Ashley Neumeister:
That's number one basic thing that has to be known and contracted and decided amongst all your collaborators and also who owns the master recording. Because that's the first question you're going to get is, "Who can clear the sync and master?" Meaning master is the recording and then sync is the publishing. That simple, basic thing needs to be super clear from the beginning. And then from there it's about having clean versions of your songs, having instrumental versions of your songs, which can be essential when wanting to get placements in film and TV.

Michael Walker:
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All right. I'm excited to be here today with Ashley Neumeister. So Ashley has played a key role in all aspects of music production, clearance, and music curation on numerous series and films, including shows for CBS, Netflix, Paramount Plus, Disney Plus, which unless you live under a rock, you've probably heard of most if not all of those. She knows a thing or two about sync licensing and getting music into TV and film. 2019/2020, she was nominated for the Guild of Music Supervisors Award Best Music Supervision in a Television Drama for her works on season one and two of American Soul. And now she's taken her experience and lessons learned in the realm of sync licensing to create a coaching platform for artists called Sync Secrets, to help musicians get their songs synced to TV and film. So I'm really excited to talk with her today and to be able to pick your brain a little bit about sync licensing and why it's an opportunity for musicians and how to enter that world if someone has original music but they haven't really dabbled yet into the world of sync licensing.
Ashley, thank you so much for taking the time to be here today.

Ashley Neumeister:
Of course, yeah, I'm happy to be here.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. So to start with, I would love to hear a little bit about your story and how you've got to this point where you're able to work with CBS, Netflix, Paramount Plus Disney Plus, and how you learned what you're teaching now with music licensing.

Ashley Neumeister:
Sure. I mean, I've always loved music. I grew up listening to music and loving soundtracks and being in choir, playing piano, being in band, doing that whole thing. And so, I always knew I wanted to do something in music, I didn't really know what. I ended up going to Columbia College in Chicago for music production actually, focusing in music business and music production. While I was there realized that I actually don't really want to be a music producer. I just wasn't into the lifestyle that goes along with it of crazy, long hours, long nights. So I was like, "I'm going to try to find something else I can do that would also incorporate film and TV."
That's when I learned about the job of a music supervisor. The head of my department in Chicago told me about an extension program that they were doing in LA that was specifically for music supervisors. And so, I did that training, and that was my last semester of university back in '06 and decided that's what I wanted to do. I was like, "Okay, well, I guess I got to stay in LA because you got to live here to do that." So I was able to get a job. I actually started working for a management company, and they managed record producers, songwriters, and engineers. I worked there for about a year and a half and actually started a music licensing division for that company because some of their clients were major label clients and some were independent artists that owned all their own rights. So I was like, "We should be pitching these songs and start a music licensing division."
I did that there, but I very quickly realized that I wasn't going to get to music supervision while I stayed at that company, so I started looking around and got hired to work at a music library called True Music. I started as an admin assistant tracking placements and helping with ingestion of music into that catalog. And then eventually moved into sales and pitching, and then into music supervision, and now eventually I'm the senior vice president of that parent company, which is called Farquhar Productions. I've been with that one company for 16 years. We offer music supervision, music editing, music licensing, original composition, original song composition. Depending on the project that we work on, we provide one or all of those services. I primarily do the music supervision and music editing. Yeah, I guess that's the short version.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. Thanks for sharing. Yeah, it sounds like you've probably have had a ton of experience now through the music supervision work that you've done working with artists and specifically seeing from the perspective of music supervisor what do you actually look for and what are the best ways that an artist can enter that world and what is actually valuable to you as a music supervisor who's ultimately the one who's choosing what music gets placed. So knowing that, I'd be curious to hear, what are some of the biggest... And now in addition to doing all that for yourself as a music supervisor working with artists and getting to see hands-on what they're struggling with, what do you see as some of the biggest challenges right now when it comes to music licensing to TV and film that artists are struggling with when they first come to you?

