One of the most engaging content you can use on your social media accounts are videos.  Why do they keep people engaged? Simply put, they are shiny, they have music and they are colorful! As the grown up kids as we are, videos naturally grab our attention.  Moreover we like to write comments to them, or give a little thumbs up or share it with our friends and family. Video is the ultimate way of reaching out to our fans as independent artist.

 

However, the caveat with video is that it takes take time and money to make them. While it takes time to make good videos, things are better today in the case of money. At least this was the case in the past, however today with the tools that we have we can actually create pretty cool videos for very small budget or no budget at all right now or laptops and other smartphone cameras. So this week’s blog post I would like to get into one of the coolest ways that independent musicians can market their music: lyric videos.

So here’s what you need before getting started:

• A song with lyrics

This one is a no-brainer, you need a song with lyrics to make a lyric video!

• A software to edit movies

You can use Premiere or Final Cut Pro if you have them. However, it is also easy to make good lyric videos on iMovie!

• Stock photos or videos

Pexels and Unsplash are excellent resources for stock photos and videos to incorporate into your lyric videos.

 

So, once you have all the ingredients in place, you can get started with videos. What I like to do before making a lyric video is brainstorming in the concept of the song, and try to see if anyone has any lyric videos with a similar concept. For instance, for my song “Día Libre” off my latest album “Aurora”, I wanted something relaxing and beach oriented, because the song means “Day Off” in Spanish. The whole concept of the song is about taking the day off and being at the beach after working hard all the time.  

 

To go along this concept, I started doing research on beach themed royalty free stock videos (these are free). I found a stock video of a drone shot of a girl swimming in a calm sea. But the problem was that the video was 15 seconds long, and the song is 4 minutes and 20 seconds. To resolve this issue, I decided to loop the video. The concept was hidden in the song lyrics! The lyrics talked about staying at the beach all day long, so I decided that I’m gonna play with the color of the clips. It was gonna start from dawn, then become morning, then midday, then afternoon, then dusk and then a night swim. And so that’s how I turned a 15 second clip into a 4 minute 20 second song.

 

 

I did this video in iMovie and in total took me 3-4 hours in total to make everything. One of the key points of this video was to make sure light progressed naturally, so I did research on time lapse videos on YouTube to see how the color of the sea changed during the day. The other key point was to make sure the lyrics synced up with the song, so people could follow along easily. The lyrics are in Spanish, so to make sure non-Spanish speakers can follow, I translated them to English and input them into the subtitle feature of YouTube. All in all, I think it was a nice start for my first lyric video and I can not wait to make some on my own!

So these are some of the best ways to get started to creating your music videos. Once again, I think the most important concept about having a good lyric video is to make sure you come up with an original, yet catchy concept for the viewers. If you ever get stuck with finding a concept, always look into your lyrics, the answer probably lies in there!

 

Adva Mobile is a marketing services and technology company for creative artists. Using Adva’s mobile services, you can let your fans learn about your latest creative work, run contests, take surveys, reach out to your superfans and engage with them.

 

Alper Tuzcu is a Berklee College of Music and Denison University alumni, and a Boston based guitarist, songwriter and producer. His new album ‘Aurora’ was released on October 19, 2018 and his debut eclectic album ‘Between 12 Waters’ featuring 8 different vocalists is available on Spotify. In addition to being a musician, he regularly teaches workshops and masterclasses internationally. You can follow him on Instagram or Twitter, and for more information you can visit his website www.alpertuzcu.com