Electronic Music 411 - commercial music -

here's my jingle experience. indirect experience i should say.

the guy who owned the studio i worked at in san diego would do a few national jingles a year (spanish language for mexico). the entire time he was working on a jingle he was mostly miserable. i have to say though the stuff he wrote was seriously catchy. he even hired phil collins' horn section for one and they were super tight and very bad ass. no shit. i always asked him lot's of questions about that side of the biz though usually didn't have to because after a while he would just start venting or he would go into some long explanation as to why he was doing the same thing over and over again.

He didn't have an agent but he knew some people in the business and knew when things were coming around so he could submit a sort of demo (in itself a time consuming process requiring money etc) and a bid for it. he did a budweiser commercial, cereal commercials, ramen noodles.. all kinds of shit.

so he gets the contract for this one commercial thru an ad agency and makes the most bomb ass track w/all live musicians and edits it to 30, 60 and 15 seconds. it's perfect. everything about it. he gives it to the agency. they play it for the client and the client has essentially no reaction so the agency freaks out and asks for all kinds of different things. he basically cuts an entirely new jingle at his expense. not cheap. gives them that one then of course the client says no way we want the first one and always want the first one. all that happened in like 24 hours. pretty brutal. he gets paid. yay. and goes home to sleep for like 2 days. he made anywhere from $20K to $40K for jingles and for that budweiser ad he found a singer in a bar who was the lead in the jingle and that guy made $10k in royalties because the advert took off and was in high rotation.

I asked him why he didn't just try and do jingles full time. he said he is always looking and tries to get in there quick and be visible but he learned early on that it's who you know and how you wine and dine them. he met a guy in LA who does probably 100 jingles a year. all national ads and the guy is mess. he had lunch with him or something and the guy told him that he takes all the ad agency guys on a trip for 2 weeks every year and gets them dope, prostitutes, food hotels and whatever they want. plus he gives a kick back now and then. the guy is stupid rich after doing this for years but is totally frayed and is on his 5th marriage or something. stellar.

my former boss is really good at making jingles, could write the music and direct a session in his sleep. he always met deadlines and did everything right. he's an honest person.

he did lot's of smaller ads too. radio background music for car commercials etc. those were way easier because he could just throw together stuff w/synths and samples and viola done. for those he got paid $2K or maybe a little more but he could do that in an afternoon. he said ad agencies were worse than record labels. obviously he had a wide range of experiences with them and i'm sure i've focused on the negative ones because that's what i tend to do. i think in a nutshell you have to meet people and keep doing it. if you do one jingle then disappear you'll probably be out of the loop pretty quickly. that business seems to change a lot.

licensing is probably the way to go. there are companies out there that you can give a butt load of music to and they will make it part of their library and just rent it out again and again as bed music for videos of all kinds or whatever.

frn- i'm sure once your more famous some product will want to consume one of your songs and then you'll be in!

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03/29/07 + Doron

have a friend who is doing this, last year he clocked 280K lucky bastard

03/29/07 + fakeBlooper

was your friend the "real men of genius" guy with the ronnie james deo falsetto?

that guys worth every penny.

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03/29/07 + ignatius

i imagine that in some cases more opportunities will arise because of teh internets advertising etc. so maybe there is a better place to break in to the game.

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03/29/07 + soundhdack

Easier becoming an actor. Give a few blowjobs, get fucked up the ass once or twice, and you're in! Just make sure that you can act. ;)

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03/29/07 + GrapeApe

the problem i have with music on tv (commercials/shows/etc) is that everything i hear sucks. and i'm certain that many great songs have been offered up to the gods of tv only to be turned down because "they're not commercial enough."
i don't have a tv, but when i see a tv at work/friend's house it's all flashy pop guitars and bullshit production. i can't compromise with that.
it's no wonder that a dickhole like moby would be the first to offer up his entire album of hummus filled dungpop for commercial use.

frnortnr> i've always enjoyed your music, but i'd be willing to bet if some producer heard your commercial tracks, they'd toss em back at you with some lame "where's the guitar? drums? what's this reversed strings shit and piano?! ...gimme somethin' that explodes in my face like a load from p. north"
ok, maybe i have a bad impression of tv producers. if you're making tracks on your terms, and someone digs it, fine. but if you have to go back and turn a chill ambient track into some buttrock wankfest just to pay the bills
...well, good luck.

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03/30/07 + frnortnr

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03/30/07 + lunatinker

fredo and ulrike were talking. made me think (uh-oh, granpa hass a dumbass metaphor againz.)...
anyhoo, like my gf playing scrabble, and just getting off the "make interesting words" kick and into the "score points" mode.
Of course interesting words are important, but there is also another part of the game. scoring points/making money.
its part of the same deal. of course everyone is welcome to play (and play however they wish). its just that BT sucks so bad,
I want everybody on em411 to get paid now. i can't listen to commercial radio and net radio has some pull for me.
but still, every week it seems someone on em411 finds a great use for their creative energy and a great source
of inspiration from one, lends to alll.
end granpa's stupid story.

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edited: Mar 31 2007 + lunatinker

BTW - i suck at scrabble and she's playing older relatives who were stenographers for white house many houses ago. lots of wordy wordsmithing wordiness ... OMG makes me feel teenies. ok. lol at srabble over.
add note edit: grape ape is the new cat. great post....

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05/31/07 + Beedub

hello, i was just wonering if you knew of any good websites for this kind of thing?

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