Ashley Neumeister:
Understanding the business, knowing the terms and how it works, and the different revenue streams, for example, like how you get an upfront sync fee, but then you also get royalties, and knowing where those come from. The royalties is going to be directly from your PRO, so it's two different streams of money. Honestly, as a music supervisor, and it's safe to assume that a lot of music supervisors would say the same thing, that we don't tend to work with independent artists directly that don't have any experience within that world because we don't have time to explain it, nor do we have time to worry that something might get messed up within the clearance process. So all the way down to the basics of knowing 100% of the writer and publisher splits on your song, that's number one basic thing that has to be known and contracted and decided amongst all your collaborators, and also who owns the master recording. Because that's the first question you're going to get is, "Who can clear the sync and master?" Meaning master is the recording and then sync is the publishing.
So that simple basic thing needs to be super clear from the beginning. And then from there, it's about having clean versions of your songs, having instrumental versions of your songs, which can be essential when wanting to get placements in film and TV. So I would say that's probably the basics of the things that you need to have before you can even get started.

Michael Walker:
Totally makes sense. It sounds like one of the fundamental biggest challenges or issues and the reason that most supervisors don't work directly with artists is because some of those fundamental things like knowing who actually owns the rights to the different songs may or may not... Worst case scenario is they appear like they have them, and then it turns out, nope, they're wrong, they didn't cross their Ts and dot their Is and everything.

Ashley Neumeister:
Or they have a sample. That comes up too.

Michael Walker:
Gotcha. I mean, obviously, this is a little bit of a uncomfortable conversation sometimes for artists as they're doing co-write sessions or collaborating, especially if they haven't navigated a whole lot of these conversations yet. What advice would you have for someone from the start to help them navigate that conversation of establishing the rights from day one when they write the song with collaborators?

Ashley Neumeister:
Right. Yeah, that's one of the main things I talk about in my Sync Secrets training. I actually give them contract templates because I would encourage everyone to have those, that you just bring to the sessions or co-writes. It's a very simple form. It doesn't look like an intimidating contract. It basically just has everyone fill out their writer percentage and who owns publishing. Whoever basically is paying for the recording is who's going to own the master. So it's a level of professionalism. So if you're wanting to be a professional musician and you make a business out of this, these are conversations that are necessary.
And so, there is a level of respect that comes to these musicians sometimes when they come into these sessions. It's not like you have to come at it from, "This is the way it is," kind of thing. It's just like, "Hey, I want to be clear on all the ownership of this song. We can talk about it when we're done." Because you want to see how much each person contributes. Often you don't know that until a song is complete. But I would say on average, most people, they're just like, "Okay, there's three people in the room. We're going to all work on this together. Let's just do even splits." It can be something that simple.
But having that conversation in the beginning like, "Hey, I'd love to co-write a song with you. Just so you know, I love having these business conversations upfront just to get it out of the way and this is what I typically do. Are you cool with that?" And then having that one simple split sheet for everyone to write and fill out their information. And you also want to make sure that your co-writers, are they registered with a PRO? Are they ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC? Or if they're foreign, it might be a different one. That's all information that if you want to specifically work within sync, you need to have all that information at some point anyways. So demystifying it and making sure that you can easily have those conversations as part of getting educated, what the information that a music supervisor is going to need, for example, with what we're talking about. They can even say that, like, "Hey, I'm wanting this song to get placed on a TV show, so we got to make sure we get all this stuff clear." They're going to want that too.

Michael Walker:
Super helpful, thanks for sharing that. Funny enough, I'm actually getting ready to do a bunch of co-writes and start collaborating and writing songs together with a bunch of different folks. I personally haven't really navigated this because up to this point with Paradise Fears, we were very democratic with the songwriting. We had all just split every song evenly between all of us, and we never actually approached, or at least I personally haven't approached this co-writing conversation, so really helpful. I love when I can have conversations like this with smart people and learn things that are both helpful for the community and for myself.

Ashley Neumeister:
Yeah. Oh, one other thing I actually just want to mention is, a way to think about it too is 50% of the writers is for the instrumental in the track and 50% is often for lyrics and harmony. You can use that too to help determine percentages.

