When I was a wee young lass, I was taught in History lessons that a picture might tell a thousand words, but depending on the title or caption accompanying it, those thousand words could be very different.
It’s the same with music. Putting a title on a piece of music can radically alter the spin that the listener puts on it.
When creating music for film or theatre, the title of the piece is irrelevant to the audience. They aren’t going to see the title anywhere. It is the picture that informs the effect and meaning of the music, and vice versa.
However, when creating tracks for production music libraries, the title and description seem to be vitally important.
You cannot afford to let the music just speak for itself.
What do these titles bring to mind?
Echoes of the Past: Nostalgia, rememberance…
A Brighter Day: Happiness, hope, the future…
Echoes of the Past is the first track I put on Premiumbeat. It sells consistently well, which is fabulous, and I did wonder if it’s down to this evocative title. It was licensed for an advert for an Art Museum, which kind of illustrates my point about how relevant the titles are when film-makers are searching for music through the thousands and thousands of pieces on any given production music library’s site.
A Brighter Day was written more than a year later. In the very short time it’s been online, it appears to be outselling Echoes of the Past. Is it because of the title? Upbeat, happy, aspirational tracks do seem to sell better by default on this site.
I don’t mind saying that these two sound musically fairly similar. They’re in different keys and structurally they go in different directions, but for those all-important first 30 seconds, they sound as if they’ve got the same thing to say (when I wrote the second, I had the first in mind but wanted to see where else I could take it).
The title and description of a piece will determine how well that piece performs. Taking the time to craft the words that really do encapsulate the meaning you want to convey is time extremely well-spent.
(Luckily, though, I’ve got John, writer and script editor extraordinaire, to help me out when I’m struggling for words!)
And if you’re a filmmaker trawling through a music library, bear in mind that the best piece for the job may not have the best title! Not all composers have a way with words as well as they do with sound… so why not spend five more minutes searching some of the less popular titles and you may find a hidden gem. 🙂
—
Edit 2025: For… reasons, Premiumbeat has moved all of my catalogue to their Enterprise offering, which means the tracks are no longer available for license on their regular site.
Due to an NDA, I won’t share my opinions here.