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Brian Michael Fuller is a well-established media composer for television and film with music features across a myriad of network and streaming channels. Fuller has had over 500 placements ranging from the BBC to the Super Bowl. He has worked on songs for the Emmy-winning show “Born This Way” and has recently produced music for Level 77. Fuller was kind enough to sit down and answer some questions about his craft, his method, and what it takes to be a leading music producer.

How did you get started as a composer?

Like most musicians, my parents bought me random musical instruments when I was a kid for Christmas. I specifically remember getting an old Sears drum kit called the “Golden Beat”. Somewhere in my attic I have a picture of me wearing some sweet late ‘70s clothes in front of that thing ready to rock! I also remember getting a super cheap Casio “sampling” keyboard and I remember figuring out the riff to Dire Straits’ “Walk of Life” and the theme song to Jeopardy. From that point on I knew I had been bit by the musical bug.

Before that, I used to sit in front of my mom and dad’s stereo record player, which was literally six-feet wide by four-feet tall with massive brown speakers and was basically a piece of furniture. It always smelled like Pledge because my mom was always dusting it. I would wear out 33’s and 45’s of Rick Springfield and many of my parents “Jamming to the Oldies” (a compilation album of 1950-60’s hits) holding a tennis racket and pretending that I was a guitar legend. I can still hear “Beep Beep” by the Playmates like it was yesterday. Fortunately, I do not have any pictures of those moments.

I’ve basically been a budding musician all my life. Fast forward many decades until 2015, when I made the conscious decision that I was going to be an actual TV music composer. Once I started to really narrow my focus and eliminate all the other distractions, that’s when I really started to officially become a “composer.” I believe that the mental shift and extreme discipline is crucial and necessary for a musician’s career.

How do you decide the feel of an album before you start?

“Feel” is a great word to use because sometimes as musicians we can get caught up in the technical aspects of what we create. It’s the most important aspect of music for television and sync licensing. This aspect is critical to helping tell the story. As composers, we have a very important role to play to make sure that we feel it’s elevated. Unfortunately, it took me a lot longer to begin to understand this concept. Fortunately, I have amazing non-musicians in my life, such as my wonderful wife, who always reminds me to focus on the feeling or the mood of a track and not simply the technical aspects of it. You never hear normal people say “I love John Williams’ movie scores, they’re so technically well executed.” That’s only what obsessed music nerds like me say.

I always try to make sure that I analyze the brief deeply before I write a single note. I try to make sure that I understand what the client is wanting. Is the music for a specific show that I can go watch to capture the vibe of how they’re used to doing things? If so, then I’ll research that. Before I start a writing session, I’ll write down a specific word and put it in plain sight. As I’m working on the track, I always see that word. Maybe that word is “tense”. From then on, I try to make sure that everything I add to that track feels that way. It helps me stay focused that way the track doesn’t go off the rails and change moods unintentionally.

What is your process like?

I’m a pretty obsessive-compulsive person so my process is pretty methodical and planned out. I try to leave room for creativity when I can, but for the most part, I love spreadsheets, deadlines and schedules. I know that goes against the romanticized views of how a traditional artist works but most of the people that I know that are successful in this business are extremely organized and professional.
From a practical perspective, I usually spend the first few hours of a project just curating sounds and building a template of unique soundscapes and instruments that I feel will accomplish the original vibe of the project. Often, I am working on batches of songs at a time, 5 or 10, so I rarely ever do a project that’s just one track unless I’m writing actual songs with a specific artist, which I seem to do a lot less of these days.

I always try to spend extra time at the frontend preparing the sound pallets and colors. It’s much like the process of scoring films. When you’re done, you want everything to gel and sound like it’s connected and part of the same story. Being really methodical and organized on the front end allows you to ensure that cohesiveness actually happens. Once I have my sound pallet is done, I just start creating with that one-word “feel” or “mood” in mind. I’ll start writing from that point and see how it evolves. I end up either extremely pleased, or extremely disappointed, see “Imposter Syndrome.” Some days you’re the hammer, some days you are the nail.

How do you choose your instruments?

I think it’s important as a composer to use the instruments that you’re really good at playing. For me, I’ve been playing guitar for over 30 years so it would be foolish to not try to include that instrument into what I’m doing. I also play bass and percussion so I like to make sure I’m always adding those instruments live to my recordings. With all of today’s computer technology, it’s super easy for composers to fall into the hole of just using everything in the box. There was an entire year or maybe two where I think I recorded like 40 songs and never used one live instrument. Looking back on my catalog, I believe that was a tremendous mistake. I could’ve added so much more emotion flavor and color by simply adding a few tracks with my fingers on real instruments.

