“I think people just kind of were, like, ‘Oh, hi,’ you know. They were supportive, they were nice, and, you know, they could tell I was a kid who had no idea what I was doing but was obviously passionate about music. I do remember one guy, though, telling me to make sure I went to college for something other than music and, at the time, I was like, ‘Okay, I’ll consider that.’ But he was really telling me, like, ‘I don’t know if you have what it takes.’ But I didn’t follow his advice. I ended up going to school for music, which I still am trying to figure out was a good or bad decision.” – Nismah Osman

This episode’s guest is a songwriter, producer, vocalist, entrepreneur, feminist, and more. She’s been writing and producing songs for herself and other artists since 2005. She stumbled into the world of selling her music for film and television in 2011 and has since cracked the code on how to fund your passion for music. Her music has been featured in such series as Love is Blind, Dancing with the Stars, and Temptation Island. Some of her other wins include a degree from Berklee, songwriting and production credits on hundreds of songs, and a chance to learn from songwriting legend Kara DioGuardi, and she runs a vacation rental business on the Jersey shore as a side hustle.

Her name is Nismah Osman, and she has a lot to share about how to make a living from making music these days. The industry’s certainly changed from even just five years ago. If you want to hear how Nismah does it, and how she’s helping other artists do the same, keep listening!

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(0:00:00) - Journey From Songwriting to Music Career

We start things off with a look back at Nismah’s early memories of sound, and how a songwriting convention in her small town led to her very first sync licensing gig. “Obviously I was the youngest person in the room,” she recalls, “and I had no idea what I was doing. But I showed up with my little you know CD, you know, demos that I burned the night before.” She tells us about some of the encouragement, and the warnings, she got from older musicians, and a chance meeting at the next year’s convention that, at age thirteen, became her first music deal. “To this day, I get royalty checks for that song,” she says. “So that was like the first taste of like, ‘Okay, I can actually do this.’”

(0:12:18) - Navigating Sync Licensing and Musical Opportunities

Nismah explains what sync licensing means, and the opportunities it presents for musicians. “The very short version of it,” she says, “is the music you hear in TV shows, movies, ads, et cetera. And there’s obviously a whole semi-complicated process for how you go about getting your music in those opportunities and on those platforms.” She talks more about that process and how a newcomer to sync might get started. “You proactively write music for these opportunities,” she tells us, “based on a set of criteria that generally work, and then you submit that music to, in the industry, they’re called music licensing agencies, and then those agencies receive opportunities from music supervisors.”

(0:18:24) - The Role of AI in Music

We discuss AI’s role in creating sync music and Nismah’s thoughts on whether it might someday replace human musicians. “I think, overall,” she says, “there’s a couple different pieces to the conversation. The first is that we’ve been using AI in music forever already.” She tells us how AI fits into her recording and editing routine, and the limitations of purely AI-generated compositions. “I think we’re a long way away from that,” she explains, “and the AI tools we have today, I just don’t think you’re gonna get the same level of context that a real human being can bring to the table.”

Episode Summary

• Nismah’s journey from a high-school talent show to Berklee College of Music.
• The basics of sync licensing and a behind-the-scenes look at TV and film scoring.
• AI’s impact on music production and what it might mean for composers.

Be sure to tune in for part two of my conversation with Nismah as she tells us more about her experience with streaming platforms, how the pandemic opened her eyes to the opportunities that a career in sound can provide, and the first steps she suggests for getting into sync licensing.

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