Hello there and welcome to this very special bonus episode of In and Around Podcasting. My name is Mark Asquith and I'm joined today by the wonderfully talented Katherine Ranis from Be Lightful Music. And I wanted to do this bonus episode to talk about the music for the show, because music is a massive part of my life. And if you've seen the visuals for In and Around Podcasting, whether that's in and
around podcasting .com, whether you've seen the podcast cover art in Spotify, Apple, Global Player, wherever you get your podcasts or indeed the cover art over on YouTube, you will know that it's got quite a specific aesthetic with the visuals. We wanted something very specific from and of course the music had to match. This is not a podcast industry show that is dry and that is going to leave you thinking, what did I just listen to? This is something a little different.
So the music really had to stand up to that. So I'm going to talk about what I asked for and then the wonderful Catherine. is going to tell us exactly how she came up with the wonderful, not only the theme tune, which is probably the biggest earworm you're likely to hear this week, but also some of the little segment pieces, some of the little switcheroo's that we're going to be using throughout the show. And as the show matures, we'll introduce more and more of them.
So it's really quite interesting. So let's get to it. It's a really interesting concept. It's something that I'm excited to talk about. So, Catherine. Welcome to the show, thank you for doing this and thank you for this amazing music. Oh, you're welcome. It was my pleasure. I loved it. I still love it. It is a fun one, isn't it? And we're pretty local to each other. So we're both from Barnsley. When I wanted to do this, I wanted to use someone that was local, someone that was highly talented.
You actually came recommended through a friend, Kevin Steele, down at the business village, I think, down in Barnsley, where I used to have an office back in the day. And it was a weird one. I sort of knew what I wanted. And when I came across Be Lightful Music, it was a no brainer. I mean, you're a multidisciplined musician, highly talented, highly accomplished. So before we get to the brief, before we get to what you came up with, just tell us a little bit about you. What do you do?
What's your day to day? What is Be Lightful Music? What do you do in and around podcasting and what else do you get up to? Okay. Well, I play piano flute and saxophone, alto sax and tenor sax. And, um, delightful music was born as a healing music because I'm really interested in frequencies, how they affect our energies. And I've got a background in, in healing, Reiki, um, crystal healing, all sorts of different magical things.
Um, so during lockdown I was pushing more recording, because I lost all my gigs. I'm a gigging musician. I'm back gigging thankfully, but I'm still doing a lot of recording. I still record healing music, but I do, I'm really passionate about audio branding. And what I can do is all the research I've done around frequencies, how to attract the right energies for your business as well as personal. I can use all that in a piece of music, very, very subtle frequencies.
It's not like just frequency noise. It's within the music. I'm very much a musician first and then the frequency stuff is secondary to that. That's fascinating actually. Music's such a powerful thing. And that's why when I did the show, I wanted to go all out with the music. I'm a huge music fan. I've got anyone that's watching this on YouTube. I don't think you can quite see it depending on how we've cut this video, but there's a Fender Jazz bass just behind me. There's an acoustic guitar.
I'm by no stretch as accomplished or as talented as you, but I like to play around and I've done it probably since I was about 13, 14 years old. Started on jazz trombone, believe it or not. Used to play for Durn Big Band and all sorts of things. Big Band? Holland Hamilton was my teacher for 15, 20 years. Yeah. Good friend. Great friend of mine. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and he taught my mom and dad. I don't know. Did you, do you know Holland or did you know Holland before he sadly passed?
Yeah. I never played in his bands actually, but yeah, he's renowned in this area. Yeah. Yeah, it was such a great week. I was so lucky at the school I went to down in Falston because he was the music teacher. And it was all, you don't realize when you're so young, but a lot of it was self -funded, a lot of very fond memories. And he got me, he got me into, into the music side of things. And he taught, I've got a sort of family connection.
He taught my mom and my dad and my uncle who my uncle's a tuba player, play for. Black Dyke and for Grimthorpe in particular brass band and such. So it's, Holland was a huge part of that. So when it came to doing something like this and even, even the last pod, or in fact, all the podcasts that I've ever done has had music as intros that I've put together just for bands.
So the podcast Accelerator, which was my previous show and all the ones before it, they all had this kind of rock guitar intro that was cut from a song that we did in... Um, it was in Glenn's studio down in Barnsley. Um, you know, Glenn, I don't know if you know Glenn Sutton from, but yeah, it was down at the, uh, uh, the skin boat studios. And we cut it in there and used it as the intro for years. And actually the trailer of this show starts with that music. And it's a bit tongue in cheek.
