Chris SD:
People send music all the time to supervisors and they can't listen to not even remotely like half of what they get. They simply can't. They're overwhelmed with the number of people that send the music. So they only go to their trusted sources. So I teach any musicians how to be a trusted source and then I also introduce them to the people to open the door in the industry where they can begin those relationships.

Michael Walker:
It's easy to get lost in today's music industry with constantly changing technology and where anyone with a computer can release their own music. But I'm going to share with you why this is the best time to be an independent musician and it's only getting better. If you have high quality music, but you just don't know the best way to promote yourself so that you can reach the right people and generate sustainable income with your music. We're going to show you the best strategies that we're using right now to reach millions of new listeners every month without spending 10 hours a day on social media. We're creating a revolution in today's music industry and this is your invitation to join me. I'm your host, Michael Walker.
I'm excited to be here today with Chris SD. So Chris is a good friend of mine. We went on a sailboat trip to Catalina and he travels all around the world in a sailboat. But he has something, if you're a musician who is looking to maximize a different streams of income than you probably heard of sync licensing. So licensing your music to TV and film and I hear it over and over again how this is really one of the major branches of income, one of the biggest opportunities for you as a musician.
So Chris himself, he's an award-winning music producer. He's worked on five albums that won Juno Awards, along with seven nominations. So the Juno Awards is sort of like the Grammys for Canada, so kind of a big deal. He's nominated as Engineer of the Year in 2012 and since then he's created a business called Sync Songwriter. Where he helps connect musicians like you, well probably like you if you're listening to this right now. Then this is the podcast where we're talking to you as musicians. So he's helps artists who be able to connect with music supervisors and people in the sync licensing world to be able to earn now literally millions of dollars in sync licensing. So Chris is one of my favorite people, favorite human beings. So I know that this is going to be super valuable for everyone that's listening. So Chris, thanks so much for taking the time to be here today.

Chris SD:
Oh, amazing. Thanks so much, Mike. Appreciate that. And the intro of course is, as usual epic and I appreciate the kind words. And we got to do another sailing trip together.

Michael Walker:
That would be awesome. The funny thing, so a bit of background for anyone who's listening to this right now, what you didn't hear was the 30-minute preamble to this interview where Chris and I just geeked out, hardcore on the new chat AI. So we were just playing around with it so crazy. But probably going to be something that all of us are hearing about moving forward is about how AI is just changing everything.
But anyways, yeah, I wanted to bring back my mind from outer space and come back to the world of sync licensing because I know how valuable it is for musicians. So maybe you could talk a little bit about the role of sync licensing and why you think that it's an important thing to consider if you are a musician that is looking to go full-time.

