Challenges associated with composing soundtracks professionally
If you want to take on jobs composing music for clients, there is a list of challenges that you'll need to deal with. From day one, you're expected to:
- Know how to find composing jobs. Such jobs aren't usually listed like traditional jobs.
- Once you identify a potential gig, you need to know how to market and sell yourself to clients to gain work.
- You need to know how to use a wide array of music production software. Music software has undergone a revolution in the last few decades as music production has become significantly less hardware-focused and much more software-driven. The software landscape is constantly changing as new features and plugins appear monthly.
- You need to understand enough music theory to evaluate songs so that you can go and create similar scores to existing music as needed. You need to understand how to craft music to fit desired styles and moods.
- You need the ability to consistently generate production-ready music. You need to have an understanding of composing, recording, mixing, mastering, and how all of this relates to your client's project.
- If composing for game development, you may need to understand the intricacies of adapting music to video game environments.
Whew! That sounds like a lot of stuff to learn. You may feel a little overwhelmed in the beginning, and that's only natural. This book will help you navigate all these challenges. By the time you're done, you'll have a solid introduction to the tools and techniques to do all the above and much more.
