Welcome to the Music Room. This time in the Music Room.
I know there's a lot of kind of music creatives that don't like to work under pressure and then there's kind of a camp of people that do. So I think you need to be okay with trusting your ideas. You need to be okay with working at speed. And there's an element of kind of stress, to be honest, that does come with that.
Welcome to the Music Room, the show where I chat with music industry professionals about their work before going back in time to find out how it all began for them. And stick around to the end, because at some point I ask my guests to leave an item and a piece of advice for you to find. And if you go back to all the other episodes, that's over 30 now. It's quite amazing. Uh, you're going to find so much brilliant advice for music creators, just like you.
So it's well worth having a delve into the back catalogue. Today's guest is Karina Byrne, who specialises in producing music and session vocals for advertising campaigns, sonic branding and production music libraries. I haven't covered much on that side of things. So I thought it might be useful to chat with someone about how it works and, uh, Karina's extensive experience and let's face it, Karina, your sunny disposition meant that I just knew we'd have a lovely, relaxed chat.
But before that music stories.
Comedian Catherine Tate has just hosted the Doctor Who Prom. Catherine, who played the Doctor's companion, Donna Noble, returned to the show in 2023, alongside David Tennant for the 60th anniversary specials. Alongside the music of composer Murray Gold, the prom also featured Music Room guest, Segun Akinola's music, which was specifically created for Jodie Whittaker's 13th doctor. And you can hear all about that in Segun's episode, the link for which is in the show notes.
The prom will be on BBC sounds for 30 days and shown on the BBC later in the year. And finally I asked the Music Room Facebook group, what are the areas of the music workflow I can produce an episode around. Some of the answers were just great. What about an episode on red flags, useful warnings from the community that can be applied when working with publishers, directors, collaborators, et cetera. That's a really interesting idea. I like that.
I'm going to mull that over, but definitely worth uh, producing an episode on that. Thank you. Um, advice on releasing your first album. How to even get started with sync libraries. Sync libraries, definitely on my radar. So maybe we can include releasing your first album in that. Thank you everyone. Uh, if you have any other ideas for themed episodes, just let me know on the email [email protected] or via the link in the show notes.
Karina Byrne specialises in producing music and session vocals for advertising campaigns, sonic branding and production music libraries. She's created a wide range of music for some of the world's biggest brands via global music agencies, such as BMG, EMI, Warner Chappell, Sister Music, Siren, Wake The Town, Massive Music, D L N D D., Sonic Brand and Leland. Let's get into the music room to find out more.
Karina Byrne, composer, producer, vocalist. Welcome to the music room.
Thank you.
How are you doing today? It's very hot here.
Uh, very well, thanks. I'm actually not too hot today, thank God.
Excellent, excellent. Where in the world do we find you?
Um, so at the moment I'm, I'm based in Shoreditch in London. Um, quite a busy part of the world.
Yeah,
But lots going on.
Yeah, wonderful. And lots going on with your company slash website, Neighbourhood Jukebox. Would you, is that your company?
Yeah. So, um, so it's actually not like anything too serious. I'm, I'm kind of just a self employed person really, but it looks, it looks and sounds cool to tell the truth
Yeah, it does, it does. I mean, it's a great name. Neighbourhood Jukebox. Um, where did it come from? Where did it originate from?
Um, it's actually a relatively interesting story. So, when I came out of uni, I did a music degree, at the London College of Music. And then afterwards when I came out, I was like, right, how do I get out there and get the attention of, uh, future employers and kind of get my self known. So I thought about doing basically a music blog, um, quite randomly. And I don't know where the name came from. I thought, yeah, I don't really know.
I just sort of brain, like thought about it and pondered on it a lot. And I ended up calling it Neighbourhood Jukebox. Um, and it was like just a kind of WordPress site, so it was nothing glamorous. Um, and I wrote an
Was the blog about a local music scene or something?
It wasn't actually, that would have made more sense, wouldn't it? Would have made more sense. I liked the idea of this kind of like, neighborhood being kind of a collective, like, um, a bit universal kind of meaning to it, friendly, like anybody can kind of join in and it's kind of approachable. I liked that, those kind of connotations of the word.
Um, but yeah, I actually wrote an article, a few, I wrote a few articles on there, but the one that got somebody's interest, which is what I was hoping for, was one about the marriage of music in media. Marriage of music and media, I should say. so I kind of picked out my favourite adverts, having never kind of written anything for ads at that point. And yeah, wrote about what I liked and why I thought that the music really drove that visual and what it brought to it.
