Moby’s decision to license tracks from Play for use in commercials helped the album sell better, and made him a lot of money.Photo: Bill Ebbesen
Composing for adverts and music libraries can be rewarding, challenging and creative — and did we mention that you get paid?
The year is 1999. Moby has released the album Play to critical acclaim, only to go and do something unforgivable in the eyes of music critics: he has licensed the music for use in adverts. How dare he?
As an educator and musician who’s watched endlessly talented people fail to cement a career in music, you’ll have to forgive me for starting by simply addressing the ridiculous notion that music and commerce cannot creatively coexist. In a world where music is basically free to the consumer, the only way we can survive is by exploiting other sources of income apart from direct sales. Currently, one main avenue is in commercial composing and sync licensing. It’s widely known that record labels make a significant portion of their income from the sync sector, but you don’t need to be signed to a major to do so.
Don’t be fooled into thinking that writing music for commercials can’t be creatively inspiring, either. I’ve been fortunate enough to work with some amazingly talented film‑makers, many of whom are creating adverts that are more likely to pop up at Cannes than on TV. For instance, I’ve written music to gamechanging fundraising adverts, highlighting heart disease and poverty. I’ve also made music for museum spaces, aeroplanes and world record attempts. Commercial composers are just that: composers.
Music For Commerce
Let’s begin by identifying two different disciplines. There’s commercial composing, which is the art of writing to picture, and there’s sync licensing, which is the licensing of pre‑made music to be ‘synchronised’ with another form of media.
Commercial composition requires a more businesslike approach. You are forging direct relationships with directors and advertising agencies and providing a service for them whereby a fee is paid to cover your time and the licensing cost. The skill set needed is multi‑faceted. You have to be a great communicator, learning how to get vital information from your clients. You have to be adept at running a business in order to stay relevant and financially stable. And you have to produce fantastic music under significant time constraints and expectations. People are surprised when I say I often have to produce a ‘radio‑ready’ demo, from scratch, in under eight hours. Not easy.
Sync licensing and production library music are slightly different. You aren’t writing to picture. Sometimes sync licensing can be a way of exploiting old music, but often new music is written to a brief: an overview of an ‘album’ concept that an agency may want to deliver. As a basic example, you may get the brief for a ’70s psychedelic rock album with a deadline months away. You’ll submit multiple ideas, and often enter into a dialogue with multiple revisions before tracks are accepted. Albums in this format tend to go out to TV, from which you will be primarily paid through royalty collection societies such as PRS and MCPS in the UK. This happens as and when your music gets played out in the public domain, so the income you receive will be related to the amount of usage your music gets.
Production music agencies that are affiliated with collection societies such as MCPS tend to operate standard fee structures as a consequence, but there are also online library sites out there that have no such expectations or affiliations and can charge as they choose to. They may, for example, buy out all the rights to your music for a flat fee.
Copyright, Licensing & Royalties
Royalties are the payments generated from the usage of your music, with the three main types of royalty being mechanical, public performance and sheet music:
- Mechanical royalties are generated from the reproduction of music in digital and physical formats such as CD sales, streams and sync uses.
- Performance royalties are incurred any time a song is played in public, whether by live musicians or playback of a recording in a public space.
- Sheet music royalties come from sales of printed or downloadable sheet music.
There are two main types of copyright holder: those who own a share of the songwriting, also described as the publishing rights, and those who own shares in the master recording. The easiest way to understand this is to think of a cover song. The writers of the original song typically hold the publishing rights, while the musicians (or their label) involved in the recording of the cover version hold the copyright in that master recording.
Note that practically every country has different rules about music copyright and royalties. In addition, areas not within the boundaries of a country are therefore not bound to these rules either, as I found to my detriment when producing music for an airline!
Royalties & Licences
As mentioned, commercial composers are working in two areas: writing direct to picture and through the use of production agencies, or publishers as they are often known. Publishers generally work on a 50/50 copyright basis. If you look at a track’s submission sheet in PRS For Music, the UK’s primary royalty collection society, it will state that the publisher owns 50 percent of the Performing Share and 100 percent of the Mechanical Share. They give you the 50 percent back later, because this is direct income from their clients, not fully distributed through PRS or MCPS.
When you’re writing directly to picture, you often play the part of the publisher too, and it’s likely you haven’t or won’t be selling any copyright to an agent. This means you will be dealing with the administration of royalty collection and licensing yourself, so for example it’s up to you to submit the relevant information to PRS. A sync licence is simply a document that outlines exactly how two parties intend to use the music and what is expected from either side within the agreement. A licence will typically specify the parties and music involved, who owns what share of the copyright, the working title(s) (known as works), the services and terms, distribution, territories covered, validity period and any additional terms, such as exclusivity or usage within cut‑downs.
Be careful what you sign. Licence agreements are legal documents!
My advice is to be accurate and vigilant. These are documents intended for legal use, and lines often get blurred. Not only is there the need to future‑proof these documents, but it’s important to understand that even a word change in an advert means it is considered a different ‘work’ and therefore requiring of a new licence. Thankfully, MCPS provide a fantastic template for any licences you write yourself, and following their rate cards helps immensely.
Royalty payments are complex, and determined by each country’s royalty collection societies. When it comes to licence fees, MCPS generally set the precedent and therefore the best publishers for artists will likely be those associated with the MCPS directory. It’s also a good basis for determining your own fees.
