Okay, so you’re about to write a piece of music for some video. The first question you ask yourself is major or minor. What direction do you want to go in? And do you want the entire score to be major or minor or are you going to mix it up? Make no mistake about it, the key you choose to score in will have a major impact (pun intended) on how the video itself is perceived and accepted by the public.

Now, you could go by the age old standard of happy = major and sad = minor and that’ll work just fine for most things. But what if the video isn’t happy or sad?

Take this as an example. The video is a scene of the Romans getting ready to attack. They are in formation, thousands strong. Is this happy or sad? Well, if you’re on the receiving end of their attack, you’re going to be pretty sad once you get your butt kicked into next Tuesday. Of course if you’re the Romans, you’re going to be in celebration mode once the whole thing is over.

Or will you be?

Ah, therein lies the whole rub. At the moment in time during the video where you see the Romans lined up getting ready to attack, this is kind of like that darn cat that they’re always talking about. The outcome, at this point in time, can be either good or bad for the Romans. There is no way of knowing which it will be until you view the rest of the video.

But then that brings up another issue. Do we want the audience to know beforehand how things are going to turn out? If you start the scene in the minor the audience is going to expect the battle to end badly for the Romans. If you start it in a majestic major, they’re going to expect victory.

This is a sticky wicket. If you toss one at them and it turns out to be the opposite, they’re going to feel mislead and deceived. That’s not good for business. On the other hand, if you give them what they expect as a turnout, well, the mystery kind of goes out the window.

Wait a minute. That’s it! The mystery. The music doesn’t have to be major OR minor. It can be atonal. Heck, you can start the piece by playing a single note. Maybe play octaves afterwards. Keep them guessing. Don’t give them the payoff until you’re pretty sure they’re going to figure it out anyway.

Okay, I took a very extreme case where you want to put a little mystery into things. The master of mystery and suspense was Bernard Herrmann. Listen to stuff from Hitchcock or even Perry Mason. His stuff is legendary. You never knew exactly what was going to go down.

And that is great film scoring.

But let’s move away from the extreme cases and focus on the more common for now.

Determining an overall tone for a video should be fairly straight forward. What is going on in the scene? There are many emotions in life. A good video will convey those emotions even without the underscoring. It’s not hard to look at two people kissing and holding each other tightly to know what’s going on.

But what lead up to the kiss? Ah, that makes all the difference in the world. You’re going to score the actual kiss itself differently depending on how the two kissing got there.

For example, let’s say that the scene starts out with a man and a woman in the bedroom. The man is standing watching the woman slowly begin to unbutton her blouse. Can you imagine what’s playing in the background? A stereotypical way to handle this would be the sexy sax, maybe over some jazz like piano chords.

But what if the scene went something like this?

A man rushes into the hospital having seen his wife’s car on the road in a terrible accident. The car is totaled. It doesn’t look like anybody could have possibly survived it. The man is frantic and dashes to his car and drives to the nearest hospital. He rushes in and finds his wife talking to the doctor. She’s okay. She’s not hurt. His eyes light up as he sees her. She turns and sees him. They look and smile at each other and then run into each other’s arms.

If you’re hearing sexy sax music for the scene above then there is something seriously wrong with your wiring. This calls for a dramatic orchestral score with strings accenting the embrace and kiss that just lights up the whole screen.

“As Time Goes By” says that a kiss is just a kiss. But in the movies, a kiss is not just a kiss. The context of that kiss will make all the difference in the world as far as how the scene is going to be scored. A kiss goodbye could be scored in the minor, especially if it’s a husband and wife parting for the last time.

That’s why, many times, you’re going to have to watch the entire video to determine how you’re going to score each individual scene. The overall atmosphere of the video could very well back you into a corner as far as what you can and can’t do. If the film is a comedy, I don’t care how sad one part of it may be, you’re not going to be able to score it like you would for a serious film. Of course you throw all caution to the wind and go totally over the top and turn the comedy into an all out farce. Yeah, music can do that.

We could discuss this subject until hell freezes over and we’ll never be able to come up with answers for every possible situation. That’s the beautiful thing about music. It is so wide open that it is virtually unlimited as to what can be done. The key is knowing when to do what.

In some cases, that’s easier said than done.

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim

Lots of people who are going into the royalty free music people ask this question. What are the most important parts for running a successful royalty free music business? If I had to pick just three, these would be the three. If I were you, I’d seriously take this advice to heart. And no, it’s not going to be what you would think. In fact, what you think is the last thing that’s really important.
We’ll do this countdown from three to one like they do on the music survey shows. Makes it more fun that way.

3) Number 3 is building a reputation. Why is this important? Well, let me ask you a question. Your car breaks down and you need to get it repaired. Who do you bring it to? Some guy who just opened up a shop and looks like he just got out of high school, or the number 1 rated car repair place in your area? Yeah, I know, a lot of times the reality is that number 1 place is so jam packed with work and so rushed that they end up doing a shoddy job and you end up having to bring the car back. That actually happened to me with my Honda and the Honda “specialist” I was told to go to. What a nightmare that was until the darn thing was finally fixed right.

But the perception by the public is going to be that the person with the reputation, and not the new guy, is going to be the one to go to for the job. Now, I know what you’re thinking. How do I build that reputation when I don’t have it? Won’t people not come to me for their music needs because I am new? Yep, that’s why you have to begin by giving your work away. I know this is a tough pill to swallow but it has to be done at the start. Once you’ve done enough jobs for people and have shown how good you are, the real paying jobs will start to come. But like everybody else, you have to start at the bottom by giving music away.

