SCOREcast 31: Total Request (Sorta) LIVE!
In our first Q&A episode, we open up Twitter, Facebook, and a hangout on Google+ to hear what’s on your mind about writing, producing, “politiking”, and navigating the business.
Read More →Is “Score Design” Dead?
Composers LOVE to say that they use all of their own sounds. We call B.S.!
Read More →To Be Busy or To Not Be Busy
Being busy creates demand for your work. As humans, we subconsciously see what everyone else is getting and we want that, too. Ultimately, you want to create demand for yourself and your music, and perhaps the simple act of being a busy composer, regardless of what you are busy with… will do that for you. Or will it?
Read More →Ryan Leach: Long Distance Scoring
Today’s technology has made it possible to score a project with anyone no matter where they’re located. However, long distance scoring does come with plenty of challenges.
Read More →Thoughts On Assisting Composers: Part II
Last time, in this space, I walked you through some of the scenarios I’ve seen as a composer’s assistant, and how I’ve either learned from them or eschewed them as personal practices in my own career. Let’s look at a few more, these ones having to do more with money and time. Budgeting It seems [...]
Read More →Life-Changing Charts
This is one of those months where I want to write another novel-length column (hot on the heels of last week’s Weekend Provocation, which was, how you say, loooooong). September’s theme of scheduling and budgeting is that crucial. It’s that fundamental. I’ll try to help you stay on schedule, though, by keeping my focus limited. [...]
Read More →Productive Time Management
Its late on Tuesday night, and you’ve forgot to buy the groceries that day. The kitchen cupboards are bare, so there’s nothing to be cooked. Your stomach growls at you in hunger, screaming “feed me” and you reluctantly decide that Turkish Kebab place down the road is your only option at this point. You return [...]
Read More →Music, Time & Money
Here’s your novel-length (but, I hope, exceedingly valuable!) provocation for the weekend… more of a self-assessment question, really: What does it cost you—in time and money—to write one minute of music? It’s an important thing to know, agreed? If, at the very least, we’re looking to break even (i.e., not have to pay for the [...]
Read More →James Olszewski: Good, Fast, Cheap: Pick Two
One of the common conversations around the office in my day job revolves around the phrase “Good, Fast, and Cheap: Pick Two”. This is a classic project management conundrum that plagues stakeholders in all industries. The idea behind it is: You can have a high quality product quickly, but it will be expensive. You can [...]
Read More →Houston Haynes: Personal Scheduling In an Online, Mobile World – Chime In!
Like so many jobs in the entertainment biz, this career demands an ever-increasing level of technical savoir faire. And yet so many composers have blind spots when it comes to leveraging technology to keep their work schedule on track. We’re often housed in a facility full of computers, with a cell phone strapped to our [...]
Read More →No Money, No Time
Happy weekend, everyone—and for our United States readers, Happy Labor Day. Hope you’re laboring on something inspiring and energizing. In the true spirit of WP, it’s time to take some potshots at this month’s theme. Provocation: Composers should work without schedules and/or budgets. …obvious, right? Turning the whole thing on its head and seeing what shakes [...]
Read More →Thoughts On Assisting Composers: Part I
Tomorrow, I start my final year at USC. Because of that, today is my last day of full-time work at my current place of employment, Deane Ogden Music. This has easily been the best job I’ve had since moving to Los Angeles in 2004 and I will miss it greatly. Deane has generously taught me [...]
Read More →Translator
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