Michael Walker:
Interesting. Yeah, that was going to be one follow-up question as it relates to writes. I've heard about two different models of splitting things. There's a Nashville way and the California or LA way, which if I remember right, Nashville is like it doesn't matter what you contribute, if you're in the room, you're getting an even split, whoever's there. Even if they just lightly touch it, they get the same percentage. And then with LA it was maybe a bit more nuanced where you could just  based on what people contributed.
For example, I don't know, if I came to a co-write session and I had an idea for a song very well fleshed out and then people are able to contribute ideas here and there, but most of the idea, like 80% of it, was written already, then would that be case to say or to have that conversation at the end and say, "Is this okay with you?" At the same time, I also could see the pros and cons of, I don't know, for better or for worse, some people might be better at negotiating or they might, I don't know, bully is a strong word, but it could lead to some friction there. Is that something that ever comes up or is that more just on fear?

Ashley Neumeister:
I mean, it can always come up when you're working with new people maybe that you've never worked with before and you don't really know how they do business. But that's, again, why it's good to talk about these things up front so you can know that right away. But yeah, I think it is common if you're a singer-songwriter and you have a pretty fleshed out idea, you can say that, like, "Hey, I have a pretty full song here. 80% of it is done, but I'd love to have your input, this guitar player or whatever, and we'll see if you add enough original material, you'll get a writer's percentage of this." Otherwise, you could always do work for hires too, where you just pay them a fee and they don't have any writer's share. These are all just conversations, and so it's just something that you got to just remember to do upfront.
I have had more problems with people that are seeing more problems with people that are working with producers. They go in to work with a producer on a song that they have most of the idea on, and some of these producers are like, "Well, my standard is I get 50% writers or something." And then it's just up to you to decide whether or not you want to work with them. If they're really dope and you love all their music and what they do and you want to do a handful of songs with them, then that might just be their non-negotiable thing. But again, just making sure you have these conversations upfront so you're not surprised because that's where the issue comes in. You have a whole song that's complete and you are thinking that you're going to have your 80% writers and they're just going to take 20% or whatever. But then they come back and they're like, "No, standard is 50%." It's like, "Well, why don't you tell me that upfront?" So it's your responsibility to initiate these conversations up front and just be clear.

Michael Walker:
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Cool. Yeah, super helpful. Even just part of the co-write process, I have a scheduling calendar link that someone can book. And maybe when they book, there could be a questionnaire, there could be something to fill out that just walks through the ground rules and whatnot.

Ashley Neumeister:
Yeah, totally.

Ashley Neumeister:
Super interesting stuff. Awesome. To take things in a little bit of a different direction, and hopefully I'm not opening up too much of a can of worms here, but I'm genuinely really curious to hear your thoughts on it and where we're headed, is in the realm of AI songwriting and production, especially as it relates to the world of sync licensing for TV and film. I'm curious how much experience you have in the current state of AI. Right now at the time of recording this, it's crazy. ChatGPT came out, GPT-4 is released, it's super smart. It's taken the world by storm. It's got over 100 million users in a few months. It seems like we're just at the tip of the iceberg and things are only going to get crazier from here and certainly could have the potential to disrupt a lot of current things or systems that we do, especially in the creative realm. So I'm curious to hear your thoughts on the current state of music licensing as it relates to AI services and tools, what that might mean for artists, musicians who are creative workers who might be listening to this right now. And obviously, as there's so much that's unknown and things are changing so fast, but I'm curious to hear your perspective on it and where you think we might be heading.