2) Number 2 is Management. I have seen some of the most promising businesses fail because of mismanagement. Okay, but what exactly do I mean by management and how do you manage a royalty free music business? What is there to actually manage?

Probably the most important thing is your time. At the start, this won’t be as difficult though heaven knows it’s going to be rough enough when you’re in the process of building your site. Yes, you need to get music up on it so people can hear your samples, but you also have to spend time in getting your name out there. A site with tons of music but no promotion isn’t going to do a darn thing. It’ll just sit there like a bump on a log.

After the promotion is done and the site begins to be popular and you actually start getting some work done, then comes the really hard management part. You’re going to, if you’re lucky, be flooded with requests for music. Like any other service based business there are only so many hours in the day. You will have to learn early on that you’re going to have to pick and choose your jobs and turn some people away. Either that or you’re going to have to tell them that you’re booked until such and such a date and ask them if that’s okay. If they really want your services, they’ll be fine with it. If not, they’ll go somewhere else. You’re not going to be able to please everybody so don’t try.

Most of all, you will need to learn to manage your time between your business life and your personal life. You need a personal life. Everybody does. If you spend all your time into your business you will eventually burn out. This is the biggest mistake new business owners make. Then think they have to spend all their time on their business. They don’t. I don’t. Friday night and Saturday afternoon I go out to play cards with my friends and Sunday I go to church. And two Wednesdays a month (except July and August) I go out with my wife.

Do NOT give up the rest of your life for your business.

1) And finally, the number 1 most important thing when it comes to your royalty free music business is, you guessed it, the music. Okay, I was teasing. It is what you think. Yes, the music is first and last. Quality is going to be everything. We live in an extremely competitive world. If you’re not good, you won’t get work. It’s that simple.

So what can you do in order to get good?

Well, for starters, study your craft constantly. You can never know it all, especially not if you’re writing for multiple genres. There are going to be some genres of music that you aren’t as comfortable with. You will need to listen to a lot of that music if you’re going to write it. Why bother? What if a potential client contacts you and asks for a score in that style? What are you going to do, tell him “Sorry, I can’t write that stuff” and let him go somewhere else?

Study your craft as often as you can.

You will also need to practice, a lot. Even if you don’t have any requests for a custom score you should be creating mock scores on your own. Get a hold of public domain videos and write a score to each one of them. Make believe it’s a real client. Create a portfolio of these and put them up on your site. This is a great way of building your reputation.

Like I said, we live in a very competitive world. If you want somebody to choose you for their project, you have to give them a darn good reason why they should choose you over John Doe. If you can’t do that, you’re going to get very few jobs and your business is going to have a rough time of it.

There you have it, the three most important things for your royalty free music business.

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim

Don’t let the title make you scratch your head. This article is actually about something related to music. If you’re wondering exactly what the title means, this short explanation should do the trick.

Did you ever start off writing a piece of music and, for whatever reason, it began as a waltz and ended up as a heavy metal jam? If this has happened to you, you need serious help.

No, seriously, if this has happened to you, you’re not alone. Yes, you still need serious help but that’s the topic of another article. See the receptionist on the way out for an appointment.

Where was I?

Oh yes, that’s right. How did I end up in Oz? Well, I followed the yellow brick road except it didn’t exactly take me to where I wanted to go. Funny how that will happen when you’re trying to compose music.

So what exactly causes this? Well, the causes are different for each person so there isn’t a catch all cure all for this ailment.

One cause of ending up in Oz is boredom. How many times have you sat down at the keyboard, started playing some “cool” riff, said to yourself “wow, this is a cool riff” and after about 5 minutes (if it even takes that long) you end up saying to yourself one of the following things.

“I’m bored.”
“This is boring.”
“This sucks.”
“Why did I quit my job at the Walmart?”

In short, the piece just isn’t as cool as when you first started out writing it.

And then something odd happens. You play the same melody or chord structure, except you play it faster or you play it using a different instrument. Maybe you go from piano to electric guitar. Suddenly the piece has new life in it. It’s exciting and it stays exciting all the way through to completion.

What started out as a waltz ended up as a heavy metal jam.

That’s one way to end up in Oz.

Another way is actually by design. You purposely set out to write a piece that starts one way and ends another way. A perfect example of this is the original recording of Derek And The Domino’s “Layla” which goes from a hard rocking tune to a beautiful piano and lead guitar finish. If you turned on Layla in the middle, you wouldn’t know it was the same song if you had only heard the first 3 minutes.

Oddly, many stations late in Layla’s life span on the radio started fading the song out before the piano part. I don’t know whether that was more about time or that they didn’t think the ending fit in with their format.

Another song that was all over the place was Bohemian Rhapsody. Well, that’s why it was called Bohemian Rhapsody. It was in fact a rhapsody. If you look up the definition of rhapsody it says it says…

“a piece of music that is meant to express a lot of emotion and does not have a regular form.”

This from Webster’s online dictionary.

In other words, rhapsodies are usually all over the place. Queen did a great job with this one. It is still, to this day, one of my favorite Queen pieces. I’m sure a lot of people agree on that one.

So we also end up in Oz by design. The question is, how many detours do we want to take to get there? Rhapsody is one thing, but utter chaos is something entirely different. Some kind of order to keep the madness in check would be nice. Otherwise, the listener may have a hard time following just how you did manage to get to Oz. Bohemian Rhapsody, with all its complexities, is very easy to follow. That’s what good writing can do.

