The Importance of Instrumentals

Recently I worked on a music search for a documentary film where we needed to replace several David Byrne cues for the opening and closing sequences.

This was a harder search than I had initially thought it would be. The lyrics needed to convey the start of something new or summertime without bringing up the subject of romance. The music had to be slightly sad, yet ultimately uplifting. The song would ideally have a tinge of Brian Eno as well.

I asked for suggestions from my favorite sync licensing reps, people who represent catalogs of music and pitch them to music supervisors like me when we need suggestions. And as always, I posted the search to my Twitter account to see what would come up. I like to level the playing field (more on this another time) by making my music searches publicly available, and I like the occasional wildcard suggestion.

Of the batches he publishers and labels sent me, there were many solid tracks, but only a few with lyrics that were appropriate. I was able to call the sync reps who sent me the mp3s and secure instrummental versions of those songs. The sync reps are professionals and understand that having an instrumental version can keep your track from being eliminated from the initial selection process in a lyric-specific search.

I also received a few solid tracks from artists who saw the post on Twitter and felt they had something appropriate. Like many of the tracks I received from the labels and publishers, none of the songs I received from the artists on Twitter had exactly the right lyics.

(A sidenote: I listen to everything I get or have someone in my office listen to it, unless the artist has sent me wildly inappropriate material in the past. Case in point: a zip file of 25 instrumental hip-hop beats when I am looking for a romantic pop love song with female vocals.)

But when I reached out to the artists for instrumental versions of the songs, none of them had versions available to send me. It would take a week in the studio to cut an instrumental version, I was told more than once. In the context of film production, a week is often after the Sundance deadline or after edits are over and the music decisions have been made. This means that in the world of music supervision and licensing, tracks usually have to be available immediately to have a shot at making it into the picture.

I was asked why I couldn’t just send a version with vocals and wait a week for the instrumentals to be cut. The reason was that I wanted to do a good job and deliver what was asked of me, a consistent batch of songs that were appropriate for the film. I didn’t want to hold up production, and I didn’t have to wait for the instrumentals on a single song because there were already many compelling choices with instrumental versions available. The good sync reps, the ones who understood the nature of the music search, had instrumentals available for the songs that had the right sound, but not didn’t quite the right lyrics.

I very much want independent musicians to have a shot, and this is part of the reason why I make most of my music searches publicly available. But I can’t make special exceptions for independent musicians. I have to do my job.

If you are an independent artist and pitching your own music for film and TV, you should consider creating instrumental versions of the songs you send out. This will allow you to avoid the situation of losing a placement and a nice licensing fee that will pay several months rent simply because your lyrics aren’t about sunshine or any other frequently requested lyrical theme, such sweetness, new beginnings, togetherness or the awesomeness of life.

* Sidenote: My apologies to all for the absence last week. I have no good excuses at all. There were parties, and I was forgetful. I’ll try to be a lot less forgetful in the future. Thanks for reading.