I think a lot of people think that you have to be an amazing musician to record on an album or to record on a track, but that’s just simply not true. Most great songs on the radio are actually really simple musical parts. Unless you’re listening to jazz or progressive rock you don’t have to be a virtuoso to throw down a basic G, C,D, Em progression on an acoustic guitar. Having said that, I have found that my best instrument of all is my DAW. I currently use Logic Pro X and Digital Performer. If you get really good at editing, you can pretty much play any instrument you have. I actually played live clarinet on a few tracks I made earlier this year with a clarinet I bought on Amazon for $40. I literally watched a couple YouTube videos to figure out how to make a sound and then I sampled myself playing it. I thought I was gonna die because it was so hard to make a note but once I was done and did all the magic editing, it actually sounded really cool and added a lot of character to the recording.

Obviously, the genre you are working and is going to determine a lot when it comes to the actual instrument selection. If I am working on crime dramatic tension, I know that I am going to use a lot of sound design drones and strings. Probably not much harmonica or banjo in there! I may use my guitar for really ambient sound effects or string resonance. Playing traditional chords over that would sound really wonky and weird and would not accomplish the vibe of the track. Using our physical instruments, including your voice, in a creative way is very important. I just try to always ask myself, “I wonder if I could squeeze my guitar into the song somehow?” Then I try stuff until I come up with something that works.

That’s why workflow is so important. Everything in my studio is always hooked up and ready to go. I used to keep my guitars upstairs in my closet but because of that I never used them! Now they are all right in front of my face so it only takes me about 30 seconds to grab one, arm a track and get creative!

How long does it take you to create an album?

It usually takes the exact amount of time between the project’s start until the day before the deadline. Just kidding! But seriously, Parkinson’s Law is the old adage that the work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion. This can be really true in music because our art is never really done – it’s just “due”. There’s an amazing quote by Duke Ellington that goes: “I don’t need time. What I need is a deadline.”

As artists, the best thing we can have for our careers is an actual due date. Otherwise we will get lost in the never ending pursuit of perfection and creativity. In sync music, the goal is to provide usable content for the end-client, not to make masterpieces every day. Our music serves a very specific purpose and a big part of that purpose is to be on the right person’s hard drive on the day that they need it. I always try to make sure that the tracks I’m composing are creative, unique and usable. But the most important quality is that they are finished! Otherwise, I’m just a hobbyist.

What was your approach with True Crime for Level 77?

Since this was my first album with Level 77, I wanted to make sure that I delivered something that was on par with the expectations Level 77 had for it. Jason Rudd and I spent quite a bit of time on the phone getting to know each other and talking about the vision for the album. Jason was super helpful in giving me direction and setting the expectations for what the project needed to be.

The last couple years I’ve been doing a lot of crime music so I knew it was in my wheelhouse. I already had a lot of direction for what I thought would work for the genre, but every time you start a new album you have the fear of wondering if you’re going to be able to deliver. So when I started this particular project I made sure that I created some really cool fun sounds that I had never used before. I wanted to make sure that at the end of the project it was something we were proud of and was usable for the end user client. Jason and I discussed a lot of words like fear, mystery, unsolved, dark, unsettling, and rarely if ever discussed actual musical terms. That helped guide the process and I think we ended up with some really cool stuff.

It’s easy to forget just how many sub-genres there are. Some people may just call it “Crime Music” but in reality, for the composer, there are about 100 sub-genres of crime. Is it murder mystery, is it investigative, is it documentary style, is it cyber-crime, is it espionage? There are so many creative options. The moment a composer adds a pulsing analog synth, it starts to go in one certain direction. Having a sense of vision for each project is critical. Otherwise, the music can get too sparse and lose its impact.

What are some recent placements that you’re proud of?

Every single new placement is like Christmas morning! Now, I start to get disappointed if I get less than one to two new placements per week. I guess I have become spoiled. Like a kid who gets too many presents!

I’ve dreamed about having success as a composer so I will never forget my very first placement which was on a show called “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” on E! in 2016. I got a phone call from my friend Joy Basu informing me of our first placement. It was a pretty exciting time and was a very affirming moment in my career. I was sitting in my living room with my wife and we were both pretty stoked. It solidified that maybe I was on the right track, but in reality, it was only the beginning of all the hard work that would follow. Ironically, I had never watched that show. But millions of other people have so it’s a really cool feeling. LOL.