And I got a message on LinkedIn from somebody asking me if I wanted to come in for an interview.
as a writer or a composer?
Um, as a, well, it was, it was kind of like an assistant music licensing exec job. Very random.
Blimey. That really is, yeah. I've heard a lot of stories about how people got into music and that's, that's a new one. Yeah.
Yeah, well.
And your bio on your website opens up. I've co written with Hans Zimmer and performed with Professor Green. I mean, if you're going to have a humble brag, they're pretty good, aren't they? Tell me more, what happened there?
Well, I tell you what. Firstly, I will say you, you have to shout about things that you've done, I think, and you have to be quite unmodest. And that has actually taken me quite a lot of years to learn, to be honest with you. I think I used to really massively undersell myself and struggled with kind of having the confidence to be like. Actually, yeah, you've got achievements, that you should be showcasing.
So yeah, um, it's quite random, um, and they probably sound a bit more impressive than they are, if I'm completely honest with you. So the Hans Zimmer one was actually an accidental co write. Um, so it was for an advert that I was working on that was like a tic tac advert. And initially, they asked me to write a completely brand new, like, track. So all of the music, all of the vocals, um, there was a whole brief. So I did that and they were like, okay, that's great.
We really liked the top line. But actually we've got this musical track that we used on a previous campaign and we want to reuse that, but we'd really like you to write a top line with it. So I did that, won the job, writing a top line vocal with this instrumental track. And then, yeah, it was, it was kind of, approved. And then they said, yeah, so that track was actually written by Hans Zimmer.
Amazing.
And I was like, sorry, what? So that's, um, that's, yeah, I've not, unfortunately I've not been in the room with him. Which would have been nice. Actually, no, I have been in the room with him. But for a talk, but not for a co write. So that's the Hans Zimmer one.
well. Next time you're in a talk, you should go and tell him what happened.
probably. Probably wouldn't even remember, he's probably churning out so much music. but yeah, and um, as for the Professor Green, performance thing. So I used to be in a band, when I was 19, and it was called Diamond Empire. Don't look it up, because it's not a reflection, well you can look it up if you like, but it's certainly not a reflection of the kind of music that I
When someone says, don't look it up,
I've just invited.
an invite to look it up, isn't it? Yeah.
Yeah, I've put my foot in it there. I shouldn't have given the name. But anyway, it's fine. We all have to start somewhere musically, don't we? And it's not, it's not terrible music. It's still music I'm kind of proud of, but it's outdated. And
Absolutely. We all have that. You've got to go through it, haven't you?
You do. You do. But yes, so I played a festival, um, at Roehampton University, of all places. It was like their summer ball. And Professor Green was one of the headliners and I was a supporting act.
Fantastic.
It was cool. And there was also, there was a number of other names. There was Scouting for Girls. There was Rich32, who was pretty big at the time. and I can't remember who else was on there. But there was, quite a few big names. And then my little band.
Superb. You've also, created a wide range of music for a lot of the biggest brands the world. How does that all work? So you're creating music for brands, you're creating music for ads, how does that process happen?
Okay, so for me, there's kind of two sides to that. So one of the avenues that I do that in is, is writing bespoke music. So I'll be given a brief and it will usually come from a music agency, a music supervision company. And they'll already have kind of thought about what genre and pacing and mood and various other kind of facets to the brief instrumentation, whether there's vocals or not, you know, all those kinds of things that make up a music brief.
And they will basically be sending that out to composers of their choosing based on what they, you know, whether they think you fit that bill. And usually that process is like a pitch. Very occasionally you might get awarded a job, which is the dream scenario. Um, meaning that, you know, somebody might go, yeah, we really wanna work with you and that's great. You're not gonna need to pitch against anybody else. But in the ad, in the ad space, generally speaking, it is a pitch.
Do you know how many other people you're pitching against ever, or is it just literally here's the pitch and then you know that other people are pitching for it?
Sometimes the music company that have briefed me will tell me how many other people that they have briefed themselves. But that's one company pitching. There'll probably most likely be several other music companies pitching, and obviously there's no way of really knowing who's on those briefs. So, it can sometimes be, cast out pretty wide.
And so, you've got the brief, you crack on with the pitch, and so, I mean, legend has it that you're not given very much time. You can be squeezing it in to a very short space of time.
yes. That is completely gospel truth. So it's, it's definitely not everybody's cup of tea. I know there's a lot of kind of music creatives that don't like to work under pressure and then there's kind of a camp of people that do. Um, so I think you need to be okay with trusting your ideas. You need to be okay with working at speed. And there's an element of kind of stress, to be honest, that does come with that. But also excitement.
