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Starting a Music Composition business
Hey Ashtray
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hey all. A quick bit of background. I have a music degree in jazz performance, just graduated this May. I have all the tools I need to write music for most ensembles, but what I really excel at is electronic based music combined with orchestral samples. Think John Powell or basically any car chase movie (Italian Job, Gone in 60 Seconds etc.) Obviously I can write for jazz ensembles as well, but this is not really my interest.
So, I have all the tools I need right now to do this. I would like to mainly market myself towards the commercial (corporate) scene, as I've done some commercials in the past and love working on short pieces. I also want to market myself towards the documentary filmmakers. I really love writing for film, and I wouldn't turn down any project, but commercials and I guess more mainstream writing is what I'm interested in.
Check out http://www.tourisme-montreal.org/Accueil/MontrealTV : this is the type of music I am very good at writing, but I didn't do this one.
SO: If I want to take this seriously as a business, what advice do you have regarding:
Thanks, and I live in Montreal, which will make a difference, I'm sure, as it is Canada.
I obviously haven't given the details a lot of thought, and I'm not going into this without a business plan and much research, but I figured some of you would have great ideas and reality checks for me. Thank you!
So, I have all the tools I need right now to do this. I would like to mainly market myself towards the commercial (corporate) scene, as I've done some commercials in the past and love working on short pieces. I also want to market myself towards the documentary filmmakers. I really love writing for film, and I wouldn't turn down any project, but commercials and I guess more mainstream writing is what I'm interested in.
Check out http://www.tourisme-montreal.org/Accueil/MontrealTV : this is the type of music I am very good at writing, but I didn't do this one.
SO: If I want to take this seriously as a business, what advice do you have regarding:
- Website Design
- Rates to charge for composing (commissioned vs. simply using something from my portfolio)
- Rights (who owns the rights to the music, me or the client, or does it depend on the project?)
- Costs associated with running a business of this type
- Marketing/Advertising
- Anything to consider since I will be running this out of my home studio, not a seperate location.
Thanks, and I live in Montreal, which will make a difference, I'm sure, as it is Canada.
I obviously haven't given the details a lot of thought, and I'm not going into this without a business plan and much research, but I figured some of you would have great ideas and reality checks for me. Thank you!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Hey Ashtray on
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You'll also probably be facing the challenge that a lot of the smaller, freelance stuff is being outsourced right now.
Yeah, mind elaborating on this a bit more? I've heard of a few ways large companies get access to stock music, but maybe you know more about this than me.
In my mind, the website is the number one priority (aside from writing more music). I don't know if I want to skimp at all on the design. I see the website as being the main way of getting in contact with me and hearing my stuff, basically an virtual portfolio. I don't want to make the excuse 'He's the creative type', I want the site to be slick, clean, memorable and easily navigable.
So how wise do you think it is to go with a less-than-professional looking website until I can afford a better? I know that a large part of how I feel about a company/artist/freelancer has to do with the website. I get the argument that there is no point in putting out the cash until I can afford it, but what about the 'if you build it, they will come' mentality?
Thanks for your perspective, I'd love to hear your response.
The first thing I would do is look at WordPress. Go through their themes and play around with the customization you can do. You can get a good looking site that doesn't look like Blog #1328523 with a bit of tweaking.
If that doesn't work, start shopping around for web designers. The problem is that hiring a web designer is hard, time-consuming, and expensive. You need to find a guy that can take your vague ideas, turn them into a good, clean, bug-free website (likely going through multiple iterations of appearance and interface) that you can easily make changes to. It's not going to be cheap or easy.
When we last looked at bids for some multimedia stuff we needed designed, there were several Indian companies that offered the whole shebang, included music. I can't give you more specifics than that, because we decided not to pursue anything outside countries we operate in. Doing a quick google also turns up some results.
We started using WordPress, but gradually made our way to hosting our own site and having a good friend of ours do the design on it. Definitely get a website going, and then start advertising yourself on social network sites and Craigslist.
Good luck!
Weaboo List
Hey, no, the work I've done has been for friends that work in media companies. They approached me, I've never had to get my own work, and until right now I haven't been looking for it, as university was a full time job. So no worries, you won't insult me, I don't know too much about it.