After that, I just thought to myself, “OK I need to make about 1000 more of these!” And that’s what I’ve been doing ever since. It really is a cool feeling every time you realize that your music is being broadcast to millions of people. You’re helping tell the story of some creative person and they’re using your music to do it. Here I am just a father-of-four in Chapel Hill, North Carolina pumping out music in my home studio that’s being aired all over the world. It’s very inspiring.

My favorite placement to date however, is my track that was used in Super Bowl 55. It was a rock track that I did with my friend and collaborator, Stevie Benz. Wow, that was a crazy moment especially because I am a huge NFL fan AND I was watching the game with my entire family. We all got to hear my track in real-time and my kids were so
excited!!! They were literally jumping up and down.

Over 96 Million People heard that track all at once! What a cool feeling. That track has since been used in countless NFL games including this past year’s AFC Championship game on CBS Sports where my beloved Cincinnati Bengals beat the Kansas City Chiefs to secure their spot in the Super Bowl for the first time in 33 years!!! That was like a dream come true. Too bad they ended up losing to the Rams by three points but there’s always next year!!! And with our newly upgraded offensive line, it may happen! But I digress.

What do you feel it takes to be a successful composer in the modern world of music?

I think the most important thing is to have a PLAN! It sounds uninspiring and non-musical and every artist and composer reading this is probably like, “Wow, what a lame answer.” But it is so true. Of course you need to have musical skill, but that is a craft you develop overtime. A goal without a plan is just a dream. If you really want your dreams to come true you have to put it into action.
If I could inspire anyone who is reading this that wants to be successful as a music composer, I would encourage you to read a few books about developing business strategies, managing budgets, and discovering your passions. There are thousands of ways to be successful in the music business. Most likely, each person needs to carve out what that specific thing is for them. It looks different for everyone. But there is room for us all!

I used to call myself a songwriter until one day I woke up and realized I wasn’t really writing songs. I just liked the idea of being a songwriter more than the idea of delivery pizzas and managing restaurants. In my early days of living in Nashville, I met many people who were professional songwriters. I realized that these people literally wrote 2 to 3 songs a day no matter what. It’s not what they called themselves, it was actually who they were and what they were doing. They were songwriters. Calling yourself something and being something are two different things.

In 2015, when I decided that I was going to actually legitimately pursue being a professional composer for TV and Film, I made the conscious decision that I was going to compose music every week, if not every day, from that point on. That’s when everything started to shift for me. If you want to do this for a living, you must consider yourself a business, not a musician. In order for a business to be successful, it needs a budget, a plan, a vision and a mission statement as well as solid boundaries for what you will do and what you will not do. If you don’t have each of those things figured out for your life, written down, start today.

Most importantly, make sure that all of your plans and your goals are measurable. So many artists are banking their career on things that they can’t control. That is not a formula for success. No one is going to hand you something for free and very rarely are you just simply going to be discovered for your awesomeness. You need to carve out a path for yourself and you need to make goals that are achievable, realistic, measurable and within your control. The biggest competition is going to be yourself. That’s what I’m learning every day.

Thank you so much to Fuller for being willing to give us his time and talents. We cannot wait to hear his newest compositions and experience his latest placements! If you want to get in touch with Brian Michael Fuller, please visit his composer website: www.fullertime.com.

Imagine that you’ve spent countless hours recording and editing the perfect video for YouTube. After a few finishing touches you post the video and wait for it to go viral! But when you check on your video the next day, you see that it has been taken down by YouTube. Why, you ask! YouTube’s copyright policy. It was removed because you did not have licensing privileges for the background music. What’s worse is that YouTube has now tagged your account, and any further violations could jeopardize your entire video library. So what is copyrighted music, and how can you avoid having your video removed?

What is a music copyright?

When a musician writes and records a song, it becomes their property, and they have protections from the law to make sure someone does not use that intellectual property to make money without the permission of the artist. These protections are known as copyrights. Copyright law can be pretty complicated, but the short version is that you cannot use copyright materials without paying for them. On YouTube, you do not necessarily have to credit the music artists you use in your content, but you have to make sure that they receive the appropriate funds for use of their property. YouTube has two systems which work together to ensure that intellectual property (IP) is protected and remunerated on their platform. The first is a place where content creators (musicians, video artists, etc.) can submit claims for anything that violates their rights, and the second is the video upload protocols, which police for copyright infringement.