As mentioned previously, online library sites are often not subject to these higher fees, so it’s important to look into each company’s individual price structure and how you will be paid, plus the agreement you are making, and judge from there. Most publishers on the MCPS directory will not accept submissions that are on library sites, or will ask you to remove them (which can take significant time).
In terms of what we’ll call ‘enterprise income’, there are no rules, but the industry will naturally set amounts for you. For instance, it’s very rare that a publisher will pay upfront for your music or any submissions. But you hope they are very good at what they do, and you’ll make money together. The same can be said if you choose to sell the rights to your music, or upload to a micro‑transaction site. These are all business decisions you have to make.
Similarly, bespoke composing for commercials is a business in itself. You have to consider your experience, the budget of the client, time taken and distribution. They will often dictate their budget and it’s up to you to negotiate.
A Foot In The Door
How do you get into making music for adverts and TV? I can only speak from my own experience. I had the desire to write music in this format from the beginning, so pitched my shop front up and tried to connect with any local film‑makers I knew. Around the same time, where I live in Cornwall, there was a tide of corporates trying to get their product involved in surfing. I knew most of the surfers and, as there were no real budgets to speak of and consequently no industry heads dictating anything, I ended up writing for some big corporations. One in particular helped grow my portfolio significantly, as they liked what I was doing and linked me up with the many other sports they sponsored.
I must have sent 10,000 emails in my time, through which I’ve gained only a handful of jobs.
This fuelled rapid growth and development, especially when some of the film‑makers I’d worked with climbed the ladder and continued to use me or my ever‑growing library of music. I got to know other clients primarily through word of mouth or by forging a direct relationship through constant networking, and only rarely over email or social media. I must have sent 10,000 emails in my time, through which I’ve gained only a handful of jobs.
By contrast, getting your foot in the door with libraries can take a lot of submissions and consistent emailing. It’s worth the effort to find one that suits you and your style of music, and which can help you grow. I’ll always be an advocate of publishers over online‑only libraries, as they are based around more interpersonal dealings, with a higher value placed on you and your music.
Goods In The Window
It’s important to remember that any connection you make, even informally, is often followed by the person secretly checking out your website or online shop front, so these have to be engaging, creative and savvy spaces.
What makes a good ‘shop front’? First, your website has to engage the end user and stop them immediately looking elsewhere. We’re creatives, let’s wow them! Secondly, we are in the commercial world where people have very little time and need an easy process. Ask yourselves these questions:
- Can you make your website more immersive, impressive or easy to use?
- Do all your links work, and can potential clients easily demo your work with a click or two?
- Does your site give the impression that you are an experienced business person (even if you aren’t)?
- Does it give the impression that you are brilliant at what you do? If not, why?
- Looking at it subjectively, are there clear gaps in your work? How can you plan to fill these?
To add to this, I would consider thinking about consistent branding and communication strategies that you can implement across all your social channels and online presence, so everything feels connected.
Spread Your Wings
Does the commercial composer need to be a jack‑of‑all trades, or is it best to focus on a specific genre that you’re good at? There are no rules, but I would say this question is mainly about how you advertise yourself. I think you’ll find any working musician is incredibly talented in many fields and genres, and it can only be a good thing to expand your knowledge. As a small example, my first jobs were all dubstep‑based, although I had no experience or even any intention of being associated with dubstep. The same layering techniques I learnt 10 years ago in doing that recently came in handy on an orchestral piece, where the client stated, “You’re the only one who’s managed to get the drums powerful enough for me.”
In terms of business practice, sometimes it’s a pro and sometimes it’s a con when you put yourself out there as a jack of all trades, because people love to put you in a box. Generally, those who have a ‘sound’ risk ruling themselves out from a lot of potential gigs, but they can also create a lucrative niche. If you are particularly prolific, one possibility is to work under multiple artist names.
Invest In Yourself
As composers, we are in competition with many others. Quality of product is key here, and investment in the best is necessary. That applies both to equipment and skills. We’re often asked to beat temp music from a hugely successful artist, and we may also be spanning multiple genres and disciplines. What you use to make, record and mix your music is a matter of individual choice, but it’s important that it be immediate, fast to use and fully recallable.
It’s vital to audition your work on smartphone speakers, since that’s how much of your audience will hear it.Photo: Santeri ViinamäkiSome people expect all film composers to have a surround mixing setup, but as of 2024, 99 percent of adverts and TV features are asking for stereo only, so the need for any expansion above that will be rare at this stage. What is important is that your monitoring is translatable. Part of this is having great speakers in a room that you know, understand and trust, but you also need to be able to send clips quickly to your phone for reference because that’s where 99 percent of consumers will be listening. In addition, I personally have a range of really lovely headphones, as well as the ones that come with my phone, and a Bluetooth speaker that I’ve got wired directly in for single‑button A/B comparisons. Most phones are stereo these days, so I very rarely check mono compatibility.
Lastly, you have to just make stuff sound fantastic to the end user. So much of this industry is about trust in one another, and people have a lot riding on their work. So I want to end by placing importance on personal learning and self‑development. Learning techniques such as how to make bass come across on a phone will be hugely valuable. This is an emotion‑led industry, and we’re here to take the emotion up to a level they didn’t realise was possible! Getting there is going to require experience and graft.