How can you not love the pure chutzpah of this lounge lizard plugging Taco Bell’s four kinds of steak?
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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.
Performance royalties organizations (or “PROs”) serve an important role to the music world: They ensure that when a piece of music composed by one of their members is performed in public, that member gets paid. “Public” is defined in this case as a gathering of people beyond just family and friends.
It’s a tough job. You try convincing a sports bar owner in San Antonio that in order to legally continue having Karaoke night, he’ll have to start paying the equivalent of insurance for a second car. But that’s exactly what BMI, ASCAP, SOCAN and other PROs have been doing for decades in order for their members to receive compensation for writing great songs. Most educated people in the Western business world are well aware that music usage is not free, largely due to the PRO’s effectiveness at collecting royalties.
Given the tenor of the conversation with our sports bar owner, it’s understandably difficult for a PRO to demand not only annual fees, but also a detailed a log of what songs were played, when they were played, and for what duration. I would be happy just to leave the bar with all my teeth.
It’s easy to forgive an ASCAP representative for leaving that meeting without a list of songs that were performed and thus an idea of who to pay. But what if you are a member of said PRO who 1) Creates music that isn’t normally played in a sports bar, but rather a more narrow type of public performance 2) Are not a household name 3) Do not possess the clout or resources to navigate a huge bureaucracy?
That’s where the concept of a direct performance license enters the picture…more on that this week. Stay tuned.
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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.
Love is in the air!
A search on MusicRevolution for royalty-free “Valentine” tracks gave me 37 results. Here’s my favorite:
“More Than She’ll Ever Know” by Stuart Moore Music.
If you haven’t closed the deal by the time the trombone comes in at approximately 2:00 Stuart Moore himself will travel from Sacramento to give you a much needed hug.
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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.
In December, a US federal judge ruled that the direct performance license deals created between DMX, a large provider of background to thousands of businesses, and major music publishers such as Warner/Chapel and EMI Publishing, did not constitute a breach in contract with BMI, the performing rights society that represents many of the songwriters who’s music is performed in these venues.
Why? Because a publishers job, by definition, is to “exploit a musical composition” and share proceeds equally with the writer of said composition. DMX offered these publishers something that Performing Rights Organizations could not: Great service and accurate reporting.
I’ll talk more this week about what this means to the royalty-free production music world. Stay tuned.
Cheers!
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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.
Isn’t it funny how TV commercials have become the best way to find new bands?
Subura picked a terrific song to advertise their new Forester. The song is “Powerful Stuff’” by San Francisco-based singer-songwriter Sean Hayes. I think the best part of this spot is when the subtle drum groove kicks in at :21:
Here’s a live recording of Sean performing the full-length song:
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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.
Check out this Volkswagen Jetta spot that uses Pigeon John’s “Bomb” to underscore a digitally recreated Donald O’Connor and Gene Kelly dancing in the backseat. Good stuff:
And here’s the full-length track by Pigeon John. This is exactly the kind of high energy, one-dimensional (I mean that in a good way) tracks that music supervisors and ad agencies are looking for when searching for royalty-free production music or stock music.
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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.
Location: San Ramon, CA, United States Of America
Member since: November 28, 2010
Tracks in portfolio: 17 (click here to hear all tracks)
Tracks We Like:
1. High profile projects or clients you have worked for?
I’ve worked on hundreds, but a couple off hand I can think of are spots and infomercials for “The George Foreman Grill”. Same for Comcast internet spots and infomercials for the Littermaid, Swiffer, Wet Jet and Oxiclean (with now deceased Billy Mays)! Too many others to list here!
2. Primary instrument?
Piano/Keyboards
3. Favorite music-making piece of gear or software you currently use?
Stylus RMX/Digital Performer
4. Piece of gear or software you wish you owned?
Coming soon are String VI’s and the new Lexicon EFX ITB
5. Film score or song you admire? Why?
Too many too list!
6. Music education background?
BA music
7. Memorable “Aha!” moment during your musical education?
Learning how to improvise outside the key!
8. Most embarrassing music-related moment?
Making a mistake in a musical!oops
9. If you had a time machine and could record or perform once with any artist, who would it be?
Bach
10. Moment you first knew you would be a musician?
At 17 when I got my first club gig!
11. Advice you would give to a younger family member interested in a music career?
Have fun. Do it when you’re young and hang out with kids or school peers whose parents are in the biz! Your chances increase greatly!
12. Five songs or albums you’d take with you to a desert island?
A Bach record, Earth Wind & Fire record, Dark Side of The Moon, a Beatles record and maybe Sting’s greatest hits. No particular order!
13. If you could master another instrument, what would it be?
Guitar
14. Favorite time of day to work in your studio?
Mornings
15. Any studio collaboration you experienced that stands out in your mind? Why?
Well I work with a guitarist and the first time we played together we were playing off each other like we had been doing it are whole lives.
Big thanks to Dan for contributing tracks that 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.
Check out this Above the Influence TV commercial with an awesome urban soundtrack:
If you like that track, we welcome you to peruse over 800 royalty-free hip hop production music tracks here.
Enjoy!
Mike Bielenberg
When we launched MusicRevolution and received our 1st round of music submissions, a legal question quickly surfaced: Can song titles be copyrighted?
A great example is “Crazy”. Here’s a song title that means two totally different things to two different generations. Ask anyone born before 1965 to hum “Crazy” and they’re think you’re talking about the Patsy Cline hit written by Willie Nelson.
Ask anyone born after 1990 and they’ll assume you mean the pop anthem performed by Danger Mouse.
Here’s an excerpt from the US Copyright Office website that answers the question if song titles can be copyrighted:
“Copyright law does not protect names, titles, or short phrases or expressions. Even
if a name, title, or short phrase is novel or distinctive or lends itself to a play on
words, it cannot be protected by copyright. The Copyright Office cannot register
claims to exclusive rights in brief combinations of words such as:
• Names of products or services
• Names of businesses, organizations, or groups (including the names of
performing groups)
• Pseudonyms of individuals (including pen or stage names)
• Titles of works
• Catchwords, catchphrases, mottoes, slogans, or short advertising expressions
• Listings of ingredients, as in recipes, labels, or formulas. When a recipe or
formula is accompanied by an explanation or directions, the text directions
may be copyrightable, but the recipe or formula itself remains copyrightable.
So if song titles are NOT copyrightable, does that mean www.musicrevolution.com allows any and every submitted royalty-free music title through? Actually no. We normally decline tracks that contain profanity or incendiary phrases. That’s not censorship from a legal standpoint, but rather from a product standpoint. Our customer base contains educational institutions, students and government agencies. We’d like to know our site that can be used in mixed company.
Mike Bielenberg
Once you are several hours into the process of creating a royalty-free production music track, it’s often difficult to see the forest for the trees. What’s the quickest and easiest way to see the forest? Here’s a great tool:
Create an extra audio track within the starter template you use for most of your music. Keep that track muted, but also set the volume fader to a relatively hot level.
Now download this audio file and import it into your track.
https://www.musicrevolution.com/static/ftp/scratchvoiceover.wav
Here’s what it sounds like:
Hearing your track play underneath this full minute of a typical corporate voice over will not only serve as a great reference while mixing, but it will also serve as a great reference while actually composing the music. If the stock music you are creating is supporting what this nice woman is saying, rather than competing with it, you’re probably moving in the right direction.
Enjoy!
Mike Bielenberg