Tips To Get The Most Of A Remote Recording Session.
Check out this blog post I wrote for Film Scoring Tips offering some advice on preparing for remote recording sessions.
The Blog
Showing Up Makes the Impossible Possible
I have a confession to make. I’m an introvert and would probably never leave the house if I didn’t have to. Going to parties and big events takes a lot out of me. It requires mental preparation before, and some ‘me time’ after. But over the years I’ve learned to get better at hiding my discomfort and how to act like I enjoy these things – to the point where I can actually enjoy them.
5 Lessons I Learned by Interviewing Realtors That Parallel Our Own Profession
1. Personal recommendations go a long way, but don’t guarantee you’ll get hired. 2. A strong resume/track record is important and may get you in the door but it’s not enough to get the gig. 3. You don’t need to have the shiniest, glitziest, fanciest presentation. Clean and simple works just as well as long as the content is great and well presented…
10 Tips for Men Who Want to Support their Female Colleagues at Networking Events
I recently attended the Emmy music branch networking event, honoring the nominees with a composer friend who happens to be a woman. She noticed that often she is ignored during conversations or not taken seriously as a composer while the men were. This bothered me and so I reached out to her and together we came up with these 10 tips.
Dealing with Rejection
I recently encountered three separate cases of young composers dealing with rejection/criticism quite badly (in my humble opinion) and thought I’d share some thoughts on the issue of dealing with disappointment.
Just Because You Can Doesn’t Mean You Should
When working with directors, it’s not at all uncommon to get a very specific request regarding music like “can you just mute the trumpets” in a specific spot. Often the answer is yes, I can. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that doing so is what the director really wants, nor is it what we should do…
How to Approach Scoring a Horrible Project
It’s Halloween so I thought I’d have some fun and discuss a horrific topic we all deal with, especially early in our careers. How to score a horrible movie & deal with horrible situations…
Quick Tip: When to Address Changes Using Audio Instead of MIDI
It’s not uncommon to get last minute change requests when working on a score. Often these last minute changes come after you’ve already printed your audio stems. I found that some composers, especially young composers have a tendency to go back to the MIDI, do a rewrite and then re-print the audio. There’s nothing wrong with doing that, but it’s quite time consuming and often isn’t necessary…
Forest Man
I saw a short documentary about a man they call Forest Man, who lives in a remote part of India, where he has been planting trees since the 1970s on the island of Majuli. The island loses land to erosion from annual river flooding and has been a barren wasteland. Yet through this man’s individual efforts, the island now has a forest larger than New York’s Central park!…
Quick Tip: Start Your Music at Bar 5
When writing music it seems perfectly natural to start at bar 1. But when writing music to picture, I prefer to have 4 empty bars at the beginning and start the music at bar 5 for a few reasons…
Quick Tip: Layering Existing Sounds to Create New Ones
Here’s what I do to quickly create unique sounds…
How to Talk About Music With Directors & Producers
Many directors and producers who work with me explain that they don’t really know music that well and that they struggle to discuss it. Some feel intimidated by it because they feel they don’t know musical terminology. Or worse, some know a little bit of music terminology, sometimes not really understanding the correct meaning of what they’re saying and misuse it…