It's a pretty exciting process, because it's like, you don't have time to, uh, procrastinate on your ideas.
And if you're pitching against people and you win that pitch, is that generally it? Or do they come back and say, right now we want this section reworked? Or, you know, do they give notes back at that point?
Yeah, so even in the kind of pitching process, you've not necessarily been selected as the winning demo, you might be asked to make some tweaks, and what is kind of cool is that music companies try and keep that to a minimum really, and they try and manage client expectation to make sure that, you know, you're not overworking for the
yeah, they're going to be right in the middle of it, aren't they?
Yeah. But yeah, sometimes even when you have won the project, you might need to do some, some tweaks and amends to get it to the place that they're super happy with.
Fantastic.
So, the other one actually something called sonic branding, which is another kind of aspect of my work. and basically, that's like, In the past, it was all the jingles that you would have heard. Um, and now, in the more modern day sense of the words, it's about creating sonic logos, which are also known as mnemonics, and brand themes. So the sonic logos tend to be like, three to four sec well, actually two to four seconds, really, of um, audio.
And, yeah, it's a lot it's a very short space of time to create something
And in a way, I did one of these for a manufacturing company last year, and it took about six months.
Yeah! Yeah.
it was dealing with so many different departments. Going backwards and forwards and narrowing down and it's actually a bigger challenge I think to try and distill a brand into that short amount of time.
you've hit the nail on the head. Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's, um, because exactly, because you'll be presented with brand values and, how they want to be different to their competitors and all of these different things. And you've got lots of boxes to sort of tick in a tiny, short, short kind of timeframe, but it's, it's an interesting process and you'd be surprised
And then at the end they say, do it like the Netflix one.
Oh, the number of times that they reference Netflix and McDonald's in sonic branding is quite, kind of comical.
Yeah,
It's constant.
To be fair the Netflix ident is really good, isn't it?
It's really good, but I've heard that they're changing it, which is shocking. wait, don't, don't, don't take my word for it though. I don't know if
wow. I tell you what, uh, just thinking about that, one of the cleverest things I've seen in, uh, sonic branding was years ago McDonald's had the, I'm loving it, and they had the actual, I'm loving it, sung at the end. And then, they changed it, but they just whistled the tune,
Mm.
and that was it. They took out the singing at the end, they took out the message, because in your brain, that, you're going to be thinking it.
Yeah,
I thought that was so clever. It was
that's actually a brilliant observation because yeah, you don't need the call and response if you know it already. Then, yeah, exactly through a the power of association you're just going to get it aren't you?
Yeah.
Love that.
So I don't know who was in charge of that campaign, but well done whoever it was. That's a really
I don't know, but do you know what? I found out the other day that, um, T-Pain actually wrote that theme.
Really?
because I think it's, I think it's common, um, a common misconception that Justin Timberlake wrote the original song that it was derived from, but I, I, well, hopefully this isn't any like deep fake internet information, so everybody needs to do their fact checks, but I'm sure that it, that I read that T Pain, was the writer.
He wrote it while he was sitting eating his McNuggets, dipping his McNuggets into barbecue sauce,
And then the inspiration came.
Yeah, I'm really loving this.
Brilliant.
Ah, well done T Pain. Okay, Karina, let's go back in time. I want to know how it all began for you. And, uh, how you got into music.
Okay.
here we go.
yes. So, I guess my first, like, segue into music was learning the piano. So I actually went down a classical route.
How young were you when you were
um, like 10. So, not the youngest in the world, I guess. People start earlier than that. But, yeah, from like 10, I went down the classical route and I got up to grade 5. And then, I sort of realised, that all of the being boxed in to grades wasn't really my style.
When you started learning, what was the motivation? Were you kind of pushed into lessons? Um, or did you have a hankering? And thought, right, classical is the only way to do it? What was the motivation to start in the first place?
My household was incredibly musical. So my mum was, um, a really massive music lover. And used to have, um, one of those old hi fi systems. And it had loads of her vinyls and stuff. So she'd be blaring out the likes of, like, Doris Day and Jim Reeves in the house. And Louis Armstrong was, like, her all time favourite. So that doesn't really have any bearing to classical music, obviously. But she had learned the piano when she was young.