Chris SD:
Yeah, thanks Mike. I will actually segue back to what you were just saying about AI because some questions that come up in sync licensing is like the way Pandora and Spotify, how they form these playlists and stuff using algorithms which is a form of AI. And they go through this process and they sort of feed what should be the next song on the playlist. It's not by the artist and all of that. It picks it by some sort of fingerprint of whatever the song is. People have been wondering, is sync licensing going to come down to the same thing? Are music supervisors, which are the people who put music into TV and film, are they going to be sort of dinosaurs eventually and is it going to be AI picking everything? Is it going to become better and so on? That very well could be the case, but as that sort of line in that last Tom Cruise movie or something when the guy says, you're obsolete or something like that.
You will be obsolete soon. And he is like, but not today. So for now, it's a great time for indie songwriters to be getting music out into the world through TV and film. And just really quickly, the bottom line with sync licensing is that when you get a sync placement, you not only get an upfront sync fee, which is often in the thousands of dollars, you get backend royalties. The most important part is you get this massive exposure. You get tons of eyes and ears that watch the shows, the movies and the ads. They're all shazaming your song. So you get all these downloads. So you better have your music out there before you get your sync placement and you develop a relationship in the industry so that when the supervisors are looking for more music, you're a known quantity. You've already got a sync placement or two or four or 10 or 100.
And so they know that you're a source of music that's trusted. One of the biggest problems for indie musicians nowadays is they simply can't get their music synced because everybody and their dog has a record out and they're all after the same spots. Now, even though the sink industry is growing at a massive pace and there's so much content out there from streaming, even YouTube is making movies and stuff to all the television to the cable, to the this and that, and then the other countries and there's 24/7 everything. Is so much content, but you need to know how to get into that spot ahead of everybody else because everybody can't get in there.
So there's certain steps that you need to take, but most importantly, unfortunately, it's also a world of who. In a lot in our world, there's that old saying about your fate is really the sum of the five people you hang with most. Really is so much about each other and the world and the more that you can interface with other human beings who can help you and you're supposed to be helping them too, it's got to be win-win where the success comes from.
And so the big part of what I do is I develop these relationships in the sync industry and I know a lot of music supervisors, having been a record producer and basically trying to figure out how I was going to get indie artists into on the radio and how I was going to help them out with their record because I'd put all my time into their record too. Their budgets weren't that big, but I love their music because indie music is just as good as signed music. It just needs more tender loving care because the budget's not there and they don't have the agents and the labels and the managers pushing them along. So I started hearing about this sync licensing thing, this was a while ago when it was kind of uncool. It was like, I don't want my music in an ad because it's "selling out."
People just didn't do it. And then mobi came along and put that to rest and now you can get into your favorite TV shows and movies and ads without changing the way that you write your music, which is key. You don't have to write for sync, you just have to do it the other way around. You write your songs, you do them the way you normally do, there's certain things you need to know and not do that. Those are easy. And then you target the opportunities that fit your music. So not the other way around. You find the opportunities that fit your music. So your music goes into shows that want to use your music, which means that the people who watch the shows are your kind of fans. So it's this beautiful synergy and then you get paid to do it, which is incredible.
Plus the big fan base. So I've realized that this was a great way to go and I decided, oh, this should be pretty easy. I've won some awards, I'm in the music industry and I'm just call up some music supervisors and say, "Hey, here's this band I'm working with and they're awesome and put them in your movie." Well it doesn't work out to do well. I wasn't in the TV film industry, so it was crickets. I had a real hard time with it and failed, honestly. It was just a really... Trying to cold call and do probably what other people are doing out there listening. They're trying to email out sometimes or they stick them in a library hoping to be discovered. And of course people know that just doesn't work very well for your typical musician. So eventually, I started to forge these relationships with them and started to get better and better at understanding what it was.
And I got all my information, I didn't make any of this up, I got the information from the music supervisors themselves. I just asked them and of course as those professional relationships developed into friend relationships, it became easier and easier and easier. And so now I have this huge network and I'm able to send people music and that's really sort of how I get musicians music into TV and film. So I prepare them ahead of time. I don't just take... I'm not like an agent. I don't just take music and shop it. I take the music and then I guide the musician so they can do this after I'm not around because I don't want to run an agency. And I can take that music while I'm guiding them and when they are ready I can take that and then put them in front of music supervisors directly so they can make those contacts.
They're not sort of at my behest. And that's one of the problems of having an agent or library. Agents and libraries have those connections already. So the logic is if I get my music into a library or with an agency, then that's the fastest route to getting a sync placement. It makes sense. But the reality is, and the analogy, the way to look at it is that imagine that you're like a can of soup in a superstore. So the supervisor comes to the superstore to buy something, right? They want to go get something, anything in a big box store. And so they walk in the store and they go and they buy something. The odds of them walking to your department, into your section, into your aisle and reaching up on the shelf where you are pretty low. Yet, the supervisor always walks out with what they want.
So the story gets to sync, the supervisor gets to sync, but you as the artist who are in the library or with an agency, if you're not on the front burner, it's like playing a lottery. So there had to be a better way. And the best way I know how is go straight to the gatekeepers. Go straight to the people, eliminate the middle people and go straight to the people who actually put the music in television. It's not easy. If everybody could do it, we all would. But it's about having a path and being able to be put in front of them because all you need to do is have your music listened to, right? That's the biggest challenge is just having them listen to their music. People send music all the time to supervisors and they can't listen to not even remotely half of what they get.
They simply can't. They're overwhelmed with the number of people that send the music. So they only go to their trusted sources. So I teach any musicians how to be a trusted source and then I also introduce them to the people to open the door in the industry where they can begin those relationships to become that source. And so that's how the whole evolution of going from a music producer to now helping in the artist get their music synced in TV and film, which is one of the best paths to go. Certainly one of the paths, I mean the other big path I always recommend is Modern Musician. It's brilliant what you guys do over there. Teaching artists what to do and how to do that. And it feels like it's really cool that we compliment each other really, really nicely that way I feel.
But sync licensing is certainly something that musicians need to take seriously these days because a lot of people are doing it. And if you get one great sync in one good placement in one good show or movie or ad, you can end up in the charts and that's happened. It happens reasonably regularly. And then you've got publishers coming, labels coming, massive fans coming, you're getting paid. An example of what you can get paid is the very top end within my experience. I'm not going to talk hypotheticals. I got an artist $30,000 for one placement, I got another $20,000 for a replacement. And then you know, can make anywhere from free, if it's a student film. There's a few nefarious groups that might try to take your stuff for free, I advise against it. But $500, $1000, super low. But typically, we're working with supervisors who are on the higher end, so they work on big network shows, bigger movies, ads and stuff like that. So you're looking at like 5,000, 7,000, 10,000 and into the, well into the five figures.

