Why are pseudonyms used in Library Music

[AverageLibraryMusicFan]

We all know "Eric Swan" for Roger Roger, "Ole Jensen" for Robert Farnon, "Paul Gerard" for Dennis Farnon, "Michael Reynolds" for George Chase & "Mark Winter" for John Cacavas.

Why are these pseudonyms used and what is their purpose?

[Lord Thames]

Leonard Trebilco became Trevor Duncan because he was a BBC producer and didn't want that to stop his music being played on air.

I suspect Ole Jensen came about because Chappell were recording in Denmark and wanted a Danish sounding name to disguise the fact Robert Farnon was conducting, though in later years it became a generic alias for many conductors

[radioman]

You could have multiple identities to disguise how prolific you were, thus giving yourself several chances to have your music recognised by those who had the job of chosing tracks. You might want to keep your work for one library separate from the stuff you composed for another. You might have different aliases for different genres. In some circumstances you might be trying to fool the taxman. Could be one of many other reasons.

[stackjackson]

You might have different aliases for different genres.

This was the main reason Gerhard Narholz used so many different aliases, as he states in that recent interview.

But I suspect the most popular reason might have been this ...

... trying to fool the taxman.

[Psyclon]

That is absolutely correct.

IIRC "Otto Sieben" was always orchestralic music (or 50s Kitsch et cetera) while "Tony Tape" had lots of "90s cool" music with electronic sound and hefty slap bass and "Walt Rockman" used to have stompy 80s music.

I was... well, very annoyed when I saw that it's all the same person, but I started to appreciate and understand it more and more.

[kpmhill]

This was the main reason Gerhard Narholz used so many different aliases, as he states in that recent interview.

Gerhard Narholz/"Otto Sieben":

[WSBG Returns Yet Again!]

Dennis Berry is another example of someone using an alias for a reason. He used Peter Dennis as an alias for his solo-composed library tracks to avoid favoritism in his library music output.