So You Wanna be a Music Supervisor?

I got an email this morning from Film Music Magazine, with an advertisement to learn music supervision & licensing through the ‘Music Business Institute’.

I have no idea whether this is the first of it’s kind – but it’s a beautiful example of the world we now live in – a world run by music licensing.

This world is very competitive too. Everyone is a composer now, vying for a piece of the same pie. Resources are scarce, and they grab for every bit of work we can lay our hands on.

So I’m not surprised that there are courses for music supervision & music licensing. A composer might even get lucky and land a job actually working in music supervision too… but that brings me to a moral dilemma I have…

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Music in, music out.

When I listened to some CD by a guy named John Williams all those years ago, I didn’t expect to end up here. Really, I’m not sure where here is, but it’s here. Right here, in the Biological Sciences library, studying to become a scientist at the University of Queensland.

That CD I bought off my friend Aaron all those years ago was Star Wars: Episode IV. I memorised the entire two-disc set, and can still hum the whole thing off by heart (noone ever asks me to do it at parties, for some strange reason). That sent me on a huge whirlwind musical excursion, that made me obsessed with all things MIDI and film, and all I wanted to be when I grew up was a film composer. It has seen me to LA and back, and has seen my music used in all sorts of things; from games to feature films, to film trailers and TV advertising.

With the success I’ve had, and the skill’s I’ve acquired, you’d think I’d be pretty determined to continue… to get my name in lights, so to speak.

But no. Music as a job is fraught with danger, my friends; amongst a multitude, the danger of hating music. With a fiery passion.

I was at that point for a while – I couldn’t touch a keyboard without hating what came out. Something like that makes you really think about the reasons why you get involved with music… why you put yourself through the pain of trying to be creative if you hate what you are creating.

So, here I am, typing at the library at uni, studying to become a scientist. No more pressure to write music I hate, or even to write at all.

But I’ve gotta tell ya – I haven’t hated what I’ve been creating lately…

-s

Q. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? ARE YOU STILL GONNA WRITE MUSIC?

A. Hell yes! This time around though, I’m hoping to make all my music accessible to indy film and game makers – my aim is to make a sort of free production music library for use in non-commercial productions. I want my music used – and I don’t really care by whom or in what, as long as I know about it. I’ve gotta write about something on this site, don’t I?

Stay tuned for some new music coming soon. Quite alot of it, actually…

-s

Quick Guide to Writing Music for Film

There are alot of people out there who write music for films and games. But there is a reason for it – it’s fun! Short of giving away trade secrets, I’ll give you a few pointers on what to look out for when writing your next cue for that amazing feature film you’re working on…

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