Real Musicians Don't Starve: Michael Elsner on Music Licensing (Episode 66)

Make Music Your Business.

Real musicians don't starve. Michael Elsner is living proof. His career spans more than 30 years as a guitarist, songwriter, composer and music licensing guru. He has toured with artists of many genres around the world, and he has more than 2,200 sync placements, with songs and compositions on over 180 TV series, major motion picture trailers and international commercials.

In Episode 66 of The Career Musician, Nomad and his friend of 15 years settle a long running debate (Michael wanted the touring gig, Nomad wanted Michael's sync catalog) and get into how music licensing actually works. If you want to know how to get your music on TV and film, grab a pencil. Here is what stood out.

From the band to the studio to sync

Michael grew up on the technical, melodic guitar heroes of the late 80s and early 90s, like Eddie Van Halen and Paul Gilbert. His first band record in New York sounded great but didn't sound like the band, so he started learning production himself.

He moved to Nashville in 1998, assisted engineers, then jumped into producing and playing on records. After four and a half years, he felt pigeonholed as a studio guy, so in 2003 he moved to LA to find a touring gig. Instead he landed guitar work on a TV show right away, which led to films, composers and music supervisors, and his songs started getting placed.

He kept chasing the road. Around 2007 he formed a band, made three records and got a ton of placements, right as the record business was collapsing. He watched labels turn to licensing to make money back, and watched his music supervisor friends' lunch calendars fill up with nervous A&R people.

Build a system, then follow it

Nomad credits Michael with putting his head down and studying how this side of the business works. Michael says the habit started with guitar: friends who just noodled didn't improve, but focused half hour sessions on specific tasks did. Licensing became the same thing.

"When you follow a system, you can shut off the left part of your brain, you can stay creative, and you never have to ask what's next."

Michael Elsner, 14:18

His process came from trial and error. When he sent CDs with fancy cover art, placements dropped. When he went back to plain CDs with a description of each track ("female vocal, upbeat pop"), they worked, because supervisors knew what they were getting without listening. That was metadata before it was called metadata.

Another lesson came at a sushi dinner, when a call came in for a $20,000 commercial that needed stems in 30 minutes and he was 45 minutes from his studio. From then on, he delivered every mix and stem up front. His process boils down to: always be building your catalog, deliver valuable content (multiple mixes, stems and cut downs), and write thorough metadata.

You're not in the music industry anymore

This is the point Nomad made him repeat.

"When you're licensing your music, you're not working in the music industry. You're working in the TV industry, in the film industry, in the commercial industry."

Michael Elsner, 24:06

A fan listens to your stereo mix exactly as you made it. In TV and film, at least three people work on your music after you: a music editor cuts it to the scene, then a re-recording mixer blends it with dialogue and sound design in surround. Deliver music that lets them do their jobs quickly.

And it has to be legal. You are dealing with copyright on the master and the publishing, contracts with indemnification clauses, even errors and omissions insurance. If you sampled a famous drum intro you don't own, you just put the licensee on the hook. Program or replay it instead. It is a big industry with a lot of money changing hands, so learn the rules. Many supervisors now work through libraries, which are full publishers representing everything from instrumentals to major artists' catalogs.

Metadata gets you to the audition

Michael compares a supervisor's search to a funnel. It starts with 100,000 tracks, and you want to be in the last ten or twelve, the same way you want to be one of the few players called in for a big audition.

He proved it on a webinar. Viewers described a scene and suggested keywords. He searched a catalog of around 300,000 tracks. Seven came up, and four were his. With a fresh set of keywords, eight came up, and one was his. It wasn't because his music was amazing, he says. It was because his metadata was.

Massive and passive, built on consistency

Nomad said sync was about a third to half of his own income, with a goal of 80 to 90 percent. Michael calls it "massive and passive": the upfront sync fee can be massive, especially for network TV, trailers, games and commercials, and the backend royalties through your PRO keep paying.

Small cable placements may pay pennies per cue, like penny stocks. A few network placements can match a thousand of them. But Michael focuses on consistent placements. The editor using your music on a small show might cut the next big network show, and editors start with who they know. A song he co-wrote that sat for about five years became a kids' show theme that airs every Saturday. Another took ten years to land.

Nomad's version: make your quantity quality. One cue a day, two to four hours each. Work begets work, in sync as much as on stage.

Every part of a song can find a home

One of Michael's songs had a beautiful verse and chorus and a bridge he thought was garbage. When it aired, the only part used was that bridge, and it summed up the whole episode perfectly. Some of his biggest earners broke every Nashville songwriting rule. Simple, youthful lyrics fit youth shows. A song that repeats "you again" every other line has been placed dozens of times.

His one nugget of wisdom: tonight, close your eyes and just listen to the music under whatever you are watching, including the commercials. You will hear how minimal it often is, leaving room for dialogue and sound, and you will realize the people writing it are musicians like you, working from home studios all over the world.

"The question that successful people ask, that career musicians ask, that real musicians who don't starve ask, is: how can I?"

Michael Elsner, 1:02:27

The takeaway

Licensing is within reach of every independent musician, but you have to learn a different industry: build a catalog, deliver stems and alternate mixes, write thorough metadata, keep it legal and stay consistent. That is Diversify or Die in action, and it is how you Make Music Your Business. Michael's free ebook is on his Master Music Licensing site, and you can find more at michaelelsner.com. To map out your own next steps, start with the free plan of attack (POA) worksheet and the Get the Gig guide.

Get the gig. Keep the gig. Build the career.

Watch on YouTube or find every episode on the TCM Podcast page.