I always like to have a good selection of background music for presentation videos, especially when I’m doing slideshow presentations. Having a free music library to go to and download some nice instrumental music makes my video production a lot easier.
A nice instrumental piece in the background just makes for a more professional video, in my opinion.
What Type of Music Files Should You Use?
It really depends on the type of video presentation you’re creating. If you’re doing a really short video, less than two minutes for example, you can download some royalty free music clips that are just a few seconds each, splice them together and change the music every couple of slides.
Or you can download longer music files and edit them to your preferred length.
What Style or Genre Music is Best?
Again, it depends on the type of video you’re creating. Here are a couple of examples:
I did a couple of videos about funerals and memorial services, so I found a couple of Easy Listening background music selections for those. I didn’t want the music to be so slow and droning that it would make people cry, but I didn’t want it to be really upbeat or happy either.
When I produced my slideshow videos about weddings, I used pieces that were upbeat but not funny-type clips.
How to Know What’s Best?
The best thing to do is experiment. If you’re using software like Windows Live Movie Maker or an equivalent, add your slides and background music to the program and see how the material and music fit together.
Sometimes you may need a couple of different clips depending on the length and subject of your presentations.
Here’s a tip: Watch some commercials or videos on YouTube that use background music to get an idea of how the music makes the presentation better. Once you’ve got a feel for how to use music to enhance your videos, you should be able to find something that fits perfectly with your video.
When to Use Background Music for Presentation Videos
Personally, I rarely put music to instructional videos, like if I’m doing a screencast tutorial. And I rarely add music to videos where it’s just me on the camera talking about a subject.
PowerPoint slideshow videos are the best types of presentations to add instrumental background music to. And you should stay away from pieces that include vocals because voices singing in the background may interfere or disrupt the video itself.
But pure instrumentals enhance your presentations and give them a more professional quality.
Be Careful With Background Music Volume
If you’re using voice narration, or voiceovers, in your presentation, you don’t want the music to overpower the vocals. You can use tools like Audacity to lower the volume of the instrumentals so they’re behind the vocal narration and not drowning it out.
I’ve watched several videos where the music almost drowned out the person who was speaking, and believe me, it’s pretty annoying. In fact, some visitors left comments below the video saying the music was too loud.
Where to Find Royalty Free Background Music
My all-time favorite go-to site is Kevin MacLeod’s site at incompetech.com. I’ve always been able to find everything I need here, from any genre, any mood, any instrument to fit every video presentation I’ve done.
If you use Kevin’s royalty free background music, be sure to credit the piece either in the video description box or preferably, in a closing slide so it’s visible regardless of who else may download it or embed it into their own blogs.
This is the proper credit to give, and you should use this format for any musical background pieces you use:
Background music:
“Title of the Music Piece”
Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/