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first person who communicates that goes, " I just
need something with energy, " well, that could be
EDM, it could be rock, it could be punk, it could be a
lot of things. So your job as the supervisor is to narrow
the funnel, or the filter, as it were, and then
you need to let us know, let publishers know, let all
of your regular sources know what you need.
That's exactly right. That's one of the hardest
things that I do, and one of the most interesting
things. Because how do you describe music with
words? Right? You know, the old joke is a record
producer will tell the singer, " That was perfect.
Now it needs to be a little bit more purple. Sing
with a little more fuchsia in your voice. " We're
crazy-what does that mean?
So that communication is... Really, what I have
to do is burrow down and try to use the right
words and descriptors in order to... Because I
want someone... I want all TAXI members to be
able to pitch the [right music] to me.
What I need to do is communicate to you,
Michael, in order to put a TAXI listing together
that enables your members to target exactly
what I need, because that makes my life easier.
So my work is to find the right descriptor so that
people can target better, and that's the hard
part. And then I'll have discussions with some
directors and producers and they say, " Just get
me music. You know what I want. " And I'm like,
" No, I don't. "
You read my mind!
And they'll say that we need energy here, and
then I do the old Wheel of Fortune thing and say,
" Can I buy a vowel? Give me something more. "
So, I tend to try to give examples of artists-and
this is something for your listeners out there.
When any supervisor, producer or TAXI says, " I
want a song like Beyoncé or Adam Levine or..., "
we don't even need it to sound like that artist or
be a copy of that song. I'll try to give more than
one example, so I'll try to say a few songs like
these types of artists, or in the same genre. Then
I'd say, " Imagine that it's a Spotify playlist. What
song of yours fits in with those artists? " Better
than Spotify, I would say a Pandora list with
their algorithm that tries to get things that fit
within a style.
So that's what music supervisors have to do, to
be effective with TAXI and with anybody else.
The creators [musicians] are what we need. That
part is the hard part, but it's the interesting part.
It's finding... And sometimes we change. We
started out with X, yeah, but I ended up with G.
Right. We are always appreciative that when you
run listings with us that you will give us two or
RECORDING October 2021 69
three references. Sometimes we get people that
give us no references, and they just expect us to
figure it out because they're too busy. There are
other people that will give us one reference
because there is something in that reference that
they like, but they don't tell us that. [They don't
mention that it's just one aspect that they like.]
They just say, " Yeah, find me something like this. "
Well, it might be the vocal, the stylized vocal that's
in it, but maybe they don't really like the backing
track. But they don't tell us that! " Find me something
with a vocal that's got a similar vibe. " Then
we have to go find a couple more things that we
think match their reference. We could be going
down a wrong path, so we have to work really hard
to dig out of them the reference and what it is
about the reference before we go looking for other
references.
That's hard. I will say for your listeners out there
that that's going to be part of the frustration-
that you are creating a piece of music that I
would tell everybody... I would say this, create
the piece of music for yourself; don't create for
me or for anybody else. If you're writing for a
specific project, that's different, but you're creating
music for yourself. Create the music, then
the work starts, which is the same as casting an
actor-we have all heard about those stories
where you cast actors. We are casting music, so
your job on that side is to have your song and
say, " Does that match what the character is? "
The character [in this case] being the description
of what the song need is. And you have to
be honest, right?
Don't miss Part Two of this interview next month!
http://www.recordingmag.com/podcast http://www.recordingmag.com/video-reviews
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