The Music Education Podcast
Listen for authentic and challenging conversation on all things music ed. Brought to you by Charanga. Hosted and produced by Chris Woods of The Chris Woods Groove Orchestra.
The Music Education Podcast
Episode 48 - ‘Sync Licensing and Emotional Understanding’ Dr Paul J Rogers
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Welcome to the Music Education podcast. I'm Chris of the Chris Woods Groove Orchestra, and this podcast is brought to you by the Soundstorm Music Education Hub, our sponsor Faber Music, and our charity sponsor, British Youth Music Theatre. This episode is a particularly exciting one, not only because it's the debut episode with our very own theme music created by composer Arlo Amwin, but because we're talking about sync licensing. Now, sync licensing is increasingly a viable area of the music industry for all types of musicians. So it makes sense for all music educators to have an understanding of what it is and how we can deliver that into our workshops and lessons and sessions. And it's worth mentioning if you have no idea what sync licensing is, don't worry, you're gonna find out. He argues that actually the key to teaching students the skills that are needed to maybe succeed in the sync licensing world is linking our emotional understanding between environment and events or day-to-day life and music itself, which if you ask me is a pretty inspirational perspective to have. There's also so much in this podcast that actually has very little to do with sync licensing, it's just generally fascinating, inspiring, interesting, the kind of thing I hope you'll want to listen to again and again. Paul, thanks so much for joining me this morning. Can we start off with a bit of who you are and what you do?
SPEAKER_01Hi Chris, we certainly can. My name is Um Paul Rogers, and uh I'm currently the course leader for postgraduate studies at the BIM Institute. Primarily, my role there is to run the uh MA in Popular Music Practice. Um outside of that, as a professional, I'm a composer, a songwriter, and producer. Um, primarily in recent years, I've been sort of working on writing music for for Sync for television for both both my own material and sort of creatively collaborating as a producer with another artist. Um, and I guess I'd probably also describe myself as a sound artist in the sense that um a lot of my background has been in investigating sound and noise and uh yeah, sort of finding interesting ways to uh to to create sound installations and and really sort of you know just understand human relationship to sound generally.
SPEAKER_02Fantastic. Thank you. A wonderful intro that um certainly paints a picture of a seriously interesting human being. Um I think I think we're gonna start off by getting stuck into to sync stuff and licensing of um compositions, and then we can just go off wherever and um delve into all those different things. But the beautiful mix of being a teacher and a composer puts you in quite a unique position, I think, to explain the wonderful world of sync licensing for all the different music educators that are listening, from primary school music to guitar tutors in secondary schools or university lecturers, because it's such a integral part of the musical landscape and industry itself, isn't it? I think just having an explanation of what this word is, you know, is it a kitchen utensil? Um what is it?
SPEAKER_01Television sync, you know, obviously you turn the television on now, and there's there's hundreds of channels, we've got shows on Netflix, we've got all the all the terrestrial channels, we've got um you know there's so much content out there now requiring sound and music. Um, what you can do as a as a sync artist is effectively sort of create sound content for for all of those channels. You know, if you think about how much stuff there is all the time, all day long, every day across so many channels, every single one of those shows needs music and sound permanently. And so there's the there's a constant need for that stuff. You know, what one of the things that I really um recommend is you know, if you are in music education, or you know, what we should be delivering to our students is this idea of a portfolio career. So, you know, it's no good just thinking uh I I'm gonna be a pop star or I'm gonna be a a drummer doing this or a vocalist doing that. The you know, the the best way to consider your your career or the career of your students is to try and find income from as many different places as possible. So, you know, yeah, go out, do some gigs, go out, you know, release some music on the streaming channels, but also think about all these other things, think about merchandise, think about um writing music for um theatre, writing music for for film, writing music for television. So sync writing really is it you know, it's just a a valuable way of adding to your portfolio uh as a career musician.
