background music or any other project on MusicRevolution.com.  We have the royalty-free music that you need.

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Chris Cardell is the co-founder of MusicRevolution.com https://www.musicrevolution.com,a production music marketplace with over 16,000 tracks online where media producers, video producers, filmmakers, game developers, businesses and other music buyers can license high-quality, affordable royalty-free music and custom music from an online community of professional musicians. Cardell has been involved with digital content and E-Commerce since the mid-1990’s.

Veterans’ Day is an annual United States holiday honoring military veterans. We salute the men and women who have served our country to protect us. With Veterans’ Day, November 11, 2011, less than two weeks away, we thought that we would highlight some of the royalty-free music on MusicRevolution.com (www.musicrevolution.com) that would be appropriate for your Veterans’ Day production or for background music on Veterans’ Day. We have some great royalty-free Veterans’ Day music. A search on MusicRevolution.com for “patriotic” yields 45 royalty-free music tracks-

http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?keyword=patriotic&application=0&mood=0&genre=0&instrument=0&influence=&vocals=1&results=20&x=26&y=5

A search for “memorial” yields the following royalty-free music tracks–

http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?keyword=memorial&application=0&mood=0&genre=0&instrument=0&influence=&vocals=1&results=20&x=27&y=5

We also had a recent customer request for royalty-free production music that would be suitable for a war memorial for fallen soldiers. Here are some of the royalty-free music tracks that were submitted for that request—

http://www.musicrevolution.com/search/?keyword=track+request+46&application=0&mood=0&genre=0&instrument=0&influence=&vocals=1&results=20&x=21&y=9

With nearly 16,000 tracks of royalty-free production music online, there are many other possible music choices for your Veterans’ Day production or any other project on MusicRevolution.com. We have the production music you need.

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Chris Cardell is the co-founder of MusicRevolution.com https://www.musicrevolution.com,a production music marketplace with over 15,000 tracks online where media producers, video producers, filmmakers, game developers, businesses and other music buyers can license high-quality, affordable royalty-free music and custom music from a online community of professional musicians. Cardell has been involved with digital content and E-Commerce since the mid-1990’s.

     We launched MusicRevolution.com (www.musicrevolution.com) with the vision of creating an online marketplace where a community of professional and aspiring professional musicians could offer their production music for license on a royalty-free basis to music buyers who had a need for affordable, high-quality music for commercial purposes.

     In the 18 months since we launched, hundreds of professional musicians have uploaded nearly 16,000 tracks of production music making our online marketplace a reality and our production music library one of the largest in the world. In Internet jargon, the concept of a community contributing content to a website or channeling the power of online crowds is known as “crowdsourcing”. Our community of professional musicians has helped us to “crowdsource” something very special. As important as the nearly 16,000 tracks that MusicRevolution has online is our community of musicians itself. There are other production music libraries owned by larger music/media companies, however, many of these libraries are relatively static, only offering music buyers the same music every time they come to buy. Because MusicRevolution.com is a crowdsourced or community-driven production music marketplace, our production music library is dynamic, with new royalty-free music being added by our professional musicians all the time.

      In addition to finding the production music they need on MusicRevolution.com, some of our music buyers started to approach us and ask if we could also help them with their custom music projects. While this wasn’t part of our original vision or business plan, we realized that with access to our community of hundreds of professional musicians, MusicRevolution.com could find the right musician for any style and genre of music to complete just about any custom music project. And because of this crowdsourcing or community aspect, MusicRevolution.com is able to help our music buyers complete their custom music projects affordably. We’ve helped companies like IBM, Coca Cola, Microsoft, Ford and The Cartoon Network with their custom music projects. 

     The Internet and crowdsourcing continues to transform how businesses and individuals access digital content and how they conduct business. The production music business has lagged behind popular music and other forms of digital content and is still conducted largely offline. However, this is starting to change. As an online platform, MusicRevolution.com enables buyers to license the best stock music online and to connect with the best professional musicians for custom music licensing.

      The next time you need affordable custom music production for a project, contact MusicRevolution.com at info(at)musicrevolution(dot)com or (678) 900-9228. With access to hundreds of professional musicians, we’ll be happy to help you “crowdsource” the right musician and the right music.

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Chris Cardell is the co-founder of MusicRevolution.com https://www.musicrevolution.com, a production music marketplace with over 15,000 tracks online where media producers, video producers, filmmakers, game developers, businesses and other music buyers can license high-quality, affordable royalty-free music and custom music from a online community of professional musicians. Cardell has been involved with digital content and E-Commerce since the mid-1990’s.

Featured Production Music Track

My faraway land by Mario Chianello

A music colleague once told me the “guy who played bagpipes on Braveheart owns a surf shop.” My eight minutes of research on Google turned up nothing to corroborate this statement.

This is exactly the kind of misinformation that made Scottish rebels think William Wallace could shoot “lightning bolts out of his arse” and make women assume that Mel Gibson is tall.

Nonetheless, Chianello’s track is an outstanding choice of music for the media producer needing to license a Braveheart sound alike royalty-free.

Here’s a sample from the film featuring the composition work of James Horner and a performance on the Uilleann pipes (pronounced “ilen”) by unconfirmed surf-shop owner Eric Rigler (*claimed under Fair Use).

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Mike Bielenberg is a professional musician and co-founder of http://www.musicrevolution.com, a production music marketplace with over 15,000 tracks online where media producers, video producers, filmmakers, game developers, businesses and other music buyers can license high-quality, affordable royalty-free music from an online community of musicians mbielenberg@musicrevolution.com.