What is YouTube’s policy on copyright violation?

So what happens if a video violates YouTube’s copyright policing protocol, or if an artist makes a claim of copyright infringement? YouTube has a variety of policies in place to protect copyrighted materials, particularly music, which is one of the most frequent content area violations. YouTube can simply mute the entire video making it so that all audio content is no longer accessible. The other way is for YouTube to monetize the video by running ads against it, then using that money to reimburse the music artist, while running viewership statistics and potentially providing a method for the musician to provide a music license at a high premium. Ultimately, if a video on YouTube violates music copyright protocols, then the person making the money has  the music licensing rights, even if the rest of the content does not belong to them.

How can you avoid a copyright claim?

There are three ways to avoid a copyright claim.

The first is to forfeit any and all monies produced by the video to the music artist. If you have no claim to monetize a video and make arrangements for the artist to claim all the money, then YouTube will generally let you use the artist’s content.

The second is to contact the artist or their music publishing company to get permissive use if you want to monetize your video. However, this is a time-consuming and expensive method which can take years to accomplish and can cost tens of thousands of dollars. That’s why we recommend using the third and easiest way.

You can use production music. Production music is pre-recorded music created specifically to be used in projects like advertising and YouTube videos. Production music companies have vast libraries of songs to choose from, and have a streamlined, affordable process to acquire those songs.

Where can you acquire production music?

Production music can be purchased from a production music company. Companies like Level 77 Music host massive libraries with thousands of tracks designed specifically to be used in YouTube videos like yours. The songs cover every imaginable genre and style of music, each with an expedited acquisition plan and various affordable price points. Exploring the libraries of a company like Level 77 Music may even give you ideas for songs and styles which might not have originally appealed to you. Best of all, the songs all come with full copyright permissions and licenses, so there are no complications from YouTube’s copyright protocols.

You’ve worked too hard on your content to have it shut down and muted by YouTube for copyright infringement. Take control of your music choices by leveraging the affordability and flexibility of a music production company to fulfill all your music needs.

You like podcasts? So do we! They inform and entertain, and since it’s an audio-only medium, they can go with you anywhere. One of the first things you hear in most podcasts is an opening theme song. How do you select music, and where is music frequently used in podcasts? Read on for more!

Podcasts generally use music in three different ways. The first is at the beginning or the end of the show. Next, you’ll occasionally hear background music at various times and places. Finally, stingers to separate segments in longer podcasts. Developing unique tracks that capture the energy and feel of your show is critical to help create a brand identity that your audience can quickly recognize.

Intro/Outro Music

There are a lot of schools of thought on how to select the best music to use as an opening, but they all agree that the track must be memorable and convey the tone of your show quickly and impactfully. The best way to approach this process is to ask broad questions about the personality and flavor of your podcast. Does it deal with serious topics? Is it lighthearted? Who is your target audience? What sort of music would appeal to a potential listener? Being able to zero in on your target market is the first step to choosing music wisely.

Background Music

Often, the background music in a podcast is meant to add another sonic layer to the production. Think subtle! You do not want a background track to distract from an interview. Instrumental tracks are ideal, since there are no vocals to compete with the dialog in your podcast.

Stingers

Stingers, or section separators, on the other hand, are frequently shortened versions of the introductory track. Having a unified voice for all the music in your podcast will help create a sense of cohesion and make your entire production feel more professional. Many successful podcasts have instrumental and abbreviated variations of their title music throughout the recording.

Final Considerations

To reiterate, the song must be memorable! It is crucially important that you trust your intuition in conceptualizing your music. You have a vision of what your creation should be, and you have hopefully learned something about your potential podcast audience. Taking that knowledge and applying it critically to the music selection process will help you create a quality product with consistent sound and messaging. Don’t know where to start? Reach out to us about choosing original music from our large production library, or having our pros create a custom track for you!

Sourcing Music Ethically Brings Integrity to Your Brand

Integrity, morality, and ethics can be difficult to define whether you are an individual or a company. People know when something goes against their personal idea of what is right and wrong, but being able to categorically define it can be quite challenging. And it doesn’t just apply to big business anymore. It’s particularly relevant in the music industry, namely where sourcing music is concerned.

