Have you heard this supposedly motivational quote before: “Never be satisfied.” The idea is that if you’re satisfied, you’ll become complacent. So in order to keep improving you can never be satisfied with your output. While I get the sentiment, [ ... ]
When You Feel Like Giving Up On Music…
There’s something that often happens when you start taking music more seriously, and working towards it as a career. You begin to hate it. Okay, so “hate” might not be the right word, and by no means does this apply [ ... ]
How To Build A Horsey Horseless…Musically?
In 1899 the motor industry faced a challenge… They had this new invention that was going to change the world: the automobile. But when they released the car into the wild, panic ensued. For one, people weren’t ready to accept [ ... ]
The Paradox Of Movie Watching For Composers
I’m forever telling composers to stop listening to music. That sounds insane, I know. But here’s the thing… The primary purpose when it comes to scoring a movie is to serve the picture and the audience. How can you expect [ ... ]
Finding Filmmakers
I’m going to show you an “outside-of-the-box” place where you can meet the filmmakers you need to build relationships with as a composer. But first, a quick background story… When I started teaching about film music, students would approach me, [ ... ]
Filmmaker Relationships
Many, many, moons ago, I worked at Blockbuster Entertainment. We were a small, local store, and so our regular customers almost felt like family. When they’d visit the store, they’d not only leave with some excellent, personalised movie recommendations, but also [ ... ]
Reaching Out To Filmmakers
Outreach is about building relationships, not self-promotion. What does that mean? Imagine you were trying to begin a new friendship online. Which of these email outreach options do you think is a better way to build a friendship: a) “Hi, I’m [ ... ]
Composing Lessons… From Maple Syrup
A few years ago my family and I moved to Canada for a short period. Knowing how much maple syrup comes from Canada, I wanted to learn how it’s made. (I can’t help it, everything fascinates me!) Don’t worry, I’m [ ... ]
5 Things Holding You Back As A Composer
A few months ago I surveyed composers about what the were struggling with. Well, along with the usual suspects (“I don’t know where to find projects” / “I don’t know how to reach out to people”) I was surprised to [ ... ]
The Perfect Composer Website Layout
When I started building soundtrack.academy I realised that I needed to have a “proper” website. I thought I knew quite a lot about websites, having built a few in the past. Oh how wrong I was. Since I wanted to [ ... ]
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