The Music Playground, New York City, NY
My name is Josephine, I am a sophomore at Williams College, and for my wINTERNship this past January I interned at The Music Playground. The Music Playground is a music production and licensing company. This company frequently works in conjunction with The Diner and The Station, two other music licensing and production companies. Together, they collaborate with partners and source, license, produce, and create sounds catered to clients’ creative visions. Throughout the remote internship, I worked under my supervisor, alongside other interns. My supervisor scheduled several training sessions for us where she would introduce and run through the different sectors of management and tasks within the company. Training sessions covered areas including music infringements, publishing and royalties, WireDrive database program training, and even a shadow session with The Music Playground’s senior composer. After each training session, my supervisor would assign me tasks to complete for the day or the next few days. Everyone was able to see what others were working on through using a team Trello workspace, and we communicated with each other efficiently and frequently through emails.
A repeating assignment I had throughout the internship was doing several music searches for clients’ requests. Clients send requests to The Music Playground for music that would best fit their commercial projects. As requests came in, my supervisor would forward these requests to me to find tracks within The Diner’s website that best fit clients’ visions and instructions. For example, one of the clients was Domino’s pizza. Domino’s requested three music spots to fit their car side delivery commercials. In this request, they sent the gist of each commercial and what direction of music they envisioned for the three different vibes. They requested for one song to resemble 80’s upbeat rock & roll, another one that was kids bop-esque (with a simple and repetitive tune), and a last track that sounds like up-tempo, straightforward modern rock. From these requests, I browsed through The Diner’s library of tracks and created playlists with eight to ten songs to send to my supervisor for her feedback. In her feedback, she gave me detailed pointers on which tracks would work well and which would not when finalizing the playlist that was sent out to clients. Through these searches, I learned a lot about the relationship between the music and advertising industries, and the significance of music in informing the creative direction of commercials. I also learned more about how to think like clients and understand their perspectives when doing my searches and found that was a super important quality for pitching the best options available.
Another task I was able to do was make Spotify playlists for The Diner, with each centered around a certain mood or theme. The playlists I created were Dreampop, Sounds of the 2010s, Fantasy Adventures, Coming of Age, Safe For Work, and Stress Relief. For this assignment, I created playlists with thirty to fifty songs that matched the vibe, with 30% of the songs being Diner tracks. The Diner tracks were incorporated into the playlists with other, more popular and mainstream songs. In addition to creating the actual playlists, I created playlist cover art for each playlist using a Canva and updated the playlists’ descriptions. For the descriptions, I would tag specific keywords after doing keyword research and search engine optimization data analysis so that users can easily find the playlists. These assignments were among the more fun assignments I did because most of it consisted of me listening to music and having the authority to make creative decisions in curating each playlist. Nevertheless, I also learned a lot about being selective in terms of which keywords would help users get the basic feel of a playlist, and which would be the most useful in describing and promoting the playlist in Spotify’s algorithm.
On the flip side, I had other assignments where I was taught how to navigate and use certain music database systems in updating information for the company. This information was covered in our publishing and royalties training session, where my supervisor spoke about the division of shares and profits in the creation of a song where there are several players involved. These divisions of shares are then recorded in organizational systems, three of the major ones being the Society of European Stage Authors and Composers (SESAC), the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), and Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI). The tasks here were pretty straightforward database entries. Another database program I got to work with was WireDrive, where the details of each project ever completed are recorded. Here, I updated the database with appropriate keywords and descriptions for each project and ensured clear and clean consistency throughout how information is inputted and labeled.
Lastly, I also learned a lot through my many research assignments. Some research assignments included doing background research on clients to ensure they did not violate any contract infringements. I completed this assignment by looking for the music tracks on clients’ various social media platforms and using the Numerator website for TV and radio advertisements. Other research assignments included doing client research about the success of their projects, and one major project on researching similar artists who have a Country-esque sound to their music for a casting project.
Overall, I learned so much from my internship at The Music Playground. I have always been a lover of music, yet I had no idea of the thorough process of music composition. I am glad that I am now more informed about the music production process and the industry behind it. After this experience, I can definitely say I am more interested in careers within the entertainment industry as a whole and the production process behind the different forms of entertainment media. I am more confident in the direction I wish to head towards when searching for my future career path.
I am very thankful to the ‘68 Center for Career Exploration for organizing this opportunity and making this all possible. I learned how complex and demanding the entertainment industry is and how all that hard work translates into a beautiful end product for all to enjoy. I now know I would love to contribute to the production of more beautiful art that sparks people’s joy, something so important, especially in our current times.