How Music is Used in Advertising and Brand Integration

Advertising uses music as a powerful force to help guide the emotional response of the consumer to a product. A radio music bed or a powerful stinger can help cement an ad in a potential customer’s mind. However, the music used in an advertisement is often one of the last considerations in promotional development. As a result, decisions about background music are frequently done without much thought, and often on an abbreviated timetable. Thus, decision makers do not always take the time to make ethical considerations about music sourcing.
Every piece of music in every ad, song, radio bed, or movie soundtrack was composed and recorded by musicians. They put a lot of time and effort into their craft. However, because of the expedited timelines for advertising music and a lack of proper budgeting, many new companies are cutting corners with their music. The lack of consideration toward the artists responsible for a track is an unethical practice.

What Sources for Music are Available

Taking the time to consider the music that will accompany your brand is the first step towards ethical music sourcing. Consider whether you want to use something popular, something classical, or something custom-built by a professional production music company. Pop music can be expensive and frequently takes more time to acquire the rights of use. Classical music can be recognizable and tends to have a very specific demographic and use. Production music is a faster, less expensive option which offers more choices, but will not have the same recognition.
If you model your advertising around a specific popular music track, there are still ways to ethically source your music without the added expenses and time needed to acquire music licensing from a major music corporation. Consider using that pop music song as a reference track, then using the catalogues from a production music provider like us to find a song that matches the theme, tone, and energy of the song. Using our production music, we can sidestep a lot of the hassles and legal issues associated with using other sources.

The Pitfalls of Non-Ethically Sourced Music

Time constraints and the expense of production music means that it is easy to cut corners and simply use a song from a royalty-free music site, or include a pop music song without proper licensing. In the short-term, these solutions might seem reasonable. But there are serious ethical and legal issues with improperly sourced tracks.
Creative commons and royalty-free services are quick and inexpensive ways to get music. However, that music comes with some serious caveats. The production quality is often poor, the libraries are sparse, and the best music from the libraries is often overplayed. The lack of cost for the tracks reflects the lack of reimbursement for the artists who created the songs as well. Because of the thin margins on stock music, any independent musician involved in the creation of the music is often poorly remunerated.

Ethically Sourced Production Music

Production music companies like us are committed to fair remuneration of music artists for their work. As a result, the music quality is higher, the production values are better, and there is a greater variety of genres and styles represented in their libraries. We are committed to supporting young artists and creatives, giving them an opportunity to earn income for their compositions while they work to perfect their craft and become established artists on their own. Using Level 77 Music for your brand promotion comes with the knowledge that you have selected music with integrity, and that you are supporting musicians and composers.

You hear the familiar score in the background of your favorite television news program every night. Just a few seconds long, it is instantly identifiable. Hearing that music sets the tone and establishes a theme for the rest of the program. Variations on that theme are used as transitions between segments, before and after commercials, and as the coda (ending) of the show. Music is a central part of a news media company’s identity. The process of composing, securing, and paying for that music is more complicated than you might imagine. Let’s dive into the world of TV news music!

The history of the news media and music

Music in the context of television news is a relatively new phenomenon. In the 1940’s through the 60’s most television shows were introduced by the sound of a typewriter, with no music whatsoever. That changed in the 1970’s when NBC used a long symphonic piece to introduce its nightly news program. The popularity of music in an introduction grew quickly, but the songs became much shorter. Now most news programs have an introductory piece of music that is just a few seconds long, a far cry from the longer musical pieces which were popular through the 1980’s. In the last few decades, news themes have changed a lot. First and foremost, they are now significantly shorter. Long opens and closes are a thing of the past. Viewers are now hearing more and more bits of sound throughout a broadcast. These sounds are called music cues.

News music’s complicated terminology

Broadcast media, whether television, radio, or social media, have a very specific jargon that can be difficult for an outsider to understand. Terms like “stinger,” “bumper,” and “bed” are not immediately obvious unless you have been in the world of music production. Understanding the different varieties of music can help you understand the many ways in which musicians and sound editors use it. Two of the more obvious terms are “opens” and “closes.” These are the cuts of music used to introduce or end a new broadcast, and their length varies based on the type of news broadcast. General news has shorter opens and closes, while individual news shows (like Barbara Walters Presents) typically have longer ones. General news tries to get into the stories more quickly, while talent-driven broadcasts tend to take more time. “Bumpers” and “stingers” are abbreviated forms of the main opening/closing theme designed to introduce summaries of upcoming segments (for bumpers) or to introduce the new segments themselves (stingers). “Beds” on the other hand are variations on a program’s main theme used to promote upcoming newscasts.

