What You Should Know About Your Production BEFORE You Add a Music Soundtrack

Too often choosing the right track from a music library is like hacking your way through overgrown jungle with no map and no sense of direction. It's a time-intensive, hit-or-miss process that requires listening to multitudes of the wrong selections.



After a while your brain becomes numb and everything blends together and sounds the same. To further complicate things, you're often searching for music right at the project deadline so there is pressure to find tracks fast.



The fastest way to find the right soundtrack for your work is to first identify the underlying feeling - the emotional thrust - of your production.



Many project creators only think about what STYLE of music they want (i.e. rock, Techno). A better way to proceed is to look for music based on the emotional character of your work.



When you know your project's emotional themes, you will cut an incredible amount of time from your search.



DISTILL YOUR PROJECT DOWN TO ITS EMOTIONAL BASE



This is what film composers do. After meeting with the director to discuss the film's meaning and concept, the composer immerses him/herself into the film and begins to investigate its emotional essence.You can do the same thing. Here is a simple exercise to try with your own work.



• See yourself in each scene as an eyewitness

to what is happening

• Become emotionally open to the events that occur.

• Freewrite your reactions. (Freewriting is writing that's done quickly without any self-editing - you just want to get your ideas on paper in a way that you'll remember)

• After the production is over, take your

freewriting and look for 1-5 keyword phrases that best describe the emotion(s) of what you've experienced.



This technique will work just as well for a 15 second Flash animation as an hour-length video documentary. In each case you want to understand the emotion at the heart of your project so you can choose music that elevates your viewer's experience.



Here's an example of the process...

Let's say you're giving a 2 hour talk on