Hi Guys,

I'm looking for some background music for my 30 min children magic show. Do you know where to get some nice music?

Search eBay for "Royalty Free Music." You will find an amazing variety of CDs at reasonable prices. They are not specifically for magic, but are licensed for radio, TV, film, and other sorts of production (including magic shows). Use royalty free music and stay legal.

Ed

There was also a CD that Mike Close reviewed in MAGIC recently -- music composed specifically for use in children's shows. He gave it a favorable review; it's an issue or two back.

Jeff

Almagic,

Arthur Stead has created a cd with kidshow music. You can see his ad here http://www.kidabra.org/ArthurStead/
I only wish these royalty free music sites would put a brief sample of their work online. I own Arthur's cd and am currently putting it into my act. He will be lecturing at KIDabra this year on putting music into your show and will have a second cd available.

Tate

Hi Tate:

Thanks for the link and the help with the Santa Beard issue.

Martin

At the moment, I'm listening to the soundtrack from Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, and there are a couple of quite happy tracks (such as "Homeland") that might work in some application... dunno.

http://www.filmtracks.com/titles/spirit_stallion.html

Not without paying appropriate licensing fees to the music publisher they won't (and note that, if the music is an integral dramatic part of the performance, an ASCAP/BMI license WON'T cover you, you must arrange for rights with the publisher directly).

Thank Tate,

I think that one should be good. One thing is that he does not accept credit card, that's make it a bit troublesome to order.

I will wait for his second edition to be out, then order both together. Thank you very much for your help.

Does he accept paypal?

Has anyone actually looked into obtaining rights to use music in performance? Does the local birthday party magician REALLY have to worry about the music he plays on his boom box at the local kids party? I do banquets, schools and some small theater. I contacted ASCAP and BMI and basically got laughed at!

What if you are using a sample of the music or a short loop?

If anyone else has had REAL experience with this I would welcome some comment.

I would recommend to use music the Children already know. Music from Disney Films, or from popular Cartoons.

About Copyright,....I have asked this before to some people who know about that ad they have told me that for this purposes I just need to contact the publisher, tell him what I Want to do and in the main cases, they'll agree and you won't have any problem. If you are doing private parties, that's NOT a Public performance. When you buy a CD, you are buying the rights to play it in your home, and if you want, you can borrow it to a friend to play it in his home and it's o.k.

That Copyright stuff it's not so STRAIGHT and COMPLICATED, the people make it that way. Imagine what would happen if ALL the musicians are worried because some people who bought their CDS are playing it in their private parties and dancing with their music without their permission. In most cases, it's an honour for the musician you are using their music.

Regards,

Alejandro.

Playing the music for a private party may or may not technically be infringement. It's not infringement for a party goer to put in a CD, but if you're using the money in a commercial way (as part of a paid or otherwise compensated performance)that might be considered an infringement. I don't know of any case law directly on point. Copyright holders generally don't care about quibbling over legal technicalities unless they're actually being harmed by the infringement or they think they need to pursue even minor issues of infringement to put potential infringers on notice that they're not going to play around.
The closest thing I can think of concerns Disney. They vigourously defend their copyrights. One thing they do is occassionally go after daycare places that pop in a Disney movie or CD claiming that such use is an unlicensed public performance. Now, whether or not it is a public performance is debateable. One thing Disney doesn't want is for the case to go to court and it be ruled that the daycare isn't infringing -- it's preferable to them to maintain a legal grey area. They also don't want to acquiesce, so what they do is send a letter to the daycare saying 'we believe you're violating our copyright, we don't necessarily want to sue and we're reasonable people so we'd like to offer you a license to continue to use our stuff'. The license terms are favorable to Disney, but nothing that the daycare will likely care about and the royalty rate is small enough where the daycare isn't going to mind paying it.
I would tend to think that in most situations the same type of thing would happen to a magician performing at a kids party. In essence, the chances of getting caught are tiny and there is a reasonable legal arguement that you're not infringing the copyright so the copyright holder is probably not going to bother taking you to court since they'd likely lose money on the legal fees even if they won. So, if you are caught, you'll probably be offered a reasonable license to continue using the music.
Conversely you could send a letter to the publisher informing them of your intentions and request a license. Chances are they'll be more than happy to license the music to you for such uses.

AlMagic,

See if Richard Allen's "Music for magicnas" with suit your style.


Sal Amangka

Arthur Stead (www.arthurstead.com) has just released a new royalty-free background music CD. 31 excellent tracks. It's FANTASTIC and well worth the reasonable cost..... but he's made it a limited edition - only 100 copies.

This site has royalty free music AND has demos of everything I looked at so you can listen to it first.

http://www.musicbakery.com

You can searh on tempo, style, etc. To help find what you're looking for.

Regards,

Arthur Stead has a new website:

http://www.arthurstead.com/

AND he has two great new CD The Make it Magic Performance CD and Skull-O-Pini. In a couple of weeks he will have Make it Magic Volume II CD

He only takes Checks or Money Orders. He is not a member of PayPal.

Pay someone to make music for you maybe is a good ideia. This music will be only yours and, if made properly, fit perfectly in your show. Think about it.

(sorry about my english)

Use classical based themes that children will
recognize. Like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,
Wagner's Opera theme of Kwill the Wabbit, Space Odessy. Or you can have me write something ya.

:)

good luck.

Check BMI first to see if they want their royalties (registered).

If it's an import, most likely not.

Also, are you using instrumental music? Kind of a tough call one would think on getting a license etc when some of the impersonators today can make almost near perfect replicas. Remember the old days when you would order an album and only find out after receiving it, it was made by various artists?

I have sent emails to overseas location license agencies for permission to use ONE song. I only have 2-3 songs total (2 instrumental) that I am currently using until I can use royalty free music that will fit my acts.

(Thanks Wellington)

From what I understand from my friend, playing songs for private parties will not hurt at all.

BMI, Disney may even close one-eye if a someone plays their music even in childcare or mini public area.

They wouldn't sue because it's TOO SMALL to arrange for any legal case. They will make noise with big companies like, say, Wal-Mart plays their music while their customers are shopping...

As for performing in shopping centres, I believe there wouldn't be problem because shopping centres would have obtained the rights to play any music in their building. Thus even if a performer plays Disney music in that building, there is little or no legal issues.

I don't know if it is true for all areas, at least it's true for mine.