My Journey as a Music Supervisor
Recently, one of my Music Supervisor friends reached out to me and asked me about how I got into Music Supervision. In the conversation, we talked about our day to day and what our own perspective has been like so I thought I’d share.
How did you get into music supervision?
I fell into it accidentally. I was actually trying to get work in Music Publishing.
In 2019, I was working in Marketing and Advertising. I decided to leave and pursue a creative endeavor. I started learning about music production and wanted to learn more about music revenue streams and fell in love with learning about music publishing.
I wanted to learn everything I could about publishing and got involved with AIMP (Assoc. of Music Publishers). I was obsessive about their meetups. I even spent one weekend in Nashville, LA, and NYC so that I could make every location’s meetup. From there, I met sync agency, 3 Theory Music. The founder there taught me about Sync, DISCO, gathering copyright info, etc.
I was still involved with the local advertising board, which ended up working to my benefit. From that board, I met the Principle of Coupe Studios. They had their music in Source Audio and I was able to use my excel skills to port their music over to DISCO and help set up their public library. Then I got hired on as a Music Supervisor contractor, creating playlists for clients, working with the composers on custom scores and sounds. I even got to do some VO work and assist with foley. It was a lot of fun!
What were some of the key responsibilities and tasks you handled as a music supervisor?
Outside of metadata management for our composer’s tracks, matching music in the MLC, and managing our DISCO library, I mostly worked in creative.
Clients would send us a script, a storyboard, or a cut and I’d work on finding the music for it. Depending on the budget, sometimes I’d pull from external libraries (APM, UPM, Artlist, etc.) and other times I’d pull from our original composition catalog.
I also would work with the composers on an original score. I’d sit in on the call with the client, along with the composers and listen to what the clients audio goals were. From there, the composers would work on the tracks, I’d listen to them and provide feedback, based on the client’s goals to see if adjustments could be made.
Another thing I’d do is find opportunities for our composers to create music for. If I found a brief floating around, I’d send it to the composers to create something. Or sometimes I’d find out that certain things were generally trending in advertising and suggest that we’d get ahead on the music for. For example, the music placed in Fenty ads had a lot of vocal percussive music and I was starting to hear this in Apple, and other ads as well. We didn’t have much of that in our catalog. After creating a playlist of reference music for composers, we’d create a couple of tracks.
Similarly, if I knew we were about to land a new client, I’d research the type of music typically used in that space or used historically by that film genre and put together a playlist: one from our current existing music that could match and another playlist externally as a guide or reference for the composers. And then we’d talk about what we’re hearing or noticing and align on the audio.
Additionally, I would help the company identify opportunities for exposure, whether that was via B2B speaking engagements, panels, public pitch decks, meetings, etc.
Some of the common music supervisor responsibilities I didn’t get access to, because they were handled by the ad agency or the in-house account manager includes: cue sheets, quote requests, and music budgets. So my experience as a music supervisor is pretty limited.
Great Segue to my next question, what are some resources for aspiring music supervisors?
In addition to networking groups via AIMP and GMS, I’d highly recommend Jennifer Pyken’s Master in Music Supervision course, as well as UCLA’s Music Supervisor Extension course.
I cannot recommend enough reading Amanda Kreig’s book “Thinking in Sync: A Primer into the Mind of a Music Supervisor.”
I’d also check out attending Sync and Supervision conferences. I regularly attend Durango Songwriter Conference in Colorado every October. Also, I’d suggest you research the credits of the people who are running virtual conferences and sync training seminars. There are a lot of scams out there that are taking advantage of people who are learning to get into the space. And then you find out that they don’t actually have music supervision credits or experience.
Can you share a memorable project or experience that stands out during your time as a music supervisor?
One of my favorite projects might have been the sonic brand project for a transportation service. Not only were we tasked to work a custom mnemonic, but we also talked about how that sound catalog could be applied to waiting rooms, boarding, ads, etc.
How did you ensure that the music aligned with the creative vision of directors, producers, and other creative professionals?
One of the most helpful things for me was getting into the habit of why I chose particular songs based on their request. Even if it was just a sentence long, and even if I never shared the ‘why’ with the client, it’d help me synthesize through my choices and narrow down songs. Reiterating to the client also helped us show that we were listening to their requests and it helped us clarify if we interpreted some keywords differently. Ex, my interpretation of “upbeat” vs their interpretation of it.
Were there any particular challenges you faced while working as a music supervisor?
I think the hardest thing sometimes is trying to interpret their definition of some certain things. It’s so nice when you can kick off a project with a call and hear directly from the director what their sonic goals are, along with the composers, because then you can ask all the questions there and then pick at each other’s interpretations.
We don’t always get that though. When we just receive the script and they say go at it, then have vague feedback. It’s difficult when it feels like you’re starting to do the dance of asking questions and making guesses: balancing saving your time or saving their time. In the end, you realize how much time you wasted by not getting to ask them directly. For me, in my limited role, I didn’t get access to the client often. Sometimes, client conversations were only handled by a separate studio producer or account manager, and I just had to send that person a playlist who would then send that off to the client. In those cases, I’d divvy up the playlist into the separate interpretations of the request with the respective songs and use that to help me refine what they’re going for.
Did you have any favorite sync placements or musical moments that you were particularly proud of? What made them memorable or impactful?
My favorite supervision project was probably the video game that I worked on with an innovative computer company called System76. It was particularly fun because I got to employ one of my favorite bands to work on the music and audio for it.
What were some valuable lessons or insights you gained from your experience as a music supervisor? How did it shape your understanding of the intersection between music and visual storytelling?
This is an interesting question. I’ve actually returned to work full-time in Marketing and Advertising in the last year. So I can speak more to that shift as I start to work in video ads again. I’m a lot more conscious now about the audio being used and looking for opportunities to get audibly creative.
I think it’s bigger than from a music supervision perspective, because of working at Coupe Studios Music & Sound Design, I actually think about branding from a larger sonic perspective and consider opportunities where audio might play a better role in the customer’s experience. For example, is there an opportunity for hands-free instructions, branded podcasts for customer interviews, etc.
I think about how we might use audio to create an immersive product experience or an immersive trade show experience.
What music do our clients in different verticals listen to?
If you could give advice to aspiring music supervisors or those interested in entering the field, what would it be?
I’d probably go with the cliched response to “network, network, network!” It’s really how I got to experience what I did. I know networking is weird for a lot of people. There are some work-arounds for those. Joining a club like Women in Music so that you’re participating in organizing events and getting to know people at that level helps break the ice.
I’ve been attending a lot of filmmaker meetups as well, and have met a lot of filmmakers that way and that’s been really fun. It’s nice to breakaway from all of the music networking circles sometimes.
