Anyone who’s ever attended a Vienna Boys Choir concert knows what an amazingly pure sound an ensemble like that can create. My vision for this track was a melody sung by a boys choir (for a serious feel), that was supported with electronic drums to give it some modernity.
Fortunately, Atlanta has their own renowned boys choir at the Callanwolde Arts Center. A few phone calls and a small donation later, I had 20 boys, their moms and a choir director scheduled to arrive at MicroGroove Studios in Decatur, GA for a recording session.
These was long before Auto-Tune or Melodyne so back then studio singers actually had to have a sense of pitch. Anyone who’s ever been recorded knows what a bright light that can be on any deficiencies in tone, pitch or rhythm. That’s why some LA studio singers in the 80’s earned as much as $1,000.00 per hour (payable in cash, check or cocaine).
Within just a few takes, the engineer and I both realized that most of the kids’ sense of pitch wasn’t going to cut it. So at that point having the whole group sing the part together was really just for show so that those nice soccer moms could photograph their kids in a recording studio.
The funniest part? Most of those moms detected the pitch problems as quickly as we did and said, “Is that my kid singing out of tune?…Get him ought there!”.
Ultimately, a gifted choir-member named Speare Hodges wound up carrying most of the production music track via overdubs. The fantastic guitar-playing was done by Steve Cunningham playing a Fender Telecaster run through a Voodoo Valve pre-amp.
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.
We recently created this bin featuring some new royalty-free tracks that meet a popular and specific need amongst spot creators…upbeat, fun and built for broadcast. Check it out. To hear the music, click on this URL, scroll down and look for the list of tracks in the left hand column:
If a TV spot featured pre-schoolers finger painting in front of a white screen, this is the music you’d hear underneath a VO read by a woman clearly not in charge of cleaning up the mess.
This feel-good yet edgy track could be used in any spot where the message is basically “Our PR firm told us to support a cause. Save-The-Dung-Beetle was the only one left that had any visual appeal. Now for God’s sake use our product.”
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.
The music that enters just after actress Sofia Vergara finishes her seductive pitch in this Cadillac Escalade commercial caught the attention of my fellow musicians so I thought I’d post it here:
The soundtrack is “Genesis” by Justice
The aspiring production music composer may ask, “What makes this track so awesome?”. In a nutshell, it’s the busy, multi-layer kick drums and bass lines. There is no better way to punch listeners in the gut than a well-mixed, super tight low end rhythm pattern. A track like this may have sounded too frantic in the 80’s, much in the way that the fast-cut visual edits we see today would have been too nauseating for pre-MTV television viewers.
Now, it takes that much adrenaline for us to even notice.
Noted pioneers of this multi-layered bass technique are the now-defunct Propellerheads out of Bath, England. Not surprisingly, many of the tracks on their late-90’s release DecksandDrumsandRockandRoll were licensed for…you guessed it….car commercials. Enjoy!
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.
Anyone who collaborates on production musicprojects knows that transferring large files from one party to another is part of the gig. There are lots of free ftp programs out there which are can be used to accomplish this by bypassing complicated web protocols and basically using the internet as one big hard drive. It’s “cloud” before “cloud” was cool.
For your consideration, may we present Fire FTP (http://fireftp.mozdev.org/), which installs into the popular Firefox browser as a plug in. It’s been downloaded 19 million times and counting. It was developed by Mime Čuvalo, web developer and son of Croatian historian Dr. Ante Čuvalo.
Admittedly, what earned this tool a place in our hearts was not it’s bug-free environment or the great user interface, but rather the eloquent request on Cuvalo’s download page for us all to be better people….and he gets specific.
This list is way cool. Print it out and tape it on your wall.
Suggestions on different ways of being awesome:
-Volunteer. Somewhere. Anywhere.
-Take what you’re passionate about and see how you can also make it beneficial to your community.
-If you own a business, donate proceeds to green energy or charity or something beneficial.
-Support local businesses and encourage them to do the above.
-Buy locally grown food and get a reusable bag.
-Ride your bike instead of taking your car.
-Go hang out with your kids more.
-Go hang out with your parents more.
-Take only what you need, not what you can get.
Thanks to Mime Cuvalo for this excellent contribution.
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.
The face-melting guitar work on this track was recorded years ago by Peter Stroud. Peter has since gone on to perform with the likes of Don Henley, Sheryl Crow and is currently touring with Sarah McLaughlin. Other than the female vocals at the end, those are the only two live musicians on the track:
This track was originally created as a soundtrack to a Coca-Cola meeting opener video. As I recall the budget was around $3,500.00.
