Instrumental Market

[Brentus]

Hello,

My name is Brent and I'm pretty new to Taxi. I have experience writing both instrumental music and songs with vocals. But, instrumentals are so much less time consuming and more enjoyable for me. Therefore, I'm more motivated to write them.

I have been reading through the forums and have seen that writing instrumentals is a very good way to go. However, I bought Robin Frederick's book "Shortcuts to Songwriting for Film & TV" (which is recommended by Taxi) and it almost seems to suggest otherwise. She writes "Over the last decade, there has been quite a revolution going on in the field of television music. Song-score has been taking over what was formerly the exclusive domain of instrumental underscore. Before the revolution, when onscreen lovers fell into each other's arms, it was usually accompanied by soaring violins and harps. Now you're more likely to hear The Fray's latest single or a whimsical ballad by an unsigned artist." (Frederick, p. 27). The book talks very little about placing instrumentals, and puts ton of focus on getting actual vocal music in film & tv. Also, the taxi listings call for many more non-instrumental songs than instrumental ones.

What do you guys think? Is it more worth it to write music with vocals or are instrumentals still a great way to go? I'm just curious because I've seen conflicting opinions on the subject.

[theharper]

Look at the programs on Television and Cable...you can hear for yourself that both instrumentals and vocals are being used.

[Casey H]

Even though there is a trend to use more songs with vocals in some applications, overall there are still hundreds of instrumental cues used for each vocal cue used. When I say "overall", I mean across the board on TV, not just one show.

For a vocal song to get placed, it not only has to fit the scene as far mood, tempo, genre, etc (tough enough!), the lyrics and vocal style also have to fit.

If you enjoy instrumentals and can crank out a lot of them, I definitely would keep at that. Nothing says you have to one or the other exclusively. You can still do some vocal songs-- mix it up!

Generally, instrumentals are much easier to get placed and bring in PRO revenue. Vocals are harder to place but usually pay much more per placement, both in upfront license fees and PRO money.

A key thing you said is that you ENJOY doing instrumentals. When people don't enjoy doing something, they will tend not to do it or do it well. Personally, I like writing songs more than instrumentals so changing my focus to all instrumentals wouldn't work for me. However, I do some- usually based on song ideas that I could never find lyrics for or ones that just didn't work as songs. To date, I've had placements on around 8 TV shows and they all were instrumentals.

If you write songs with vocals, sometimes the no-vocal backing tracks from those songs can be placed as instrumental cues on TV. In fact, all of my placements so far are from backing tracks. Not all backing tracks work well as stand-alone-- some better than others. But you can make edits to backing tracks such as shorter versions, addiing instruments, mixing differently, etc. Those edits can really help.

HTH
Best,
Casey

[mazz]

It is true that there are more songs being used on network drama shows, for instance, but that is still a very small percentage of all the programming that is produced every year if you look at all the cable channels that run 24/7 that don't produce scripted dramas and that don't use songs with words. The network placements are still the very top of the heap and are more difficult to get.

I have placements in cable shows where the cue sheets run to 3 or 4 pages of different cues (not all mine!), each one from a few seconds to maybe 1:30 tops. Figure that an hour documentary show has about 45 minutes of wall to wall instrumental music in it, and you can see how much of an appetite there is for instrumental music in comparison to songs. There are some daily magizine shows that have over 200 episodes in a year! Each one of those has lots of music in it and I doubt that many, if any, of those are songs.

So yes, at the top of the food chain, more songs are being used, but there appears to be an incredibly voracious appetite for all kinds of instrumental music for cable and reality TV and that's not even counting the huge blanket license market for corporate productions that are never broadcast not to mention wedding videos, training videos, webisodes, you name it.

The price per unit for instrumental music is low, but if you can get hundreds of pieces in circulation, it starts to add up. I've seen some of my colleagues' 80+ page quarterly royalty statements and so I know that it can be done if one sticks with it and makes good connections and relationships and writes great, placeable, music.

If you can do both, a nice healthy mix of songs and instrumentals would make a nicely rounded catalog.

Good luck!

Mazz

[t4mh]

You can prove what everyone is saying for yourself. I have done this and it was a great learning experience for me.

Get a stop watch and pencil/paper. Sit down and watch TV for at least 1 hour and write down everything your hear along with durations. Switch channels every 10 minutes. You can listen to the big networks and some of the smaller networks. Make sure you don't get caught up in any plot, just listen.

Nothing is absolute in the music business but guidelines are a good thing.

The list of genres you create will tell you what you should at least think about writing. They tend to change some over time but you certainly can get a feel for the trend in the business. You'll probably find that 30 second durations are by far the most prevalent in commercials though there are a few that are shorter and some that are longer. Durations in a given show will change a lot depending on what is happening in the show and how long a particular shot lasts. You'll also find that something along the lines of 95% of the music is instrumental. Again, that is not an absolute!

I no longer can watch film and/or tv at all. I only listen...

Good Luck!

[mojobone]

Hello,

My name is Brent and I'm pretty new to Taxi. I have experience writing both instrumental music and songs with vocals. But, instrumentals are so much less time consuming and more enjoyable for me. Therefore, I'm more motivated to write them.

I have been reading through the forums and have seen that writing instrumentals is a very good way to go. However, I bought Robin Frederick's book "Shortcuts to Songwriting for Film & TV" (which is recommended by Taxi) and it almost seems to suggest otherwise. She writes "Over the last decade, there has been quite a revolution going on in the field of television music. Song-score has been taking over what was formerly the exclusive domain of instrumental underscore. Before the revolution, when onscreen lovers fell into each other's arms, it was usually accompanied by soaring violins and harps. Now you're more likely to hear The Fray's latest single or a whimsical ballad by an unsigned artist." (Frederick, p. 27). The book talks very little about placing instrumentals, and puts ton of focus on getting actual vocal music in film & tv. Also, the taxi listings call for many more non-instrumental songs than instrumental ones.

What do you guys think? Is it more worth it to write music with vocals or are instrumentals still a great way to go? I'm just curious because I've seen conflicting opinions on the subject.

Well, it's right there in the title, isn't it? Robin's book is for songwriters, not instrumental composers, and is designed to help writers who may be less familiar with the TV/Film/Videogame landscape, to broaden their horizons in terms of possible placements. Most of the principles/suggestions laid down in the book apply equally to instrumental and vocal songs, though. (I have the book also) I don't think there's any compelling reason to make big changes in how you do things; 'song as score' is on the increase, but seems unlikely to replace 'music only' for most music placements. Consider also, that instrumental/theme music requires no translation for foreign markets.

[Brentus]

Thanks for the great and encouraging replies!

[brianvassallomusic]

Hello Friends,

I have returned using TAXI , and reading the forums, watching other composers and lectures on the USTREAM Taxi channel, i have come to realize the exciting consideration to compose for styles other than perhaps the ones that one may mostly habitually compose for.

I also find it a challenge and let's face it, exapanding one's experience in studio and for various listings , which equals more chances to get forwarded.



Warmly
Brian
http://www.brianvassallo.com