73. How to Get Your Music In and Money from Sync with Jennie Armon
season 3, episode 13
Episode: 73
Welcome to Musicians Tip Jar where we talk about musicians and money. We believe adding value is the secret code to making money. I’m Chris Webb, joined by my co-host and a guy who loves to talk in code, Dave Tamkin.
How do you increase your value? How do you know what is valuable? We want to help you crack the code of the sync world. We dive into all things music licensing and discuss solutions to these questions and much more with our guest, Jennie Armon.
Quote of the week
“It is less about what you do when you go into the studio than how you come prepared.” - Jennie Armon
Throughout her career, Jennie has brought a rare blend of business and creative acumen to music and brand partnerships ranging from the Olympics to spots for major brands (Nike, Google, BMW, L'Oreal, M&Ms, and more). She’s been instrumental in ad honors including the AMP award for “Most Effective Use of Music," AMP's overall "Best in Show" award, and most recently a Clio award for "Best Use of Music in Film/Video" for Youtube's 'Life in a Day' featuring Black Pumas & Lucius.
Non-profit of the week
Sweet Relief Musicians Fund: Sweet Relief is a nonprofit organization focused on providing financial aid to musicians facing illness, disability, or age-related challenges. They offer assistance to career musicians who are struggling to make ends meet. They have tons of resources for music industry professionals, providing emergency financial assistance and other forms of support to career musicians, road crew, and anyone who makes the majority of their income in the music business. Learn more at www.sweetrelief.org/
Chris Webb
All right, today we conclude our sit down with executive creative producer and music supervisor for squeaky clean, Jenny.
So what would be some ways that artists could increase their value then as they get into the sync world?
Jennie Armon
I think collaborating with larger artists is a really, really good move. If you're touring, which is a great moneymaker. Try getting on the bill with really well known bands, try like helping leak one of their tracks and saying, Hey, we will promote one of your tracks if you can promote one of ours, you know, again, if they're really big, they might not care, but it's developing those relationships. And that's going to be a common thread in this conversation. Because these relationships, for one, have helped me move forward in my career they have also supported me in my life. When I was teaching, I felt like I was getting commission from projects I had pulled in that were helping fund that side of what I was doing at the time. So it's like, hold on to those connections so much and develop them. And if you can get in the same room with someone at Mumford and Sons, do it. Drop whatever you're doing and develop that relationship. You know, maybe your manager might manage some bigger bands. Or maybe your sync agent, like zinc, you know, for instance, is a great sync agent, like maybe zinc has some people on their roster, Okay, I'm going to reach out to 10 people today that are really cool bands, and I'm going to try to get to know them because we're on the same roster. Or maybe I'm an alumni of Berkeley, and I'm going to reach out to this person. So it's really trying different ways to get in the same room or have a community conversation with the people that can help elevate you and help you step higher.
Chris Webb
I love that we talked about the importance of community in every way. Right? And that's, I mean it, I love that it translates straight into the sink world to no surprises there. But it's also important for people to remember that everything that they write to these people matters, Right, we talked a little bit about etiquette when you were in the class about how to approach people like supervisors and other people that you want to have connections with. Let's talk a little bit about what you like, some major points about etiquette, and things that are big no no's in the music sync world.
Jennie Armon
Sure. First thing Do not ever attach a track to your email. It will shut down our emails, I get so many emails per day if you're attaching all of your tracks, collections, or even just one fact. So make a Do yourself a favor and make a login and a user profile on WWE transfer or box.com, or Dropbox or my favorite is disco DIFC Oh, just spelled like that. I don't have this, but a lot of music supervisors in the big world will have their own link to their library that you can put your tracks in, just like uploading them, and then they will look through them. So that is a really good move by sending a link in an email, Also, please, please, please do your research on us. If I'm working at Squeaky Clean, you're looking at Squeaky clean’s website and you're seeing okay, they do hip hop, electronic lot of rock. But I'm going to send in some polka. There is probably nothing I can do with that, unless maybe once in a blue moon I'll have somebody reach out for it. But know your audience. So if you're reaching out to a hugely prolific music supervisor, like Sue Jacobs, and you can see on IMDb, she's working on a dark, moody film, do not send her happy stuff through your dark, moody options. Or if you're working with the trailer house, look at what they've done to date at the general gist and send them stuff that's up their alley, You want to treat these people like humans, because we get reached out to all the time, I mean, my inbox is constantly full. So it's really respecting our time, it's making sure that you're reaching out, and you're using that one reach out to really like let them know, I know who you are, I know what you're doing, and I know the vibe that you're looking for. And this is me. And then on top of that, let's say you get the call, and you're like, Mark, I'm going to use your work, give me the stems to this track, you need to do some preproduction here, and you need to make sure that you have all of your tracks stemmed out with splits. As far as all of those individual instruments, you know, I know that being in one room can really have a vibe. But it's always good when we have control with mixing or with something like sync, where we can remove the drums or that one vocal or whatever. So having those splits, I'm saying splits those stems isolated is really good. And then going to the splits aspect. We talked about this in your class, Chris, when you're done recording something at the conception of this creative masterpiece, have a split sheet ready where you're signing, okay, Johnny gets 50% Martha gets 50% or whatever, Mary gets 10% or however you guys deem worthy at that time, because if I'm fast forward, reaching out to mark