I say, look, you know, it's acted out. The trailer is very much a look. We can't use that again. We've got to do something better, which is when you're beautiful, fantastic music comes in. Um, so it was, it was really important to get someone that understood music and that really got it, but that we could do something custom out of it and the lyrics for it. So when I found you, it was, it was like this match made in heaven.
Um, and the brief for anyone listening was I wanted an old school TV theme song. I wanted something that was short, that was sweet and that was so annoyingly catchy that you would not stop. singing it. And I mean, we've got two versions of the intro. We've got the main one with this sort of the sitcom -esque one. Then we've got the one that we call the calamity one, which you'll hear dotted throughout.
We're going to play, we'll play the intro in just a few minutes and then we'll play the calamity one as well. But it was, it was, it was quite a weird brief for me to write because it was so specific, but yet so broad. How did you get to approaching that? When, when, when you got that formula, how do you even start something like this? just loved the brief from the first contact that we had. And I knew you were from Boundsley and you wanted someone like that.
But I don't sing in a Boundsley accent now, do I? So you can't tell I'm from Boundsley when I'm singing. sing in a Barnsley accent. You should see some of the karaoke. Like we go to conferences and there's a karaoke party. And I think I'm sound, you know, like Lenny Kravitz, but I'm not, I'm sounding like, you know, Barman at Wetherspoons in Barnsley. I sound so Barnsley. You do not sound Barnsley at all. I am Barnsley Mourn and Bred, but yeah, flush that out when I'm singing.
Yeah, it was just such a fun vibe of it. And I really wanted lots of different things and things going off in it. I wanted it to be busy. And obviously the main thing was this catchy tune, the melody of it. So I really wanted it to be tuned, but simple. So it's a simple chord structure. I've not done anything. I've not rewritten jazz harmony there or anything. It's a really... simple harmonic structure that allows the melody to be, like you say, catchy, something really catchy, really clear.
So what I'm saying is funny, it's important. I want people to know exactly what I'm saying. So hopefully that comes across as well. And just the whole vibe, after our first meeting with you, I kind of got the vibe that, you know, it's fun. And I just wanted that energy all over it. Yeah, the energy is such a big thing. And the main version, which we're going to play in just a moment, is I love it.
I love the way that you'd used, like I'm guessing it's some sort of envelope filter or whatever it is on the drums to sort of bring that eighties, that eighties real kind of sitcom vibe to it. We've heard anyone will recognize that kind of sound effect, but it was, I didn't expect it. I didn't expect it. And I'm a huge fan personally. I come a middle of the road Bon Jovi fan. You know, I'm like, give me some formula rock.
Yeah, I need that's what I need when I'm running or whatever to put me in a good mood. So when when I heard the chord structure and when it was it was so simple, but it allowed, like you said, the melody to become such an earworm, I thought that Catherine has just nailed that because I'm a huge fan of just simple hooks that are really executed so very well. And you absolutely delivered on that one. But we ended up as well with this weird. calamity version of it, this sort of country.
Like, where did that come from? I didn't expect that. That was a nice little surprise. Yeah, I didn't expect that first either. So I've done the first one and I've worked with a producer, my husband. So we put all those sounds together and we just sort of said it. I think I suggested it to you as a joke first. I said it really lend itself to, you know, a spoof sort of thing with even more stuff going on and yeah, yeah. And it just works. So I said, well, we'll throw it together and you loved it.
It's absolutely perfect. And the way that I think we intend to use that is the main shows, the main show theme. But there's a lot of weird stuff happens in our industry. There's a lot of things that people sometimes get, you know, a little bit awry. They go a little bit or a little bit off kilter sometimes. And so because the show is quite a topical show, we we will probably use that when.
things I have gone a little bit awry when there's a little bit of news in the industry where you think that's a little bit shaky. And I love that. And I think as well personally, one of the fascinating pieces of that surprise and having that, that audio to use and being such a high level, but such a different version of the intro is that it keeps it interesting as well. I think very often with podcasts, you can, you, you always want that element of recognition. Of course it's the theme song.
You want the recognition. It's short, it's punchy, it's an earworm. But it can get a little bit stale if I'm hearing the same thing. So I think that the ability to shock people about, oh, wait a second, that's different this week. Why is that different? So I was, wait a minute, I'm going to use a fantastic pun here. I was belighted when you sent it. Oh, that is a terrible, terrible, terrible pun. And I apologize to all concerned. Now, I am going to play for you the listener.