And if you’re writing royalty free music for a client, another way of getting to Oz is through orders. Sometimes the client decides that they want something else. The piece that you composed for the video isn’t cutting it for them. Maybe it’s not really cutting it for you either. Or maybe there is a change in specs for the video last minute and the original music just doesn’t fit anymore.

Hey, stuff happens.

So it’s very easy to start off with an orchestral piece for a video and wind up with a punk rock tune because of client wishes. You know what they say, the client is always right. Well, not always, but if you want to get paid, they better be right.

Most of the time, I don’t end up in Oz. I come up with an idea and I pretty much stick with it all the way through. Part of the reason for that is my stubbornness. I hate throwing away music. So I’ll find a use for something. For clients, it’s different. I have to come up with a finished product that they’re happy with. But for me, I’m easy to please.

And make no mistake about it. Unless it’s by design, ending up in Oz can be very frustrating. For one thing, it’s hours of lost work. Heck, sometimes it’s days of lost work.

But it’s a necessary evil. If we don’t adapt, if we’re not flexible, if we don’t know the meaning of the word “compromise” we’re going to have some very frustrating days. Sometimes you have to bite the bullet, realize that what you’re doing isn’t working, scrap it and move onto something else. Yeah, it sucks, but it’s part of music composition.

So the next time you’re composing something for a client, or if you are the client and feel that the music just isn’t right for your project, don’t keep quiet. I know you might not want to lose all those hours of work, but in the long run you’ll end up with a better product.

After all, isn’t that what we’re after when all is said and done, the best possible product for our client?

Besides, you just might meet a powerful wizard or cute girl once you’ve made it to Oz.

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim

Remember the old “Will It Blend” videos where the guy takes all these electronic objects and puts them in a blender to show off how sturdy their blender? Brilliant advertising. Just brilliant. Naturally, a blender doesn’t have to be that powerful but they made the point that needed to be made. If their blender could shred an iPad, it could shred just about anything.

Okay, so what does this have to do with creating and/or using royalty free music? Nothing and everything. If that sounds like a lot of double talk, it’s not. Hang in there and I’ll explain.

The “Will It Blend” videos made an over the top point to simply say our blenders will take care of your blending needs without any problems. So, the question becomes this. How can we show a client that your royalty free music will take care of their needs? And if we are the client, how do we know that the music we’ve purchased will do what it’s supposed to do, grab the viewer’s attention?

Well, continuing in the tradition of “Will It Blend” we need to go over the top to make a point. If it’s to first convince the client to even hire us for the job then we need to have samples of our work that really show off our chops. In other words, we have to find the biggest, splashiest and most bombastic pieces of music we’ve ever written and put them on display.

But how?

Again, looking at “Will It Blend” they take a simple concept, a blender blending something and turn it upside down on its head by putting things into it that just don’t belong. How can we do this with royalty free music production?

One way is to take a video that is obviously very serene and peaceful, like a girl picking flowers in a field, and put a 100 piece orchestra complete with pounding timpani and crashing cymbals into the mix. Think 1812 Overture and let it all hang out. The end result will be almost comical but it will get the point across that your music can do just about anything, including turning a serene, peaceful video into a rousing march.

Another way is to create a video where the mood changes often. Maybe you’ll start it off slowly and then suddenly the pace quickens. For example, at the start a woman is taking a slow walk through the part and then suddenly we see a crowd of people running through the park because a dinosaur is chasing after them. The music is going to change rather abruptly. And them before the viewer can get a chance to accept where the video has gone, it changes yet again to a scene where kids are going around on a merry-go-round with the music changing yet again.

If you really want to show off your scoring chops, get a hold of a public domain video from the silent film era and create your own score for it. The music in silent films really had to carry the film because there was simply little else. Oh sure, if you watched something like Charlie Chaplin or Harold Lloyd, there was a lot of action, but without the music, that action wouldn’t have had the same effect.

Now let’s turn to the client side of this equation. You’ve got a video. You need music for it. You really want the music to carry the video because most of it is action and there is very little, if any, dialogue. What do you do?

Well, in this case, what you DON’T want is music that is just filler. See, most royalty free music isn’t meant to take attention away from what’s going on in the video. It is there to add to it without being distracting. That’s why we normally stay away from music with catchy tunes. But in the case where the video needs the music to carry the action, we need to do the exact opposite. We need to come up with something over the top like the theme from Star Wars. Everybody knows it. Everybody can sing it. Something like that would make the audience watch the video no matter what the video itself was about, as long as the music fit the action. And make no mistake about it…there better be action if you’re going to go over the top like that.

Okay, so how do you know where to go with the music, either as the creator or the client looking for music? The answer is really quite simple. Watch the video without music. How does it make you feel? If the video does a good job on its own in getting the point across, then the music you will want to use should probably be more subdued. At the very least it shouldn’t be some catchy tune that viewers are going to walk away from the video singing. I mean imagine you’re making a video of a man giving a presentation on some new piece of software and while he’s speaking you’re blasting out the Star Wars theme or something like it. Do you think anybody will listen to the presentation? For one thing, the music itself will be too distracting. For another, they won’t even be able to hear the poor guy speaking. As the client or the producer, you need to know when to be in the background and when to come forward.

As the music producer, your client may not understand or know this. That’s why it’s YOUR job to explain why, for this particular video, the music needs to be more subdued or whatever. Again, how do you tell? Watch the video. Does it need something to get attention? If so, then the music has to do the job because if what’s there isn’t doing it, there’s nothing else. It’s all on YOUR shoulders.