Ashley Neumeister:
I feel like we're just at the beginning of that, so it is hard to say. I mean, I've definitely had some conversations about it. Even with my job as a music supervisor, is some of that going to be automated and use AI for that? The only thing that I've seen so far already have an impact is there are these services now that they claim to cut down on my time to find songs because they can search big databases based on these parameters that I put in and then it will send me songs that fit those parameters. I haven't used one of these yet, but I have someone that's hounding me to try it out. So I might do that just because I'm curious.
But as far as AI-created music, I mean it's definitely a thing. I would hope that that isn't going to end up replacing too much of what we're already doing, but like I said, it's hard to say where we're going with that. I would say probably more so on a smaller level maybe of independent films, these YouTube shows, or maybe lower budget productions, I could see them relying on that. They already rely on things like royalty free libraries and stuff like that that we do not use within major broadcast or major productions. So I could see it coming in there sooner.
But there's always the thing within broadcast and these bigger productions, it's all about liability. So we're only going to license from a person that can sign a contract and protect the production from liability issues, that they actually own this piece of composition, they can sign off on it, and there's not going to be any issues. So they'd have to figure that piece out. And then I believe that there is something to the value of human expression and emotion that is emoted through music, and I hope that that can't be replaced anytime soon. It's like maybe certain styles or genres could be more easily created by AI than others. I mean, who knows at this point how intelligent it's going to get? I just saw on Instagram the other day this guy that wrote a Kanye-like beat and Kanye lyrics and then spoke it into this AI thing and it made his voice sound exactly like Kanye. I was like, "Whoa, that's wild, the voice emulation thing." So now anyone could be a singer, just have an AI voice. Yeah, it's wild to think about where it's going.

Michael Walker:
Speaking of Kanye and AI, I don't know if I can find this or not. Yeah, it might not be in the cards for this interview. My band, I probably shouldn't announce anything yet, it's not official, but we're in conversations about doing a small reunion tour just for fun for a week. When we met over Zoom, we had just a fun hangout session, and part of it was opening up ChatGPT and, "Hell, yeah, what should be our set list?" It was so funny, it got nine of the songs right, and then three of the songs that it created were totally fabricated songs that we've never written. One was called Summer. It sounded like, "Yeah, that could be a Paradise Fear song. It's in the same vein." But that was really funny.
At one point, the conversation veered to... Because the question was, is it writing these songs because it knows enough about the band to actually write songs stylistically that are similar to the content that we would write ourselves? Which is interesting if it does do that. I think it actually does take that into account. So we were like, "What's the most iconic band that we could do this for to see if it's taken into account?" And someone's threw in, "The Beatles," I was like, "Bob Dylan," and someone's, "Kanye." So he asked to do a Kanye West album and specifically I think we'd prompted it to I don't to be edgy or something. It was so funny, it popped out a list of 12 songs, Kanye titles, descriptions of the songs. One of them, just for example, was Proud Boys and in the parenthesis and Girls. The description of the song was, "You a counterpoint to the proud boys," which was what that group that was racist basically.
So anyways, it was a demonstration of seeing the power of AI being able to write these outlines for the songs and even having the ability to write the full lyrics. Definitely seems like we're not too far away from a point where we could have a ChatGPT. And when I say not too far away, I think probably three to six months probably, to a point where we have generative, this might already be a thing, honestly, you type in some prompts like, "I want to have a happy song that fits the mood of this thing that's happening in the movie. There's a scene of a boy falling in love with a girl, and I want the song to reflect this newfound connection between the two of them." And then we click Generate. We ask a 30-second clip, and so it pops out a 30 second clip. And then we say, "You know what? I'm not crazy about how the strings are crescendoing here. I want the strings to be a little bit quieter." Bloop, bloop, bloop, and then it pops out a slightly quieter version with the strings lowered.
It just seems mind-boggling that... In my mind, that's a definitive thing that's absolutely going to happen probably in the next three to six months. At least from a traditional standpoint of how the music is created and generated specifically for placements in TV and film, it seems like it would be easier to transmit the supervisor's vision or what they're looking to fill the screen with if they were directly able to iterate through that conversation. But to your point, it does seem like music at its very essence is this expression of our humanness. Maybe it's more of a factor of... I've heard this before that AI isn't going to replace all humans, but humans using AI are going to replace all of those jobs. The idea of it just being a tool or an instrument very similar to mini keyboards or our computers, and these are ways to effectively transmit our ideas in a more direct, tapped in way. Maybe that's the route that we'll go rather than just replacing ourselves entirely.

Ashley Neumeister:
Also maybe even more people could be creating music because they have that tool. Someone that's not typically a lyricist but can write all of the instrumentation could use an app like that to then come up with all the lyrics. I wonder how that's going to impact writers. Just because AI gave you those lyrics, are they yours now, or how does that work?