You'll have heard it at the beginning. of the episode, but I'm going to just play the calamity version of the intro as well. So you'll have heard the main theme right at the beginning. You can listen to that. And it was probably stuck in your head already. But right now I am just going to play the calamity version so you can hear that, because I think it's fantastic. Yeah, it sounds, it almost sounds like I'm hobbling in on a horse, you know, and I'm going to park up my horse at the saloon.
Yeah, and things are just falling about, falling off the walls. Yeah. like some old carry on sort of, you know, real kind of big sketch. Like you say, everything's going wrong, a bit of a comedy of errors. So, yeah, I love that. I love that. Now, I want to switch gears a little bit. We've got some important pieces of the puzzle.
So for any podcaster listening out there, what I wanted to do with this podcast was I didn't want it to be an industry show that just talked about the industry or talked about us. So that that's reflected in the fact that we have industry guests on, but we also have. in the creators on people that aren't industry experts so that we can hear these powerful podcasting perspectives.
I think it's very important that as an industry show, we don't just give the view from the top because very often people will say, well, OK, here's this thing happening at the highest level of podcasting. And a lot of people forget about the creator sat in their bedroom creating their podcast because they love it. And it's those kind of people that we want to bring to the fore as well. So this is very, very powerful. And to do that.
We didn't just want to talk about industry developments or industry news. We wanted to do another couple of things. So we've actually got three segments of the podcast. Much of these segments will be built out using Captivate's dynamic content engine, which is called Amy. So what that means is that we'll record some of the audio, but we'll use Captivate to insert the jingles, the segment breaks and these three segments. I love them because again, the brief was go a bit sick on me.
Let's go a bit radio, a bit catch phrase. So when we, when we, I grew up, I don't know about you, Cassie. I grew up watching bullseye in the UK, you know, a Jim bowing, your bus fare home. Remember that I want to like that cheesy vibe. I want to gladiators on a Saturday night. I wanted the generation game. I wanted all of that in a podcast mini jingle. So when we did these segments, we named them. suitably.
So I'm going to play you these three segments and I'm going to just explain what they are. And then Catherine will talk about in particular just how you came up with these ideas as well, because they do have a slightly different vibe to them. So the first one I'm going to play for you now is the wonderfully whimsical podcasting wishlist. This is very much for when we as creators, as industry thinkers, when we start to think about where the industry could go, what would we like from the industry?
It's our wish list. It's something that we dream of in the industry. So that segment's really, really powerful. The next one is this is an interesting one. It's again, another terrible pun. It's called the wave file. And the wave file is very much about us highlighting other podcasts. So anytime you hear the wave file intro, the segment jingle, the cut, you are going to be introduced to another podcast.
We're going to be inserting trailers from across the world of podcasting from independent creators up to the shows that we love and adore on a bigger scale. We're going to we're going to work with everyone on this to highlight as many new podcasts as we can. So the wave file is our way of giving a little bit of a wave. to creators doing wonderful work and helping you to discover new shows as well.
Perhaps my favorite segment though is, again, I just think I'm terrible at puns, but we rolled with it. This is called the Flattering Ram. The logic behind the flattering Ram is that sometimes we can get a little bit heavy with a podcast and especially an industry podcast. We can get a little negative. We can get a little, here's everything that's wrong. We didn't want to do that.
So instead of it being a battery Ram, we wanted this to be the flattering Ram where we take someone that is in the podcasting industry doing great work or that we just think is fantastic. And we flatter them. Now we might flatter their wonderful work. We might flatter their show. We might flatter something they've said, or we might just like them. We might just flatter their wonderful haircut. We might just flatter something that we've seen them do that was fun.
We might just flatter something that we've seen them wear. But the point is to highlight good people in a positive way. So these segments, they're really, really powerful. And Catherine, when I came to you with these little mini segments, these are quite coral. These are quite, they are quite whimsical. I what was the approach to that? Because they clearly tie with the intro music, but they are rather different as well. Talk to us a little bit about that approach.
Yeah. Well, the whimsical one, just the word whimsical, I just, I just had to just, I mean, I've got a piano in front of me here. That's why I'm just looking down. I just immediately, it just needed to be whimsical. Just that word is so descriptive, isn't it? And I knew that sound that had to come across a little bit magical and yeah. And the flattering rams just, yeah. is clear. Like you even draw the word out. I love it. I think it's perfect.
