Insights from the 2014 Production Music Conference

On Friday September 12th I attended the first ever Production Music Conference in Culver City, hosted by the Production Music Association. The event included keynotes and panels by composers, publishers, library reps and network executives. Here are a few interesting ideas or thoughts I picked up from the event.[list list_style="darkGrayDot"]

• There was some disagreement about now specific your music should be. One person said that the best way to compete was to do something very specialized, that you do well and no one else does. However another person said they hated receiving submissions that were "too specific" because that meant the uses were limited. What to make of that I'm not sure.
• It seems like the best money for placements is in trailers. Reality TV tends to be back-end only (ie. no license fee for the music but you will see it in your performance royalties) but trailer music still pays very well up front. One person mentioned that a major studio film trailer could pay anywhere from $80k - $300k for the music. You're expected to record a live studio orchestra for that kind of money, but you will still have a decent payday after all expenses are handled!
• A music library's role is to provide the music that the show's composer can't do. The composer can handle underscore, but producers come to the library when they're looking for hip-hop, rock, etc. that is outside of the underscore realm. This seems to conflict a little with my experience in reality TV, which is a lot of underscore, so perhaps this panelist was referring more to network and promotional music. It is worth keeping in mind though that there is much more use for contemporary styles and songs in a library that does that sort of thing.
• You should submit music to libraries that already have works in that style. This seemed counterintuitive to me, because I would have thought if a library already has a lot of jazz they don't need any more. What one owner explained to me, though, was that if you see a library has released several albums of a certain type it means it must really be working for them. If they have released two "Big Beats" albums, there is a pretty good chance they are going to want to produce a third.
• The last tidbit comes from composer and Police drummer Stewart Copeland, which echoes a lot of what I say and write about here. Someone asked him for advice on getting through creative blocks and coming up with new ideas. His answer was that you just show up and work. Doesn't matter if it's bad, you just write from the beginning to the end. Then you move on to the next cue. By the time you've made it through all of your cues you'll have come up with some interesting ideas, and then you can go back to the beginning and work those back in. But never just sit there stuck and "blocked". Just write through it. If you're interested in reading more about this type of process I highly recommend "Bird by Bird" by Anne Lamott and "On Writing" by Stephen King.

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