SPEAKER_02Amazing. I I think that phrase portfolio career. I I've only recently heard well in the past couple of years that seems to have cropped up, and I've been thought, oh, that's me, that's how it's always actually super hard to explain what you do as a musician. I've actually kind of given up on explaining because it almost well, I think it can bore people when you say when someone said to me, you know, what do you actually do? And then just go through this immense list of I did that and then I did this, and then I thought, maybe I just alright. Um but it's it's kind of it's such a mixed bag, isn't it? Um you know what though, Paul, I think I still need more of uh actual what this is because we we both keep using the word sync as well, um which I've now uh permanently imprinted an image of a kitchen sink into my head, and that has nothing to do with that at all, is it? So you know, you know what what is it literally nuts and bolts sync licensing.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so sync obviously short for synchronization. So when you've got, let's say, um a daytime television show, and there's uh a bit of content on that daytime television show about uh it could be uh anything from you know exploring the canals of uh of the UK to to whatever. Let's let's say let's take that. So exploring the canals of the UK, what that piece of video or television footage will need is first of all, they'll need sounds of the canals. So they'll need, you know, somebody has got to go out and record the the sounds of the water, someone moving the locks, the the chugging of the boat, and so on. So so that that's one side of things, you know, the sound design. But uh underneath that, they'll look there will generally, if if you listen to television, pretty much permanently, permanently, there will be a bed of of suitable music. So that that music has got to say a lot of things, it's got to provide the right mood, the right atmosphere, the right feeling, the right emotional content uh to suit whatever that particular bit of television is doing. So this the sync artist, uh their responsibility is to write music that will fit it in these various situations. Um, and that um you know, getting into sort of the practicalities of it, most sync libraries uh called libraries because it basically how they most of them function is they will literally have a library of whole loads of different bits of sync music, um, and they'll be categorized in genre, mood, or you know, some might they might have albums saying you know, titled action music or you know, slightly sad melancholic music or music for outer space or or whatever. So they could be quite specific titles or or can be more general sort of titles. Um so they're literally sitting there in a library. So what that television director, when he's about to make his final edit of his TV programme about canal boats, he'll go to a library, he'll sift through all the he'll do put in some keywords, search search terms, and he'll find a whole bunch of uh bits of music that will be um you know sort of suitable or uh for for the sort of thing he's looking, he'll listen through to them, he'll find the exact bit of music that he wants to use for his bit of the show. Um, and because it's there, it's all it's licensed, he'll be able to use that piece of music for his show. And then what happens is every time that's broadcast on the television, the uh both the the library, the label, and the composer um earn money through the Performing Rights Society for the fact that it's being broadcast. Uh the music itself generally is um instrumental on the whole, although something else we can perhaps talk about a little bit is that there's a rising need for songwriting as well in sync music. Uh, but traditionally it's it's been instrumental music so that it's not interfering with uh narration over the top and sort of dialogue and all the sounds and so on. So there's a real knack to creating the the right kind of instrumental music. Uh but generally, yeah, it's it's it it sits there. You you write it for a library, they put it in their library, and it sits there waiting for a television or film director to to find it and choose the right piece of music.
SPEAKER_02Wonderful, very concise. Um and opens another can of worms that I think a lot of music educators might not be aware of as well, which is that PRS or just rights society element of the industry. I mean, and not that this is a music industry podcast, but it's just it's just so relevant, isn't it, for teachers to sort of have a grasp of this is how some of your students might go on to or even just understanding that it's it's a viable monetary choice to be a musician, isn't it? Really.
SPEAKER_00Hi, I'm Rachel from Faber Music, the leading independent British publisher of music education books and proud sponsor of the Music Education Podcast. Here at Faber Music, we task ourselves with understanding what music educators and students really need, and by working with some of the best educators, composers, and authors out there, produce publications and resources that enrich the music education journey for all. I invite you to browse our world-renowned publications at FaberMusic.com. Discover new ideas to improve your teaching with Paul Harris, learn piano from the world's most famous pianist Lang Lang. Begin your journey to become a rock star with our best-selling tutor Guitar Basics. All this and more with 20% off exclusively for music education podcast listeners. Visit Fabermusic.com forward slash education today and enter code podcast1 at the checkout.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely, yeah. Um, I mean, at the very least, you know, from sort of um undergraduate, if not sort of diploma level teaching, really, we should be putting in uh kind of teaching around the industry. Uh you know, it's not just about learning an instrument or learning how to perform or any of those things. It's you know, you we we we have to understand the industry now, and you know that that comes down to everything from, like you say, understanding the the royalty collections and uh you know where where does this money come from? How do you collect your money? Who collects it for you? Uh, right through to obviously other things like sort of copyright and uh the the extra extraordinarily complicated uh music sort of copyright world. Um it's good to get your head around that, um, and uh, you know, other interesting things like you know, marketing and uh approaching and you know, how do you get these deals in the first place and so on, you know? So yeah, it's uh really important that uh we do educate our students on uh the the industry side of things.