Yeah, yeah, which then when I went onto the wave file, I think we had a couple of attempts at this, because I'd sort of gone, the wave file, and it were a bit too jazz hands, I think, maybe, or slow. And I think we shortened it. So I think there's a couple of versions floating around of that one. But yeah, I do tend to do things slower than, I don't know why I do things so slow. So yeah, that were a good call. to be a bit more snappy, but the vocal harmony is massive on that one.
It's really layered up to give that massive sound, because wave files are much bigger than MP3s, so. I love that. I love that. You're also a pun queen. I love this. This is perfect. That you're right as well, because a lot of the harmonies are really close on that. Like I'm a huge fan of like, obviously the layered harmonies, but I'm generally a fan. This is probably my Bon Jovi era coming out, but just a close harmony like the Bon Jovi and the Sambor. They're always very close harmonies.
It's never a faith. It's never something weird. It's always a very close harmony that's following the melody. So I really like that. It's got airs. Again, I'm showing my age. I'm showing my education in music, which is is dragged up by my mom and dad.
But it's it's got a bit of a queen feel, a bit of a journey feel to it, you know, from a rock perspective, it's got that, you know, a rock band with choral training, which is sometimes like the journey and Queen had that sort of operatic training in there. So it is very laid. And I really like that. Was it was that always the intent with that? Did you want that to feel like that or was that something that was quite an evolution? But that's my signature sound really to build up harmonies.
So from the healing music, that's all layered up harmony. I love to use my voice in harmony. Cause when I started doing that type of music, I was searching for a synth sound, which would create that. And I was just so disappointed, literally pressing buttons going, that's not it, that's not it, that's not it, no. An hour later, I'll just do it myself. I'll use my voice. That's what I want. I want this layered. And I love doing it.
And it's really labor intensive because I triple track each harmony. So if it's four part harmony, there'll be 16 of me all in, oh, just this ethereal sound. So that, I mean, I love to do that so that I could get my signature sound into that somehow, even though it's different vibe to it, it's still the harmonic build up. Yeah, that's what I love to do. Oh, that's fantastic. Yeah, I think it sounds amazing. It's everything. I wanted that full sound, but something light, if that makes sense.
And it works so well. It's the same with the flattering ram as well. I think that's a very similar vibe. And it's because I wanted this show to be very positive. I wanted it to be very even if there's something difficult to talk about in podcasting, my personal brand and the brand of everything that we've ever built is very much a fair brand. It's very much a The approach is an open approach. It's never trashing people. It's never, it's never almost taking sides.
It's very objective and pragmatic, but from the perspective of fairness and it just, the music just fits that brand so well. And just, I think on the back of that, there's something interesting in this one. Cause you actually, you've done a lot more podcasting music since we worked together. You've done a lot more intros, a lot more business podcast branding as it's become. Ironically, it's become more relevant in more local areas like a barns.
I remember when people in barns, they thought I was crazy for getting involved in podcasting, but now everyone's doing it. Everyone's still, you know, is in podcasting. How have you approached, for example, like business shows where they've come to you and they said, look, Catherine, we need an intro. How have you managed to? I suppose, bring your level of of talent and skill and expertise. but keep it diverse enough and relevant enough for each person.
Sure. Has that been quite a challenge because everyone is different? Yeah, I love it actually. I sort of do a deep dive into their business. So I'll look at the visual brandings and I'll look at them as, you the face of the business. And also, like I said, the research, so for example, I did little audio idents for a financial company. Now the chakra, the solar plexus chakra. It has the color yellow and it's all about prosperity and financial abundance and all this sort of things.
And so there's a key, a tonality on the piano, on any musical instrument that represents that, that will put that vibe out there. So obviously I went with that key. So that's my starting point. I know what key I'm in and I can tell from the people I'm meeting in the business. the vibe of it and I look at all their website and how all that flows. And actually for this particular one, I used their word as a percussive sound for it.
And that was the start point then, the percussive sound and that which not everyone upon hearing it would go, oh yes, that's indicative of the word. But it was a starting point for it and it just adds a little clever thing. And when I explained what I'd done, they were like, wow, we would never have thought. to do that. So, so that, and that's a different, I don't think I've ever done, used the word of the business in the theme before. So, so that was a total different way to work for that one.
