Hi folks. This is going to be a bit of a different post but as I am 'officially' starting my library/production music career, I thought I would write this to explain how I see the job and how I am going to hopefully succeed.

What is Library/Production music?

This is the big question, what is library music? Well, in the UK, it is generally referred to as library music but in America, it is usually called Production music. Either way, both the same thing. Let's just call it library music. Library music is the music that you hear on film and TV trailers, adverts/commercials and a lot of similar forms of media.

Companies that produce advertisements usually pay a library music publisher/licencing company a lot of money, to have access to their library (see?) of music made for placements. Now placements are the spots where the music gets placed.

Placements can be anything, from that Coca-Cola Christmas advert we see every year, to the overly repetitive adverts for sofas we see on TV in the evenings. More contemporary example? For all you viewers of Twitch.tv, remember that ad for American Gods? "WAR", repeated every time you opened a stream? Well, that ad had some music placed on it and it was probably licenced from one of the many publishers

Most importantly, for my situation or rather, my aspirations, is trailer music. Every major blockbuster movie has at least one or two trailers produced for it, to hype up the movie and get the excitement generating. It's a marketing tool as old as the film industry itself. Or at least as old as movies with music not performed live. Anyway, I digress.

There are dozens of variations on the film trailer, usually dependant on the genre of the movie. For example, the Avengers movies, they get big (expensive) bombastic and energetic 3-minute trailers that practically explode by the end. The aim is to make you go, 'Holy balls, I gotta go see that'. So now that's all cleared up, let me tell you WHY library music.

Why do I want to write library music?

Library music is a full time gig. That means, writing music every day, with similar design, structure, reasoning, etc. So why would I want to make music a full-time job like that? Well, aside from the fact that it's insanely rewarding to go from a blank canvas, to a fully finished track with melodies, counter-melodies, themes and motifs, I want to use library music as a tool to get to the big goal. The big goal being, writing music for film.

Writing library music, and getting it licensed really would be the dream right now though. Having some library music publisher take my music and even try to get it placed would be such a validation of my work that I would be content. Not done, but content.

Naturally, the next big step would be to get my music featured on some sort of placement, TV ad, Film trailer, you name it.

Value of Trailer Music

So how am I going to make money with this? That's what most folk call value right? Well, royalties. It is rather complicated to the uninitiated and to be honest, not all that simple for the attempting-to-get-initiated but I'll try to explain.

Essentially, my music gets licensed, the copyright bought outright or licensed for a percentage of the Royalties, and then if and when the music gets used, I get a return on that by way of Royalties.

Now, these can take a while to come back to me, because they have to go through so many layers of transfer. Ad agency approves the use of my music, signs the cue sheet, sends that down to finance, they eventually approve the payout 2-4 times a year, that eventually gets to something like the Performance Rights Society (PRS) and then that gets to me a quarter (3 months) later. Or it can be much faster, i.e., 4-6 months. All depends on the placement.

Doesn't sound great for the short term, I know, but there I have a plan!

While writing music for library music, which I'll explain further in just a hot second, I am going to write similar music for other purposes. Services exist, that essential buyout the right to use the music you sell on these services. I could have my music placed on anything, from wedding video producers looking for bespoke music or indie marketing campaigns. Sky's the limit. These are again through PRS type services but much faster, with less red tape slowing things down.

What is the plan then?

I am going to write library music, virtually every day. The goal is to get quicker at writing higher quality material. Eventually, sooner rather than later, I want to be writing at least two tracks a week. One of those tracks will go towards library music, the other, to the secondary, buyout option.

Theoretically, I will write a library music album every 12 weeks, with 12 tracks on it, fully composed, mixed and mastered by yours truly. And then by the time the album is ready, I'll have 6-8 tracks ready for the other plan.

Where do you guys come in?

The usual blog posts I have been giving you to read have been three-part series, talking about the composition, mixing and mastering processes I go through when writing my music, in general. Now, you'll still get those posts, three a week, with a track at the end of the week published everywhere, including YouTube. But the kicker here is, you won't get to see the library music until it gets placed on some Marvel trailer (optimism here). There are many reasons for this decision but the big one is copyright issues. I cant have my music available for anyone to download or 'borrow' and then try and sell the rights to it to a publisher, without probably running into problems.

So you guys keep watching my videos, listening to my music, reading my blog posts and being awesome. I'll stick to my schedule to make sure you guys have something to read or listen to.

If you have any questions or thoughts, let me know, drop a comment here or wherever you find this post, (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc). Thanks!

In the meantime, check out these links.

My Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCa8fnNdUtgLe2JXD6pUDkAg?view_as=subscriber

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/liampeacockmusic/

Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/liampeacockmusic

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/11356600/admin/updates/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/lpeacockmusic

Useful Links

Christian Henson - Rules of Success -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIXSMMEb-zU

How to Begin With Library Music