There was a little bit business drama surrounding this project because it was one of two major Coca-Cola videos being produced that week by the same client . The other video being produced was to be permanently included in the famous tourist attraction World Of Coke. My client wisely chose to not have the same musician work on both projects, but I felt a bit stung at not being chosen for the World of Coke gig.
To make matters worse, the editing company who was working on my video had some rendering issues with their computers and couldn’t show me any finished picture whatsoever before my session. I was simply told, “Create something big, dramatic, exciting.”
Meanwhile, across town, my colleague who was chosen for the World of Coke gig was being told “We need something understated…dignified.”
According the client, who has actually become one of my life role models and an all-around-amazing guy, he said my music was all wrong for my video and the other guy’s music wound up being a bit too understated. The ideal fix? Swap the two soundtracks. In the end, there wasn’t time to do that and, as Donald Rumsfeld would say, we “went to war with what we had.” It still makes for a good story.
In all fairness to my client, discussions with Coca Cola about any type of creative direction can often be a one-way conversation.
The track I produced was engineered by Pete Hauenstein at Precision Studio in Atlanta. Pete has now moved on become a corporate attorney in New York City. The female vocals at the end were performed by Marcella Richardson who I hired after hearing her sing Jann Arden’s “Insensitive” at a night club. The long note she holds at the end which becomes the tonal center for the next key change is a little music arrangement trick I picked up from Celine Dion’s remake of “All By Myself”.
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.
Often a client who needs original music will be primarily focused on the short-term needs of the project: Does this cue correctly fit the scene? How many revisions of the demo will there be? Will the composer finish on time?
Long-term considerations such as the saleability of the track in a royalty-free music library are not, and really should not be, a factor.
However, obtaining legal permission that allows the musician to enjoy future income from that track, however it turns out, SHOULD be kept in mind as that composer decides whether or not to accept the job.
When a track can be considered Work for Hire it becomes the client’s intellectual property. What legally makes a piece of music Work for Hire? According to the US Copyright Office website a piece of music becomes the property of you client when it is:
1) A work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment
or
2) A work specially ordered or commissioned for use as a contribution to a
collective work, as a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, as
a translation, as a supplementary work, as a compilation, as an instructional
text, as a test, as answer material for a test, or as an atlas, if the parties
expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall
be considered a work made for hire. For the purpose of the foregoing sentence,
a “supplementary work” is a work prepared for a publication as a secondary
adjunct to a work by another author for the purpose of introducing,
concluding, illustrating, explaining, revising, commenting upon, or assisting
in the use of the other work, such as forewords, afterwords, pictorial illustrations,
maps, charts, tables, editorial notes, musical arrangements, answer
material for tests, bibliographies, appendixes, and indexes; and an “instructional
text” is a literary, pictorial, or graphic work prepared for publication
and intended to be used in systematic instructional activities.
In the next installment of this series we’ll unpack how courts have interpreted these statutes over time, but I won’t keep you in suspense. Here’s the skinny:
Any track you write is a Work For Hire ONLY if 1) You’re an actual employee of the person or the company commissioning the work (i.e. getting a paycheck) or 2) Both parties have signed a document stating it is a work for hire.
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.
This spot recently took 1st prize in a contest to see what team could produce the best commercial for Dialogue Earth, a non-partisan think tank that focuses on environmental issues.
The spot was written and produced by Chris Bookman and Dylan Walker, also known as Snap Brothers, who are college-students based in Texas. “We’ve entered every single Tongal contest for the past year and taken 1st prize three times”, says Bookman. “All we do is enter contests.”
About Snap Brothers
Walker and Bookman originally got into making films because of their mutual interest in acting. “[But] out where we live, no one knows how to make videos. So we ended up doing all the editing and shooting.”
“The 1st time I ever wanted to be an actor? Honestly, it was in 5th grade when I would watch the girls in TV shows and think, how could I ever be with a girl this pretty?”
How They Created the Video
The Dialogue Earth video is based on a simple idea where images we’ve seen our entire lives (trees, bridges, parks, a child’s toy, a map of the earth) are blended together in a way we’ve never quite seen before.
What is perhaps more brilliant is the precise and careful precision with which Bookman and Walker executed the idea. If this spot appeared during a Final Four broadcast on a national network I honestly don’t think anyone sitting at home would realize the engine behind this spot was not a major brand nor a group of advertising pros.
Yes, the opening shot was reversed because that’s the only way you can affordably create a shot of a ball sitting in a pile of leaves start rolling on its own. Yes, Dylan rolled the ball while Chris operated camera. Bookman says the key to making the shots look smooth and broadcast quality was running them in slow motion.
It is this attention to detail that really makes the spot shine. And of course, their choice of music….