Michael Walker:
All right, let's take a quick break from the podcast so I can tell you about a free special offer that we're doing right now exclusively for our podcast listeners. So if you get a ton of value from the show, but you want to take your music career to the next level and connect with the community of driven musicians and connect with the music mentors directly that we have on this podcast. Or if you just want to know the best way to market your music and grow an audience right now, then this is going to be perfect for you. So right now we're offering a free two-week trial to our music mentor coaching program. And if you sign up in the show notes below, you're going to get access to our entire music mentor content vault for free. The vault's organized into four different content pillars. The first being the music, then the artist, the fans, and last but not least, the business.
When you sign up, you unlock our best in-depth masterclass from a network of world class musicians and industry experts on the most cutting edge strategies right now for growing your music business. On top of that, you'll get access to our weekly live masterminds where our highest level Modern Musician coaches teach you exactly what they're doing to make an income and an impact with their music. Then once a month we're going to have our Music Mentor Spotlight series and that's what we're going to bring on some of the world's biggest and best artist coaches and successful musicians to teach you what's working right now. And one of the most amazing parts is that you can get your questions answered live by these top level music mentors. So a lot of the people that you hear right here on the podcast are there live interacting with you personally. So imagine being able to connect with them directly.
On top of all that, you'll get access to our private music mentor community. And this is definitely one of my favorite parts of music mentor and maybe the most valuable is that you're going to have this community where you can network with other artists and link up, collaborate, ask questions, get support, and discuss everything related to your music career. So if you're curious and you want to take advantage of the free trial, then go click on the link in the show notes right now, sign up for free. From there you can check out all of the amazing contents, connect with the community and sign up for the live masterclass that happen every week. This is a gift for listening to our podcast, supporting the show. So don't miss it out. Go sign up for free now and let's get back to our interview.
Oh man. That's so awesome. Yeah, a couple of the things that stand out about what you just shared are one, because I can relate to this like you mentioned, we both we're peanut butter and jelly. We kind of serve different models in the industry, but the truth is that when you bring these together with its so powerful. And for so many of the artists that I work with before they met you or before they got into music licensing, they didn't realize how big of an asset that they were sitting on with their music. It was like this whole world that they didn't even realize there was a gold mine sitting underneath their house that they just had to dig below. And so I think it's such a great opportunity to be able to leverage these assets that they've already likely invested a lot of time and energy and money into and be able to provide value with those assets in a different industry.
Because that's one of the things that seems like, maybe you could talk a little bit about this. About the industry of music licensing, but one thing that struck me was how it really is its own industry and it's more of like it's the TV and film industry. It's like you're kind of serving a different... Like with that industry, it's not necessarily as much about the music, but the music is a part of it and it's important, but it's really about the film. It's really about the TV, it's really about the story. It's really about kind of accenting that. So I just have a huge amount of respect and I just think it's a big opportunity for anyone who is listening to us right now who maybe hasn't fully capitalizes on sync licensing.
So maybe a good next question would be what are some... I know at this point now you've worked with so many musicians. And like anything, there's always patterns. There's habits, there's patterns, there's things that come up over and over and over again. So I'm curious for someone who is interested in music licensing but maybe hasn't fully dug into the opportunity, what are some of the biggest mistakes or issues that you see them coming across when they first get started with licensing?

