If you’re involved in today’s television, film, or advertising industry, there’s one tool you are bound to use repeatedly: the stock music library. These arose as an alternative to custom scoring and have successfully established themselves as a go-to option for production and post-production since De Wolfe Music established the first production music library for use in silent films in 1927. Nowadays, computing technology and the internet offer instant access to thousands of tracks from renowned composers such as Quincy Jones or Hans Zimmer, as well as customization options like stem selection for each piece. However, clients often claim that character and authenticity are hard to come by…
Alexis Estiz is head composer at Personal Music, an award-winning multi-cultural music, sound design, and audio production company based in Miami. Estiz’s company services advertising, film, TV, radio, and interactive media in the US and throughout the globe. His work has earned him multiple awards, including a Latin Grammy nomination, London International awards, ASCAP awards, New York Film Festival awards, Clio awards, and four consecutive Cannes Lions awards. Estiz decided to take on the stock music “character and authenticity” issue in a surprising way, incorporating Floridian street musicians into a business model destined for mass media. This is how The Street Music Library was born. Estiz shared the story of the unique library with us.
Tell us about the original concept for this library and how the idea came to life.
The Street Music Library is an innovative and productive musical project, and it’s a collection like no other in the world. It has inspired, for example, a Canadian film director to use a cue in his latest movie that was performed by a Romanian immigrant street performer who earns a living playing at Lincoln Road [in Miami Beach]. All of this at stock music price, because, in fact, it is stock music! Allow me to explain myself…
We decided to tackle a frequent issue in the audiovisual industry, which spends millions of dollars a year in stock music worldwide, but conforms to the paradigm that it’ll be money spent on tracks that lack “personality”, among other attributes. When you engage in this sort of project, you realize that the problem is actually worse. We’re not only missing personality in stock libraries but outside of the studio, we can find many talented musicians who, throughout history, have been in charge of scoring the soundtrack of the streets. If there’s something they have plenty of, it’s passion.
The SML was a joint creation of Personal Music and the ad agency Alma DDB. We strived to achieve an innovative music library, lead by an idea that if we joined two apparently opposite worlds — the street and the recording studio — something great would happen, and it did.
What was the scouting process like for this project? How did you meet and select the talented musicians who are featured in The SML?
After figuring out the concept we realized one detail was missing: finding musicians! It might seem easy, but it can be more or less complicated depending on which city you scout in. For someone like me, who was born in Buenos Aires, a city packed with performing musicians on every corner and at every street light, subway station, bar, or plaza, the idea of scouting around seemed simple. Now, in Miami, we thought that finding these talents was not going to be easy, but to our surprise, we found a bunch!
Scouting was a team effort that took weeks, miles, days, and nights all over Florida, and especially, all over Miami. Our motto was simple: find musicians that really transmit their passion, regardless of the instrument or genre they play. Their story was important, too, because their tracks aren’t the only thing included in the library. Where they came from and their background, no matter how big or small, is also embedded in each cue.
How deeply were you involved as a producer? Did you incorporate each musician into a certain genre according to their talents or was your job focused on helping their original work come to life?
I was all in. This project really pulled my strings, since I found myself joining two worlds that I’m a part of. Even though I’ve been inside a recording studio as head composer for Personal Music, I hold a sort of fundamentalist ideology towards roots, the origins. In my case, it’s as simple as being a musician: playing an instrument, forming a band, and writing an unsolicited song. Nobody starts a profession in music solely because it’s profitable. If anything you can blame it on dreams of rock stardom or wanting to be a Beatle!
What I did in most cases when working on the library’s tracks was “study” the musician through videos we shot with our phones while they performed on the streets, and this allowed me to compose for them. Many of the tracks had amazing results because I allowed the musicians to leave their comfort zone and try musical styles they weren’t familiar with. We came up with some interesting material.
Once all the mock-ups were finished, we brought our stars into the studio to record, and it was magical. Some of them had never entered a recording studio, imagine that! All that amazement and excitement was reflected onto the tracks and that was what we were looking for.
The library was pre-selected for a TED Talk in Argentina. Even though it didn’t make the final cut, it’d be interesting to know what you would’ve presented in that conference.
Yeah, that was very cool. As soon as we opened the project, the response was incredible. The musicians loved it, advertisers loved it, and directors all had a positive comment, no matter what profile they had.
TED is inspirational, and those who attend the talks crave learning and expanding possibilities for creation, so maybe that’s why they liked The Street Music Library so much. Also, since they were to be held in Argentina, there was the added plus that it was an Argentine who built a project such as this outside that country.
Later on, I found out that they scheduled another talk in the music category. They don’t usually repeat topics in the conference, and the one that was selected included one of the library organizers, so we’re boycotted, haha! Seriously, though, I saw it and it was quite good!
After seeing the results and receiving a Gold Eye of Iberoamerica award for The Street Music Library, what features do you think stand out in this collection in comparison to other stock libraries?
I don’t believe any other music library has as much passion as this one, and, as I always say, you can feel it in every track.
For more information visit streetmusiclibrary.com