Why is tagging your music with metadata important?

If you're an artist, library or label looking to license your music to trailer houses, ad agencies, and film/TV, it's more important than ever to make sure your music is "tagged" and embedded with the appropriate descriptors.

What is music tagging?

Music tagging involves taking individual cues that are available for license and adding a text description of the cue itself. An ideal description should involve tempo, music genre, film/tv genre, instruments, as well as descriptions of the music itself. For example, if you had a Green Day-like punk song in your catalog, you might describe it as "fast, fun, comedy, 90s, alternative, punk, teen, aggressive, guitars, bass, drums, edgy." A cue along the lines of the Harry Potter theme might be "mysterious, intro, opener, bells, xylophone, strings, orchestra, orchestral, cinematic, magical, fantasy".

How does music tagging help me license my music?

Music tagging makes it easier for your cues to be found by people who are looking for them- editors, music supervisors and producers working on commercials, TV shows, films, and movie trailers. Cues that are properly tagged will appear in more searches, making it more likely that they will be licensed.

Who is using music tags to search for music?

Nearly everyone who wants to license a piece of music is going to search using these tags! Editors at the biggest networks have libraries with hundreds of thousands of cues that they search through. Smaller shows might only have a licensing agreement with a single library. In either case, they are going to use search terms to make playlists of possible cues for their projects. An editor or music supervisor working on CSI might type in "procedural" or "thriller" or "mystery" or "crime" to see what coms up. Only cues that have these descriptors will appear.

What platforms do editors, music supervisors and producers use to search for music?

Platforms can range from as simple as an editor's personal iTunes library to a linked network powered by software like Soundminer. There are a plethora of online platforms available such as Source Audio. Many imaging sites like Shutterstock and Getty Images offer music licensing options as well. The wide range of platforms makes it even more critical that your music is properly tagged and embedding.

To get a consult on how your music is tagged and get some recommendations, schedule a FREE consult with Metadata Music today.