So had both my sisters, so I think it was more of a, initially it was more of a like, this is what the girls in our family do kind of tradition. but actually what really sparked my love for music was playing songs with my brother. We used to write music together and um, we were actually in a band together. And he, he was the person that inspired me to write music and to actually play music. believe in myself.
Oh.
So, yeah. Shout out to my brother
Well done, Aidan. That's a lovely thing as well. And, having music as a really positive presence in a household growing up can mean the difference between wanting to get into it for a career and not.
Yes. Well, speaking of the career side of it, I was actually kind of discouraged. As much as music was a huge part of our life, I think there was a fear around making it a career option. My mum's actually Indian, so I think that did have a little bit of a cultural bearing for us because, she kind of wanted me to go down more of the academia route, which is a, yeah.
Um, and then I suppose gradually I just realised I just couldn't be that person and I had, I just needed to try and make a career out of music. And if I didn't, then I'd always regret it.
Um,
Sadly, in 2017, my mum actually passed away. Which is a bit of a driving force really for me, kind of thinking, right, life is actually quite, I'm getting a little bit deep here, but thinking life is a little bit short. puts things into perspective, doesn't it? Yeah. it really does, and I think at that point chosen to go and study music at degree level, so I had committed somewhat.
But what I was lacking before that point, I think, was, belief in my own abilities, and belief that I could, you know, I could put my mind to it all and actually make a success out of it as a career. It felt like a big daunting thing and I think sometimes you can feel a little discouraged by the amount of competition that there is out there and feel like there's not enough space for everyone to flourish.
but when you have a life changing event I think it can really be a bit of a driver to go after what you really always wanted.
I think there's a point where you have to ask yourself, why not, instead of why. you know, if you want to do something, what have you got to lose?
Definitely. And I think, I think also for me, partly it was, it was thinking, well, if all of these other people that I'm admiring from a distance and thinking, wow, I'd love to do that, have been able to do it, then why can't I, you know, and it's um, it's then about equipping yourself with the tools that you need to be able to do that. So I, kind of embarked on like, Some online music production courses and stuff to try and get my skills up to the point that I felt that they needed to be at
Yeah. So is this all after university?
Yeah So I finished my, my undergraduate degree And then after that, to kind of top up my skills, I did an online course at Point Blank, music school, in music production. And, um, yeah, just, I think things like that, when you, for me, when I was at uni, I was kind of a little bit, what's the word? I don't think I was quite as determined. So doing that course later on when I was really ready to kind of gear it up a level was the right time and I paid a lot, a lot more attention.
And I think in, um, moree recent times, there's a lot more around, there's a degree in pretty much everything nowadays, isn't there? So there, there are courses, that you can do, in pretty much anything to do with music production, songwriting, you know, whatever you want to do, there's going to be something out there.
Yeah, definitely. And I don't know about you, but I certainly feel like the best, education I've ever had in terms of the tech side is actually putting into practice, like the things that I've been taught.
I do wonder if in hindsight, I would have gone to university.
I've thought this too.
There's nothing you can't learn in an active studio situation where you're, you're making the coffee, you're doing all the little jobs and learning right from the ground up. yeah, I wonder if that might have created more
Yeah, definitely. I couldn't agree more. And I also think it's really important to reach out to people. I've actually been quite astounded by how open people are to giving me advice. And if you're kind of brave enough to make yourself a little bit vulnerable, because it's not easy reaching out to somebody and saying Hey, these are my weak spots, but we're all human and we all have things that we're trying to improve.
But I actually think the level of, like, support from other musicians is, when you do reach out to them, it's actually really lovely.
I mean, I wish when I started as a composer, uh, falling off that cliff of discovery and didn't know what I was doing, much like everyone else, I'm sure. It would have been nice to know that it's okay to be open, it's okay to reach out and know that other people you're looking at who you think, wow, you've got it all sorted and they haven't, you know, everyone's in the same boat. and it's okay to figure it out together a lot of the time.
Yeah, definitely, and we all want to paint the picture of, we've got everything in check and we've got nothing more to learn. But the beauty, in my opinion, of a career in music is that there's always more to learn. It's like a game where you've never unlocked all the levels.
Getting profound. There we go. Oh yeah, that would be a great segue into gaming, wouldn't it? But,
I haven't touched upon that, I'm afraid.
yet,
Yeah,
So you've, done another course. What happened then?