Michael Walker:
Yeah, that's a question worth diving into or just discussing. Maybe the two of us we could just crack that one and solve that one for humanity here really quick. But I don't know if you're up to date-

Ashley Neumeister:
It'd be the same for screenplays and writing books and all that.

Michael Walker:
Totally. I mean that's a huge, huge question mark with AI generated content right now is exactly that, is who owns the content? Is it the tool that you created it? Is it the underlying data that they should be compensated for it? Is it the person that generated the prompt that then generated the thing? As far as I understand it, I mean the last time I checked in on this was probably a week or two ago, which in AI time is seven years, last time I heard about it, I think that there was actually a big court case where they're going to make some decisions on maybe how that type of content is used or copyrighted or the royalties from it. But I mean, do you have any insight into that in terms of what your thoughts about how that could or should be split?

Ashley Neumeister:
No, I have no idea at this point. I mean, it's got to be probably a combination, I would think, between whoever generates the prompts and directs what it gives to you. But I don't know, I can't imagine also that technology would be owning. I don't know, yeah, that's weird.

Michael Walker:
I'm a believer that a lot of human systems that we have right now are going to be disrupted by this technology in a lot of really powerful good ways. I think it's going to open up a lot of abundance, and I think there's a lot of risks as well and potentially existential threats that we need to be working through. One of those things is definitely around ownership of how the AI's being generated with scraping all this data from all these other creative works that they haven't been compensated or given royalties for the fact that they're used in this AI generation engine. That seems that's not fair to the owner of that.
While at the same time it's such an amazing tool and I think it's going to provide so much value for humankind that we just have to figure out what we're going to do with it. But that's an interesting idea, trying to figure out a fair distribution of what... Those are the three parties involved really, right? One is the underlying data that's being used to generate the output. Two is the actual service or the tool that's aggregating all of that data and turning it into a service. And then three is definitely the prompt generator and the person that's asking the questions, iterating with it, and deciding on how can we attribute who has really created this new piece of content that's the baby of those things is super fascinating.

Ashley Neumeister:
Mm-hmm. It is.

Michael Walker:
This is actually probably a good segue to another thing that I wanted to talk a little bit about because I think that one thing that's interesting about you and your story is that you also have a background in sound healing was part of it. Before we hopped on the call, you mentioned that you just got back from Joshua Tree. I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on music, the purpose of music itself, and how it relates to... because it is a foundational question. And as we live increasingly in a world where there's more and more computer and digital intelligence, how the essence of music, is it something that's going to last or something that's going to stick around and what's our role as creators of music in that world?

Ashley Neumeister:
This is a big question. Yeah, I love sound. I'm very passionate about the different uses of sound for healing and study of frequency. One of the most interesting things that I think is possible now, and I'm really excited for this to happen one day, is... We're all made of frequency, we're all sound, and we can do something called a voice signature analysis, which basically gives us a read of the frequencies that exist within our body. You could go to a sound therapist to get this done, but I'm sure there's technology that's going to be able to do this eventually just by talking into something. There already are some that exists, but there is a debate on whether or not they're as accurate as a human doing these readings. But basically, it tells you which frequencies you have in excess, which ones are balanced, and which ones may be missing.
For example, recently I did one and I'm really low on C and C sharp. It just doesn't exist within my frequency right now. Those are related to certain things on a physical, mental, emotional, spiritual level. And so, I can do things like listen to music in C and C sharp and it can start to create those frequencies within me through brainwave and... Exactly.

Michael Walker:
I'm doing my part to help out?

Ashley Neumeister:
Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate that. It even works better if you create regenerative sound on those notes that you're missing, so through vocal toning or singing along with things that are in that key or that tone, that note. And so, I see a world where we'll have concerts or experiences or sound healings that are for people that are low in C and C sharp. And so, you'll do a voice analysis, you'll see what you're missing, and you'll be like, "Oh, okay, I really need to build up my C and C sharp, so I'm going to go to this healing session," which is a band playing music all in that key or something, for example. Or you can take it even to now that there is more research being done around how do use sound for healing different diseases, you could have concerts that focus on using frequencies that are good for people that have diabetes or they're struggling with this kind of cancer or whatever.
I do see that in the future, of using sound and music for healing and incorporating technology. Even now there's this whole debate around writing music in 440 or 432. Do you know about this?