How They Chose the Music
For the Dialogue Earth video, Walker, a musician in his own right, picked out the track “Groovy Bath” track from www.musicrevolution.com before he even wrote the storyboard.
For every Tongal contest Music Revolution creates a playlist (or “Music Bin”) of a twenty tracks culled from the main library for that specific video campaign (the Music Bin created for that campaign can be found here).
Bookman says, “Music is honestly the hardest thing to find. When MusicRevolution started partnering with Tongal, we got super-excited.”
“Up until a year ago, all of our videos just used copyrighted music. But when we started doing contests, we started using loops on Apple or created our own stuff in Garage Band. Until now, we’ve never done much music purchasing.”
About the Music Track
Steve Steckler, based in Los Angeles, wrote “Groovy Bath” . Steve’s primary instruments include guitar, bass and keywords which he has used in combination with his super-fast music software chops to create soundtracks for National Geographic, MTV and the Discovery Channel.
“Groovy Bath” was among the first 200 tracks loaded onto MusicRevolution when the site launched in April 2010. Now the site boasts over 11,000 royalty-free production music tracks and Steckler’s tracks continue to be among the most licensed.
Other Work By Snap Brothers
Here’s another Snap Brothers production that nabbed 1st prize in a Tongal contest:
“For this video the music story is really interesting”, said Bookman. “Dylan plays guitar and does music. So when we were trying to think of what to do, he called me and said, ‘I’ve got an idea for this video. Check this out.’ He played me the song and I loved it. We recorded it ourselves in our dorm room.”
The Future
When asked what’s on the horizon for Chris and Dylan, Bookman says, “Long-term, we just want to work to make money to live, keep going to school and constantly make videos for contests.”
Listening to Bookman talk, I couldn’t help thinking of the Stephen Covey’s classic 7 Habits of Highly SuccessfulPeople. Remember habit #1 – Begin-with-The-End-In-Mind? I thought – here are two guys who began a journey to become a movie actors and somewhere along the way became screenwriters, storyboard creators, special effects artists, songwriters, cinematographers, film editors, and internet marketers. That sheer Do-What-It-Takes attitude has perhaps unexpectedly given both Chris Bookman and Dylan Walker the triple-threat combination of directing/acting/writing/producing skills that propel talented people into the Hollywood echelons occupied by John Favreau, Ed Burns, Mel Gibson and more.
The Snap Brothers should be proud of what they’ve accomplished and hopeful in the knowledge that while others may dream about being in the movies….they just got busy doing it.
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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.
Years ago I wrote jingles and commercial soundtracks on a weekly basis. Most of those tracks were created on a handshake which worked for everyone involved. The producer got exactly the music they needed at the time they needed it.
And I, the musician, acquired a small piece of property for which I could charge others (i.e. production music licensing fees) if they wanted to use it later.
But this opportunity wasn’t always a given.
Some organizations, usually very large ones, would have me sign a boilerplate vendor form which usually included the fatal words, “work for hire”. With these three words, suddenly the project becomes far less appealing financially because of the opportunity cost. I won’t be able to license that music after-the-fact.
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.
1 year ago this month my good friend Chris Cardell and I launched a dream that is this very website upon which you gaze, oh reader. www.musicrevolution.com was our chance to make the kind of website that was too innovative, too fancy and too forward-focused to be created quickly by the kind of big stock media company for which we both previously worked.
I speak for both of us when I express my heartfelt gratitude to the hundreds of extraordinary musicians that have contributed amazing stock music tracks borne of their blood,sweat and tears. Every week we earn new customers who say, “This library is amazing. I’m gonna use it a lot.” That is music to our ears and it’s a privilege to part of this journey.
To mark the anniversary of our 2010 launch, we have created this page of royalty-free music tracks that are absolutely free to use:
Most of these tracks were written and produced by me for clients such as IBM, Microsoft, the Georgia Department of Tourism and more.
You are free to use them in your broadcast, web, on hold, physical media or corporate video productions per our Standard License agreement. They are provided to you as a download in MP3 format (192 kbps).
In return for this free stock music license, we kindly request that you credit us somewhere on your website. For example “Thank you www.musicrevolution.com for providing music for our production”.
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.
Yesterday I was riding back from an out-of-town music performance with my bandmates and we were listening to Imogen Heap in the van. All of us were mesmerized. At one point, our singer said, “I feel like I’ve just been hugged by music.”
Musicians often ask me what style of music we need the most. Without hesitation, I always say, “Something joyful and upbeat.” That’s because, in my experience, too many musicians can become so fascinated with darker musical elements, their track becomes less and less useful to a customer trying to sell something.
If you want an example of modern, joyful music, check out these amazing sonic textures created by Imogen Heap:
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.