Chris SD:
Yeah, that's a great question. So in terms of the biggest mistakes, I would say the number one mistake that people make is the level of their production is not up to par that where it needs to be. Now this isn't to say that your record has to sound like the latest Adele release. It doesn't have to be that pro. It simply has to be something that sounds like everything else getting into TV and film. Now here's a simple trick to find out if you're a music is up to par. Go to tunefind.com, that's tunefind.com. And then go look for artists that are similar to you. So you find the artists that are similar to you and then what you do is then you figure out what shows they've been in and then you take a playlist to those artists and just say, okay, I'm going to make a little playlist and put it on random.
So listen to the playlist and stick your song in there or songs or whatever. Put it on random and go chop some carrots. Don't listen to it directly, just indirectly listen to it and get into it and enjoy it. When your song comes along, how did you react? Did you kind of suddenly feel like, oh, a bit deflated? Well, you got some work to do. So at least that you're not up to par in terms of the production level with them. But if your head's still bopping, you're still going and you feel great, then you're good to go. But the beautiful thing about this seemingly big problem, which sounds insurmountable to some people because they're like, oh man, how am I going to... I recorded home I can't afford da, da, da... You guys live in the best era ever for recording professional music. It's just so easy to go online and get somebody who can do it within your budget and you can listen to the stuff they'd done before.
You can compare them, you can shop around and you can literally hire somebody to help you while you're learning to do that at home. So that's a huge thing. Don't waste great songs on mediocre production. Go get somebody who can help you get better, learn from them and just let them produce your music. It's like Steve Jobs used to say, it's like the way to make a great company is hire the best people. Let them largely self manage. The job of the leader is to reiterate the mission statement, reiterate the vision. And so if you just hire someone who just does stuff better than you, I have an online studio myself, you don't have to work with me. I'm just saying this as an example. I went on and hired amazing engineers and producers, right? Well, I've been fortunate in my life to have had success, but there's people that I've hired that are better than me at certain things.
I'm a good mixer. I wouldn't say I'm a good mixer. I'm not a great, I'm the top 10 mixer in the world. That's just not what I am. Making beats, I can make beats like anybody else. I'm pretty good at it. But there's people I have who do this all the time. They do it for living. So my production expertise, I'm stronger in certain areas, weaker in others, like we all are in life with different things. Those things I recognized and then I hired people who are better than me at other things. And then if you say to yourself, Chris, that's cool, but I can just spend a couple of grand and I can have a home studio and I can do it for free and I can take all the time in the world. It's like, okay, yeah, I get that. So you want to do that?
That's the way I started. There's nothing wrong with that. I totally did that. I recorded my friends for beer on a pro tools eli system when it came out, and that's how I started my production career. I had advantages, having worked with bigger producers in the studio when I was in a band and stuff and learned a lot, but I started from scratch more or less. The problem is time and money are inextricably [inaudible 00:20:56]. They're connected in such a way that they are almost the same thing. Time is money and money is time. So the time that you're spending in the studio, learning what you're doing and trying to get better, that would've taken somebody a 10th of the time to do better than you. You are not spending it with your friends, your loved ones, you're not working to make money, you're not doing your rock climbing hobby or whatever.
There's all of these things that you're sacrificing to do it. If you absolutely love it and you wouldn't trade it, you're on a deserted island and with your computer and that you'd be happy there with just doing that, that's great. But keep in mind, it's going to take you a long time if you have a goal of getting your music out there. If you're not just sort of playing with the puzzle. If you're just playing with a puzzle, then that's cool. But if you actually want to finish the puzzle for a reason, then think about trying to hire other people. So I would say that's the number one pitfall that people run into is overestimating their production level and not knowing how to fix it easily. And that's of course one thing as a music producer that I help them with.
When I work with them, that's number one is we look at the songs, we talk about the writing, and then we dive into the production. Okay, how are we going to make this happen? Usually, I give them big discounts at my studio and that's just a part of what I do to get their music into TV and film. I'm trying to get them through that phase. So take your time to learn the production. It's going to take you a few years to become really good at it. In the meantime, let's just forget about it, let's do it super cheap, but world class and go to the real goal while you're here is you want to get your song into TV film so you can start getting paid for that. So you can sit in your studio and tinker around for a couple of years. If you're making six figures, which some of my students do, then not just on music, then I mean, there you go. Boom, done. Right?

Michael Walker:
That's so good. Yeah, that's one thing that, I'm sure that you've been through this exercise before and it's a really powerful exercise for looking at how you spend your time and what you mentioned about time equals money. But the way you spend your time, that kind of accounts to different levels of money. I know for me personally, one thing I really struggled with and I still struggle with it to some extent, I think it's pretty normal that a lot of the things that I started doing both with Paradise Spheres, the band when we were doing it full-time. Then also with Modern Musician things that I started doing eventually, there's a capacity of how much time that you can spend doing something. You can't do everything, but there's certain things that you're doing that just aren't as high value it. And it might only be worth $15 an hour to do that task if you're going to hire someone else for it.
Or maybe it's $25 an hour or $50 an hour or even a hundred dollars an hour or more. And one of the most powerful exercises that I tried to come back to at least once a year or so is to create a triangle. And in that triangle break it down into five different segments. And within that, those five seconds of the triangle. At the base, you have your $15 an hour activities, then you have the $25 an hour activities up to maybe $5,000 an hour activities at the top. And then just fill in the spaces with what are you currently doing right now in your music career that is $15 an hour or you could pay someone $25 an hour. And mixing engineering, maybe that's a $25 an hour, $50 an hour, obviously it depends. But ultimately if you can look at those things and you could say, I could do this.
I could invest the time and the energy to mix all my songs, but that's going to take me away from time that I could potentially spend doing the $5,000 an hour activity. And the more you can sort of subtract yourself from the lower piece of the triangle and start doing the things that are higher. For example, a really high leverage activity for me and Modern Musician is doing interviews with partners like Chris who have hundreds of thousands of audience members who we can serve that are good partners for us, or doing live events. Live events where if I show up for an hour and I can connect personally with thousands of people, then that's a really high leverage activity to do. And I think that the same thing applies to musicians and when you look at really where's the highest dollar value that you can spend your time on. A lot of times it's not necessarily doing things like the $15 an hour kind of things where you're moderating things, you're responding to things. Obviously everyone starts somewhere.
So you got to start by wearing all the hats and doing everything in your music career. But as soon as you have the opportunity to start to buy back your time, the more you can buy back your time and focus on those higher level activity, the better. And I do think that doing things like learning how to get your music synced into TV and film, if you spend five hours learning how to do that, then that could be a $5,000 an hour activity, right? Because it could make you $25,000 and it spent you five hours to learn how to do it. So hopefully that makes sense. I'm rambling a little bit, but it's just something that I think is really true and kind of goes along with what you're saying.

