It is impossible to define good music and bad music. Quality is such a personal choice that it often appears to defy logic or traditional ‘good musical taste’. This is certainly the case where music licensing is concerned. ‘Good’ really means ‘most suitable’ for a specific context. There have been occasions when we have recommended music which we’ve considered to be strong melodically and harmonically only for the client to choose something that in our opinion seemed pretty average. Sometimes TV executives will deliberately overlook the song with the clever chord sequence or catchy chorus as it would detract from the visual scenario that they have in mind. Sometimes, they might choose the song which seems banal or unbearably irritating, but works perfectly well for a specific product commercial. Having said this, from experience, music displaying poor musicianship and sound quality is almost always overlooked. Producers and musical supervisors will avoid music (even great songs) that contains noticeable sonic faults, e.g., Inappropriate EQ, balance, compression, quantisation, distortion, noise issues. They will similarly avoid music which has noticeable musical faults, e.g., Intonation, timing and synchronisation errors or is lacking in required musicality, i.e., musical expression- dynamics, rubato, colour, phrasing for example.

Therefore, we ask our artists to ensure that there are no obvious sonic or musical faults in the material submitted. Irrespective of genre, final uploaded versions should resemble well balanced master recordings. The only exception: when using the ‘Songbay Auction’, where even ‘rough demos’ and ideas can be uploaded and traded.

There are no hard and fast selection rules with music licensing. The best we can do is to offer clients the widest choice of music possible and for them to be able to search for it quickly and efficiently. A TV producer looking to source music for an evening news report does not have the time to hang around in meetings, find and negotiate with composers, draw up lengthy contracts, etc. Instead they can browse the Songbay library and obtain music within minutes, they can even contact our song writers directly to give them a composing brief for a specific project requiring music . Similarly a small company with no idea where to find music for their corporate presentation can easily find what they’re looking for in our library. Since all Songbay licensing contracts are ‘non exclusive’ there’s nothing stopping a songwriter from licensing their work for several different projects at the same time.

Importantly, we take absolutely no percentage cuts, fees or royalties generated to songwriters from our music licenses.

Top Tip: We’re often asked for versions of songs without lyrics, e.g., a producer might love the song but the lyrics might be unsuitable for the usage context. It is always a good idea to upload two versions of a song, one with and one without lyrics. Also be careful when incorporating sound effects into your music; wind, water, rain, thunder, urban sounds for example. They can marginalise you work, (which can work for and against you). We similarly recommend using two versions of these songs, i.e., with and without sound effects.