and saying Mark, I need this track, I need the stems and mark like oh, how are we going to work on like, who has the percentages and everything? Let me try to find the stems. No, have all that ready, because we don't have any time, we might have an hour to get your stems and know that you have your stuff organized. And together? We so yes, I would say aside from just reaching out and making those connections and developing those relationships have everything incredibly organized, even on your phone, like have Google Drive on your phone with links that you can send to people right away, where you're just kind of setting up, right, we put everything out into the universe. And sometimes we manifest some things. So having everything set up and put in place and really, really clean and tight. Everything's labeled. Everything has metadata embedded into it with your contact information, the name of it don't do not put track one. Like what are we going to do with that we don't know the name of it, we don't know who owns it. So like, put your name embedded with made it metadata in the track. Make sure you have everything, all of your elements together that you can send very quickly and we will be friends.
Chris Webb
Yeah, I think that what you're saying is, I mean, obviously all of those things are probably new to a lot of our listeners. But what you're saying is Be professional if you want this to be your job if you want to actually make an income and bring value like we said, Boy, these are just habits to build or they're not. I mean, the people that I was talking to were saying that, you know, the sink world is so oversaturated with music, just like Spotify just gets so many new tracks every day. But if you look at the stats like it still is a small percentage they get placed because they have this stuff. Right? They have the stuff you just said. Organized totally Willie, can we switch gears a little bit and talk about when someone is just starting out? We have had a few of our get our listeners asked about. I don't know where to start with, with my tracks I'm recording in my home studio, for example. I think they're good enough. And we just talked a little bit about the organization end of things. But what would you what would you tell them are some of the things that they're going to need to start doing from the very beginning, as they as they begin? I mean, we talked about disco, which I'm a big advocate of disco to getting their tracks onto they're doing the metadata. But what do they need and make sure with the music itself, that that the quality is at a certain level? How do they kind of know what level they're at?
Jennie Armon
Sure. So I mean, I think investing in some really good equipment is, and again, this is all acknowledging that like, a lot of people are privileged, and they have access to that. And some people don't, I would say, get as good of equipment as you can. buy as many sample packs as you can, like, do everything you can with as as high of integrity is possible. If you're listening to it, and you're like, I don't know, if this is good, it might not be, it might not be. But I would reach out again to your network and have people even if you're a student in in a in college or high school, you know, everybody that's really invested in music around you is probably going to keep doing it. So keep those connections. And if even if you're in your 40s, and you're like I just laid down a track, I don't know if it's good. Reach out to people that you trust and have them give you feedback on it. I would say just investing in the time. It's tricky, because I'm not a songwriter. And I'm not I don't make traps. So I can't give you the actual technical specifics for what you need to make it sound good. But I know that there are amazing sample libraries out there like splice or sample packs that you can get things from that are just very worth it. Yeah, I think it's like that feedback conversation. So there is something that Chris and I met at which is the during are songwriters expo where they have a bunch of music supervisors, a&r people for labels, like big, well renowned, big names, songwriters that can give you honest feedback on your work. And that's actually how Meghan Trainor was discovered, like, they can also sync your tracks to if they like, you know, one track I've heard at the last songwriters expo, and I have not stopped listening to it. It's just so good. So it's getting bigger people on your radar that can give you honest feedback. And I get down very granular on the production quality, like, you know, don't just do this in your bedroom; get somebody that knows that has a soundproof studio, rent some studio space, you know, get a proper engineer in there that can record it. I would also say if you're recording it, like, have an instrumental version, as well, because instrumental versions are great for us. Because sometimes we can always use vocals and lyrics. And then there was one other thing I mentioned in class, which was after you're done creating your track, it's done. I want you to go back to it because I don't want it to interfere with the actual creative process, and I want you to do an instrumental version with vocalise which means just vocal textures, oohs and ahhs, even if it's like punk rock screaming, no actual language lyrics. And the reason for that is because they can pull in and out vocal textures. Still feels like a song. It might be internationally used, might not have everybody speaking English or Spanish or any language that you're actually singing with. So having those three options, original with vocals, isolated stems, instrumental vocal instrumental no vocals, isolated stems and then vocalise that that's, that's the moneymaker. But also, like, don't just be like, I'm gonna go in a room and record, like, do a ton of research as far as the music that you like, listen to the tone of your voice. Does it sound like Maggie Rogers, okay, like, what's she doing? Let me analyze what she's doing. Maybe I can do it differently, maybe can do it better find inspiration from it. Or, you know, again, collaborating with different people that maybe are at a higher educated level or I shouldn't say educated Did but like maybe they've been in the music world longer or they learned a little quicker. Grabbing and pulling from people like that and collaborating and having these conversations is really what's going to elevate you. Because you're going to pick up all those pieces and be like, alright, I spoke with Denae, she knows what's up. I'm going to make something badass now. You know. So I think it's I yeah, I think it's less of like, what do you do when you go in the studio? Versus how do you come prepared? How do you get all those pieces?