Michael Walker:
I heard a little bit about it, yeah, like tuning it slightly differently.

Ashley Neumeister:
Yeah. Because an A is normally tuned to 440 hertz in all western music currently, but back when there was just classical music, everything was in 432, meaning the A was tuned down eight hertz to 432. There's more and more musicians now that are learning about this concept that 432 is actually supposed to be more healing and more beneficial to our bodies. It's more in tune with nature. And so, a lot of musicians are starting to go back to the 432. So there's a lot of correlation and cross between, obviously, sound and music because they're very closely related. And so, what I'm interested in is where can we take music intentionally for healing, which it already is naturally healing. We listen to music when we're in all sorts of emotions. We go to these concerts to have peak emotional experiences. It's already a natural way that we heal as humans, through dance, singing, all of the different things that go along with music.
But I am curious to see how far can we take it. It's an ancient technology, it's not anything necessarily new. But it's just now that science is starting to catch up with what all of the eastern philosophies and mystics have known forever and it being more accepted within the western world as something that is a valid healing modality and creating these different kinds of fun. But healing experiences using these things like voice analysis and learning more about what certain frequencies do within our bodies, there's a lot of potential there.

Michael Walker:
That is so interesting. I'll never forget this video that I saw on YouTube where it was a pile of sand sitting on a table. They were just going through a dial and dialing into different frequencies. And when it hits certain frequencies, the sand, it renavigated itself to create these elaborate geometric designs. That was pretty amazing to watch. Be like, "Man, there's definitely something happening here at certain frequencies that cause things to harmonize or come together to fit different shapes and patterns.

Ashley Neumeister:
Mm-hmm. Exactly.

Michael Walker:
I definitely believe that we're all made up of energy, we're all vibrating at different frequencies. And music, it is a vibration of energy. Really interesting too to hear your thoughts around seeing that used intentionally. I personally don't have a lot of experience attending sound healings or seeing it used in that modality, but I can understand how that could be really powerful. Yeah, I've certainly seen firsthand the power of music to be able to move people emotionally.
As you were describing that, I was imagining, "Yeah, technology being able to tell us... Because maybe that's a scientific, like, you mentioned, "Oh, we're missing a C or C sharp, or maybe there's these certain frequencies that if there are certain patterns, certain types of trauma that people have gone through, different kinds of trauma that are harmonic to each other almost, or they've been through a similar traumatic expression and then there's literally community experiences or musical sound, community experiences, people coming together that are coming to process and heal from that specific trauma, which correlates to some of those frequencies, super interesting.

Ashley Neumeister:
Yeah, totally. And also, we're made up of mostly water too, and so you can see how our cells and all of the water within our cells and everything is also impacted by the sound. You can see that too where the structure of sound changes with different frequencies being emitted. And so all of that, like the sand moving and creating those shapes, it's called cymatics, that's how our body's being impacted by those frequencies. And that's why those sound baths, they're called, can be so healing.
It's just taking it to that next level of knowing the frequency of everyone in the room that you're working with as a sound therapist. If someone is missing C and C sharp, you're going to focus on those notes. There is definitely a correlation between certain kinds of traumas and people missing certain notes. A lot of people are missing C and C sharp right now because it's all about safety and stability and security, and our world is influx right now. And so-

Michael Walker:
You don't mention.

Ashley Neumeister:
... common... We could totally create big group experiences that are healing those kinds of trauma through sound.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. Super interesting. One question for you around this topic of the impact of music and its ability to heal and be able to transmit emotions and certain frequencies, what's your view on... This is a question I've thought to myself that I don't really have an answer for, but sometimes I feel like there's certain music, to each their own, everyone has their own style of music they enjoy, but it does seem like there's certain songs or albums that are very negative in nature... Not from a standpoint of we're going to shine a light of the negativity to heal from it, but more so toxic almost or violent. And so, in your point of view, is that kind of music, even though on the surface it appears violent or toxic, maybe it's still having a cathartic thing where it actually is helping people heal? Or from your point of view, are there different frequencies and it is possible to go to a lower vibration of frequency by listening to lower music? Or is it all just part of the healing process and all music is a good thing?