Thanks all so far!
Just like in college, everything in the music world is based on personal connections. The thing you want to be focusing on, more than making a website or anything else is getting to know people. Find the people who write music for commercials and have drinks with them. Talk to them about their gigs and who they know and who to talk to. Then have drinks with those people too. Every gig I have ever played for or written for has either had someone I already know call me up because they need someone, or an email/phone call that has started "Hey, I was recommended to you by X and I need Y".
One of my friends in NYC had this simple plan: "I made the decision that if I wasn't playing piano, I needed to be talking to people who play piano". And that's how you do it. If you're not writing music for something, talk to people who may need music or who write music. That whole doing work for friends thing and having people approach you? That's always how it's going to be, you just need to be making sure that when they approach someone, they approach you.
Also, there will be some weeks where you're not working. This takes a lot of getting used to. Some weeks you'll be overloaded and scrapping sleep to finish projects and the only break you have is a 5 hour block where you're performing for whatever's paying, and then there will be weeks where there's nothing to do.
Also, your degree is performing? Get ready to perform. Get ready to perform on everything you play. And get ready to arrange and orchestrate. Get ready to do everything you're qualified to do. Hell, I've only played guitar for 4 years and last year versus 3 gigs where I needed to compose(what I theoretically actually do), 20-some gigs on piano(what I actually actually do), 1 gig as conductor/director, and 6 gigs on Guitar, and those are just the major ones.
Freelancing music is fun as all hell because once you have connections you're playing all the time, but prepare to play politics all the time, and make sure everyone likes you. Also get ready to go out to bars at exhausting frequency.
Anyway, I agree with Khavall. You need to be buddies with the people who can hire you, so for film that's going to be directors/producers/post supervisors. However if you want to do commercials you should make a kickass demo and then send it to all the jingle houses in town. Just google 'montreal jingle houses' or something. You should also keep working your friends who gave you work before since that's a huge advantage.
I'm sure you know how to make a good demo. Just write the music for a bunch of fake commercials, or pull the ads off of tv, mute the sound and rescore them.
As far as getting paid goes you're going to want to join SOCAN/SESAC which will collect your royalties. I don't know what the going rate is for tv ads but IIRC in film you would get paid an upfront fee and then earn royalties whenever the show or movie is broadcast.
I had a couple teachers who were jingle writers. They said it can be good money but there can also be a lot of BS...I head stories of things like you get the job done but then the ad exec and his six useless tagalongs have to give you their musical input, or the same job gets given to four people and they only pay for the one the client chooses.
I'm kind of in the same boat as you. I just got a jazz performance degree and I've done a few short films and want more.
And I know what type of music I'd put on a demo Cd, but here's a few more specific questions:
Thanks, I know these are probably basic questions, but hey, that's what this forum is for.
The way film demos were explained to me is this: you want to show that you can cover a bunch of different bags really well. Doing a John Powell thing is good start because that's fairly hip but maybe try to add some other styles...
As for doing music or music to picture it's your call, whatever you think you're best at. Three 30-second clips sounds a bit thin to me...whatever you include, make sure it's nice and contrasting i.e. your strongest rock bag, your strongest electronic bag, your strongest country etc (or whatever. I think the key is to not give them like eight tracks that are the same kind of vibe).
Make sure to have a nice CD/DVD package. It doesn't have to be an expensive glossy printout (although that can't hurt) but don't just scribble your name on in permanent marker. One tip I picked up is to not put it in a slimline jewel case, use a regular one and put your name on the side so that it's recognizable when on the shelf, in a stack of 300 other CDs or in a CD rack or something. You also want to label the actual disc.
I thought of a couple other things you could do:
1. If your old school has a film program you could hit them up and offer your film scoring services to interested students...you could also hit up local schools for this.
2. You could join the Guild of Canadian Film Composers which will kind of keep you in the loop and if you're not getting gigs you're at least getting the news letter.
3. If you don't mind cold-calling you could track down all the established film composers in town and ask to be their assistant/intern. Even if they aren't interested, you might get some valuable tips.