Chris Webb
Yeah. So what would you say some of the styles that you're seeing placed the most? Or things that are maybe your answer, what styles are needed the most that that could be filled with some of the music from our listeners.
Jennie Armon
I know a lot of us don't even see commercials anymore. Unless it's like Hulu has like a mandatory one minute and 30 commercial second commercial that you have to watch four times in a row. But you can look at pre roll on YouTube. You can look at different commercial spots if you're looking up like advertising awards. But I would say the most sinks that I've been seeing, that I've been working on are with tech companies. So that's Google, that's Apple, that Samsung, and so on. Even I mean target is not as a tech company, but target and Old Navy are always thinking same with Walmart as well. So you've got these bands, these these brands that are really investing in music, licensing, versus composition. And with tech, I mean, they're constantly releasing different things all the time. So I would take a look at Apple and Google, for instance, and really analyze that those vibes, apples range is amazing. I am so impressed by their team and creative endeavors and challenges that they take on like it is how always, that's one of the reasons I got into music supervision is because of the old school iPod Apple, yes. With just the colorful silhouettes, people like I was like, What is this song, you know, and it really changed the industry. So that is an incredibly amazing benchmark to look at. A lot of it's fast paced, pop, electronic, sometimes hip hop and fused, those are going to be the biggest things with some really like punchy vocals, I would say rock is probably the next genre, where you've got like a little more edge, and you're going to reach out to more edgy brands for that. So maybe bands is a cool one for you, or Levi's converse, you know, there's types of brands that you feel like, it does have an edge to it. And then yeah, hip hop is has been great, you know, if you got some really cool vocals on there, like that can sell to a lot of brands like Nike or any athletic brand in general. You'd be surprised a lot of alcohol and liquor companies will license those types of styles as well. And then for more beautiful songwriting, which I know we see a lot of, I would look at more of the brands that tell stories, I remember there was like an extra GM commercial that told an entire love story on little gum wrappers. And that was an amazing spot for me. You know, like there's so I have so much respect for for advertising, it's so hard to fit a story in a 30 seconds, right, you know, but I would look at those brands, you know, family brands, that your family uses, or like, I remember working on a Kerrygold commercial for butter, and it was all about the holidays, and how you can savor those moments with your family. And so like, if you are more of a songwriter, you know, more melodic, more soulful or tender, I would look at brands that kind of enhance that. Yeah, it can be hard to dig unless you have the tools to find out which brands work with certain agencies. And then from there who picks up the music for those agencies, right. But if you're looking at really big advertising agencies like Drogo, five, you're gonna know that that has comes with a ton of edge. And things that are just like always new. If you're looking at Saatchi and Saatchi, that's going to be more family brands where it has, you know, brands that might, you know, stick out to you. So I would I would do your research and try to find on different websites, what brand goes with what agency and then go backwards from there and find the person that's working on that music. Sometimes there are music supervisors in house at agencies, and they are they're even more of a decision maker than I am. Like, I need to send my tracks to them for them to pick. And that's hard to do too, because they're really in the trenches and I've been the agency side and it is Not easy, but you know, you are very much closer to the brand. So you can be that steward for them. So,
Chris Webb
I think a lot of times, it's just a place to get started. You know, a lot of a lot of people just want to know, where do they get started and doing this research is such a great place in my mind to, because you have, you can't fight who you are as an artist, right? You can't fight your sound too much. You have to do what you love what's calling you. So it's a great idea. I love that idea of starting there. And with the brands that may be already speak to you. I mean, I love all those Apple commercials too. Like, I did find a few artists that I listen to all the time now, from those commercials. And I know I know that same has happened with the beginning of some intros on shows. Right. That's how I first heard the fray I remember was Grey's Anatomy. Yeah. So
Jennie Armon
yeah, Grey's Anatomy was a great one and the OC that was clutch. Heart beats with by Jose Gonzalez, which was covered by the knife, or no, sorry, the knife covered it did it and then Jose gunboats Gonzalez covered it. But no like, Man covers are really cool to actually like reinventing a cover. Daniela Andrade is amazing at doing these, like reinventing these pop traps and making them this acoustic covers. She's been doing it I first heard her when she covered crazy by Gnarls Barkley, but like finding out, you know, like different ways to approach done songs, like recreate them, cover them and reimagine them. That is such a cool way to get into. If you're like, Whoa, I've never heard a take on this. You got goosebumps. You know, that's a great thing too. I would say one of the things just pedaling back to people's genres, I would tell people to keep pushing themselves out of their comfort zones. If what you do right now is songwriting, and it's not sticking, try different genre. Or if you're bored, try a different genre. Like see what else you can do. Because the more of a catalog that you have, the more that we have to choose from, right? And the more that you can make money and have find joy in what you're doing. So like really analyze and research these different genres, give back to the source of who created the genre and see what you can do differently.