So, at that time, I was writing tracks. Not finishing them, like 90 percent of all musicians. And I, yeah, I actually had that. That's such a thing, isn't it? For people like not finishing tracks and I completely get it. And now all I do is finish tracks, but that's because I think partly when you have deadlines, kind of focuses your attention and somebody's paying you. So you have to finish the tracks.
You've trained yourself to do it. We have a previous guest on this show, uh, Gary Clark of Danny Wilson fame, uh, who's one of the nicest people you'll ever meet. And his advice was finish track, finish the song. It doesn't matter, if it's crap, if it's not, if it's brilliant. Just get it finished and then you can actually go back and go right. What do I need to do?
because there's this this thing isn't there of if you if you don't finish something then you know, you can't kind of criticise it or you can't put it out and for other people to criticise
yeah,
So it of hangs in that limbo. Yeah, that's it. That's it the perfection trap
It's, it's, it's like, it's a huge curse and what I think is really, really important to note is that we're all together in the imposter syndrome epidemic. Everybody, no matter what level they're at, still. Kind of sometimes goes, Oh my God, I don't know what I'm doing. Is my work terrible? And it's part of the creative process. There's a graph out there somewhere that I saw. And it's like all of these kind of stages that you go through when you write something.
And it's like, inevitably, at some point, with pretty much every piece of music you're going to make, you're going to have a little moment when you go, Oh my God, I really don't like this. And it's just a kind of teething process as part. Yeah, it's a teething issue. And, um, yeah, I think, I think exactly that. So if you wait until. You're 100, 000 percent happy with something. You're never gonna get to that point and you're never gonna be able to put it out there or share it with anybody.
And sharing something, you know, of a decent standard is better than sharing nothing.
absolutely. There you go, kids.
Yeah.
Karina has spoken. Get your music out there.
yeah, get it out there. Don't let it sit on a hard drive where nobody's ever gonna hear it. But another interesting thing that I learned was, um, I used to collaborate, pretty extensively with somebody else and they taught me a hell of a lot. So they came from a like commercial background. So they wrote with like various commercial artists via another producer. So they had that hat on, which I'd never had. So that always used to say, go down the rabbit hole in the studio.
It sounds a bit hippy trippy. Um, but actually it's stayed with me ever since. So it's kind of what it is in essence is allowing yourself to dive deeper into an idea and run with it, even not, and kind of get out of your way. So rather than kind of overthinking it and then, you know, wanting to know where it's going to go, it's like getting. Sounds cheesy, but it's kind of getting lost in the moment and getting lost in that idea.
Yeah, I couldn't agree more with that. So, I ask all of my guests, Karina, to leave an item and a piece of advice in the music room for others to find. So, have you brought an item that you would like to leave?
I would leave, the voice memos app open and recording. for somebody.
Just leave it open and recording.
Yeah. So I'd leave, I'd, I'd donate my phone and I'd leave, I'd leave the voice memos and I'd gift that to them. Um, because that has, that has been an amazing tool for me. Just like going out and walking my dog literally or wherever I, sometimes I've been on the train and an idea will come and you'll get down this kind of gibberish voice note. But there's, there's something in it. So that would be my item. I'd leave my smartphone.
I'm sure. The amount of stuff on the collective music creators phones
Yeah.
It must be gazillions of hours of just people going doo doo doo doo doo
Some of it, I would not even share with like the people that are closest to me in my life. Um, but that's fine. It's, it's a powerful tool. Um, with all of the gibberish, there's something in there.
that is fantastic and what piece of advice would you like to leave Mmm.
Um, okay, my piece of advice is don't judge your own progress on other people by comparing where you are or what your skills are to them because there'll only be one you and there'll only be one them.
I mean, full stop. There you go.
Yeah, because what, what people's power is, creatively, my opinion, is the essence of them and what they're all about. So if you're trying to imitate other people, then kind of, the world's missing out on your uniqueness.
Absolutely, and you inevitably become a poor imitation of someone else as well. Which, um, won't get you anywhere, will
No, there's already one John Mayer, so you know, if we, I, I certainly would not try and become him. Partly because it's just never going to happen, but yeah, exactly.
I'm sure John Mayer is mightily relieved that you're not on, uh, hot on his
Yeah. Watch this space.
Watch this space. Fantastic. Karina Byrne, it has been a joy chatting with you today. Thanks for joining me in the music room.
Thank you so much. I've, had a great time being on the show.
Thanks for listening to the Music Room podcast today. If you'd like to know more about the show or the community that surrounds it, head to musicroom.community. The link is in the show notes.