The Music Submission Process
When
submitting music to a music supervisor for placement, there are a few things
that songwriters and producers must know in order to get the best response.
These few details should be helpful to the music supervisor that will be
considering your music for a potential placement on one of the projects that
they place music on for a sitcom, movie, commercial, or any other digital media
format.
The number one problem for music
supervisors is the cd’s that show up on their desk without the proper
information required and it also makes the music supervisor job easier when
they are attempting to listen to your work. Most supervisors use iTunes to dock
songs in their database to listen to songs. When music supervisors upload your
songs into iTunes, they are looking to see these things.
CD Submissions
1.
Put the track list on the cd case and not the
cd itself. (Durango Songwriters, 2012)
This is the first indication that you are
a novice or amateur. The music supervisor needs to be able to see the name of
the song, the name of the artist, and genre in their iTunes application as soon
as your cd is uploaded. This is providing the music publisher with the right
information and it saves them time from having to take the cd out of the
computer and write the names of your songs down and put the info into iTunes
themselves. Your job in submitting your music is to provide the easiest way for
the music supervisor to get the information about your song. Do not write song
names on the cd itself, and please make sure you do not send a cd with any
information about the songs. This is a good way for your cd to be trashed.
2.
Contact information must be on the cd. (Durango Songwriters, 2012)
This is really a no brainer. This is the
information that the supervisor uses to contact you the songwriter when they
are interested in placing your music. Why would a person leave off this
valuable information? It is easy to forget but could end up costing you the
opportunity of a lifetime. Place the contact information somewhere on the cd
case and make sure that it is legible and easy to read. An insert would be a
great place to put this information. You cover art should be on side and your
contact information should be on the other side. The easiest way to do this is
to do it on iTunes by placing your contact information in the comment column.
3.
Provide the writer, publisher, and master
information (Durango Songwriters, 2012)
This
is the most important information the music supervisor needs. The music supervisor needs the writer and publisher’s
share of the composition. This explains who will receive what percentage of
royalties for the song being submitted. They also need to know who owns the
masters of the song as well. You could have a publishing deal with a PRO and
they could own the masters. You could be the songwriter and publisher and own
100% of the masters. There are plenty of situations that could determine who
owns the masters to a song. This information is just as important as the writer
and publisher’s royalty. The person who owns the masters owns the copyright of
the song.
Music supervisor Madonna Wade Reed said “The
bottom line is, when a music supervisor looks at your cd in iTunes, you need to
have the name of the song under the title column, the artist name under the
artist title column, and your name and contact information in the comment
column.”
There a few websites that can help you with
helping you streamline this process and make it a little easier. Take a look at
a site named Gracenote. “This site allows a user to automatically upload their
cd to their library without having to type the track names, or artist and album
information.” (Gracenote, 2012) The second website is ID3 Tag Editor. “ID3 tags allows information such as the title, artist,
album, track, year, cover picture or other information about the file to be
stored in the file itself. “ (ID3 Tag Editor, 2012)
In
conclusion, the moral of the story here is to make sure that you provide a
professional submission in order for your works to be taken seriously. Then
there is also the music, which has to sound good too and be a good fit for the
placement that it is involved with.
References:
(n.d)(n.a.). Apple and iTunes Genius.
Retrieved on June 17, 2012 from
http://www.gracenote.com/casestudies/itunes/.
(n.d)(n.a.). About ID3 Tag Editor. Retrieved on June 17, 2012 from
http://www.id3tageditor.com/.
(n.d)(Reed, Madonna). Durango Songwriters.
Retrieved on June 17, 2012 from http://www.durango-songwriters-expo.com/friends-of-the-expo-music-supervisor-madonna-wade-reed.html