SPEAKER_02And do you think on on the um more musical and compositional side of the sync licensing bit, what elements of your skill set or creative self do you tend to access there that you know might be relevant um right back to that music lead in a primary school? You know, what what sort of things can students and teachers focus on that might be relevant to actually delivering this stuff?
SPEAKER_01Uh I guess it what it comes down to is it is emotional content. Um and so it's you know, getting students, you know, even at primary age, like you say, to you know, how does music make them feel? You know, what you know, because music is so such a powerful force, you know, it can make us it can make us fearful, it can make us sad, it can make us want to jump up and dance, it can, you know, so there's so many different ways we have of connecting to music. Um, so you know, in the very first instance, it's about developing uh or understanding those relationships that that we have with music is it's such a wonderful uh uh extreme of uh of feelings and emotions.
SPEAKER_02Oh Paul, that makes me so happy. That's uh that's like basically, you know, rather than let's talk about pitch children. Here's a crotchet, here's a quaver. You've just basically come out with um you've got to spiritually collect music, man, before you can do anything.
SPEAKER_01Completely and utterly, yeah, yeah. And um, you know, and that for me when I'm sort of thinking about education, you know, because I my the masters that I I deliver is it's about popular music, but um I I spend a lot of time focusing on on sound within that um and our relationship with sound, because you know, as musicians, you know, we're making music, so essentially sound is is our palette, you know. If you're an artist, um paint is your palette. Um, so understanding paint and colours is really important. So I I think the same thing is true in music. We should really have a good understanding of uh of sound and and how we how different sounds relate to us sort of emotionally, even physically. You know, there's there's ways of demonstrating how different types of sound actually can vibrate our our body, for example. So different sounds vibrate different parts of our body in different ways. So get you know, just getting into this this kind of close relationship of uh what sound and music can do to us, make us feel, and how it affects our mood and and uh you know how our minds and bodies respond is uh yes essential, I would say.
SPEAKER_02Tell me about different parts of our body vibrating in different ways. That sounds amazing.
SPEAKER_01Oh, okay. Um well, for example, I mean it's something which you you can you can try out some sort of simple simple methods to demonstrate that. Uh there's well not you don't want to get sort of too, you know. Uh this is not a kind of sort of spiritual uh position that I'm coming from, but just uh you can go full hippie very comfortably.
SPEAKER_02It's alright, it's alright. Well British Youth Music Theatre is a national performing arts education charity that specialises in creating and producing brand new music theatre with young people. They visit schools up and down the UK with Disc Music Theatre, which is their in-school auditions and careers day. It includes sessions in dance, singing, acting as well as industry careers advice, and they're also recruiting students for their forthcoming season of original music theatre and so much more. Discover Music Theatre caters for 50 to 100 pupils. The cost to the school is £27.50 per pupil, though this can sometimes be subsidized. Visit British Youth Music Theatre.org forward slash teachers or email mail at bymt.org to find out more.
SPEAKER_01Which comes from the uh the oldest human alphabet from Sanskrit. So the idea of chanting om is that it's supposed to vibrate uh different energy sensors in the body, but you can break that down further. There's different sounds. So, for example, if you if you put your your hand on your heart and you and you you chant mmm pom. Okay. You can feel your heart vibrating there. If you put your your hands on the top of your head, uh right on the top, and if you just go ah you probably can't feel very much there, but if you now go mmm, you can feel your head vibrating. So those two different sounds, you know, one sound doesn't vibrate the top of your head, and one sound does vibrate the top of your head. So there's and different sounds vibrate different areas of the body. Um and you know, that's just it's just a simple demonstration of you know, if you think about those very simple basic sounds vibrate in the body, you know, that you think about the complexity within a whole musical landscape and how they're they're affecting us physically. So, you know, if our bodies are affected physically, that in turn is going to affect our mood, how we're feeling, uh, and everything else. So um, so I've got gone slightly off track here, perhaps.