News music branding and development

Music has been called the “silent player” of television broadcast news, creating a unifying element for the viewer and even helping them understand the newscast better. News music themes can alert the audience, letting them know that a broadcast has begun. News programs have a team of sound editors and musicians who help compose and mix the audio in a newscast. These artists are constantly balancing the music with the content to focus on the emotion and action of a story, and to maintain a dynamic product. Sound effects, music beds, stingers, and bumpers are all part of the non-dialogue sections of a newscast which help to make it a coherent whole and keep the audience informed and entertained. As a result, there is a lot of money to be made in the news music industry. The composers of the music on the show are paid royalties each time their content is used. Every time you hear the CBS Evening News theme, someone is receiving a royalty check.

Conclusion

There is a lot of crossover in the news music industry, with stations competing against one another to have the best quality music and the most dynamic content. This competition drives up the cost of using music in the news, as well as steadily increasing the caliber of music. News music composers continue to develop and introduce new genres of music to the broadcasts as each network attempts to make itself stand out from its competitors. The call for quality production music from established music companies like Level 77 can help meet the rising demand for new and different music in television broadcast news.

Level 77 Music has recently announced partnerships with Japanese music publisher Sakura Notes, and Songs To Your Eyes, one of Israel’s most esteemed music publishing companies. They have already forged agreements with publishers in Europe and Korea, and Japan now joins with Israel in expanding the library further beyond the borders of the U.S.

Sakura Notes

Sakura Notes is an independent music publishing company based out of Tokyo, Japan. With over a decade in the industry, Sakura Notes boasts some of the best domestic musicians in the country. Specializing in music for Japanese broadcast programs, Sakura Notes has spent recent years extending its reach into the world music space.

Level 77 Music’s partnership with Sakura Notes will allow the library to reach an entirely new audience and listenership. By adding their four diverse labels to the already robust library represented by Sakura Notes, more Japanese companies will have access to the epic tracks from the Level 77 library.

Their expertise in connecting with consumers in Japan guarantees that Level 77 Music will be heard in many projects in the coming years throughout this vast market.

Songs To Your Eyes

Songs To Your Eyes is an established music production company in Israel, representing over 750 musicians, disk jockeys, sound designers, and composers. Their web-based portal allows for one-stop licensing and copyrighting. The effortless interface lets customers to see not only their unique production music offerings, but also allows for the custom scoring of tracks.

Their entrepreneurial spirit is demonstrated clearly in their focus on creating high quality production music for filmmakers and digital streaming projects. Hiring local Israeli musicians from independent bands helps them create epic tracks that elevate and proliferate. Their dedication to supporting local talent is truly inimitable.

Their experts have curated an astounding catalogue of tracks designed to add the perfect sound for a commercial, podcast, film score, and more. Their prowess in marketing to and understanding the demographics of Israel guarantees that music from Level 77 will be utilized in their work for years to come.

The addition of these companies as well as the recent contract with Modoocom in Korea has helped extend Level 77’s outreach to the international community. These prestigious sub-publishers will work with Level 77 Music to expand their creative reach and help solidify their standing as an international production music company.

Do you love “The Great,” one of Hulu’s most successful new shows? “The Great” is a comedic reinterpretation of the rise of Catherine the Great from an Austrian Princess to one of the most powerful rulers in the history of Russia. The long-form historical fiction imagines the conversations and interactions between young Catherine, only recently betrothed and moved to Russia, and her husband, Emperor Peter III.

The show does a delightful job of balancing the grim nature of usurpation, as Catherine takes the power from her husband and makes herself the new monarch of Russia, with the curious happenings of the Russian court. The result is both hilarious and occasionally disturbing.

While the acting, costuming, and production are superb, what really makes the trailer work is the use of authentic Russian folk dance as the background music. The music was taken from the Level 77 library, and is an excellent example of how using premium music for video production can transform a project. The Russian dance track is titled “Russian Folk Dance” by composer David Burk, and was produced and distributed through Level 77’s The Vault label, specializing in instrumental music for traditional and specialty genres, some of which are difficult to source.

What is striking about the “Russian Folk Dance” track from “The Great” is its authenticity. Russian folk music was exclusively vocal through the 12th century, and the use of musical accompaniment for folk music was outlawed in Russia until the Bolshevik revolution. The use of a three-stringed fiddle, called a gudok, a double pipe called a rozhok, and a winged auto-harp called a gusli all define the traditional musical elements of Russian folk music, and all three are featured heavily in the trailer for “The Great.” That sort of authenticity is the hallmark of Level 77 Music.