Chris SD:
Yeah, no, I think that's an excellent exercise. I think that's a great place to be for if you are in a place where you've got a multiple number of things you should be doing and you need to organize them into the most efficient way, I think that's a brilliant approach. If you're beginning, if you're starting at the bottom and you're trying to figure out how to do the same thing, my idea on that is just keep it simple. Keep it really, really simple. There's a saying about a thousand nos lead to a yes. So if you try to do everything in your life, you're going to have a hard time. Unless you're at that intermediate stage you're talking about Mike and just being able to divide it up and outsource and stuff. You're starting out. Like when I was a musician and I was broke, man. I was roofing, I had a band and I lived in a house with a bunch of guys and we'd just play music.
We had our jam space in the basement of this old beating up house. And we played and played and played. Well that just, and then to work as much as we could and all of that. And that led to some pretty substantial regional success within a simple, simple approach dedicated to that one idea. So when you're starting out, you've got probably have to have a day job and you've got to do different things. But with your music, when you're doing your music, pick one goal, pick one idea and then follow that. And most importantly is the advent of online education is amazing. There's a bunch of good roadmaps out there. There's some bad ones, but there's a bunch of good ones. And I was saying earlier the roadmap of Modern Musician, awesome. And I think we have an excellent, a roadmap for sync.
You just basically jump into the stream and it's all set up for you. You can shortcut the rundown house and the roofing job and having to organize everything. It's all done for you. And it's an instant way to get from zero to a hundred very quickly because you and I, Mike have been through it. We went through all of that stuff and that's how we've become the grizzled music warriors we are. And now teaching and helping and mentoring people who were like us. That's how I feel. I have such a spot in my heart for people where I was. When I was who I was, when I was there, I couldn't care less. I was more focused on me. I was like, how am I going to get here? How am I? Because I think a lot of people are like that. You're just, you're driven and you're poor and you're just trying to get somewhere.
When success came and things happened, and as the years went by, I've been doing this over 20 years, I just want to help people who are in that position where I was at that time. And if I could rewind, if I could only know someone like you or back then, things would've been different in better ways. I don't regret anything. We had great success, but it would've been so much easier. It's just so much easier. I think that is a big recommendation. Of course, I don't want this to sound like it's this sort of like, oh, so Michael and I can mentor you and help you, so you should always come into our camp. I'm saying there's lots of people out there that. It's a model to follow, is what I'm trying to say. Okay. So figure out what your path is and then find that roadmap for that path. That's the advice there.

Michael Walker:
A hundred percent. Yeah, I think one thing that has become more and more clear over time is how important the role of mentorship in whatever form it is. Olympic athletes, they all have coaches. They all have mentors, they don't just randomly stumble upon it. And I know in my own life, my mentors and my peer group, like you mentioned with the five people you surround yourself with, that makes all the difference. And nowadays with the internet and with the amazing access that we have to geniuses that we'd never meet face-to-face in person, but we can basically get a direct interaction with them. We can basically download their ideas and their thoughts and their genius to our brains just by listening to them and connecting with them. There's a three way connection happening right now between you and I and anyone that's listening to this podcast and it's pretty remarkable.
And so that being said, you have to be really intentional about who do you let into your brain space, and where are you surrounding yourself? Are the five sources of information or stories that you're hearing, are they coming from places that empower you or are they coming from places that disempower you? And so a hundred percent, I think mentorship is a really, it's just a part of our DNA, it's part of the hero's journey from Joseph Campbell. So that being said, I know that it's been just an explosion with the internet and with the ability for mentors and online courses and programs to be able to help people shortcut and help to. Rather than having to live in an old shack and go to the base beds and be a starving artist, you can significantly reduce the amount of time that it takes in order to achieve your goal.
That being said, there also are some pieces that I think that are still a challenge for artists and like anyone that achieves mastery. When I look at what you're doing and the services that you're providing... For example, one thing you mentioned was in order to be successful with sync licensing, you realize that one of the challenges people are struggling with was that the production quality needs to be up to a certain level. So because of that, you realize that's an obstacle. So now, you help guide people to help them to create great quality music that's going to be able to get synced. And another area that I know that you specialize in is specifically around creating relationships with those music supervisors. Because you can create high quality music yourself. You can find a team to work with and you can get a course, you can get a video course and go through it and kind of learn the world of sync licensing, but you still might not have those relationships.
You might not have the connection or know how do I connect with those people that are actually going to get my music placed. So part of the reason I bring this up is because I know at the time of recording this right now and you're getting ready to do a panel with these music supervisors. And not just, if you're listening to this, I don't know, a few months from now or whenever you're listening to this, this is a part of what you do at Sing Songwriters. You consistently bring supervisors into your community to be able to help connect the musicians that you're working with them. So I would love to hear you just talk a little bit about the role of those panels and what that looks like and if someone's lucky enough to be listening to this right now in the middle of when you're getting ready to do one of these panels. How does that work, and what are some of the things they can expect from attending that?

