On YouTube's Free Music Synchronicity

One of my side projects in 2015 has been converting my grandpa’s old analog home movies to digital and uploading them to YouTube for all the family (and world) to view at their own leisure. Much of his 8mm footage is silent, and for the most part I’ve just been leaving it silent when I upload the clips. But, one one recent reel labeled “Springs and Storms” contained some moving footage that I felt needed a soundtrack for maximum effect.

Just for those who have never uploaded to YouTube, when you do so you have the option of mixing in some music from a library of free to use music. I perused the library for a while and ended up finding a track that I felt enhanced the home movie. I also took notice how often many of the beats in the track happened to align with start and stops in the unedited footage. Take a peek. And yes, teh soundtrack doesn’t kick in until about thirty seconds in. So don’t crack your speakers thinking they are muted.

While that video has some alright synchronicity, the video I put together a few weeks ago really nailed it. I was playing around with the interval feature on my Fuji X-E2 to create a time lapse. Nothing artistic, just short a scene out of a window ask dusk approached. However, once I uploaded the video and started looking for music to plop over it, I quickly hit on one that feels like it was scored specifically for the time-lapse video. Watch.

And that is my rambling about synchronicity.