Recording - December 2019 - 60

to be your traditional sound, it doesn't even
have to be vocals, but the market for it is
enormous. So that's your bonus information.
Continued from page 59
what you've created and if it will work for
something.
I don't know how many people who have catalogs like I do who do this. How many people
here are in my catalog? The entire room-
thank you. I will sit with you and tell you how
to fix it. I will sit there and tell you that you
need breathing room between the chorus and
the hook. I will tell you if the vocals are off, if
they are mixed too low, the guitars are too
hot. I will spend that time with you if I think
it's a song worth saving. But it's so much better if you could do that without me. You could
just do whatever you like... If it's a great
song... I did everything else there is to do; I
had 12 other people listen to it...if it was
mixed right. I don't mind doing it and sending you back to the drawing board, but I think
you'd be better off if that was your talent, if
that was your skill.
#11: And these are brownie points. How many
of you know that holiday music is used all
year around? Thank you for being smart. Literally, Hallmark and Lifetime make holiday
movies every month of the year and never
stop working on them. Therefore, if you don't
know that they have their own channels-
Hallmark has two of them, Lifetime has their
own channel-listen to what they're using. It's
right there, and they use it all year around. I
love the people who call me in November and
go, "Do you need any holiday music?" Yeah, I
needed it six months ago; where were you?
But this is how we learn. The truth is, there is
a huge market, not for public domain but for
original holiday music. But when I say public
domain, people go on the internet and Google
it, because there are songs that even some of
my top writers will send me, and I'll go, "Eh,
not public domain."
You've got to actually check on at least two sites
to verify that it is, because the sites that list
public-domain stuff don't always get it right. I've
been fooled by that. I can't remember what the
song was, but I was absolutely sure it was public
domain. I found it on a site that's public domain,
and the supervisor called me and said, "Dumbo,
not public domain."
There are a lot of surprises. I have learned
over the years which ones are the tricky ones,
because I work so much with holiday music. It
is just an enormous market for you guys, even
if that's not what you primarily do... Trust me
that if you do hip-hop versions of "Oh Holy
Night," I'm gonna love them, and you might
get a placement with them. So it doesn't have
60 RECORDING December 2019

Now we're going into why your song didn't get
placed. This is so much tougher for me to talk
to you about, because this is the stuff you
have no control over. You have just got to
know that you've got to be a little tougher and
understand that these things happen.
#1: They cut the scene. They literally went in
and they cut the scene out; your song was in
it. Bye-bye song, bye-bye tune. It just happens.
It sucks, but it happens.
#2: Nobody knew how to contact you; you didn't put any metadata on your song file. Do you
know how many of you-and I know you
know you do it-send me MP3s with no name
on it? And I'm supposed to know exactly who
sent that? Except that I threw it into iTunes-
before I noticed that you didn't provide any

"The #2 reason your song didn't get
used: Nobody knew how to contact
you; you didn't put any metadata on
your song file."
-Beth Wernick
metadata-and then I can't find the song.
And I don't know who it is, and I don't know
how to help you. It is the easiest thing in the
world, guys, when you're encoding your song.
Put your name and some contact information,
your phone number and email-something!
And answer your phone. If you don't live in the
L.A. area and you see a phone call come in... I
can't believe how many people I call in Connecticut, and they see and 818 phone number and
they call me back four hours later, and we were
trying to get them licensed into something,
where the supervisor called and said, "I need it,"
and we can't get them." So if you live outside of
L.A. and you see 818, 213, 323, or 310, just pick
up the phone. If you're at work and you're not
allowed to take phone calls, go to the restroom.
Take the call, because if you normally don't get
calls from Los Angeles, it's probably somebody in
the industry calling you for a reason.
And honestly, I'm not a shrink, but I have
seen one. (laughter) They sometimes say if
you don't put your name on something, it's a
real tell-tale thing about what your confidence
level is about your work. It's very, very telling.
When I see that somebody doesn't put their
name on, I don't think, "Oh, they think I
know them so well," I think they don't care. I
think they're not professional, they don't
know how to deliver, and they're making my
job harder for me.

OK, moving on from that one.
#3: You didn't have the instrumental track. We're
beating a dead horse here. You didn't have the
track; you have your WAVs or AIF. So please,
always remember to have all the elements to
your song, because the editors need them.
#4: So this could happen sometime. It's happened a lot actually. Your melody was too close
to a well-known song. I had a guy get so upset
with me recently. I hope you're not here,
honey. But I sent him two examples. I went on
the internet and pulled off two songs that
sounded like his song, and he got so upset
with me, and he said, "Well, I hope they sue
me." And I thought, "I hope you grow up and
never send me another song." It happens. You
may have heard it subconsciously. But here's a
young guy, he doesn't know as much music as
I've heard my whole life. You know, my parents played stuff from the '30s and the '40s
when I was growing up. I've always liked older
music, and I've always enjoyed a really broad
spectrum of music styles. Actually, in my car I
only listened to Tom Petty Radio. (applause)
Tom Petty, thank you! It's true. It's the only
one I listen to.
So it's really, really strange if you don't put
your name and some contact information on
the songs that you want to get played. Especially if you're Tom Petty.
This happened. Understand that it happened.
They love the song! The music supervisor put
it in, the editor put it in, they sat down with
the other 400 people that have an opinion,
and they said, "Hmm, I'm gonna go in
another direction."
Oh, you must be talking about advertising
agencies.
They go in another direction in about three
times a day. I almost gave up working with an
ads, because it's constant. "Yeah, we wanted
this, but now we need it to be a male singer.

"The truth is, there is a huge market,
not for public domain but for original
holiday music."
-Beth Wernick
We brought in a male singer, but now we want
him to be able to sound like a dog." It just
goes on and on. I don't know how they ever
get a piece of music in anything, because the
process goes on forever. It's very painful.
#5: Your mix wasn't broadcast-quality. It's the
truth, guys. When I said bring your A-game,
you've just have to make it the best it can be,
because the competition is fierce. So if you
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Recording - December 2019

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