Chris SD:
Great question, Mike. So basically when I decided whatever I wanted to do in Sync Songwriter, the ultimate outcome for these artists that I wanted to help. All I did was I imagined myself back when I needed that help, when I was in that position. And I thought to myself, what would be a dream sequence, the ultimate dream for TV and film for getting my music and team in film? And then I just set out to invent it because I could, I knew the people. So I thought, what can I give somebody listening who's making music in their bedroom having limited success. They might have a song in a library or two, nothing's happening. They're just trying to get their indie music heard. They're trying to get it out there and do something with it before that time passes, passes them by. And the idea of it was to create this path that was like if you could wave a magic wand and just make it happen.
So I said, how can I make that as close to that as possible in the real world? And so that's when I came up with the art of the song pitch. And we also have a coaching program after that, but this is the art of the song pitch is bringing people from... Even if you're experienced and you've already gotten some syncs, we've got people like that that come into the course and you still learn a ton in the course. But if you're coming in it from a beginner's point of view, you know some, you've read some online and some you know stuff, it's about knowing the exact steps to take. There's five of them that are really important and each one, I guide them through. Take their hand and I answer every single question that they've got. And we go through this process to do all the five steps.
So they're absolutely ready to pitch their music to the supervisors. Then, when they're ready, I simply put them in front of the music supervisors. The first part of that is the free panel. So I invite five of my friends who have these incredible credits. These are top, top, top music supervisors who work on the biggest network shows and you can come out to this panel, I hold it for free, it's on me. I make sure that everything's handled, all the time and effort. I have a team working on it and everything like that. And we hold this virtual panel. You don't have to fly to LA and get a hotel and pay for food and all that stuff, and your airfare. Just show up in your pajamas if you want. Pop online, hang out with me and my friends who are these top music supervisors and get the inside scoop on how this stuff works.
More importantly, find out what they're working on right now, because you don't know that and it's hard to find out. They're going to, I'll just ask them to tell us just, hey, I know them. It's like, what are you working on right now? What are you looking for? And then, you know which one of your songs are going to work for that kind of stuff. And so really that's the first step in you just being able to show up and discovering what goes on in the mind of a music supervisor. How do they pick Indy music for their opportunities and projects? Why are they looking for this kind of music? What makes a song fly or not fly when they listen to it? You're going to find all this stuff from the get-go for nothing in how to do that.
And that's the first part of the dream in my mind. It's like if I had that could get in the mind of a music supervisor and just discover that for nothing, that'd be awesome. Then after that, there's a pathway that you can take with me and then we go and I literally connect you with them. Like personally connect you with them so that they, you're talking to them, they've got your music, they're listening to it, they're focused on it. And I cannot think of a better, there's no guaranteed syncs. I'm not out there saying, work with me. I'm going to guarantee you a sync placement. There's a lot of things that happen in life that there's no guarantees for anything. But I can absolutely say, I don't know a better path than connecting you personally with a music supervisor where, I mean, major labels don't even get that.
Publishers don't even get that. I mean they have people that call and talk to them and do that, but the artists on the labels, they're have control over that. I'm not acting like an agency, I'm not doing it and making money from you on the side. I'm literally just connecting you and say you build a relationship, you get that asset, you open those doors so that you can keep sending the music, develop that reputation and why go anywhere else. I guess that's really what it is. So that's the reasoning behind everything was to make it a dream sequence, series of steps, guide them straight in a path that's proven. I've done this over and over and over and I've gotten tons of music of indie artist music into TV and film and I just don't fix it if it ain't broke. Just keep rinse and repeat and it works great.
And my network of supervisors keeps expanding and we give our members briefs where basically supervisors tell me what they're looking for and then we forward it to them. It's not to the public, it's only to the people we're working with because I can't obviously work with everybody in our community would be impossible. But it's one of the most satisfying that I do in my life day to day. And when I get those emails from musicians saying, "Chris, man, I'm in this TV show, I'm going to be here. I'm doing this. I got a movie spot, I got signed." Some people get signed to through different by knowing the music supervisors. Because one thing to remember about music supervisors is that they may not all be that way, but all the ones I know are hugely supportive of in the music because they have friends who are in bands, they themselves were in bands.
The one supervisor told me, thank you for sending me this music I would never have heard before because they don't have time to check out all the indie music. Thank you for introducing me to this rather than me having to go to the faceless libraries. So that's kind of a cool thing to know that they just need to hear you, they want to find you. You just need to be put in front of them and if you don't have a path to get to them, it's just incredibly difficult.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. That's so cool. Yeah, as you described that, one thing that comes to mind is it seems like part of what you're doing is almost like creating a modern version of a music publisher. Typically, a music publisher, sort of this middleman between a musician and the supervisor. And what you're doing is you're rather than relying on someone else to be building the relationship and getting the benefit from those relationships. You're saying, I'm actually going to connect you directly with these music supervisors and do it in a way that really empowers the artist and their independence. And so it's just kind of interesting... Because in a similar way to a publisher too, you're congregating these music supervisors and helping create these briefs. But instead of you taking a 50% cut of the $50,000 or $10,000 or whatever the deal is, that's something that they are able to be able to take themselves. Pretty dang cool.
The other thought that I had was around, you talked about how one of the main benefits that they'll get. And I want to be clear too... So let me confirm this, actually. So what you're talking about with this music panel, yo, this is a huge value add that you're doing a free panel where you're letting people tune in and connect with this panel of supervisors. And not only that, but you have a masterclass, right? A masterclass they're doing, you're basically for free, you're teaching a huge amount of value. And you have a program and a course for people who want to really go jump into the deep end of the pool. But it sounds like this panel and this workshop is something you're offering completely for free, which is insane. And let me just confirm that first. Is this free? I don't want to put words in your mouth. You're like, actually this is a $297 event.

