How to HIT IT BIG as a Music Composer

It’s no secret that sustaining a living in the music business is tricky business… music composer or otherwise. It’s also no secret that there is a large number of talented individuals out there – doing a quick search on the web will present you with all manner of undiscovered musical brilliance.  

Is the abundance of the musically gifted the issue? After all, there wasn’t the same level of competition when the likes of John Williams or Hans Zimmer started out… don’t get us wrong – that, of course, does not take away from the skill that these composers possess! We’re simply implying that a smaller market can be a gift in itself…  

Alas, we are where we are…so how can a music composer navigate the modern music-biz landscape to their advantage, financially? This article will attempt to break down this conundrum and propose solutions.

1. Diversify as a music composer

Tip number 1 – diversify your skills. In other words, “don’t put all your eggs in one basket”. Diversification is especially important if you have recently started your compositional pursuits and are not seeing too much growth. Yes, you may have your eye on being the world’s greatest film-score composer – but what else can you bring to the table and use to your advantage? Maybe you are an epic sound designer, producer or engineer? The more skills you can bring the more doors will open. At the beginning, it’s all about exposure and getting more eyes on you and your skills… until the point that you have so many doors open, you are able to choose which of the doors you want to walk through!

2. Get an education

This tip actually ties in with tip 1, the more strings you have to your bow, the better. It may be that you are already a fantastic action film composer, but what are your mixing skills like? The truth is, a composer needs a lot in their arsenal these days… you not only need to be able to understand some level of music theory, you need to:

• Understand orchestration;
• Understand how to write for different genres of visual media;
• Understand how to write to a brief; and,
• Be technology savvy.

The list goes on…of course, many people can pick these skills up themselves – however, structured learning with a dedicated tutor on hand to answer your questions, can often speed up your learning tenfold – i.e. it saves you having to trawl through YouTube videos in search of one particular compositional technique, etc. Having said that, the latter does save you moolah! It’s that age old, time vs money paradigm again…

Note the last highlighted point on being technology savvy – nowadays, you’ll be lucky to forge a music composing career without knowing your way around music software! 

It’s also worth mentioning that this education doesn’t need to be at traditional music institution. There are plenty of freelancers on the internet offering structured courses; we advise doing your research by way of reviews before committing to one. You also may not get a certificate to verify completion, but, to be honest, a piece of paper saying you’ve completed a course may be useful in certain industries… not really for the music business though. All that matters is how good your music is – and that leads nicely to our third tip…

3. Compare yourself to the big dogs

Be careful with this one… it’s a good idea to objectively compare your work to those who you look up to – but not in a way to dash your hopes and dreams of becoming as good as them. Comparing yourself is important as it enables you to focus on what parts of your craft you need to improve upon. Use them as reference; a source of inspiration! You also don’t want to replicate their sound, unless for the purposes of your own learning. After all, it’s very rare for composers to completely reinvent the wheel! Creatives are always borrowing ideas from each other, consciously or not. Which leads us to tip 4…

4. Experiment

“Variety is the spice of life” – William Cowper (1731-1800)

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Yes…we don’t know who William Cowper is either, but apparently he first said this proverb! Copying other composers (as per tip 3) allows you to learn certain musical techniques and ways to evoke certain emotions for a listener, but finding new innovative ways to enhance your music will make it stand out from the rest. 

Take a recipe, say, for Spanish paella… the main ingredients are rice, chorizo, vegetables, fish and saffron. The origins of paella go back over a thousand years from rice field farmers cooking their rice produce and throwing in anything else that happened to be around that was edible! (You can’t say you haven’t learnt anything reading this blog :D)

This “experimentation” with a rice base is what has made paella what it is today. The same applies to music creation – your base knowledge is the rice and the experimentation with the way you process your sounds, or the way you write melodies or rhythm – these are your extra bits and pieces you throw in to create an original dish and make your own!

5. Market yourself and build contacts

This point may be last, but is extremely important – for any business for that matter. Some say that it is almost a one-in-a-million chance of making it as a music composer; it is marketing that can greatly improve these odds (aside from having awesome music!). 

What is great music if nobody hears it?! Note, also, that marketing doesn’t always have to be to those you want direct business from – it could be a collaborator; e.g. another music composer who you could work with or become friends with who could open those doors described in tip 1! For us musicians, SoundCloud is a great resource to find like-minded collaborators – but so is our website, here at Sync Rink! You’ll find that in pretty much any career, the people at the top always say they, “wouldn’t be there if it weren’t for the team around them”. Time invested in networking can considerably speed up the time it takes you to HIT BIG. Don’t take it for granted. 

So to round up, if you believe in your ability and are willing to put in the hard graft, the odds of being a top music composer shouldn’t deter you. Just keep doing the right things: diversifying, educating yourself, benchmarking your work against your peers, experimenting and marketing yourself – and we guarantee you WILL have a better chance of beating those odds! 

P.S. Tip 5 is our “bread and butter” at syncrink.com – explore our roster of composers or become a Sync Rink subscriber to gain exposure as a composer or music producer and build those contacts!