{"id":1289,"date":"2020-04-30T12:26:24","date_gmt":"2020-04-30T12:26:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new-blog.artlist.io\/?p=1289"},"modified":"2024-01-11T07:21:04","modified_gmt":"2024-01-11T07:21:04","slug":"how-to-add-music-to-a-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new-blog.artlist.io\/blog\/how-to-add-music-to-a-video\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Add Music to a Video"},"content":{"rendered":"

We all know that the music used in a video or film plays a significant role in determining the feel. Different songs can\u00a0turn the same video from a horror scene into a comedy<\/a>. If you know your audience and have\u00a0found just the right song<\/a>, it can elevate your video to new heights. You need to add a song to your video that fits the brand you are promoting, while at the same time connecting with the sensibilities of the audience. But picking the song is just the beginning. You still need to edit it to fit your video.<\/p>\n

When you add audio to a video, chances are the song you picked is not the exact length of your video. Furthermore, you will need to adjust volume throughout the length of the song to accommodate for the dialog and voice-over in your video (for simplicity, I will use dialog and voice-over interchangeably. Just know that technically speaking, dialog requires two or more people speaking to one another).<\/p>\n

What I plan to show you in this post is\u00a0how to add music to your video in a way that makes it feel as if the song was made just for your video. These techniques will work regardless of what\u00a0video editing software<\/a>\u00a0you use.<\/p>\n

Lyrics vs Instrumentals<\/strong><\/h2>\n

One decision I do want to specifically address is whether or not it\u2019s best to use a song with lyrics or strictly use an instrumental song. It all depends. Over the nearly 20 years I\u2019ve produced videos professionally, I\u2019ve used both. The tricky thing with using songs that have lyrics is that the words in the song could compete with the words in the video if you have a voice-over or talking-head interviews with dialog.\u00a0 But the benefit of adding songs with lyrics to your video is that sometimes the music fits the mood of the video but the lyrics don’t.<\/p>\n

The good news is that you don\u2019t necessarily have to choose one over the other. In most cases, if there is a song with lyrics, there\u2019s usually also an instrumental version of that song as well. Then it\u2019s just a matter of editing the two songs so that the instrumental version is used during the parts of the video with dialog or voice-over, then switch to the version with lyrics for pacing breaks.<\/p>\n

What to Keep in Mind When You Add Audio to Video<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The bulk of what I want to cover relates to how to edit the song so that it feels like it was made just for the video. There are three things to keep in mind.<\/p>\n

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    1. The beginning: the beginning of the video and the beginning of the song should feel like a natural fit. What I mean by that is, however the song starts, its pacing should match that of the video. If the video starts slow and steady, so should your song.<\/li>\n
    2. The middle: regardless of whether or not your video has a voice-over, you want to ensure that the audio levels of your soundtrack aren\u2019t too loud. If you do have dialog or voice-over, you want to adjust the music accordingly so it doesn\u2019t drown out or fight with the dialog (I\u2019ll be covering this below.)<\/li>\n
    3. The end: last, and certainly not least, the end of the song should ideally have some kind of beat or kicker that feels like an ending (as opposed to trailing off). I don\u2019t want to be too strict with this suggestion. It\u2019s not a hard and fast rule. But generally speaking, short videos that have a strong musical ending are more aesthetically pleasing than ones that just fade off.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      A Quick Music Lesson<\/strong><\/h2>\n

      If you remember your childhood music lessons, songs are broken into phrases and \u201cbars.\u201d For most songs, each bar is made up of four beats. So if you\u2019re counting the beats in a song, you\u2019d count 1,2,3,4 (first bar); 2, 2, 3, 4 (second bar); 3, 2, 3, 4 (third bar); and 4, 2, 3,4 (fourth bar). You\u2019ll notice that at the beginning of every 4-count, I incremented the first number. That just makes it easier to keep track of the bars as you count through them.<\/p>\n

      In most songs, four bars will make a phrase, and that\u2019s where you\u2019ll often see a shift in the music. There may be a bridge to a completely different sounding part of the song; or there may be a new instrument added. In either case, this is where you\u2019ll notice some kind of change.<\/p>\n

      \"\"<\/p>\n

      That area between the two arrows is the bridge. The song used is\u00a0Continent by ANBR<\/a>.<\/p>\n

      The reason I mention all of this is that we\u2019ll use this information later when making decisions on where to cut the music. If you want to get an excellent primer on music timing, I recommend this video. The video is aimed at aspiring music DJs, but all the concepts he\u2019s teaching are applicable to editing (e.g. instead of doing a DJ music drop \u201con the 1,\u201d you may cut your video on the 1, etc.)<\/p>\n