Chris Webb
Yeah, yeah. And that idea of doing other people's songs, I think that's another good way to find your sound is because you naturally change the way that the songs performed because of who you are. Right. And I don't think a lot of people think about the fact that they can place those. They think, well, this isn't my song, I can't place it. But if they get a clear with the Harry Fox agency, and you do the right channels, they just aren't getting 100%. Right, because they're not going to get the songwriting rights
Jennie Armon
to publishing. Yeah, publishing. Yeah. So I mean, I even spoke with somebody who is friends with the band that he covered, like, I don't know, friends is a loose term for him. But he has a relationship where he knows that they would clear his version creatively. Because that is one other thing is you have to have the rights holder approve creatively that they want this to go out, even though it's their song originally. You do have to keep that in mind. You know, if it's a punk version of
Chris Webb
I don't know, Sweet Home Alabama.
Jennie Armon
Yeah. You might not get it cleared by the original rights holders. It might just be a throw away. But it's also just it's showing your variety and diversity and a creative approach to things to like, if I can get in an artist's head and understand how they approach things. And like it's done, well, then I might think of them for something else.
Chris Webb
Yeah. We don't take up too much your time. So I just have two more questions if that's okay. First one, I'd like to kind of get your idea. We talked about AI. We're actually working on an AI episode right now. So this is a question I wanted to ask you. What do you think is going to change in the near future with AI and sink?
Jennie Armon
Ai? I swear, AI is really frustrating, because it's literally taking our jobs out of our hands. I know they talked about this with the internet or with like print magazines. It is really scary. I like that cut that version of the weekend with Drake. Like that was weird. Yeah, I don't know what to think about AI right now. Like, I know as a, we'll just say, a buyer. That that is like a resource for me, but I know loyalty wise, like I'm in it for the humans. Yes. I don't want the machines to win. If you're asking me if I approve of AI, the answer's no. I think it's messed up. And I think that, you know, there's there's imperfections there's beautiful imperfections and that cannot be recreated by a machine. There's just not humanity. And I know it's not gonna go away. And I know I'm going to sound like a dinosaur and about a year, like six months. But I, I just I don't want to lean into AI personally because I do want to continue to support artists
Chris Webb
totally. Well, that that's what we want to hear from people like you saying stuff like that is really important.
Jennie Armon
Yeah, I can't speak on behalf of everybody. But that's for me.
Chris Webb
Yeah. And I also appreciate the dominance that we've not let Dave basically get a word in.
Jennie Armon
I'm sorry, Dave,
Chris Webb
we've prevented a lot of editing on my it's
Dave Tamkin
for the benefit of this podcast, believe me.
Chris Webb
So our last question for today is, if you have any books specifically about maybe getting into sync that you'd recommend our listeners to check out to get more information, all you need
Jennie Armon
All You Need to Know About the Music Business by Donald Passman. I happen to know his son, Jordan, he's lovely Return of the hustle, the art of marketing with music. That's damn Hip Hop writing. This is another one which is interesting, great myths of popular psychology. I think psychology is really important in our world and learning how to work it. And then there's another like book series, 33, and a third where they really hone in on one album. And there's tons of different albums, different books. But I love reading that and just understanding the artists process and also listening to the podcast, Song exploder is a big one for me. There's a bunch of other podcasts out there that are just great for that. But I would say if you're only going to buy one book, I would say it would be all you need to know about the music business by Donald Passman.
