Submission Guidelines
To register is completely free, you only pay when you make money with a placement or commissioned work.
We have taken a different approach to pitching your music. The industry we are mainly aiming to place the music with is audiovisual in nature, so we offer our catalog in an audiovisual way.
The combination of music with images creates more engagement than just audio.
To be included in The Piano Music Library you will need to follow the following submission guidelines:
We accept original compositions and public domain compositions.
Any style and form. Any type of piano, Upright, Grand, Electric, Rhodes, Honky tonk, toy piano, synth piano.
The music needs to be piano solo pieces or to have a strong piano presence. Eg Piano & Orchestra, Piano & Vocals, Jazz piano trio /quartet/quintet/ etc. are very welcome
You must be the composer of the music or the interpreter, if it is public domain music and you need to own the rights of the recording or have permission in writing from the owner.
If you are an agent or publisher of the composer, please contact us before submitting the music, most likely your catalog can still be promoted on our site with the same conditions but we'll like to have a little chat before.
For Piano Solo Music
You have to send at least 2 separate files for each piece of music.
The music recording has to be of good quality. Try to avoid noise as much as possible.
The piano you use has to be in perfect tune unless the type of composition requires otherwise (eg: some type of images or scenes can benefit from music played in an out-of-tune piano, like some suspense or terror scenes)
File 1
Send the music with video footage of your choice, eg it can be you or somebody else performing the music, any images that you think can fit your music -video size HD (1280×720) or Full HD(1920 x 1080 HD)- and you need to have the rights to use it.
There are various free-to-use stock videos at pixabay.com, pexels.com mixkit.com, etc – read their license – some are free to use for all purposes. Max 100 MB recommended minimum bitrate for video 12MBPS and 384Kbps for audio. If needed you can reduce the bit rate to reduce the size.
If you don't have editing software you can download many of them open source for free. Learning the basics is usually quite straightforward.
File 2
The same music in an audio file 16-bit wave format preferably stereo – if your recording is just one mono channel you can experiment to convert to stereo to see how it sounds (if you don't know how to do that,o you can use a free program called AUDACITY and follow this topic )-but is not essential if is only piano. If there is a mix with other instruments please send a stereo file. Max 80 MB per file.
For piano with any other instruments or vocal or non-piano composition* you'll need to send 2 audio files plus the stems. Max 80 MB per file.
Here you can find a free program to create the stems.
Files 1 and 2 same guidelines for the piano
Send the stems 16-bit wave format stereo only.
You can only promote a non-piano composition on our site if it is a version (eg orchestral version, guitar version) of a piano one that is in the library too.
All the submissions are revised by our team, if accepted will send you a contract to be signed but here are the main points.
As you're probably aware, music libraries usually act as a publisher and take 50% from every single revenue avenue of your music (synch rights, performance rights, mechanical rights, and the whole lot)and they will usually demand exclusivity of the music and the recordings leaving you unable to offer it to anyone else and even unable to use it yourself for the entire length of the copyright term usually up 70 years after the composers passing away.
We act as Agents. We will represent you and promote your music in exchange for a 24% commission ( + vat if applicable) of the synch fees collected on your behalf.
Only from the synch fees. You keep all your rights and all the backend royalties (eg: the composer's performance rights and the recording public performance rights).
We do ask for the exclusivity of the songs that you submit but only for the synch licensing and you can terminate the agreement with 90 days' notice. For all other uses you can freely do what you like with them unless you sign them to the “client exclusivity program” (still working on the details of this add-on service ), where you commit your composition to just one client in return for an annual recurrent fee. You still keep the back-end royalties.
You will be asked to provide all the necessary info for the cue sheet and we will pass it on to the client. Ultimately the clients are responsible to submit the cue sheet to the performance rights collection agencies or to pass it on to the broadcaster or distributor if they are just a production company (eg: Trailer Houses).
We are listing a catalog of fees for a variety of usages, where we tried to be both fair and competitive.
You are the composer, you are the rights holder, and it is your work so where there will be placements there will be a contract between you and the client that we will manage on your behalf. You will invoice the client for the use of your music and we will invoice you for our services (only when you get a placement).
We will take the payment from the client on your behalf and only when we receive it the synch license will be issued to them.
After deducting our fee, we will send it to you within 2 business days of receiving it.
That is definitely much faster than in the majority of music libraries where you can wait months and even years to receive the payment of your fees.
We ask you to allow us to negotiate the synch fees up to 20% lower than the catalog fees without consulting you, this is to help to ease up the workflow.
If we feel that we can secure a placement by negotiating an even lower fee of 20% of the catalog price, will ask you first so you can decide. As we love fairness, we will also reduce our fee to you in the same proportion.
We are also offering to the clients the possibility to hire a composer to commission them the scoring of their projects for those of you that are interested in this type of work. Your fees for this will be set by you on a case by case. Our fees to you will remain the same.
Client exclusivity program. We also will like to offer the clients the possibility to have music for their projects on an exclusive basis, charging them an annual fee for that privilege. You can decide whether you like to offer some, all, or none of your music under those conditions. The exclusivity in those cases will remain while the client complies with the annual payments.
We certainly hope that our platform will help you to place your music and become a source of income for you.
And that's it for the moment, we are aiming to launch the library in Spring 2023, and we hope the catalog will be sufficient by then. Thank you for your collaboration. If your music is approved will send you the contract with the full terms and conditions. Normally will be much sooner but please allow a couple of weeks to answer. Please when you submit your music fill in, the following information with it:
Your info:
Your Name:
Surname:
DOB:
Artistic Name/Pseudonym:
CAE number or similar (if you have one):
Email:
Telephone number:
Profile Picture:
Your Track Info:
Title:
Duration:
Tune Code(if you have one):
ISRC(if you have one):
Include a brief bio with references to your composing ability(it will be published together with your profile picture).
Send everything to:submissions@thepianomusiclibrary.com
Please don't send the files attached to the email itself, use a large file-sending service like wetransfer or hightail (They both have free account options that will normally be enough for your dealings with us). And don't worry if you haven't published anything yet, we all have to start somewhere. You can instead just describe how you became a composer and what's behind it or any other interesting facts about your musical journey.
Once your music is approved and we send you the contract we will need a valid form of government ID, residency and/or business address, and information about the structure of your business as a composer (eg: sole trader, limited company, partnership, etc)to finalize the registration.