So this is all about writing production in library music. So we’ll talk about what that is soon for those of you that don’t know. But the main idea of this talk is to  essentially  get your songs making some money from sync placements. and  ultimately the end goal of that is to make music your full-time job  so you can wake up in the morning and write songs for a living, which is what we all wanna do. And, I wanna talk about that today.
That is there’s a kind of common misconception about  how library music’s supposed to function. Sometimes it’s a misconception, it’s just background music, but it can take a much stronger role, example. And the good thing about library tracks is they can have multiple placements over loads of different shows.
They’re not just used once and then  that’s it. So they have a, a long lifespan. But we’ll talk a little bit more about what, what I’m about library in itself. Some of the other placements I’ve got, I have my, time doing this. all these shows I’ve had music featured on. so if you wanna get into this game, you also can have tracks on your favorite TV shows. it’s, it’s not as hard, it’s not as exclusive and it is not as kind of mysterious as people kind of sometimes make it out to be.
and also you are not dealing with that luck element that you often deal with in kind of  sync placement land of just having the right song at the right time for the right film for the right music supervisor. These songs are designed to be used on tv.  So, let’s  talk a little bit about what it is.  So essentially library and production music  is  music that’s written exclusively for use on tv, film, and media.
that’s all it’s used for. And what’s great about it is it’s easy to clear. It’s a one stop shop clearance. So, a lot of times  what will happen on a TV show is there’ll be a budget for music. that won’t be an endless budget.  And so, you know, the  people can’t just go out and get a Depeche Mode track and a pink track and a Dua Lipa track and a U2 track because if you start clearing stuff like that,  the cost mounts up, it gets very, very expensive.
So what a lot of people tend to do is approach music libraries for pre-written music that is, easy to clear and less expensive to clear. And that is the role of production and library.
Could you guys hear that? No, that’s really weird.  I wonder why that is.  Hmm,  interesting. Anyway, it’s not essential. Anyway, the, basically were the theme team from Mastermind  and Grandstand. So really big famous BBC TV themes. like yeah, your, your  from the Golden era of like the sixties stuff really.
That’s when it first started. so  my story and how I came to do it, and I thought I’ll give you a bit of a kind of history in terms of how  I came into kinda writing library stuff.  So, and  this is kind of why I thought this talk would be quite prudent to do is because I know a lot of people who are, I’ve spoken to the songwriter academy, have full-time jobs and it’s kind of the aim is to kind of get into, writing music full time.
So here’s my studio. Back in the day when I was, I first started doing this, you can see got those horrible, like acoustic panels on the wall. It was in my bedroom, which was problematic for all sorts of reasons, mostly mentally, because I don’t think working in the space you sleep’s a great idea. But what was going on was, I from a a i I went to music college when I was about 18. I joined lots of bands.
I had this big idea to be in, in bands touring across the UK and all this stuff.  And for whatever reason it didn’t work out very well. I got signed by to a label  dropped before we released our first record. And then I found myself working in an office job, nine to five doing like sales, which is my worst nightmare. so I’m not a very good salesman. So, I was doing that for probably like six or seven years and really like starting to kinda question whether I could do music again. and  what happened was I met a, a friend of mine and we decided to start this kind of writing company up  and we  accidentally started kind of writing a bit of library music, fell into it,  and, after kind of four or five years start to see quite a significant return  on the library stuff.
And it allowed us to get outta the bedroom  and, get our proper studio. So this is where we work now, this is our studio in Central Brighton.
It’s not a big posh studio by any means, but it’s like a nice place to work. and I’m working in there five days a week writing, and  self-employed. So pretty flexible, enjoyable, fun stuff. Writing music for TV and film  and that is really the journey. So I just want to kind of say that because sometimes I think that, you know, people who are working in nine to five with trying to do the music thing, it can be a bit disheartening, but that job was really essential ’cause it allowed me to buy a lot of the gear you see here was stuff I bought while I was doing that job.
So, you know, having that kind of income and that financial stability whilst you are working on this stuff is a really good idea. Â And it means you don’t have to make that really horrible jump from like, working full-time to just doing music full-time and not earning any money. ’cause it does take a while this as we’ll go into. Â So, yeah, that’s the journey.
And now, yeah, as I said, it’s a full-time living so you can get there.  So how does it work?  So there are a few, ways it can work, but I thought I’d give you a bit of an insight into the, the, the process essentially. So how do,  when you’re working in library music,  how will a the, the process go of  how you get the work, writing the songs and then where it ends up?  I have a few audio examples in this.
So  what I’ll do is I’ll, I’ll try and see if it, there’s another way of playing that audio, separately. But, essentially how these jobs all start is with the brief, which is the really important aspect of this stuff.  Every library in production music album comes about as a result of someone who works the library discovers a need for a particular style or genre of music,  they will contact either a composer or composers  to contribute towards the album.
There’ll usually be a 10 track album of, of, of something, and it’ll be in a specific style.  So I,  I’ve actually got a brief here. I’ve removed some of the names of people that will work on it just to kind of keep it completely anonymous. But this was for a brief called eighties chart pop we did a couple of years ago. And this is the real, this is the actual brief. This is what you get in the email box  and this is what it looks like.  So this was a brief called eighties chart pop.
So you’ll see like  all library albums have a clear concept,  right? And, we’ll, we’ll have a quick look at the album description. So this album is all about capturing the energy and spirit of well-known eighties chart pop hits. Following on from our highly successful eighties movie pop album we’re opening up to now chart topping hitch in the eighties, concentrating on the most memorable, optimistic fist pumping pop tracks from the decade.
Musically we’re looking for tracks from any of the following genres. Happy pop, synth pop and pop rock.  So from the reference playlist, you’ll find tracks with dancey upbeat tempos as well as stadium rock anthem’s, memorable riffs, positive feel, good lyrics  clap, double clap beats, all of which have an overall tone of fun, positivity, and confidence.  Whilst we don’t want any exact sound alikes, we’re looking for tracks that are reminiscent without being a paste or too close to any of the tracks.
So with all this stuff, it’s really important to try and capture the spirit of  the genre you’re going for without  copying. That is obviously the big no-no, arrangements should follow the formulas of a pop song. Production wise tracks should sound authentically eighties, but with solid production levels, tracks should be no more than three and a half minutes. And lyrics should be sync friendly.  And there is a, a playlist here, which I’ll show you shortly.  Lyrics, positive, impassioned, fun, a feel good, whether they want male, female or group vocals.
Positive, energetic, motivating attitude, not swagger. 1980 sounds with modern production, Â there’s an advance available for the tracks and vocal session fees. Â So what you’ll often get is an advance. So you might get 300 quid per track, and that’s recoupable off the money it makes at the end game. So that might just be deducted from the first royalty payment if it gets used. And it’s great ’cause you get vocal session fee.
So you can hire a singer in for, you know, 150, 200 quid session to lay down the vocal and that will be paid for. Â And it obviously gives you demo dates and all that stuff so you can see the timeline there. It’s actually quite interesting this, because this is another thing I love about writing library is it is not super stressy. Like we need, we need this now type stuff. There’s some time to think about writing, there’s some time to think about all, like what, what you’re gonna tackle. So first demos by end of May, final delivery by end of July release in August, Â which is great.
I’ve done too many jobs in music where it’s all about like getting it done in 48 hours.  And that can be fun sometimes, but by and large  writing this way  feels much better. And remember, there’ll be like, for us down this, this where we are now, there’ll be like multiple albums we’re working on at once. So there’ll, there’ll be deadlines kinda every week or every couple of weeks,  but it’s nice to know you’ve got the time on each of those projects.