Eventually, as you do this more and more, either as the client or the producer, you’ll get a feel for when you need to show the audience that your video will indeed blend.

Just make sure they’re wearing safety goggles while they’re watching.

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim

It’s very easy to get caught up in minutia, especially when you’re running a royalty free music business. Heck, any business can do that to you. But this one is especially meddlesome. The key to surviving all that minutia is to not getting yourself caught up in it. Easier said than done? Maybe, but it doesn’t have to be impossible.

One of the things that’s easy to get caught up in and the most common is clients overly concerned about usage rights. Unfortunately, we live in a society where everybody and their grandmother is looking to sue you just for looking at them cross-eyed. No, it’s not pretty out there.

What you need to understand is that as long as you have the proper licenses printed up and have your stuff copyrighted, you don’t have to worry about clients getting all bent out shape because they’re afraid that the music they’re getting isn’t protected. Assure them it is and move on. If they can’t accept the documentation and are still concerned, let them move on to another vendor. You’re not going to change someone’s mind once it’s made up.

Another area that’s easy to get all wrapped up in is technology. I call it the shiny object syndrome. You see a shiny object and you have to have it. Then time goes by, you get tired of the shiny object and you have to get yet another shiny object.

Typical scenario goes something like this.

You download a free DAW. Maybe something like Reaper. It’s not actually free but you can evaluate it forever and everything works. You just get a nag screen after 30 days. Anyway, you use whatever free DAW you downloaded and it works perfectly fine. It does everything you need it to do. But you get bored with it after a while so you go out and get another DAW. Maybe you buy Cubase.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with getting a new DAW per say, but if it’s just out of boredom, here’s the downside. You now have to learn how to use that new DAW. This means lost work time. How much lost work time depends on how big the learning curve is to learn your new DAW. Can you afford to take the time to learn something that may only marginally help you.

Of course getting sucked into shiny object syndrome is easy to do. I have to fight it every day of the week. Fortunately, I’m hard up enough for money these days that I’ve learned to limit my purchases to things that I really need to improve my business.

For example, just the other day, I purchased two guitar VSTs that even blow Revitar 2 away. They are amazingly flexible and cut down the amount of time I have to put into creating a track.

How?

Revitar 2, as good as it is, can only play major and minor chords in one instance of the VST. If you want to play like major 7ths or 9ths, you need to load up another instance of Revitar 2 for each type of chord you want to play.

With these VSTs that I just bought (Strum Electric and Strum Acoustic) you can play any kind of chord combination that you can think of in real time and the chords are intelligently strummed using real guitar voicing.

Sure, they cost $299 (if you buy the bundle) but they’re worth it. No more having to load multiple instances of a VST and playing separate parts just to get one complete guitar part.

That’s the kind of purchase that makes sense because it vastly improves your productivity.

Ironically, I was talking about how great Revitar was the other day in another article. And don’t get me wrong. It’s still great. You can do things with Revitar that you can’t do with Strum, like one note chords. With Strum, each chord has to be completely voiced out.

Sound wise, there’s not a ton of difference between the two though I have to admit that Strum sounds better.

But even I sometimes succumb to shiny object syndrome. All the VST synths that I have are living proof of that. Fortunately for me, most of them were free. But I’ve spent a pretty penny on a few things that maybe I didn’t really need.

Welcome to being human. It’s a great way to get lost.

Then of course there is the business in general. This is where people have the most trouble. Granted, there are a lot of things to concern yourself with when running a business. There’s the music, the admin stuff, the client relations, and so on. And each area has its share of things that you need to deal with. Problem is, sometimes you can stress over things that, in the long run, aren’t that important.

For example, let’s take the client stuff. This involves everything from taking initial requests to meeting deadlines to walking them using the music you’ve made for them. Not everybody is technically adept and some people need help.

Where vendors get all caught up is with the little nagging problems that can happen during any of those steps. The initial request isn’t clear and the vendor gets all bent out of shape trying to figure out what to do when all they need to do is contact the client and ask them to clarify a few things. Why don’t they do this? Believe it or not, because they don’t want to come off as looking stupid. They’re afraid that if they admit to the client that they don’t understand something the client will think that they’re not a professional at what they do. That’s just plain nonsense. Sometimes things aren’t clear and they need to be clarified. Don’t be afraid to ask your clients questions.

You need to step back, look at the big picture and do what needs to be done in order to assure that the big picture gets completed as efficiently and as expertly as possible. Otherwise, you’re just going to stress yourself out over a whole lot of nothing.

Don’t let the trees get in the way.

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim

This article is going to be just a tad bit different from the ones you’re used to reading here. I think you will find it interesting at least and possibly fascinating at best. You can let me know either way.

Have you ever watched an awards show? Last night I watched the Tony Awards and all these talented people. Some of them have won multiple awards and today are living legends. Carol King comes to mind as one of those people as there is a play out about her life. The girl that portrays her is just scary good. Sounds just like a young Carol King.

You could arguably say that some of these people have reached the top of the mountain and you have to wonder what it feels like for them to look down from there. For that matter do they even know that they’ve reached the top?

Or have they.

Angela Lansbury had some pretty good success in movies when she was younger. You could make a case that she had reached that mountain top back in those days. And then something funny happened.

At age 59 (I’m not even there yet) she started a little TV show called Murder She Wrote. That little TV show aired for 12 seasons. When it went off the air, she was over 70.

When I think about that, it boggles my mind. Arguably her biggest success came during a time when most people are thinking about retiring or have already retired.