Ashley Neumeister:
Yeah, that's a really great question. I mean, I could answer that in a few different ways. I don't know the answer to that either. I mean, for me personally, I feel like, yes, I can be brought to a lower level frequency wise if I'm listening to music that is very violent or derogatory or talking about shit about women or a lot of the top 40 hip hop that exists. There's a whole other rabbit hole we can go down what I don't want to go down about intentionally programming people with those kinds of things. But I think that I'll just speak from my personal experience that I will intentionally listen to certain kinds of music when I'm feeling down or depressed or sad. It can be one thing where I want to just wallow in it for a minute. It's like those heartbreak songs, it's really sad and you're just like, "Oh, they get me." It's this relating, connection thing where you don't feel so alone. So I do think there's some value in that, but you've got to get out of that. You can't stay in that frequency.
So then there's more uplifting, inspiring, motivational music too, so you can use it with intention. I think anything you listen to you can use with intention. And so, often I will listen to more of that more inspiring kind of music to pull me out of that funk. And so, as long as you're aware of how you're using the music and what frequencies or messages you are listening to, it is going to have an impact. That's why there's heavy metal music or really angsty, immo rock. People love it because they're able to get into it and experience that emotion while they're listening to that song and move it, move that energy, move that emotion. I do think there is some healing to that. But it's about not necessarily staying in that place and knowing what's happening instead of just being stuck in it and programmed with it and only listening to that and staying in that kind of zone. I think that's where it could potentially be not as helpful. So that's my take on it.

Michael Walker:
Thank you for sharing that, that makes a lot of sense. It is interesting, I feel like that topic almost comes down to our humanity and facing things like core issues of why is there suffering on earth. And all the horrible things that happen, is there a purpose to them or is there a reason? Is it happening for the betterment? Does it all have a purpose? Especially the things that seem, I don't know, unforgivable or seem awful or horrible? People have suffered through a lot of loss or losing a child or losing a loved one. It does seem like in a lot of those cases, even the worst imaginable things that people have gone through, a lot of the greatest humans in the world have been able to transmute that experience into something that's become a gift and a blessing and a light to be able to share with other people.
So it does seem like that same thing could apply to negative songs or songs that they're not necessarily all about rainbows and butterflies, but it's facing that darkness and be able to shine a light on it. So definitely, definitely helpful to hear your perspective on it, and at the same time, appreciating that it doesn't make sense to intentionally or consciously choose to feel awful or to listen to songs about being racist or sexist or different things that we don't necessarily have to generate our own suffering intentionally because life does a good enough job for us of generating enough suffering that we don't need to create extra with stuff on top of it.

Ashley Neumeister:
Definitely. Yeah, I mean, same thing about TV shows and movies and stuff about certain content, it's the same kind of thing. It's all expression, I guess. It's all people working through shit they've been through in this human experience. I personally can't watch that shit, but there's some people that it helps them in some kind of way, and I can't judge that either. So yeah, it's all expression at the end of the day.

Michael Walker:
Yeah, absolutely. Awesome. Well, this is definitely a fun conversation. You have to explore both of those things in the one sentence very often where it's like sync, licensing royalties, geek it out of that, then talking about our humanness. So I appreciate us being able to go both directions. Maybe to bring things back a little bit more on the level of Sync Secrets. Specifically the people who are listening this right now, mostly are independent musicians who have generated sometimes a full album or multiple albums or even a big catalog of original music. And for anyone who maybe is listening this right now and maybe has a catalog of 30 to 50 songs that they've written, and maybe they have some of the basics covered like they're registered with the PRO, but they haven't really fully explored sync licensing or publishing their music, then what would you recommend they get started to... Would your recommendation be should someone... I know a key decision is, does someone try to learn everything themselves and try to build relationships directly with music supervisors, or do they want to work with a publishing or a publisher company? And so I'm curious to hear your thoughts on if someone's at that place right now, or they have a bunch of original music, but they haven't really fully tapped into the opportunity with sync licensing, how they might approach that.