SPEAKER_02But no, you you've just delivered a fantastic workshop idea for that. What a wonderful demonstration. Because there's constant arguments or no, not arguments, like desperate statements from musicians and music educators in the uh well, Twitter. Twitter's fantastic for it basically music ed folks having to justify and say, oh, music matters, music matters, we must still learn about, but by just physically demonstrating, look, this changes how your body resonates. Like you should probably pay attention to it. Exactly. Incredibly powerful.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And so you tie that kind of thing in with, yeah, just like like I was saying before, about our relationship to to emotion and mood, and all of these things I think in an educational setting, you know, should really, like you say, come way before crotchets and quavers, and you know, and obviously on the masters, we we get into some kind of heavy academic kind of areas, you know, looking at phenomenology and post-structuralism, all these sorts of things. But all all of these, all of these areas of education, you know, if they're underpinned by these much more sort of fascinating and uh interesting areas, then first of all, it you know, what whatever age group you're you're dealing with, um students are able to connect with the ideas prior to actually just having to wrap their thinking brains around the you know the more complex ideas.
SPEAKER_02So relating that to sync licensing, are we saying where your brief is to To create a piece of music for a documentary about um the journey of Ukrainian refugees or something, and then it's like, well, if you don't understand the relationship between those em empath empathic empathic empathic feelings? I can't even think of the word, but you know what I mean. Um if you can't tap tap into those feelings and understanding how that links musically, you've just got no chance. Is that sort of where we're going here?
SPEAKER_01Exactly, yeah. Yeah. So, you know, um the example you gave, um yeah, sort of I mean, my my mind immediately starts going to okay, if if I'm writing music for someone on that kind of you know horrific journey, then you know, what are they feeling? What you know, what what where where what kind of uh emotions might be there and what kind of music really would be suitable to to convey some of those uh feelings. So if we understand um, you know how sound makes us feel those things and how a relationship with music, I mean, then obviously stemming out from that, you know, you you've got your harmonic structures and you, you know, what kind of melodies, you know, rising, falling melodies and so on, you know, what how how do they make us feel and you know what kind of chords make us feel, all sorts of things. So you you've got the more notational um aspects which will then feed into it, but just having that base understanding of uh the way the the brain responds to music and sound, I think is yeah, very, very important.
SPEAKER_02What about sounds around us, as in the field recording element of it and the sounds that we hear every day? Because they're obviously mixed into music increasingly so, even in ridiculously mainstream places, you know, the idea of making a drum beat out of the kitchen sink to keep it relevant, is just you know, that's that's not a weirdy idea, is it? You know, so what what about that element of sort of emotional collection?
SPEAKER_01Call that acoustic ecology, you know, which is the sort of you know, ecologies that human relationships with their environment. So acoustic ecology is you know our relationship with our sound environments. So yeah, to expand on that a little, uh we we get used to taking in a landscape, so you know, with with what we see, uh and we see we see landmarks and we see horizons and we see uh near field objects and midfield objects. Um when you start uh looking at um how we interact with our soundscapes as opposed to landscapes, we see there's some very similar things. So you know, you get things like sound marks, which could be a sound mark would be something that's uh you know, a sound object that's fixed in a location. Uh a good example of that might be church bells, for example. So um, if you're walking through a village uh and you hear church bells, and and and our relationship with those sound marks can change over time. So if you you know, if you had a house sort of next door but two to uh church bells, and you when you first move into that, it can be really irritating. You find it like a huge sort of pollutive aspect to it to your sound environment. But a few years later, um you might actually find that that's one of the most comforting sounds ever, and and and if that sound mark was taken away, you you can feel bereft. So so our sort of relationships with our soundscapes um can change over time. Actually, what one of the things that I do with with my students as well, which to help with understanding our acoustic environments, um, is I take them on sound walks. So uh this is initially something that was um I learned when I did my master's down at Goldsmiths University in London. Um, and I've sort of taken the idea, and what you do is you you set up a almost like a contract with the students, where you know, there's simple things like no mobile phones, no talking, you you know, you walk in a single file and and so on, and and you you pret the students to uh understand the walk as if it were a composition. So every sound that they're listening to is part of that composition. And and then I I take the students out on a walk sort of through a building, outside around interesting areas that you know, and and you start listening to everything as if it were a composition. So you hear a bus go past, you hear people talking, you hear um just simple things like um generators or or fans and air cooling systems and so on, uh that create these drones, or you might hear some a snippet of music coming out of a window, you hear birds tweeting, or all of the sounds when you start paying really close attention to your soundscape, you start noticing just how rich it is and and how important it is to our our sense of self and where we are, um, and and how we sort of navigate our uh our feelings and our safety uh also in in these kind of environments. Um, so again, you know, uh uh coming bringing back to education, that's uh that's a wonderful sort of thing for students to experience is to really find a way to listen to their acoustic environments uh to enhance the idea of uh of how sound and music makes us feel, you know. And and the more we know how sound and music makes us feel, the more equipped we are as composers, um producers to to create the right bit of music so that it sits well in uh you know on a television show.