You’re probably thinking, what does this have to do with creating royalty free music? It has everything to do with it and I’m going to explain why. It has more to do with it than just making money from it.

During your career as a royalty free music writer you’re going to have your ups and downs. You will have periods where you’re writing scores for people almost daily and then there will be those times when the work just isn’t coming in, for whatever reason. Could be a bad economy. Could be a score that you did that got around as being “pretty bad.” Bad news travels faster than good. That’s just the way the world is.

Point is, you’re going to have those ups and downs. So just when you might think you’ve actually reached that mountaintop, you may actually discover that you’re no where near it.

I had a very successful marketing business that had nothing to do with music for about 9 years until about 2011. The last 3 years things started going downhill and this year things collapsed altogether. That’s when I finally decided to do something with my 35 years of composing experience. But I never thought it would ever come to this. I thought I had reached the top of that mountain.

You never know what life is going to throw at you. Some people, sadly, have everything going for them and then they’re cut down by illness or some other tragedy. Look at what happened to Jim Croce and Harry Chapin to name just two. They died way too young and tragically.

So if you’re thinking of getting into this business but think maybe you’re too old or not good enough, you won’t know until you try because your best work may be ahead of you. I truly believe with all my years of writing that my best work is ahead of me.

And that brings me to the next part of the top of the mountain.

Education.

You would think after 35 years of music experience that I would probably know it all, or darn close to it. And maybe I do. But just recently I stumbled upon a course at Berklee that looked interesting. A lot of it, on the surface, appears to be material I’m pretty sure I know solidly. But then I thought to myself. Maybe there is still something I can learn. Certainly the course on music production in the modern age might teach me something. After all, I am an old dinosaur when it comes to this newfangled technology. Aside from that, the courses give me a chance to earn a Berklee certificate. That can never be a bad thing.

So yes, at age 56 I’m going to be going back to school to see if there is something else I can learn. My work will be judged and graded by my peers. That will give me a pretty good idea of where I stand. I’m confident I’ll do well, but not overconfident. Like I said, I may not be as close to that mountaintop as I think. My failed business taught me that.

And then of course there is that intangible mountaintop. How others see you. You know, success is a funny thing. People will react differently to it. Some will love you. Some will hate you. Some won’t give a hoot about you one way or another. Just when you think the whole world is in love with you, they may turn on you because of something you said or did. Look how many stars fell from grace because of things that they did that had nothing to do with their acting or singing or writing or whatever.

How you personally conduct yourself outside of your profession is critical to your success, believe it or not. That’s why I always try to treat people with the respect that I would want them to treat me with. Besides, it’s a lot easier to be nice to somebody than to try to tear them down. I think everybody should read “How To Win Friends And Influence People” by the master himself. Yeah, old Dale sure knew how to sweet talk people.

After you leave this page, I want you to think about where you are in your life. I want you to realize that no matter where that may be right now, it may not be where you think it is. Tomorrow could be better or worse. But that’s almost entirely up to you. Yes, a lot of things are out of our control. But the things that are within our control, like our education and the way we conduct ourselves, need to be nurtured and cared for.

Otherwise, that mountaintop may just turn into a cliff waiting for us to fall into a bottomless pit below.

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim

If you’ve been writing music for a while (for me it’s over 35 years) you kind of get to a point where the well starts to run a little dry. I mean how many songs can you possibly write before things start to sound the same as something else you’ve written? For that matter, after you’ve written thousands of songs like I have, how can you even remember what each song you’ve written sounds like? This becomes especially hard when you’re writing royalty free music which tends to be a little more generic than the common pop song simply because of the nature of what it is. So what do you do? Well, that’s what this article is going to focus on and hopefully it will give you some inspirational ideas.

But let’s first begin with why royalty free music is so generic to begin with. Why are these tunes more defined like a hit record? The reason is because of what the music is used for.

With a hit song, regardless of what genre it is, the purpose of the song is to be listened to solely. You want the listener’s attention to be ONLY on that song and nothing else. They need to love that song enough to go out and buy it. That’s why elevator Muzak is so throw away. Personally, I think that’s there to annoy people but that’s just me. Point is, pop music has to completely capture the listener’s attention.

Royalty free music is a different animal. You don’t want the viewer of the video, or whatever the main project is, to focus solely on the music. You want them to focus on the message. If the music is too “good”, like with a pop song, then the message gets lost. Nobody catches it. They’re too busy listening to the song. Conversely, if the music is really bad, it will detract from the video and might even cause viewers to leave. So it’s a very fine balancing act that you have to perform when writing royalty free music.

For this reason, the music has to be pleasant or even somewhat exciting, in the case of orchestral scores, but generic enough so that it doesn’t detract from the message but adds to it. Trust me, this is not an easy thing to do. But now let’s get to what exactly generic means?

Let’s take a generic R&B track. A typical track will have an identifiable R&B progression with some drums bass and probably a classic sounding R&B synth lead. The melody will be pleasant but not too catchy, as with a pop song. We don’t want the viewer walking away singing the theme song. There are exceptions to this and I’ll get to them later.

Anyway, when you’re writing like this, after a while, the tracks all start to kind of sound the same. You’re taking a formulaic approach to writing and the end results are going to sound just like formula.

So let me ask you a question. How many of these “formula” pieces can you write before, totally by accident, one of them sounds like something else you’ve done? I mean heck, even with commercial pop and rock writing you hear songs that sound very much alike. There’s a reason for that and I’ll get into that as well.

