Do you need background music for your presentation videos?

I always like to have a good selection of background music for my presentation videos, especially when making slideshows. Having a free music library to go to and download great instrumental music makes my video production so much easier.

A good background instrumental piece just makes for a more professional video, in my opinion.

What kind of music files should I use?

It really depends on the type of video presentation you are creating. If you’re making a really short video, less than two minutes for example, you can download a few royalty-free music clips of just a few seconds each, stitch them together, and change the music every other slide.

Or you can download longer music files and edit them to your preferred length.

What style or genre of music is better?

Again, it depends on the type of video you are creating. Here are a couple of examples:

I did a couple of videos on 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 monotonous that it made people cry, but I also didn’t want it to be really upbeat or happy.

When I produced my wedding slideshow videos, I used pieces that were lighthearted but not funny clips.

How to know what is the best?

The best thing to do is experiment. If you are 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 music enhances the presentation. Once you have an idea of ​​how to use music to enhance your videos, you should be able to find something that fits your video perfectly.

When to use background music for presentation videos

Personally, I rarely put music to instructional videos, like I’m doing a screencast tutorial. And I rarely add music to videos where it’s just me on camera talking about a topic.

PowerPoint slideshow videos are the best types of presentations to add instrumental background music. And you should stay away from pieces that include voices because voices singing in the background can interfere or interrupt the video itself.

But pure instrumentals enhance your performances and give them a more professional quality.

Be careful with the volume of background music

If you are using voice narration, or voice-overs, in your presentation, you don’t want the music to dominate the voices. You can use tools like Audacity to lower the volume of the instrumentals so they are behind the vocal narration and not drowning it out.

I’ve seen several videos where the music almost drowned out the person who was speaking, and trust me, it’s pretty annoying. In fact, some visitors left comments below the video saying that the music was too loud.

Where to find royalty-free background music

My all-time favorite site is Kevin MacLeod’s site at incompetech.com. I have always been able to find everything I need here, of any genre, any mood, any instrument to suit every video presentation that I have done.

If you’re using Kevin’s royalty-free background music, be sure to credit the piece in the video description box or preferably on a closing slide so it’s viewable regardless of who else can download or embed it on their own blogs.

This is the proper credit to give, and you should use this format for whatever background music you use:


Background music:

“Title of the musical piece”

Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

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