I always loved music and grew up playing instruments through high school. I tried piano, guitar, and viola, but never mastered any of those. At some point during that time, I decided I was better at enjoying and sharing other people’s music than making my own, which still holds true. 

I went to Boston University for undergrad and hosted a show on the college radio station, which I thought of more as a fun, social extracurricular activity than a valuable work experience that would lead to a career in anything. Somehow, my experience making little playlists and chatting with my co-hosts about my favorite artists helped me get an internship doing QA and data curation at Spotify, which had only become widely used around that time. I was there during an exciting moment, when they were developing some of the personalized recommendation features that have since become such an essential part of the user experience. That internship was formative for me, because it gave me an idea of what sort of careers were available in music. I felt in my element there and essentially decided I wanted to do something in this line of work forever. 

Getting a job in music right out of college was not happening, so I worked for a couple of years doing administrative work in an unrelated field, and then went to Berklee Valencia to get my master’s in Global Entertainment and Music Business. I had no idea how much I didn’t know about how the music industry worked until I got there, but I learned a lot really quickly in the year it took to complete the degree – I took classes in contract law, finance, publishing, and more.

After I graduated from that program, I went right to New York to work for Low Profile. I was interested in the legal & business administration side of things, and that is what I was initially hired to do on a part-time basis. I also worked part-time at Warner on WEA’s digital accounts team, which gave me some insight into the major label system. Soon, my role at Low Profile became full-time, and I took on many more responsibilities – such as A&R, creative pitching, managing coordinators, interns, etc. — which shaped me into the well-rounded sync professional I am today. 

The true beginning of the process starts well before a creative pitch is sent. The first essential step we take is connecting with artists/managers/labels who have great music that we feel confident in our ability to add value to with sync, and then getting representation agreements in place that lay out the terms of our deals with those folks. 

The next thing is gathering all the music assets we need in order to pitch for sync opportunities – download links to masters, mastered instrumental versions, clean versions for any songs with explicit content, writer splits, any ownership/contact info for any rightsholders involved that Low Profile does not represent, lyrics, artwork, and release dates – and uploading those music files and metadata to DISCO, which we then use to pitch music to supervisors. 

We’ll pitch music in a few different ways. A lot of it is responding to incoming briefs from music supervisors that detail specific creative needs. In response to briefs, we’ll make short, well-curated playlists that we believe will both fit the creative and clear for the supervisor’s budget. If I have a really good wildcard idea that doesn’t suit the brief but would be cool, I will pitch that in a separate playlist. It’s important to be mindful of supervisors’ time and attention when pitching, as they receive a lot of music and it is easy to have your songs get lost in the noise. 

Another way we pitch is with email newsletters to supervisors. This allows us to tell the story of a particular artist or project without creative restrictions. When artists get involved and send us anything about their music in their own words or other interesting tidbits beyond the general PR package, that is always incredibly helpful to us in drafting a good email blast. We try to keep the blasts fun and attention grabbing, while staying true to the vibe of the music we are sending out. While the syncs that materialize from these blasts often come about in a less immediate or obvious way, we do get a lot of responses to them, sometimes many months later. 

This is another big step in the process – the waiting. A lot of the syncs we get are from urgent, fast-turnaround searches, and we may receive feedback on those pitches within a few days or weeks. Advertising tends to be a quicker timeline in general. TV and film syncs often take much longer. Sometimes, I’ll receive a request from a brief that I pitched for over a year ago. A lot of times, we won’t know if a song is even being considered until we receive a request. So, just because you’re hearing nothing does not necessarily mean that nothing is happening behind the scenes.

However long the wait is after we pitch, we’ll receive a quote request for a specific use of a song in a project. We’ll negotiate the terms of that request to the best of our ability, and then we’ll send the requested fee and terms to the artist and/or their team for approval. Once we receive approval, we’ll send the quote request paperwork back to the supervisor. Then we wait some more – days, weeks, or months depending on the project.

Eventually, we will hear if a use is confirmed or not, at which point we’ll update the artist and their team either way. We’ll also send them the air date as soon as we have it (a lot of times, this comes from us googling airdates for our confirmed uses) and share the sync with them once it’s live and we can access it. 

Upon confirmation, we’ll issue a license and request payment on the artist’s behalf. Receiving payment can take weeks or months depending on the project. Once Low Profile receives payment, we account to the artist or label the following quarter. There are many parts of this process, but I would argue some of the most important pieces of landing a song in a major ad or TV show take place before the music is even pitched!

