As president of Associated Production Music, a production music library, I would like to discuss the broad role production music has come to play in the advertising and production communities. For those who are unfamiliar with the term, "production music" refers to original musical compositions and recordings created specifically for use in audiovisual productions. Libraries commission composers to create original works, or to write new arrangements of public domain material, then pay to have the music recorded by top quality musicians, bands and orchestras. Rather than being commercially released, the music is put into the library. The library in its entirety is then made available to the production community.
There are some who are under the impression that production music has little artistic merit. Continued use of the antiquated phrases "stock music" or "elevator music" reinforces this misconception. In fact, there is no distinction in artistic merit, quality of composition or recording between production music and commercially released music. The only difference is how the rights are structured. A few minutes of listening to any of our tracks will quickly dispel any quality concerns or misconceptions. Library music can be heard on the soundtracks of top feature films including Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings, television programming such as The Oprah Winfrey Show and well-known ad campaigns for AT&T, Mercedes-Benz and Budweiser, among numerous others.
We all know how important music is to commercials. It provides context and helps create the emotional environment that makes the audience receptive to the product being advertised. In a long distance phone company ad, nostalgic music suggests "home" and stimulates a desire to speak with far-away family members. A man in a perfume commercial follows a woman with his eyes, taking in her scent against a background of sensual music aimed at associating the product with sex appeal. In a commercial for a learning center, two teenaged sisters discuss how the center helped one of them master a difficult subject while soft classical music plays under the narrator’s voiceover, then changes to a lively rock melody as the second sister enrolls in the center.
Although many commercials still benefit from original scores, even the most expensive campaigns often use production music libraries, particularly given today’s continuing economic uncertainty.
Production music offers an excellent solution to these concerns, providing quality compositions and recordings, variety and immediate availability with sophisticated search engines and staff musicologists to help identify appropriate tracks to meet production needs.
The composers who create library music are some of the most talented, respected and promising artists in the business, including Harry Gregson-Williams (Shrek), Rachel Portman (Manchurian Candidate), Billy May (Kill Bill), Gregor Narholz (SpongeBob SquarePants), Larry Blank (City Slickers), John Cacavas (Hawaii Five-O) and Christopher Young (Spider-Man 2). Many famous film score composers got their starts writing music for our production music libraries. Many continue to write for us, even after reaching the height of their careers.
So if you’re under the impression that production music is second fiddle, I hope you will consider taking another listen.