And another way to work was a podcast theme tune I did for a lovely lady. And she sang me the theme tune. She says, I've got this tune in my, she like, she plays a little bit and she sings a little bit. She says, I'm not a musician, but I've just got this melody idea. There was no chords behind it or anything. So she sung it down the phone and I was, I was dutting about, right, right. I've got it, I've got it, I've got it, I've got to go. I didn't want to talk about it anymore.
I've got it, I've got it. And I immediately put the harmonic structure behind it and made it into, made it into a melody. And I padded that out again with the vocals and a saxophone melody. She specifically wanted a saxophone theme tune. And we put the whole package together. So she had lots of little audio items to put in throughout the podcast.
And then when we'd finished the whole package and everything were done, signed off, done, she run me up, she says, will you just do me like a 10 minute version of just piano solo, like just the backing. And she uses it for her own sort of, her own theme tune when she's preparing for something and she needs to relax and get into the zone, but she loves the whole theme of it. And it brings her back to business and what she's on for that day.
So she's got her own bespoke version for her to use for a personal life. And yeah, it was such a brilliant package to put together for her. I love that. That's tons of fun. And what an interesting use case as well, because she'll be able to use that across videos and speaking gigs as well if she wants to. And just to bring her back into focus, I think is fascinating. And what you said about using the business name as a percussive thing or a rhythmic thing. I'm a huge John Williams fan.
So, you know, I remember vividly being stood in front of the record player when I was about three years old. And I still actually do this, but I don't stand in front of the record player. But I listened to it just as much the Superman theme tune. And that was that was probably the first time that I ever came across that. Like, wait a minute, the music just talked to me. What is this? This is this is fascinating. So to see see that logic applied to something that let's be honest, it's business.
A lot of people would think, well, wait a minute, you know, how how can we do something this good with business because people that don't associate that. And it just goes to show, I think that just because. It's business and it has to be professional and theoretically it can be a little bit dry. It shows that it doesn't have to be dry. It can be creative. It can be as creative as anything else. And it's just, I think that is such an understated thought process, certainly for business owners.
I think that's so important, really, really important. And we're going to stick a pin in it in just a second, because I think this is such an interesting deep dive. But what I want to do is just shout out as well. to all you listening out there, anyone listening, anyone that's interested in this element of in and around podcasting, we have put a lyric sheet together. You don't need to give us your email address or anything silly like that.
Just on the website, in the show notes of this episode, whether you're listening in Spotify, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Global Player, or in and around podcasting .com, there's a lyric sheet, an old school lyric sheet that's got the words to... the theme tune on and you will see that when I wrote this, the lyrics and then Catherine so wonderfully brought it to life. I really wanted to just go straight at what this brand means because it's not just for the geeks and for the OGs.
It's for everyone that is in and around podcasting. So go get the lyric sheet. You don't need to give us an email or anything, anything crazy like that. It's just there's a link. It's just fun. So Catherine, thank you so much. Be light for music. Is it well, you're online, you're everywhere. The Twitter, the LinkedIn, the Internet's what's the? What are all the places anyone can find you online? Instagram as well.
So if you search, Be Lightful Music, Instagram is Be Lightful Underscore Music and just search Be Lightful Music, Facebook and then LinkedIn is just my name, Katherine with a C, Rannis, R -A -N -N -U -S. And if you search that across Instagram and Facebook as well, I've got my live music, cause I am a gigging musician as well. So I manage two pages on each platform, which is a nightmare. Catherine really is fantastic as well. Highly recommend you check it out.
Some of the LinkedIn posts that she puts. Actually, I'm going to be honest with you, I'm not a huge LinkedIn fan, but your posts are becoming more and more frequent in my timeline because they're the only ones that I watch when you're playing or when you're recording. I think they're fascinating. So if you are a podcaster looking for some outstanding intro music or some theme work, please do let Catherine know. She really is wonderful.
And if you enjoyed this bonus episode, I'm just getting you into the vibe of in and around podcasting. Danny and I... are going to talk on another bonus episode about why we put this show together, what it stands for. Of course, you can share the trailer with all of your friends who are in and around podcasting and you can check us out on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, Global Player and wherever, obviously, I'll say it, wherever you get your podcast, but also in and
around podcasting .com slash listen. So until the next time, enjoy yourself. Keep enjoying your podcasting. Take care and we'll be back very, very soon.