SPEAKER_02It's like improving emotional intelligence and understanding almost.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely, it really is, yeah. Yep. Um and uh and a lot of it it's probably um subconsciously embedded in people anyway. It's uh just sort drawing attention to those things can yeah, like you say, it could improve your emotional intelligence around the around those areas and uh and you know it's beneficial in all kinds of ways as well, not just in terms of uh writing music for for for television, but it's uh it's just good to be more aware of our environments.
SPEAKER_02Just yeah, be mindful basically, I guess.
SPEAKER_01Exactly, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Funnily enough, I r remember uh just through a uh YouTube video years and years ago, I'm pretty sure it was Victor Wooden. I don't know if I've imprinted put Victor Wooden in there. This is like someone else that uh I should be quoting, and I've continually misquoted Victor Wooden for years and years, but who cares? It's a good quote, so it makes him look good, so I'm sure he'd be happy with it. Um he was talking about practice, and uh he said the best thing that you can do, he thinks, is just to go out and sit in a space and just listen. That's it. And um I remember taking that quite seriously because I just I'd never really done that, but the thought that it probably is a good thing to do if this guy's saying it. And um I think for me that started a a journey of just understand even just understanding space, really, and you know, the idea of silence in music is it's not really truthful, is it? Because there's always the the acoustic space that you have, even and that kind of it just opens up a bit of a deeper world, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_01Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, it really does, yeah. So sitting in and listening, uh I very much recommend that myself, or or even yeah, just if you're I mean I mean we get so consumed there's this by um filling our brains with uh so you know, not to go on the old um everyone's on their phones all the time kind of thing. But uh true. Uh you know, it just people walking down the street, you know, they'll be on their phones or they'll have their earbuds in and so on. Um, and although that's that's a you know that can be a wonderful thing in and of itself where you're creating your own sound track, your own sort of soundscape for the day. Uh I think yeah, it's good to it's good to escape from that here and there and uh try and appreciate you know just just what what our uh immediate environments are are are giving us because it's it's a rich, rich world out there.
SPEAKER_02What about um when it comes to sync comp composing for sync licensing and where you're creating something that isn't emotional? So uh you know we've took I've used the extreme negative example, you used a uh what quite a positive one, I think you said the sort of canals of Britain. You know that what about the just non-emotional scenarios? The the accountancy training video, for example, you know. Yeah. Um or do you just go completely over the top and just like people are weeping at the end of learning their uh new accountancy techniques?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, there's two ways you could do it, you could go with that. Yeah. Um so everything is attached to uh emotion. I mean, we we use the word emotional, and we you know, we normally assume that the word emotional means something sad or difficult or something like that. But uh you know, actually emotions are everything, you know, happiness, fear, angry, you know, these are all all emotions. Um accountancy.
SPEAKER_02Is that an emotion?
SPEAKER_01I'm just trying to think what what kind of emotion like that gives me, other than you know, um what the music's got to do there is is is make it interesting, you know. Okay, okay. Um so but but it's got to make it interesting, but without actually taking away from from from the content. If it if if it's serious, you know, dare I say apologies to any accountants out there, but if you know, if it is uh you know, some perhaps slightly dry content.
SPEAKER_02I think you can speak freely. I don't think there's any accountants listening to this podcast.