Well, the answer to the question above isn’t definitive because each composer is going to be different. Some will be able to write thousands of songs while others only hundreds before they run out of ideas.

Okay, let’s get to the exception to this problem of sounding too catchy. The one exception is when you’re writing an intro for a video, like a theme song similar to what you would hear on a TV show. In those cases, you absolutely want to write the catchiest thing you can think of simply because at that point in time in the video, there’s nothing else. The music has to carry the moment. That’s the exception and it’s a big one.

Now, why do some pop songs sound alike? Well, there are actually two reasons for this. The first one is just outright plagiarism. Somebody will hear a particular song and copy it, changing just enough of it to avoid being sued. Sometimes they’re successful and sometimes not so successful.

Another reason why songs will sound the same is because as composers, we don’t live in a vacuum. We are influenced by the music we hear. We can’t help it. And when you hear a lot of music, a lot of the motifs you hear end up becoming a part of your subconscious over time. You don’t realize that the riff you just wrote is actually a derivative of something you might have heard even 10 years ago.

I’m pretty good at recognizing when I’m writing a riff or something and it’s come from a pop or rock song I heard back in the 70s simply because music has been my life since the Beatles hit the scene. But even I sometimes let things slip through and I’ll write something and go “Damn, where have I heard that before?” And then I’ll track the song down, discover that while there is enough difference that I would never be sued for plagiarism, there is definitely some similarity.

So let’s finally get to the title of this article. How do you search for royalty free music ideas when the well has run dry, when you just can’t think of anything else to write that doesn’t already sound like something you’ve done?

Here are just a few things that you can do to get new ideas.

1) Listen to music you don’t normally listen to. For me, that would probably be something like Reggae or Rap. I am sure to hear something I’ve never heard before. Then I can try to incorporate some of the ideas into another genre. Imagine Rap meets Classical?

2) Talk a walk. Go outside and take a walk around the neighborhood. I bet you never noticed what color the neighbor’s car is. Have you ever counted how many trees are on your block? Absorbing your surroundings is great inspiration.

3) Randomly generate some notes. I’m dead serious. Get a random generator and set it to seed for integer 12. Run it a total of 3 times. You’ll get three numbers between 1 and 12. Each one will correspond to a note. 1 – C, 2 – C#, and so on. Take the 3 notes and make a motif out of them. Start with that as the main motif for your new song. I did a modification of this once and came out with a song called “God’s Magical Garden” that’s going to be performed for Children’s Day as I’m writing this at my local church. Random generation is a great way to get ideas.

4) Watch a movie with the sound off. Think of what music you would write for it. You’d be surprised what some images will do as far as generating ideas.

5) Read a book. Let the words of the book move you. Again, think of the book as a movie and imagine what score you would write for the movie.

These are just a few of the many things you can do to get new musical ideas.

Try one. You just might be surprised at the results.

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim

These are questions that get asked a lot.

“What’s the best DAW?”

“What’s the best orchestral VST?”

“What’s the best notation software?”

And the list goes on and on and on. Think about all the things involved in creating royalty free music, or any music for that matter, and the questions that can be asked are staggering.

Problem with those questions is, in most cases, there is no real answer. Oh yeah, everybody has got their opinions, but that’s all they really are…opinions. If there really was ONE best whatever, all the other products out there would go out of business. We’d all buy whatever and be done with it.

But that’s why there is competition so that one product doesn’t dominate the marketplace and become so expensive that nobody can afford it.

I mean can you imagine if there was only one piano manufacturer in the whole world what a concert grand would go for? I shudder to think of it.

So okay, best is subjective but we still have to qualify, as far as making music goes, why it’s subjective so that consumers can still make an informed decision when purchasing something.

For example, let’s take a strings VST sample library. We’ll put
Vienna Strings against East West Quantum Leap Hollywood Strings. Both are considered to be excellent. So what’s the difference?

Well, let’s start with price. East West Hollywood Strings Diamond, which is their top of the line product is about $800. The Vienna Orchestral Strings Full is about $600. So the difference in price is not such a big deal unless you’re just plain broke.

But what about sound? Well, that’s where things get really subjective. Some people swear by EWQL while others say Vienna is the industry standard. Me? I don’t hear that much of a difference. And at just $200 difference in cost, I shouldn’t. I mean let’s face it, no VST is going to sound exactly like a real orchestra. I don’t care how good it is.

Beyond price and sound there is something else that has to be considered when purchasing either of these libraries.

Compatibility.

OH my goodness. The headaches that you can run into after purchasing something because it’s not compatible with 64 bit Windows 7 or hasn’t been tested fully on Windows 8 yet. Maybe there are quirks between it and the particular DAW that you’re using. Not every VST made is tested on every DAW. They can test on a few and even at that, not extensively.

And then what happens when a DAW has an update? Things that used to work can suddenly stop working.

For example, my EWQL Pianos collection has a problem with one note on the Bechstein Piano. It doesn’t sustain properly. I think it’s G4. That’s right, one note. Makes the piano unusable though if you’re playing piano solos. That one note really stands out and sounds bad.

That’s just one example of the strange things that can happen between VSTs and DAWs. So a product that’s great for John Doe may be totally unusable for John Smith because of bugs like that.

Then of course there is the matter of overkill and budget. A particular product may be considered to have the best sound. But what if, for your purposes, you really don’t need it.