Chris SD:
$1 million. Yes. It's absolutely, totally free. And I'll just say one thing quickly, there's a lot of masterclass out there and I do masterclass myself. But for this particular thing, what I wanted to do was kind of get out of the way and just introduce the new songwriters to the actual people. It's not about me, it's really not about me. It's about their music and putting their music with the people who I can actually do it. I don't put music into TV and film. I can certainly help you get there. I don't do it. You need to be talking to the people who do it. So I don't want to be seen as Chris is the pinnacle of the mountain in terms of the teacher and the mentor. I'm there to facilitate. It's more than just facilitating because I'm also showing you what to do. But honestly the course like I teach you when I teach you how to do those five steps, they're as simple as it gets.
I teach you everything you need to know to do this successfully for the rest of your life without an iota more, without one more piece you don't need to know. You don't need to know all the legalese, you need to hire a lawyer for that. You barely ever need to hire a lawyer anyway. The contracts are all super standard. There's a bunch of other stuff you can read up online about how royalties are broken down and how it works with YouTube. I tell you about those and how it works. You want to go down the rabbit hole and get super techy and stuff like that, go ahead. It's not what I'm about. What I'm about is taking your music, putting it in front of the right people and getting it into TV and film. And then teaching you everything you need to know along the way so that you're comfortable, you speak to them like pros.
You understand how the whole thing works in a proper holistic way without getting a PhD kind of thing. So it's not really about me, it's about the music supervisors and just me being a concierge and connecting you to my friends. Taking your music and the thing that really motivates me is that the people who are prepared to invest in themselves. The people who are really saying, I'm going to come out to a panel, I want to do something. Not for me, they want to do it for their music. That's what inspires me. It's like you have a dream for your music. So I had a dream for my music too and I achieved a large part of that dream and I'm very happy with it. I got into music production. But I want you to be able to follow your own path and do it successfully instead of what the years go by, nothing happens.
Sound Cloud, get a little social likes, you not making any money. Keep putting records out, your significant other or your mom loves it. We need bigger, better things for indie music. Bigger, much, much bigger. So that's what it is. So my vision is that person who knows who they are and they know that their song, the world should hear their song because they're super talented, they've got something great to say and I want to bring that to life. It's essentially what it is.