Chris Webb
Excellent. Yep, I've read I've read half of that one. That one's like one of the ones where I have to open up when I need something. Yes, like Nick Cyclopedia. It's big. Yes. All right, Jenny, thank you very much for your time. It was
Jennie Armon
great. Thank you so much for having me.
Dave Tamkin
It's a pleasure just to have you on here and learn so much more than I did before. So thank you, thanks, thank you.
Dave Tamkin
When she first started discussing ways to increase your value in sync, I really was hoping just like how much money you had to bribe people. That would have just made things a lot easier.
Chris Webb
Yeah, I wonder how much of that actually goes on, you know, the Bing. In our last
Dave Tamkin
episode, we talked about relationships, and networking. And if you're a top of the mind of people that are making them decisions, and you have good relationships with them, and putting out, you know, good music, I think that's what wins. All
Chris Webb
right. And the other end of it, which is what we're talking about, mostly here today is organization is such a critical part of being valuable, it is not going to work out for you, if you can't be organized in the sink business, it's you're gonna end up losing way more opportunities. And in the end, people will stop coming to you. Just purely based on they don't feel confident they can get what they need quick enough,
Dave Tamkin
when I took definitely Louis's class, last year, she couldn't stress enough how important it was to have everything organized, because she would be traveling and need to get everything over to the person in charge within minutes, and had to send a link 123 Not looking for everything or having to get people to sign contracts about splits. Everything just had to be in order ready to go.
Chris Webb
And as Benjamin Franklin says, Put all your stuff in the zip folders. I don't even think the zipper was invented yet a little on the zip folder.
Dave Tamkin
What did you say your favorite drive was? I'm a Dropbox fan, but are you something else?
Chris Webb
No. I, mean, I, I like Dropbox that we use that a lot right for this business. But I use disco for my sync stuff. Yeah, and that's, that's becoming an industry standard, you know, created by sync musicians, really for musicians. But it's really also for music supervisors. It's for them, it's for their sanity, it's for the process, you know, they've really figured out how to make, they always say that you have a great idea when you can take what other people are already doing and make it faster or more efficient, right? That's the idea of making a good business product. And that's definitely what disco is but doing your research and understanding who you're sending your stuff to that etiquette of communication. She touched on that about making yourself more valuable. No one wants to be cold called and have you have no idea who you're even cold calling right that this business is a people business, right, as we've said, and it's really important that you treat those people that you're reaching out to with respect. I think of it like you wouldn't go into a job interview without knowing anything about the job you're applying for. Right? That's essentially what you're doing. Every time we reach out to these people is a job interview essentially, for a little mini job, right. And so it's really important that you get into the habit of doing the research before you send that email. And as she said, it's worth reiterating, do not send an attachment in your email. If you're listening to this, and you're trying to find the actual tips on how to become more valuable, there's just so many in here, it's almost impossible to not find a place to start. And that's, that's really important that you just pick the one that you identify as being your biggest weakness are the one that you're most interested in tackling right now, don't try to do them all at once this is this is this is why we take our time with preparing with organizing with getting ready for the opportunity. And that means getting those stems and those splits and the metadata all entered in having the multiple versions of the tracks, having the easy version, the ease, vocal ease, right, if you haven't ever done it on a track is actually really fun to go back over your song. And in your fear the vocalist and just seeing ease. It's quite entertaining. You know, there's a lot of fun things here too. At least I find them fun, but it's not as scary once you start. So my whole thing is this, you find one of these things that you need to work on. And get started on the process. If this is something you want to get get into.
Dave Tamkin
Speaking of scary, you know, you brought up the question of AI. And I've been doing a lot with AI unmade journey. As far as text to images, it is unreal, what I would have to pay for head above branding. There's logos I need, there's certain ideas that I just want to give to my clients right away. And I could just type it in and have it within seconds and costs nothing. There are already apps that you can text to music, exactly what you're looking for, for a scene and type that in and have that license free, ready to go right out of the gates. So when you were bringing up organization earlier, how much more organized, can you be an AI, so you definitely have to be on top of your game. She mentioned having, you know, your socials up to date. And your numbers there, which I also thought was interesting compared to how AI won't be able to bring in numbers. So as musicians have more of a fan base, and they let their fan base know that I got you know placement in this episode of XY and Z or this is coming up into a new movie is going to be helpful with advertising AI won't be able to offer that. So that was one positive I thought, you know the way around having those networks and relationships with the person that picking the music, they might go with you because it would boost that advertising aspect
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