Let’s take this as an example. You’re looking for a piano sound. The EWQL Pianos are excellent, especially if you’re doing classical music. But what if you’re doing nothing but pop tunes where the piano is kind of buried in the mix? Do you really need to spend $300 on a collection of pianos? Probably not. A $100 piano pack or even something that comes with your DAW could be good enough for a pop tune.

A lot of people think they have to in fact have the “best” of something when it comes to music and then you take a look at what they’re actually writing and recording and it turns out that most of this stuff is so buried in the mix or so heavily processed that you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a $300 VST and a $30 VST. It’s crazy what people will spend when they don’t need to.

I needed a really great pedal steel guitar because I was going to use it as a lead in traditional country songs. It was going to stand out right in front of the mix so had to sound authentic and good. Now way I could get by with something “okay.” So I sprung for the Wavelore Pedal Steel and have never regretted it. Listen to some of my country tunes and you’ll see what I mean. That thing sounds as authentic as you’re going to get out of a VST.

Conversely, I don’t have to spend $8,000 on an old modular synthesizer to get that classic modular sound. The VSTs that are out there are perfectly acceptable imitations. My Sonigen Modular is absolutely amazing, in my opinion. I doubt many people could tell the difference between it and the real thing that I’d need two moving men to bring into my home. And no tuning problems.

And let’s face it, sometimes you have to make compromises. We’re not all made out of money where we can just go out and buy the “best” thing available. Sometimes we have to settle. That’s why not everybody drives a Lexus. Some people drive a Honda or even a, shudder the thought, a Ford.

In my music business, I have my Lexus and I have my Ford’s too. Some of those really cheap synths (read free) sound pretty good and are appropriate for certain kinds of music. My Revitar, which is the best strumming guitar VST I’ve ever heard, was a free download.

So when you set out to ask what the best is, remember that best is often subjective and in a lot of cases, won’t work well for your particular needs because of a number of reasons, not the least of which is software conflicts.

Best for me is what’s best for me.

And sometimes it comes as a total surprise.

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim

Let me start off by asking you a question. Have you ever been in a relationship? Of course you have. Well, at least I hope you have. So tell me, when you first asked this person out or approached them for a date, or however it happened, how did you go about doing it? Didn’t you sit there for a moment thinking of just the right thing to say? I know I did. After all, first impressions are very important. So you want to put your best foot forward. Well, running a royalty free music business is kind of the same thing. Let me explain.

If you go through my site, you will notice that certain genres of music have more tracks available than other genres. Know why? While I can write just about anything, I feel more comfortable with some genres of music over others. I mean it’s natural to have preferences. The key to being successful in anything is recognizing your strengths, emphasizing them, and downplaying your weaknesses, if you can’t outright avoid them. Sometimes that’s just not possible.

Take the example of accepting custom jobs. If somebody comes to me and says they need a classical music score for a video, I’m all over it like a cheap suit. I know that classical and orchestral music are my strengths. Probably comes from growing up with a mother who was a pianist and opera singer. Yeah, growing up I listened to a lot of Chopin and Bizet.

Then how did I get to a point where I’m cranking out rock tracks like nobody’s business? Well, as I grew up, I started branching out and discovering other forms of music. I followed the Beatles ever since they were on the Ed Sullivan show. I was heavily into prog rock in the mid 70s, following groups like Renaissance, Yes, Genesis, Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Kansas. So writing rock or prog rock started to come easy to me.

But like with anything else in life, you can’t possibly learn and be good at everything. Trust me, I’ve tried. And as a result, there are some kinds of music that, while I can technically write it, I don’t feel as comfortable with as others.

So what happens if somebody comes to me and says they need a Reggae track for their video? If you check my site you will find exactly zero Reggae tracks on it. I have absolutely no feel for the genre. So in that case, I would have to turn down the job. For one thing, I take pride in my work and would never do a shoddy job for anybody. Aside from that, the amount of time it would take to become competent with the genre just wouldn’t make taking the job worth it. I would need a good three to six months just to turn out a quality Reggae score and that would be doing nothing but listening to Reggae music morning, noon and night.

No thanks. There are easier ways to make a living.

And this applies to just about anything in this business. Aside from not taking certain jobs because you don’t feel comfortable with certain genres of music, there’s also the way you go about creating your music in the first place.

For example, some composers can’t really write a note of music. They wouldn’t know a C from a C sharp if it bit them on the nose. But they can play by ear and can play their instrument like a pro. For those people, they’ll probably grab a hold of a keyboard and play everything real time. Others have absolutely no playing ability but can compose like Mozart. For them, Finale or some other music notation program will do nicely.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

What about WHEN you do your work. Are you a night owl or are you best first thing in the morning?

I’m kind of a strange duck. I’m up between five and six AM every single day. I start working as soon as my backside hits the seat in front of the computer. I can go on like that all day until ten, eleven o’clock at night or later if I have to. I need very little sleep. Been like this since I was a a young adult when I used to tell people that sleeping was a waste of time. Point is, you need to figure out when you do your best work. You’ll be more productive that way.

What about administrative stuff? Unfortunately, writing music isn’t the only thing you’re going to do if you’re running a royalty free music business. There’s a lot of administrative stuff like updating your web site, placing ads, doing the social media thing and even paying the bills on time. I won’t even get into the learning curve with all the technology. Are you good at all this or would you be better off hiring an administrative assistant? Fortunately, I ran a business before I got into the music business, so all the admin stuff comes second nature to me now. But it didn’t always.

Like it or not, you’re going to run into certain aspects of running your business that you’re just no good at. I know very few people who can do it all. Me? I’m bad at generating traffic. Don’t know why. I just wasn’t ever very good at it. I should probably hire a traffic manager but right now I can’t afford one. So I’ll have to make do with what I have.

