Hey friend,

I hope you've been well!  

This week I have been spending a lot of time researching Music Libraries, and Sync Agents to send my music to. I have been producing a bunch of instrumental music with the goal of placing some of them in TV ads, movies, TV shows, video games, etc.

An interesting difference between artist focused music and sync music (music for syncing to picture) is the different topics and themes that are often requested. In general most artist focused music revolves around love, breakups, etc, but in the sync space they don’t really ask for songs about love or breakups very often because there is already SO much of it out there. Some of themes they look for most are empowerment, feeling good, freedom, swagger, rebellion, growing up, having fun, togetherness, platonic love, sports themes like teamwork and victory, songs about arriving or going somewhere, money, etc.

The more I research different ads from companies, the more I start to see patterns in sound selection, which styles of music go with certain brands, and where I think my music will best fit. So far it seems like House music works in TV ads for alcohol brands, sports companies like Nike, Adidas, Pelloton, etc, and in reality TV shows like Love Island, Kardashians, etc.

My focus over the next quarter is going to be landing a deal with a sync agent and/or music library and I’ve been building a database in Notion of libraries and agents that work with my style of music.

The strategy is simple.

• Start by looking up every agency and library I can find, see if they sync dance music, look through their roster and see if I recognize any artists. If they seem like they could be a good fit, I add them to my database.

• Next I want to see what kind of success they have for their artists, how often they are landing deals, and how recent they are.

• Then I will add their contact info to my database and make a note about how they want music submitted. It is super important you follow their instructions carefully because every agent and library has their own way of accepting new music.

After I gather all of this information, I am going to go through my short-list and start contacting the ones that I think will be the best fit and try to build a working relationship with a couple of them.

When reaching out to these agents and libraries I will be using a website called Disco, where you can upload your music, add all of the metadata tags necessary, add publishing information, writers splits, artwork, etc. You can then make playlists for different albums or collections of songs to send for different pitches, and if they like the songs you send, they can easily add them to their Disco library with a click of a button. Licensing your music becomes so much easier and intuitive through a service like Disco, so it’s no wonder that it has become the gold standard for pitching music in the sync licensing space. If this is a space you’d like to get into, definitely check out Disco.ac

Anyway, I will keep you updated on how my journey into the sync world develops this year!

Book Recommendation

Why I love this book

Deep Work vs Shallow Work

Deep Work is when you lock yourself away for a few hours and write, produce music, brainstorm for your business, create art, etc. This is when you need deep focus to do your best work. Working at this depth can only be done for a 3-4 hours a day before you start to have diminishing returns and become creatively exhausted.

Shallow Work is answering email, researching social media posts, admin and organizational tasks that you can do and not need extreme focus. This work can be done after your deep work session. This is when I am researching agents and music libraries, taking notes in Notion, etc.

Knowing the difference between deep and shallow work and where they can fit into your routine can help you structure your creative output better and help keep things organized. If we get distracted in the middle of our deep work session and start researching and going down rabbit holes we will completely unravel our creative session.

When you are in a deep work session, make sure you keep your phone on Do Not Disturb mode and out of hands reach. Even better, have it facing down so that the light doesn’t distract you if you do get a notification, or even leave it in another room.

Cal Newport goes into a lot more detail on different tactics and benefits in his book, if you are interested in reading it you can check it out below!

Cal Newport - Deep Work

 Take care my friend,

- Niko