Ashley Neumeister:
Yeah, I mean that is the decision to make, whether or not you want to do it on your own or if you want to find someone to represent you. I do usually recommend that when you're first starting out to find a catalog or a library that will pitch your music for you just because it does take quite a bit of time to build those relationships and understand the business and all of that. So when you're first starting out, it would be good to just go with someone that this is what they do and they can pitch your songs on your behalf. And they already have all those relationships, they already kind of know the industry, they know what's needed and who the music supervisors are. They're already in the industry.
And then also, you can take things like my course, Sync Secrets, so that you can understand the business and know what to ask of these companies so you don't get taken advantage of. There's so many music libraries and catalogs now, and it just keeps growing, so there's a lot to choose from. But there's value for you to understand how the industry works and understand the different deals that are offered. For example, there's a lot of catalogs that will split everything 50/50. So if they get a placement for you, you'll get 50% of that upfront sync fee money, and then on the back end you'll retain 100% of your writers share royalties, but they'll get 100% of the publishing share. So they're basically becoming your administer or your publisher. That's pretty common.
There's also other companies that will just take a commission on the sync fees and that's it and you get to keep all of your writer and publisher. So it just depends on what your intentions are, whether or not you're pitching just your artist project or if you're wanting to also do a ton of co-writes and these other genres just for sync. A lot of people do that too because they want to be known as, "This is my artist's thing. But I want to make some more money off of sync, so I'll go and write all these other kinds of genres and stuff under a different artist's name, for example." And so there's a lot of different ways of looking at it, but ultimately, the first thing is going to be understanding the business, how it works, and then linking with someone that can usually pitch your music on your behalf. Because you're not going to want to be spending your time doing that most of the time. You want to just be making the music, and if you're touring and doing other things too, it's about where you want to be spending your time is really the first question to ask yourself and then decide how much of it you want to do yourself versus aligning with these other companies that already exist.

Michael Walker:
Super smart. It sounds like what you're saying is that's a great starting point, because in addition to publishers are already having these preexisting relationships and connections and just infrastructure and understanding how it needs to be done, it's one of the fastest ways that you can get your feet wet in the world of sync and not have to start from scratch and learn all these things on your own, but to learn through the process of working with those companies and then get a better taste for is it something that you'd like to take more ownership of or do more things yourself? Super smart. Well, hey, Ashley, it's been awesome connecting with you today, and I appreciate it. Again, it was a very interesting conversation. We explored-

Ashley Neumeister:
All over the place.

Michael Walker:
... sync, songwriting, we explored AI and the talked about the future of music. And obviously that's a world that's changing rapidly every day. And we circled back around also talking about just the role of music itself in an AI world where potentially we're either hybrid or we're super charging our creative expression with these tools and what is the role of music itself. Sound healing is something very interesting. I'll definitely have to explore that little bit more as well. So that's all to say thank you so much for taking the time to be here and to share your experience and lessons you've learned from decades of doing this. And for anyone who's listening or watching this right now, if they'd like to dive deeper and learn more about both your free resources and also what you offer with Sync Secrets, where could they go to dive deeper?

Ashley Neumeister:
On my website, syncsecrets.biz, I'll be putting my next course up there. I'll probably be launching it sometime in May or June. And also on Instagram, I post everything on there. I am AshNeu, N-E-U. Those are probably the best places.

Michael Walker:
All right, beautiful. And like always, we're going to put all the links in the show notes for easy access. Thanks again for taking the time, it's been a fun conversation.

Ashley Neumeister:
Yeah, my pleasure. Really nice as well.

Michael Walker:
Hey, it's Michael here. I hope that you got a ton of value out of this episode. Make sure to check out the show notes to learn more about our guests today. And if you want to support the podcast, then there's a few ways to help us grow. First, if you hit Subscribe, then I'll make sure you don't miss a new episode. Secondly, if you share it with your friends or on your social media, tag us, that really helps us out. And third, best of all, if you leave us an honest review, it's going to help us switch more musicians like you who want to take their music careers to the next level. The time to be a modern musician is now, and I look forward to seeing you on our next episode.