What about you? Have you ever sat down to take stock of yourself to determine what you’re good at and what you really need to stay away from? Even if you do everything yourself (I had this site designed for me because I suck at web design) it’s a good idea to at least know where you’re weak so you can put it on the back burner as something that might have to be redone someday.

Play to your strengths. It’ll make your weaknesses not seem so terrible.

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim

I thought it would be a nice article to go over some of the tools I use for creating music and videos. You might find some of these useful yourself. I’ll cover the ups and downs of all of it because if I’m honest, nothing is 100% perfect. But you come to accept that if you have a job to do and something is available to do it even if it has some problems.

Let me start with my main workhorse products as far as getting this stuff in the can.

Probably the first thing I open up in the morning after I get the PC up and running is Cubase 7. Cubase 7 is a digital audio workstation or DAW for short. Essentially what it is, is a software based music production studio. Instead of a crap ton of hard wired synths and effects devices laying around the studio (oh how I hated those days) everything essentially comes in a box. Cubase 7 comes with pretty much every music making sound module (VST) that you’ll need unless you have some very demanding projects sound wise, like really authentic sounding orchestral arrangements of top of the line synth sounds for dub step like tracks. Cubase 7, however, has the capability of importing other sound modules into the DAW, just like you could bring another guitar or keyboard into your recording studio. Just without the heavy lifting.

Cubase 7 can play the sounds, record them and create audio files for distribution. It has great mixing capabilities and can pretty much do anything I can think of doing.

Don’t get me wrong. Cubase 7 isn’t problem free. There are sometimes incompatibility issues with other VSTs that didn’t come with Cubase. Some keyboards, like my Axiom Air 49, tend to act a bit flaky with it at times and just lock the whole thing up. Sometimes things don’t record properly and you have to do some fancy manipulating to get the sound just right. But for the most part, Cubase 7 is a life saver. I couldn’t do what I do without it.

Another product I plan on doing a lot with, as far as production, is Easy Sketch Pro. In short, this is a sketch drawing piece of software. It literally draws images on the screen. It is very cool looking and a great marketing tool. It’s very easy to use. I made my first video without even reading the instructions. Heck, a 12 year old could do this.

Now, this doesn’t come without a cost. No, I’m not talking about the price. It’s actually dirt cheap at $27 (an additional $47 for a commercial license). What I’m talking about is that it’s kind of limited in functionality. If you’ve ever used something like Camtasia, you know how powerful that software is. Well, Easy Sketch Pro isn’t even close as far as functionality. Of course it’s also a fraction of the price. What it does however, I’ve yet to see anything else do in this price range. So if you need a good screen draw software that can import images and music, you might want to check it out. At the price, it’s hard to go wrong.

Inside of all this stuff (mostly the DAW) I have my workhorse synths or VSTs.

When you’re doing a lot of music scoring for clients’ videos, you’re going to find that you will do a lot of orchestral scores. Let me tell you something. The stock orchestral instruments that come with something like Cubase or any DAW are terrible. That’s all I can say. They’re fine for synth based orchestral stuff but if you want the real sounding thing, forget it.

There are a lot of solutions out there and good ones. Personally, I went with the East West Quantum Leap line of VSTs because to my ears, they sounded the best without breaking my bank account. The typical EWQL VST goes for about $300 but they often run sales and you can get a ton of them dirt cheap if you buy in bulk like with their Complete Composers Collection. The price per VST when getting a collection comes out to like $100 a pop. That is dirt cheap considering the sound.

And yes, I love all their stuff. I have just about everything that they’ve come out with minus a couple of things that I really don’t have a use for, yet.

I guess the only bad thing I can say about the EWQL stuff is that there are a few bugs in some of the modules, but very few. I think I have found a total of maybe 3 in all of them. Other than that, These VSTs are my bread and butter. And they have everything covered from rock to pop to orchestral to world music. You should hear their RA, Silk and Voices Of Passion collection.

For my electronic and dance stuff, I turn to my workhorse synths. These are, in no particular order…

Synthmaster 2
Zebra 2
Massive
Battery 4 (for electronic drums)

There are others that I use that are very, very good like ABSynth, FM8, Sonigen Modular, and even some of Cubase’s synths. But the above 4 are in almost every electronic or dance tune I do.

And I honestly can’t find a bug or problem with any of them. Maybe I’m just lucky.

For guitar based music where I need a rhythm guitar, I would be totally lost without my Revitar 2. I can’t say enough good things about it. My only complaint is that I can’t find any kind of users manual and some of the functionality I literally had to stumble upon as it’s a very complex instrument. And every once in a while it does get a little buggy. But those times are few and far between. Almost all the strumming guitar you hear on my tracks is made with Revitar 2.

If I don’t want to create the music real time and instead want to enter it through a notation program, for that I use Finale 2012. I don’t really love the instruments that comes with Finale, but it’s not made for sounding great. It’s made for creating great music notation and that it does in spades. It has a huge learning curve and tends to get a little buggy sometimes with huge scores, but for the most part, it’s solid. I love it. I’ve created a whole symphony in Finale. That was some project.

And that’s pretty much it software wise. Not much hardware outside of the PC and my studio monitors. I do have a Steinberg UR28M external sound card that is really great. I’d be lost without that too.

Surprisingly, for the most part, all of this stuff is solid. Technology and software have come a long way.

What more can I say?

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim