So an email intro, introducing yourself, in a, in a professional and, you know, concise, you know, all these, all these tips here.
these are the ways to actually get noticed. we get, you know, hundreds of these per week, frankly, like these email intros, the cold either through email or LinkedIn or through, you know, whatever way people are trying to sneak into Instagram or whatever. but basically like I would recommend email. we’re all using email for our jobs.
Some people are not using LinkedIn really, or, or social media for work. So, email is still probably the most reliable. And, I would advise in your intros, this is where a lot of people go wrong. there’s no one way to do it, but basically like, here are some good rules of thumb being concise. If, if you have written me a novel, I am frankly just gonna move on. Like, I just don’t have time. I can, if I can tell within a few seconds that this is like an artist introducing themself to me, and I can glean that from just sort of scanning the email, but it’s like six paragraphs long, I’m not gonna read it.
So, you know, moving on, I, I would just recommend being concise that, you know, whatever that means to you, but I, I kind of would recommend like a three to five sentence description of, you know, saying who you are, where you’re from, where you’re based, what you’re, any notable accolades, things to sort of just like put your best foot forward without being obnoxious, without being, overly modest, without being, you know, like just kind of presenting the facts as they stand, and a little background and the type of music.
So that, that brings me down to this, this acronym I don’t think I’ve explained yet. If you don’t know, RIYL means recommended, if you like, so artists in that, you know, subject line in the, or the body of the email just to, again, make it more searchable when we do wanna find something that sounds like you, or just openable, you know, like when I see that right away, I’m like, oh, I like James Blake, I’m gonna click this email and I’m gonna listen to the music.
so that can be a really good way to do it. making it personalized. I, I cannot tell you how many emails I’ve gotten that just say, dear music supervisor or hello, or, you know, it’s just clearly copy and pasted.
and frankly like I’m more likely to open and respond to an email that was, personalized and doesn’t feel like a, you know, I was one of hundreds of people that they’re emailing that day. So, just being conscious of that, even including some other personal detail that, you know, I watched this show that you worked on, blah, blah, blah. well researched.
So kind of on that note, I would say, you know, understanding what this music supervisor is currently working on, or what they’ve worked on in the past, and sort of what kinds of music it has been placed in those projects. And then, you know, if you feel like you’re a good fit for those projects, say it’s a TV show that has another season coming and you can look at what was used in the last season, then, you know, doing your research is not only a, a good way to use your time effectively, but also to, to basically to, show the music supervisor that you’re serious about what you’re doing and that you actually might be a good fit.
I know it’s a moving target, it’s kind of hard to know what we’re working on all the time, but there are ways to figure that out. I’ll talk a little bit about that in a second. again, streaming and downloadable link to a manageable number of songs, like three to five, I would say.
basically maybe after this initial intro, like you might, a music supervisor might ask you for more, more of a taste, and then you can send some more, but like, just don’t lead with a a 20 song playlist. It’s not gonna, it’s not gonna do you any good. and then again, like some of the stuff we’ve talked about with clearance, like, I would just sort of make sure that if you are a one stop with these songs you’re presenting, like say so, because it just is another good thing to note.
maybe in the subject line, maybe also in the body of the email, there’s a lot of different schools of thought about following up on emails. let’s say you haven’t heard back, there’s sort of this polite persistence, you know, where you can just be, you can follow up. typically I would just, I would recommend not following up if you’ve never heard back because, or if you do not saying like, Hey, did you get a chance to listen to my music?
Which kind of feels a little bit accusatory or, you know, like, why haven’t you done this? And especially not doing that within a month of having sent it initially, just this is again, sort of understanding the breadth of what we do and like what music supervisors are actually spending their time on and, and, acknowledging that we’re not just waiting around for you to send us your music, but, following up can be helpful.
Like obviously sometimes we’re not gonna get to an email, but then when you follow up, it just so happens it’s the right time. So I’m not saying never do it, but if you already have a dialogue going, that’s when it’s more appropriate. If you know that the music supervisor is interested theoretically, but you haven’t heard from them for a few months, that’s a good time to, to follow up. okay, so, this is, just a couple of basic ways to determine what a music supervisor is working on and how to contact them.
this on the left is a website called tune find.com. That is probably the best resource out there to look at. what has been placed in TV and film, specifically. So on the left side, I, have the strokes.
this is actually like not the most, easily viewed, screenshot, I apologize. Basically I, what I did here is I searched the strokes on tune find.com and then I clicked their credits and this is just three of, probably it was 25 different placements, that they’ve had. And, you know, it tells you which song of theirs it was, what project, what show. so say you think your music sounds like The Strokes, then it would probably be worth looking at what shows that they’ve been in.
and so say, you know, maiden Chelsea is, you look into it and you’re like, oh, they, they’ve used a lot of music, kind of like the Strokes, and that’s where, you know, my music could fit in. so I’m gonna find that music supervisor. Then you go to IMDB, you don’t need Pro to look who music supervised it. you just go to the page for Maiden Chelsea, and you go to, you know, the music department.
You could even control f Music supervisor, find who that is. you might be able to find a contact for them elsewhere online, LinkedIn or however, but if not, IMDB Pro might have their email. so, you know, you’re not always gonna find an email address, but figuring out other ways to contact can be worthwhile. but yeah, IMDB also has something similar to Tune Find as far as like a database of what songs have been in those shows, but I would, I would recommend Tune Find.
