The addition of music to video should never be underestimated, as finding the perfect track can take your creation to a whole new level. Finding successful music that connects with audiences, gains interest and impacts the viewer is highly important. So, let’s take a look at what you should be thinking about when looking into how to choose music for your video!
How To Choose Music For Your Video: Things To Think About
Mood, Tempo & Pacing
It’s easy to base your edits on the song that you choose without thinking about the story you’re wanting to tell. However, thinking ahead about this can help create a much stronger finished product.
Firstly, figure out what the mood, tempo and pacing you want for your video. What are trying to achieve and what feeling do you want your audience to have when watching? Are there characters in your video whose emotions you want to reflect? Is your video fast-paced and packed with adventure that you can mimic with the soundtrack? Once you’ve figured out what mood, tempo and pace you want, you can use this information to add specific filters into your music search, searching by BPM, mood, genre and so on.
Diagetic Or Non-Diagetic?
Diagetic and non-diagetic music serve different purposes. They are:
Diagetic – Music that occurs outside the film’s reality (film scores, for example)
Non Diagetic – This occurs within the narrative (for example, music playing on the radio in a scene, or a character pressing play)
Making this choice comes down to what footage you are working with or want to shoot, the story and plot of the video, the purpose and whether you want to interweave the music with the plot or keep it as more of a soundtrack.
Functionality & Purpose
You also need to think practically. If your video has dialogue in, for example, you want to consider an instrumental track as not to detract from the speech.
What purpose do you want the music to have? Is it there to heighten visuals, act as a soundtrack, educate the viewer or simply be background music? Are you promoting a business, a product, creative work or even yourself? Your music should supplement the story you want to tell, creating a connection with your audience.
If you’re creating a video for your makeup channel, for example, do you want to use tracks that sound similar to popular new releases to interest audiences? If there are characters in your video (for example, a trailer), can you find tracks that speak to the emotions playing out in the shots? Thinking about functionality and purpose is important to think about, to help both practically and creatively.
Staying On Brand
If your video is for your own personal social media, small business, YouTube channel or any other venture that is about you yourself, remember your branding!
The music should fit your personality, channel, product or company branding. It’s time to get objective and think about what tracks fit your aesthetic, your content and will engage your viewers.
Channels & Platforms
It’s also important to think about what channels and platforms your video is going to be posted on. Depending on where you get your music, some platforms may be off-limits and cause you copyright headaches (or even get your video removed).
Be sure to research what you can use the music for beforehand, and what music license you will be receiving. Remember that prices also vary based on what platforms you will be posting to, as music licenses can cost a lot more if you are distributing to larger markets.
Quality
Lastly is quality. It can be tempting to go for tracks that you can access easily and are potentially free, but in a lot of cases, this means compromising on quality.
Finding great music quickly and with no fuss doesn’t have to equal quick scrambles on royalty free music sites, or using generic stock music. You can still find authentic, incredible music from music licensing companies such as Audiosocket. Our catalog features over 85,000 tracks from touring indie artists and bands – as well as Sound Effects & Sound Design. You can have unlimited access to all of our tracks starting from just $15 a month – so what are you waiting for? Sign up now!
Final Thoughts
Your video’s music shouldn’t be an afterthought, so get planning ahead. Note down what you want to achieve, what the music can heighten, what points in the footage you’d like to feature it and so on. Are you using the music as bookends, or will it run throughout? All of this will inform how to choose music for your video, and lead you to the perfect soundtrack.
Once you know what you’re looking for, you can enjoy the process of finding the track(s). If there’s a popular track that you love but can’t license (also known as ‘Temp Love‘), don’t forget to try out our Similarity Search technology by pasting in a YouTube or Spotify URL to see similar sounding songs in our catalog. Good luck, and we can’t wait to see your creations!
If you found this article helpful, please feel free to check out our articles on YouTube’s Music Policy: Explained, Best Free Video Editing Software In 2021, Adding Music To Videos With Mark Wallace & Great Storytelling For Filmmakers,
