A note about the video music

I just received a question about the music tracks I use for the videos. (The question came in on my blip.tv account and I can't figure out how to send a message back that way, so I'm addressing it here.)

I scour the web for royalty free samples of music to add to the videos. In the case of the latest cruise video, I used a piece called "Modern Jazz Samba," but I didn't save the original source and I can't remember who the artist is. Once I find music I like, I just add it to the video. Enough folks are watching the videos now that I need to keep better track of sources and attributions. "The Big Puddle" video has been viewed over 1300 times! I guess potential bus destruction is a popular subject.

I try to keep an open mind about what music will fit the video, rather than fixating on a particular piece. First I finish the video so I know how long the music needs to be, then I look for, say, a four-minute clip. For the cruise, I searched for "traditional south american music" and rejected about 40 clips before choosing one.

In the future, I will try to remember to put a credit for the music at the end of each video. That's fair, and many thanks to "Happytrailers" for bringing up this subject.

Edited May 18, 2008 to add:
Recently I've been using the site MP3 4U to find cool new royalty-free music. It is sorted by genre and has a section called "Jackpot Winners" that are all quite interesting. Since I try to keep the videos under 2 minutes, I don't have to like the entire song to use it. Sometimes just the introduction is enough.

One of the things I like about this site is that the owner doesn't limit himself to the English-speaking musical world. I prefer not to have the lyrics to a song conflict with my videos, so I like pure instrumentals or foreign-language tunes.