YouTube now outranks traditional television for children’s viewing, and there are thousands of kid-friendly channels on the platform. If you are serious concerning producing excellent content for kids on YouTube, royalty free background music plays a fundamental role. It’ll increase your production values, keep children watching, and cover any editing gaps in your video. Background music for kids’ video content might be the missing piece of the puzzle you need to make your video go from being so sensational.
You might be thinking, don’t I have enough to worry regarding making content? How important can the background music be, really? Think back to your own childhood for a second, and you’ll see how powerful background music can be. Bugs Bunny without the classical music and loony sound effects? No. Can you imagine Blue’s Clues without musical flourishes and larger-than-life sound effects? Of course not. Background music is necessary for great kids’ content.
Children Relate to Music
While all humans respond to music, children are incredibly open to it. Anyone that has watched Sesame Street, seen a child memorize a Disney movie, or had a ditty from Schoolhouse Rock embedded in their brain from many years knows it’s true, and research supports it. There are so many advantages of music for kids (and adults), including:
Improvement of mood and ability to focus
Memorization of facts
Increase of language development
Reduction of anxiety
Improvement of mood and ability to focus
Increase of attention span
Reduction of impulsive behavior
Even if your YouTube content doesn’t involve using songs to teach kids facts, background music will enhance your videos.
Why Should Music Be Part of My Content?
There are many advantages to adding royalty free background music for kids’ YouTube content (or any content, really). Light music for kids pulls your video all along while emphasizing the mood for the piece. Kids respond to upbeat, cheerful music, and the best background music keeps viewers interested and evokes emotions.
Setting the tone: what’s the aim of your content?
Background music is a strong tool that goes almost unnoticed — unless it isn’t there. Think of watching a horror movie without dark, eerie music underneath or an action movie without a dramatic, soaring score to create energy and excitement.
You probably don’t want dark and eerie music for children’s content, however using music to feature an element of upbeat excitement or signal that the day is slowing down to a clear conclusion is a fantastic tool in any YouTube content geared to kids. Whether it’s lively, dramatic, or subtle, your selection of music enhances the viewing experience and brings your message to kids in a way they’ll love.
Kids have a short attention span
Children have never been considered very focused, but the constant availability of media has heightened the problem. Kids will click away the moment they view your content as dull. Your content should be top-quality to keep viewers coming back for more, and background music is one way to keep kids watching. Silly sound effects highlight jokes and antics, buoyant tunes build them, and repeated tracks can signal beloved characters are about to appear. Use royalty free background music to boost exciting content, and kids will clamor for more.
Music makes your content professional
There is a lot of competition for YouTube views, and production value should never be underestimated, even for kids’ content. Music smooths transitions and avoids awkward silences that make your content look amateurish.
Remember, background music is just that: in the background. It enhances your video, keeping viewers engaged and less likely to click away. Mastering the art of background music levels up your content and makes your videos dynamic.
How to Choose Royalty Free Background Music for Kids’ Videos
Choosing right royalty free background music for your video content comes right down to several artistic choices, but there are a few key points to consider:
Don’t use tracks with vocals where there is narration; stick with instrumentals
The music should complement the video, not overshadow it
Match the mood of the music to your content; remember, it’s a tool to evoke emotions
Be sure that your viewers can hear all dialogue over the background tracks — avoid sudden spikes of volume or pace changes that don’t fit.
Repeating tracks
Some background music for children’s content should be repetitive because kids like routines. If you have got same theme in the background or dizzy sound effects when a particular character appears, that’s good. You can keep the same energy throughout your video while using completely different music to keep the mood varied. At Beatoven, we tend to organize music in collections to make it easy to form the right tunes for your video.
Choosing the right genre of royalty free music, comes down to personal choices, but you must take tempo into consideration, which instruments are used, whether or not you want vocals, and the mood you want for particular sections in your content. You wouldn’t wish to use a loud, heavy beat if your video was supposed to be a soothing nighttime show before bedtime or use ukulele music if your characters were building a snowman. The royalty free background music should blend seamlessly along with your content and smooth transitions but not overshadow it.
When to use lyrics
Music with lyrics could add dramatic flair and advance your story but should never overshadow your content. Lyrics can distract viewers from your message and even from the audio track. Editing lyrics into narration is a daunting job and will make your video edits sophisticated, so we recommend limiting lyrics to parts of your content with no speaking track.
Fade songs for the best effect
While you might choose to align the beginning of your video with the beginning of your selected audio track, don’t feel it’s a must. Complementing the flow of the video is more important, so if the song starts softly and you are looking for an immediate bouncy tune, it’s okay to skip to the part you want. Also, should keep in mind that background music should not cut off abruptly unless there is a reason for it. You might choose to play with the timing to finish the video when the song ends or fade the music any time you need to.
Sound effects add to the fun
Kids love sound effects. They’re a great way to add on fantasy and make your viewers laugh. A character performing magic might have a drumroll, cheering accompanying the trick, or a classic ta-da! A bunny hopping down a path is way cuter with a bouncy sound to accompany him. Then there are everyday effects used in your stories, such as a phone ringing, crickets chirping at night, or a whistling tea kettle to consider. There is no limit to royalty free sound effects kids’ content possibly use, so start brainstorming ways to increase your story with sound.
