It truly is the “best of times” for independent musicians right now. I’m reminded of this fact each week as new opportunities for licensing Debbie and Friends’ songs unfold.
This week, “Three Pigs and a Wolf,” the same animated music video I blogged about being licensed for use on the show “24,” has just been licensed by a Canadian textbook publisher. The video will appear in a Teacher’s Guide/DVD product for second grade reading programs and distributed throughout Canada.
Just like the “24” opportunity, this came about as a result of a strong web-based presence for the music and the use of online communication tools.
The textbook publisher found my animated music video on a parent-vetted video aggregator site called Totlol. The Totlol video description includes links to my Debbie and Friends Web site. The Web site contains a “contact Debbie” email link. The publisher emailed me their permission request and proposed budget, and in less than a day we had a signed license agreement and video files FTP’d to the publisher.
Personally, I couldn’t be happier to have my music used for educational purposes. Story Songs, such as “Three Pigs and a Wolf,” are intended to be a fun reinforcement of a love of reading for kids. This licensing opportunity will further that mission while providing a new income stream for the catalog.
What an exciting time to be in the music business, indeed!
Debbie Cavalier, Dean of Continuing Education at Berklee College of Music’s online extension school, Berkleemusic. Cavalier leads the development of Berklee’s award-winning distance learning courses and is a frequent speaker at national distance learning conferences. A prolific author, Cavalier has penned over one hundred music education methods and arrangements and is an active children’s music artist with Debbie and Friends.