SPEAKER_01There might be, but then then then I guess the music's job in that case is to you know provide uh a little bit of joy in that situation. Um but but but yeah, I mean what what is interesting though also is for something like that, you know, you you might not I mean with with sync you because it's different from a commission. So you know, if you're being commissioned to write something, okay, this is for an uh you know, a show about accountants, then you know you might approach it in one way. But for a for a show like that, you know, the television director, you know, that they're probably gonna want to find a bit of music um that that they think is suitable.
SPEAKER_02I see. So at that point, that's where they're delving into the library to pick something rather than saying, Paul, create this m amazing symphony to demonstrate the difference between net profit and gross profit.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So so you know, as a composer, we're we're writing uh uh all these pieces pieces of music, you know, drawing on all these emotions, all these feelings, all these sounds, all these uh uh everything. And we're providing it, but we're you know, we're we're it's actually out of our control with with Sync Library of what it's actually going to end up on, you know, what particular show. Um, you know, I've had um bits of my music turn off on really bizarre things that you think, wow, you know, I would never have thought that that would that would end up there. You just get your PRS statement, your performing rights society statement through. You think, oh, this I've been on I've been on the one show this week, or I've been on, you know, um, you know, a couple of weeks back I had um um exploring the peaks with Ben Fogle or something like that, you know. And I you know, and the piece of music that that they're chosen for that, you know, I I was that wasn't in my mind. Uh it was you know, I what was in my mind was that particular feeling um you know that I wanted to express, but then obviously it's kind of out of your controls you know, to a certain extent. So that's kind of interesting thought as well, I suppose.
SPEAKER_02Does that mean there's a bit of uh um difference between craft and art here and being an artist? Because it seems to me that the artist bit would be more just creating and throwing it off to the libraries because you're just that's a could be a visceral, I don't care what I'm doing. Well it'll get picked if it gets picked. Whereas the commission that you would normally associate with, oh yes, I've been commissioned, I'm an artiste. Actually, that's where you are being told what to do and you're having to create for a point.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's a really interesting question, that is because um you know the the balance between expressing yourself as an artist uh and writing something for for essentially commercial means, you know, are you know where where is where is that line between those things and uh or or does that line even really exist? You know. Um in the past where I've been sort of just working, like say as an artist, I just you know, I just want to express myself, just want to do this and I just get it out there. And that you know that's that could be very liberating and very important if you're a creative person. Um I I think you know the best approach is is to is to not not think of sort of writing for sync as a purely commercial, non-artistic thing, but to find a way of of being yourself as an artist through that medium. Um because it's it is an art form in itself, you know, it absolutely is, and it's it maybe doesn't have the same sort of same freedom, you know. You are you are writing it almost you almost write to invisible briefs most of the time. So so you you know you probably get some kind of brief from from the label if they're looking for music for a particular album to to sit in the library. Um but the best way to write the best music for that is to do what you're good at naturally anyway. Um, and then you know, if if you can put passion in into writing commercially, then it's gonna be much better for it.
SPEAKER_02Fantastic, fantastic advice there. So it's that uh even uh the music teachers who are listening to this thinking about uh delivering sessions for their students, be them again primary or GCC or A level or whatever, thinking okay, well, we're gonna do a session on you know sync library stuff. I guess the most obvious thing that's gonna come to the head is here's the brief, let's create a piece of music to that brief. But actually, more apt session would be write a hundred compositions that you want you that you you feel like doing that that actually is quite unique, I suppose.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, sure. So then it's you know if you can just express yourself uh as an artist, um, and then it's really just a case of okay, let's here's the idea, here's the art, and now how do I sort of package that, how how do I sort of fine-tune that and present that in a way that that is suitable for for a library? Um I mean having said that, you know, there's always going to be times when um you know you're doing something that's you know not your core passion, um, I suppose, but but it on the whole, you know, you're always going to produce better music if you're if if it's coming from a place of love and you know, and and something that that you're really into. So so yeah, my advice would be to discover your thing, you know, in music, discover your, you know, what what do you love about music, and then you know, how do you then tailor that, shape it, manipulate it, and turn it into something that that is suitable for for television. Because working with uh library labels, there are some you know quite specific ways of presenting the music as well. It's not just a case of here's a piece of music. Um, there's usually some production stuff that goes along with that. So, you know, you for example, you you know, you think you normally have to produce a the full-length piece, which would be three and a half minutes or four minutes or something like that, maybe two and a half minutes. Then you'd have to produce a 60-second version of that, and it'd have to be exactly 60 seconds. You probably have to produce a 30-second version of that same piece of music, um, and then also two or three sort of two or three-second eye dense, so which are supposed to you know encapsulate the entire track in the like two seconds or or just or moments, moments from there, and then often libraries as well, they you know increasingly work in uh stems as well. So you have the the completed stereo track, but then you know, often they might then ask for a breakdown of of just the drum section plus just the guitars and just the the strings or or whatever. So um even if you just kind of you know, if if you're just you can create this work as an artist, um, but then it's also a case of okay, how do I then fine-tune that and make it so it's it's gonna work in in a library?
