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I have a good friend that I want to play drums on some tracks (that I wrote) that I would like to submit in the future. I could pay him per song/session/hour/etc but that would feel a little strange between friends. I'm thinking about crafting an agreement where we would agree to a share of the upfront or sync fees should the track(s) be placed. Is this an appropriate (or fair) agreement? I'm not sure it would make sense to add him as a co-writer of the song. At the same time I want to work out something that is fair and clear with him from the start. Interested to hear how members are working with musicians in this sense. Thanks!

There are 2 main ways to do this:

1) Work For Hire (WFH) - you draw up an agreement that says you own the entire song including his parts for the sum of $x.xx that you pay him. This is pretty reasonable and normal for session musicians.

2) Split the song - to avoid encumbering the details of the song if it should be placed, this will amount to you and he splitting the ownership of the song which includes all up front and back end (royalty) payments.

It would necessitate that any time you want to sign the song with a library, or anything of that nature his name is on the contract as well and he will have to sign.


While its true that there are other ways to do it (including a share of upfront only) these make things unnecessarily messy and complicated - and no music sup or library owner has time to work out an agreement where your drummer only gets up fronts and no royalties etc.

They are just going to move on to the next song that is easier to clear.

One other thing - many generic TV underscore uses will have no sync at all, and will be only royalties - so getting part of an up front doesn't mean much in those cases.

Good luck!!

wow, David - you must have much better friends than I do.
My musician friends have no problem taking money & WFH forms from me all the time - no problem there!!
Maybe I need to get me some new friends, eh?
OR - maybe the solution is: form my own band... called The Freebies.

andygabrys wrote:There are 2 main ways to do this:

1) Work For Hire (WFH) - you draw up an agreement that says you own the entire song including his parts for the sum of $x.xx that you pay him. This is pretty reasonable and normal for session musicians.

2) Split the song - to avoid encumbering the details of the song if it should be placed, this will amount to you and he splitting the ownership of the song which includes all up front and back end (royalty) payments.

It would necessitate that any time you want to sign the song with a library, or anything of that nature his name is on the contract as well and he will have to sign.


While its true that there are other ways to do it (including a share of upfront only) these make things unnecessarily messy and complicated - and no music sup or library owner has time to work out an agreement where your drummer only gets up fronts and no royalties etc.

They are just going to move on to the next song that is easier to clear.

One other thing - many generic TV underscore uses will have no sync at all, and will be only royalties - so getting part of an up front doesn't mean much in those cases.

Good luck!!

So much great info @andygabrys ! Good info about sync fees vs royalties. Thanks much.

funsongs wrote: wow, David - you must have much better friends than I do.
My musician friends have no problem taking money & WFH forms from me all the time - no problem there!!
Maybe I need to get me some new friends, eh?
OR - maybe the solution is: form my own band... called The Freebies.

The Freebies sounds like a lot of work I've done in the past Peter!