Michael Walker:
So cool. I love that. And it sounds like one kind of theme or thing that's kind of woven throughout this conversation is around how powerful it is to be in the room, just to show up and be around the right people. So putting themselves in a room with these music supervisors as a way to just understand how they're thinking and understand what they're looking for it.
Whenever I get an opportunity, I like to bust out this analogy because it's a fun one, but it doesn't allow me use my keyboard. But one example that I think really kind of helps illustrate the benefit of being in that room, and surrounding yourself with those five people that are really going to pull you up to the next level is that it's like all of us resonate are at a certain frequency. So maybe we're like here right now at a C cord and then maybe the supervisors, they're speaking a slightly different language or they're in different industry. So it's kind of like they're playing, you got to have sharp cord. And both of them sound fine on their own if you're playing. When you put them together, it's like...
It just doesn't sound good. It clashes, there's dissonance because they're at the same frequency. And so it sounds like one of the main benefits and in really the purpose of the event, like you said, you're going to, is you want to not make it about you. But really make it about facilitating these relationships between the musicians and the music supervisors is if you could put yourself in a room and you have the ability to quiet your mind or just to listen for a bit. So you listen and you really try to understand what they're saying, then you might hear it and you'll be like, huh. So I thought that it was this... But it's actually kind of like this... And then now knowing that you can be in touch about communicating, you'd be like, hey. And you can play along with it, you can communicate. And that kind of happens naturally. If you put yourself in that room where this is happening, it doesn't feel good to be continually be like, you resonated at that. Something's got to give, there's tension in there.

Chris SD:
I love this, this is great. No, you're so right, man. It really is... I mean, everybody listening knows that. It's like those things that you heard your parents say or something like they some saying or something and then later on in life you're like, oh, that's what that meant because you lived it and you did it and you didn't really get it. But it's so simple and it's just weird how knowledge gets transferred and how it can shift and change someone. It seems so innocuous. Like, oh, I'll just read a book or I'll run into somebody. It can change your life completely just by being introduced to a new idea and more what you're talking about is correlating what the... Like getting in with the language. So with music supervisors, that's exactly, you hit it on the head is the panels about you discovering what that language is or what those wants are or what they're looking for or where you fit into their puzzle.
And then when you work with me, it's about teaching you that language so that you fully understand what that is and you can talk to them. Because a big part of earning the trust of music supervisors, which is really what we're talking about, is earning their trust. They don't like working with any musicians by the way, very much because they don't know what's going to happen. Is there going to be a piano player from a band that's going to come out and say, I co-wrote that song and cause all these problems. Those piano players, man, you can't trust piano players.

Michael Walker:
Story of my life.

Chris SD:
And so bottom line is you're trying to teach them that language so that they can follow in that language and then talk to them like pros and fit into the industry and become a trusted source. Like I'm a trusted source. I teach you how to become a trusted source and give you the relationships to go with it. So how can you fail? Come on. It's like it's worked out great so far.

Michael Walker:
So awesome. Cool. Well hey man, thank you so much for taking the time to come back on here and to share some lessons, some advice for musicians. Again, I just think it's such a great opportunity to take assets that you've already invested all the time, energy into and be able to apply them to create more value, to create more value. It's like alchemy. You're turning an existing asset into more value for people and that's also a great way to generate more income for your music.
Well hey Chris, this has been awesome. It's always a pleasure to talk to you. And for anyone who's here, who's live right now, who, depending on when they're listening to this, they may or may not have missed out on the live panel that you're doing, but where would be the best place for them to go to learn more and connect with what you're doing with Sync Songwriter?

Chris SD:
Yeah, absolutely, Mike. So we actually did a special signup page for your community and because really appreciate you, we love working with you and your community is awesome. And so they can just go to syncsongwriter.com/ModernMusician. So syncsongwriter.com/ModernMusician, go to that URL and boom, you'll be on the page. Sign up for the panel and we'll see you there. It's going to be amazing. Doesn't cost a cent and it's going to be awesome to hang out with you and my five music supervisor friends.

Michael Walker:
Oh man, it's going to be awesome. Cool. Well always we'll let the links in the show notes for easy access. And until next time, Chris has been great connecting with you and looking forward to figuring out another time that we can do a sailboat trip. It's a little bit tricky now with the three kids and whatnot, but yeah, we could figure it out. Maybe we could just bring everyone from the podcast onto your sailboat and I'm sure there'd be enough room for a hundred thousand people or so, right?

Chris SD:
Yeah, yeah. Oh, we'll call your wife and we'll get you out for a weekend.

Michael Walker:
Hey, it's Michael here. I hope that you got a ton of value at its 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 reach more musicians like you who want to take the music careers to the next level. It's time to be a modern musician is now, and I'll look forward to taking you on our next episode.