Find Better Background Music for Videos by Asking These Questions First
Having so many choices for background music in your video project can be daunting! In this post, we’ve identified strategies for finding the best royalty-free music tracks for your videos.
Sometimes having lots of choices can be a pain in the neck. Picture being at an ice cream shop and you’re confronted with dozens of off-the-wall options, like banana-caramel-blueberry crunch or mocha flavored cinnamon-kiwi. Trying to decide between flavors like those can make anyone long for the days when chocolate, vanilla or strawberry were your only options.
Deciding on the right background music for videos can be just as overwhelming. With thousands of pieces in every possible genre and sub-genre, finding the right ones can prove quite a challenge.
Fortunately, there is a way to narrow the seemingly infinite number of choices down to a manageable range. Just ask yourself these questions…
What is the purpose of the video?
In other words, what do you want it to accomplish? Do you intend to teach a new skill, tell a story, sell a product, defend a point of view, or simply entertain? Answering this question first will help you to focus of the types of scores that will best serve your purpose. For example, an independent zombie film will use vastly different background music than, say, an instructional video on refilling ink cartridges.
Who is the intended audience?
The closer you can come to identifying the type of people who will watch the video, the more certain you can be of using the appropriate background music for videos. To illustrate, let’s assume that you’re making a video about hiking the Appalachian Trail. What can you reasonably assume about those who will want to see it?
First off, it’s probably safe to say that they will be physically active and health conscious. They will also tend to be younger, late teens to early 20s, since it’s difficult for middle-aged people saddled with mortgages to take five or six months off to go hiking. They’re also probably going to have an interest in issues like environmental protection, since they obviously love and value the outdoors.
As you paint this mental picture of your viewers, ask yourself what kind of music these people will probably enjoy. In this particular scenario, we’re thinking of instrumental pieces that feature acoustic instruments with strong folk music influences, similar to what you might hear from John Denver, Bob Dylan or Pete Seeger.
What is the video’s theme?
Identifying a video theme is different from knowing it’s subject matter. For example, the subject of Forrest Gump was the life of a mentally challenged man who was a college student, a soldier, a business owner, and a husband and father. The theme of the film, however, was how innocence can survive even in a world filled with violence, corruption and hate. Your video has a theme as well, even if its subject is the proper method for disposing of empty cardboard boxes (theme: there’s a right and a wrong way to do even simple tasks) or a summary of your company’s improved financial prospects (theme: hard work and perseverance really do pay off). Fish out what that theme is and the choice of background music will become clear.
What is your intended result?
This is similar to #1 above, except the focus is on how the audience will be changed by your video. If its purpose is to train them in a new skill, you of course want them to walk away with knowledge they didn’t have beforehand, confident because of having learned it. If it’s purpose was to make them aware of how children suffer in third world countries, you want them to be moved by what they saw. And if it’s a horror film or comedy, you want them to have a sense of uneasiness or light-heartedness (respectively) when it’s all over. Music can evoke any emotion; use that power to create the ones you want your viewers to feel.
No matter what kind of video you’re creating, PremiumBeat can provide the proper background music for videos. We’ll be glad to help you make your project a success.