One of my biggest challenges was really just getting my first full-time opportunity in the music industry with a sustainable salary and benefits. I saved up to go to grad school for music business, learned as much as I could there, and went back into the job application process more humbly and patiently than I did the first time around. After interviewing with a lot of other companies, I ended up getting the Business Manager job at Low Profile, because I was genuinely excited to do the “boring” admin work that no one else wanted to do. There were a lot of more creative types in the applicant pool that year, I guess. I went into the role wanting to be helpful and learn. I knew it would be hard work, and I was willing to put my head down and prove myself for a while. I knew I wasn’t going to be running things right away, but I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly I was able to see some results from my work. 

The next big challenge after that was reining it in a bit after keeping that pace for a long time. You can do really well in the music industry if you’re a total workhorse, but you are going to burn out if you do that long term. Overworking at strategic times in one’s career can be advantageous, but at some point you have to recalibrate or the impact will show up both at work and in other areas of life. Hard work is always important, but quality hours over quantity is big for me now. 

One that comes to mind is when I placed “Come On” by Being Dead in a broadcast TV ad for a major US retailer. It was a very regular ad, but I can say it was a genuinely unexpected fit because when I pitched for it, I was chided a little bit by someone more experienced than me because that brand was “never going to use a song by a band called Being Dead.” Which is fair, it was a big brand known to appeal to the masses and the music is a bit left of center. That statement was proven to be incorrect though. After that, I learned to trust myself more and take calculated risks. Plus, I really love that band and that song, and was glad that it got a big ad placement. One of my favorite things ever is to sync something that is a little wacky in an ad or show that becomes totally ubiquitous on the average person’s screen. It feels like getting away with something.

Jen Pearce, Founder/CEO of Low Profile, has taught me nearly everything I know about sync, and has put me up for many great opportunities, including traveling to Australia to be a delegate at BIGSOUND this year. Working at Low Pro has been an invaluable experience to me, as I’ve been given the chance to learn the sync business inside-out. I am grateful to Jen for giving me my first full-time job in music many years ago and for all I’ve learned from being a part of the company’s growth.

Maybe “ do a crappy job”. Not in general (I like doing a good job at my actual job) but particularly when starting creative projects or trying new things. This is helpful to me when I struggle to make progress on something because I’m hung up on doing it a certain way. A lot of times it’s better to do something than nothing at all, like with exercise for example. Doing something halfway is a step in the right direction to doing something the whole way. 

Working with the same catalog for a long time, naturally I find that I have a lot of tried and true “syncable” songs that I routinely pitch, but that does get boring – for myself and I’m sure for supervisors. I also want to make sure I’m doing right by every artist with music in our library and pitch all songs to their full potential. I try to challenge myself to include something new in every pitch that allows. I will specifically look to see if I can include something that’s been uploaded to DISCO within the last couple of weeks or months – I’ll dig within certain time constraints to find songs that haven’t been pitched for many opportunities. I also look for deep cuts from the back catalog as well. Songs from artists we rep who may not be actively releasing anymore, but songs that are still great and could have new life with a sync. 

When supervisors provide an edit or script of an ad or scene, I like to get creative with that and send a separate playlist of wildcard ideas that may tie in with themes not mentioned in the brief. Sometimes unexpected syncs come about that way.

In the big picture, my career goals are to provide the best licensing services possible to artists whose work I admire, to expose brands and creative projects to interesting, clearable, high-quality music, and to create enough value for myself and everyone in my orbit to achieve financial and personal freedom in their life while doing that. I hope that quirky, cutting-edge creatives with good hearts continue to flock to me in all directions my career may take. 

Don’t make music with the aim of making it licensable. People can hear that, and supervisors are wanting “made for sync” music less and less. Create music that you genuinely feel proud of first and foremost, and the right people will want to work with you, for sync and in general.

Once that baseline requirement is met, my next piece of advice would be to prioritize making your music as easy to license from an admin perspective as possible. Have all the required music assets available that I mentioned earlier. Most importantly, keep the clearance process as simple as you can. If you write your songs 100% on your own and own all your masters, let everyone that you are cold emailing know that your music is one-stop for clearance. If you have co-writers, try to have them waive approval rights for sync purposes (in writing) so they don’t cause unnecessary delays on tight approval deadlines, and arrange to have them paid out for their share once a use is confirmed. If waiving approval rights isn’t possible, at least make sure you have their contact info available.

I don’t do karaoke a lot (I foreshadowed my lack of musical talent in the first question) but when I do, the song is always a gametime decision. I choose something different every time depending on the vibes.