Hummingbird Music, set to disrupt the music production industry

Hummingbird Music is set to disrupt the production and library music model with their non-exclusive search, sync and licensing service.  

Launched in June, Hummingbird Music is a way for advertisers, brands, and film and program makers to discover affordable music. The company has departed from the traditional music library model by offering non-exclusivity agreements to composers and artists, enabling them to retain control of the music they create. As a result, Hummingbird is able to attract quality content that cannot be found in existing music libraries, and offer it at an affordable price.

A testament to the quality of the artists they sign, last week BBC Radio 6 DJ Steve Lamacq added The Helmholtz Resonators’ ‘Shake The Vessel’ to his New Music Playlist and played another of their tracks, ‘Sunshine’, on his show. Both tracks, which featured on the show between rock superstars Faith No More and the legendary singer-songwriter Nick Drake, are part of Hummingbird Music’s extensive catalogue of pre-cleared, quality music.

Steve Lamacq playing a track from the Hummingbird Music service proves that we possess a quality offering. It’s important to realise that the music we have is of an exceptional standard; it’s real music by real artists.

Nick Payne

Founder Hummingbird

Hummingbird Music attracts previously unavailable music by offering a better alternative to creative artists that the traditional exclusive arrangement. By signing up to the company’s non-exclusive licensing model, artists remain in creative control of their work and are free to do whatever they want with their music until a license request is received.

Like all artists on Hummingbird’s roster, The Helmholtz Resonators are a professional, gigging band whose tracks are also available on iTunes, Spotify and a host of other music streaming platforms. It would take 303,649 plays on Spotify for one of their tracks to generate the same amount of revenue as a basic advertising license through Hummingbird Music, while securing a global license equates to more than 3,000,000 Spotify plays.

Over the years you create a lot of original music as an artist. Sometimes it goes into a band, sometimes it goes into a project and sometimes it just doesn’t quite fit anywhere. As a lone artist you can’t work on properly promoting or using everything you do, so sometimes you have to sign away a lot of stuff to bad deals with people who don’t know how to work the music either. Hummingbird is a refreshing new approach to providing a place for all your great music, putting it in front of the right people who will use it. The non-exclusive element means that you have the freedom over your music too, which is a real positive.

Dave Lightfoot

Helmholtz Resonators

The service already boasts an impressive, ever-expanding collection of over 50 artists and thousands of tracks. Artists who haven’t been sourced by Hummingbird’s expert ears are able to submit tracks for consideration themselves and the approval process ensures that the service retains a carefully curated, high-quality selection of tracks that cater to every musical genre.

Nick Payne added that the service is “packed with integrity” and, while the prices are better than that of music libraries, the quality is higher.

Not only does Hummingbird’s service provide advertisers with pre-cleared music at affordable rates, and allow artists the opportunity to retain creative control of their work, the company also donates 10% of every license fee to the music therapy charity Nordoff Robbins.