K.I.S.S. with Royalty Free Music

Why Simple Music Often Works Best

Everyone is familiar with the Keep It Simple, Stupid acronym. And oftentimes, this is the exact motto we at CSS Music adhere to when creating a new music track. While the composer may want to show off his/her years of experience with a complex composition, there’s an art to making music that is very simple, lightly orchestrated and will work beautifully with a scene weighed down with dialog, B roll sound effects or lots of edits.

To best illustrate this, we’ll look at a few CSS Music tracks that embrace the K.I.S.S. principal. For example, “Red Rhino” (Super Themes 74) consists of a techno-electro groove comprised of four-on-the-floor kick, a light sequenced melody and unobtrusive bass. There are also sections where the music “breaks down” to give you areas that easily loop. Or when you want more of a rural feeling, “Billy Bob Bayou” (Target Trax 65) offers a laid back Country-swamp feel with an acoustic guitar and simple dobro licks. If you need something more Alt-Folk with Pop crossover appeal, “Happy Simple Breezy” (Project Platinum 18) gives you a child-like track with acoustic guitar, bells and banjo. There are also a couple special cues and a no melody mix with this track. If your scene calls for a darker, more wistful mood, “The Early Years” (Super Themes 31) delivers a thoughtful, introspective—and simple—acoustic guitar based track with lots of emotion.

If you’d like to audition these simpler pieces of music, simply type in “simple” in our Build-A-Search by Keyword window. You’ll find an excellent selection of understated compositions that show off the CSS Music composers’ diverse ability to write simple, effective and highly usable music.