SPEAKER_02That's wonderful, thank you, Paul. I think we've um covered a lot of stuff here, some some proper deep stuff as well, which I love. Um, and I think for everyone listening, it would be a really authentic sort of insight into sync licensing and how that might come into their teaching, um, or even just for them as a as a musician as well. Um I wonder just a question to uh to wrap up with would be about the the sort of future proofing and maybe even a bit of a prediction of where you see this going, because uh you know, in music education we're trying to teach about music, which obviously evolves in its own way, but also the music industry, which evolves at this insane speed, really, you know, out of all industry, I it's got to be certainly in the past five, ten years one of the fastest changing anyway. So surely that could be the same for sync as well. So, you know, what where do you see it going? What you know, how can we sort of keep it keep it relevant, you know, if we're not like you where we're working with it every day?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, good question. Uh um, I mean it who knows where technology is going to take music over the next few years. Like you say, it's just exponentially changing, you know, the industry's changing permanently. Um, I I I guess you know, I feel fairly confident in that there's always gonna be content out there that's that's gonna require music. I I think I think the biggest things that will change is is how we're making music. Um, you know, we've got obviously things like artificial intelligence to to get our heads around these days as well, you know, where we've got um I actually had a a master's student last year who's working on an artificial intelligent um research project, and uh and and she she built an app that um um created lyrics and what she did she she fed all of the lyrics that that this that she'd written over the last 10 years into the app, and so the app then uh wrote its own lyrics based on her style.
SPEAKER_02Wow, literally put herself out of a job. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01No, it's just so uh you know, you know, and kind of music generating, you know, the there's apps out there now being developed all the time. There's there's quite a few out there that um so I I I guess that's something to consider in terms of the future, you know, it's just a press of a button, we can get a lyric, a press of a button, we can get a chord structure, a press of a button, so on. But I mean that's pretty scary stuff, mate.
SPEAKER_02So I I never really thought about that, but I know on Instagram I'd been following a couple of AI art pages, and I mean, that you know, that generate art by certain artists as well, you know, inspired by and it's mind-blowing. You know, they're they're some of them are beautifully unique as well in their own way. Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. We're surplus to requirements, aren't we?
SPEAKER_01I mean that that's the biggest fear, isn't it? That you know, is uh you know, robots will uh kind of take our jobs just just like you know uh they've sort of taken a lot a lot of other jobs and a lot a lot of other industries. Um but you know, the there is uh there is hope that you know, like I say, when it when it comes down to it, you know, we've still got those those connections to sound and emotions and music, um you know the passion. So one would hope that there's always going to be a bit of room for us humans in there somewhere. Um I mean this is you know the thinking more kind of in a yeah, dystopian kind of ways, I suppose. But practically speaking, uh I think uh what will change mostly is is the way that we are able to create music using technology, there's the speed of things. Um and uh I I think there's there's there's many years left yet where we can you know keep functioning and uh and finding new ways to earn money from music. So at the end of the day, you know, however um passionate we are about our art, in order to continue, don't you know, we need to earn a little bit of money from it at least. So um I I would hope that uh there's there's still a few years left of that yet.
SPEAKER_02Brilliant. Thanks so much for your time, Paul.
SPEAKER_01You're welcome, Chris. Lovely to meet you, and um thanks so much for for inviting me onto this this fantastic podcast.
SPEAKER_02So there you go. I hope you enjoyed that episode. Thank you to Soundstorm and to our sponsor, Faber Music, and to our charity sponsor, British Youth Music Theatre. And thank you so much to you for listening.