We spend hours, sometimes days or even longer creating music. Whether it’s writing a new cue for a film or TV show, a concert work or cutting a temp, we pour our heart & soul into the work. Often we consider our works like our children, we give birth to them.
That passion is essential if you want to be great at what you do. Without it you’ll never make something truly spectacular. But sometimes an idea just isn’t working, or isn’t well received by the client and it’s hard to let go.
Early in my career, if I created something that I thought was great, I found it very difficult to accept when others didn’t like it. I would take it personally and allow my feelings to be hurt. I would take their notes and try to somehow make that idea work no matter what. I’d keep working it and tweaking it not wanting to abandon the idea because I loved it, I was so emotionally attached to it. It didn’t even cross my mind to let it go and do something else instead.
I remember years ago I worked on a particular film where they made the mistake of hiring a band that appeared on camera in one scene to score the film. Someone thought it was a cool idea. In reality, the band created just a handful of tracks, none of them to picture and the lead music editor and I were expected to somehow re-work this handful of tracks into a complete score. I spent the better part of a day cutting 3-minute scene. I turned one of the tracks into a 5/8 feel. I used stems to introduce hits, I even augmented it with some new tracks of my own, and it was super-cool. The lead editor was beyond impressed, the music executives thought I was a magician; everyone was so excited about it and was anxious to see what the director would think. He came in, watched it once and said just one devastating word “no!” I pressed him on what does he mean by “no” and he simply said, “I hate it” and walked out of the room. I was so angry and deflated and frustrated that I had to go for a walk around the studio lot just to calm myself down. When I came back the lead editor told me again how impressed he was, but now I needed to go back and do something that’s just as cool and amazing but very different to try and appease the director.
I went back and instead of starting over I just tried to re-work what I had already done and tweak it and somehow make it different without losing the essence of it. Every time I’d call the lead editor to look at a new version his response was the same – it’s still basically the same. You need to change it. I had such a hard time letting go that finally he assigned me a different cue to work on and he did something for that scene himself. By all accounts, including his own admission, his version wasn’t as innovative or cool or good as mine, but it did the job, the director approved it and that’s all that mattered. It was a very hard-learned lesson.
Sometimes you can make adjustments and make it work. But sometimes you’re just trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, and it’s important to be able to recognize that. There are times where you could write the coolest cue of your life, it’s awesome, it’s Oscar worthy, it’s the most unique and original thing ever, it’s truly amazing. But the client just doesn’t like it. How can anyone not love it? Yet here you are and the client didn’t respond to it as you’d hoped. In that case, no matter what you do to the cue, it’ll never appease the client and the right thing to do is let it go and start anew.
Don’t be so attached to what you’re doing that you can’t let it go and do something else instead. Don’t ignore the possibility that maybe it’s better to start over and do something else than to keep trying to make something work that isn’t. Again, it may be a really cool piece, but in the context of your current situation it it’s the wrong piece. It’s not working for the client and at the end of the day that’s what matters. So just because you spent a long time making it doesn’t mean you should hang on to it.
Actually this is true not just in music, but also in life. If you’ve set yourself down a path and it isn’t working, it’s important to step back and assess the situation. Sometimes we just made a mistake and went down the wrong path. Sometimes we spent a lot of time and effort, invested financially and emotionally but it was the wrong path. It was a mistake. There’s a tendency to keep going down that path because you’ve put so much into it. But it takes real strength and maturity to realize it’s a mistake, let go and blaze a new trail. And it can feel like a failure when what we created didn’t work or wasn’t well received.
Don’t view it as failing or giving up. Quite the contrary, continuing down an errant path is detrimental to your career and will not lead you to where you want to go. Learn from your mistakes, analyze where you took the wrong turn, go back and head down a new path. Whether it’s a life decision or just a new creative direction for a cue or song or concert piece, if it’s not working consider whether you’re on the wrong path and if it’s simply time to let go.
The older and more experience I get, the easier this is for me to recognize in myself. And when it comes to music, here’s a good exercise that can help. It’s a little extreme, but I know other composers who do this and I’ve done it myself. Every once in a while go back to an old cue that you once created and really like but didn’t make it into the final product. Make sure it’s a cue you truly enjoyed making and are fond of and just trash the file! Get rid of it! Throw it away! Gone forever! Sounds scary, I know. And it’s not for everyone, so if you don’t think you can do it, maybe it’s not for you. But I found that it’s a great exercise in letting go and has really helped me learn not to get too attached to my work when creating music for others.
By the way, if you love that cue enough, and it’s really good, it’ll stay with you and you can go back and rewrite it later. I had a cue like that, which I wrote on spec based on a script. I loved it, but I never got the gig, and I decided to just let it go and throw it away. But the melody never left me and years later I went back to it and re-wrote it as a solo piano piece, which I recorded for my album Musical Fantasy.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.