Let’s Play Audio is a new series of tutorials. Basically nothing changes really, but I will post all upcoming tutorials regarding little tricks, hints and tips under this series. Hope you enjoy it … and stay tuned for much more

Check out this – almost an hour long – walkthrough of my official demo “Alien Abduction Dreams” for ProjectSAM’s new sample library “Orchestral Essentials”.

Being a good composer is by far not enough anymore today. You can be as good as all famous composers from the last 50 years combined – it is worth nothing as long as you are not able to reach the right ears.
With this article I am just sharing some personal experiences, impressions and hints of which I think are important to be aware of!
Also please note that this article is taking care of the business site of your life … so we are definitely not heading for food pics!

Don’t be shy, but don’t tend to drop your pants!
Once you took a few minutes and roamed through all the major social network profiles, you notice how many famous producers, composers, bands and media people are really on there. It is definitely a LOT!
I would go that far and say that almost everyone who works in the industry got a profile going … and here we go, don’t be shy. Add those people to your network. Everytime I told people that I added composer X or producer Y on a social profile, they were kinda astonished and said something like: “You really added this guy on Facebook?” I always wondered what is so astonishing about that. I mean if those guys wouldn’t like to connect with people, they ever wouldn’t accept a “friendship” … and besides that, what should happen? If someone don’t wants to be your “friend” then it is still up to that person to ignore you, right?
In the end, you just have to see the advantage. See it as the butterfly theory, but definitely without being a theory on social media. One add might change your life and I am sure that a lot of people are out there to meet new people!

As you could see, I was writing words as friend and friendship in quotation marks. We hopefully all know what real friends are, right? Anyway, I will go into this a bit later when it comes to respect of that possibly famous person you added.

Post regularly, but don’t cause server overflow!
As it is in real life, it is also the case with social media sites. Once you disappear or tend to stay in the background, you more and more become the little grain of sand on the beach. Being a self employed composer the most important thing is to always be present and “there”. The music business is really a tough one and once you stop crawling against this stream, you will most likely drown, only to be forgotten.
To prevent this, try to post updates regulary. Always be aware that you have to have agreement to post about a project – otherwise you can get it heavy trouble. Once stuff is cleared out, post about what you are doing, what you are working on, what will be announced soon and so on. Also don’t hesitate to tease a bit. There is nothing wrong with a little bit of a dramatic “tomorrow, some huge announcement, stay tuned” update. One post a day or every two regarding your music is a good number to follow. However, I have seen really worse updates where one guy teased around, starting from a week back to countdown to a few seconds before. The following posted piece of music which he had written (for no special project) was so drastically reduced because of the enormous hype, that people started to ask, what the fuzz was all about.
But anyway, in case you don’t have anything sensemaking to update, be aware that you can always point to your demoreel. It is no mistake to post your demo reel on a regular basis. I would say that once every two or four weeks is definitely not a bad thing to do. People live in different timezones, while also the visiting time of your “friends” might differ and I also experienced that people showed even more interest in an update which I posted again a few hours later from the inital one. You can also point towards your updated bio, reworked front page or a track from the very old days you think it might be fun to show around
It also should be obvious to avoid status updates like: “I switched on my computer. Booting up” … (5 minutes later) … “Cubase loaded, let’s compose something awesome” … (3 minutes later) … “First chord down, hell that Cmaj strings chord sounds absolutely hyperawesome!”

There is no wrong time to post, but there is definitely a right one!
To be honest, I don’t have a clear observation or statistic available for that and it also differs throughout the seasons, but there is always kind of a right time to post stuff. In general you can analyze to post stuff on different times of your days and see where people react most. Do you get more “likes” in the afternoon or more response in the morning? It is worth finding out!

If you worked with a team, show respect!
Whenever you worked with a team or another composer, always keep one thing in mind, when announcing the project. Everyone else FIRST, finally YOU!
Believe it or not, but I really have seen a few of those announcements: “Me and my team … ” or “I am proud to announce that I and composer x and y”.
I am not sure how you see it, but to me it is an absolutely NO GO. To me it shows that someone just cares about him or herself. This is unrespectful, lets the other guys appear as not worth mentioning assistants. It should be avoided at all cost!

Be ballsy, but don’t be stupid!
Promoting yourself basically means to be able to make someone clear why he absolutely has to hire you as a composer and what you are able to do better than anyone else! Period!
To me it always feels a bit like bragging in a soft way while staying as natural as you are, but I always tell myself there is nothing wrong to show what you can do. Holding back can sometimes be a nice move, but in the end it is the best way to simply stay as you are. Don’t play a role, don’t be an actor, be the guy you are trying to sell! … on the other hand, don’t be stupid and think that you could get a job while leaving your phone number and a short line like: “If you ever need a cello player. Call me!” on the Facebook timeline of Hans Zimmer!

Friends is actually not friends
Obviously, if you add a long time friend you know for about 20 years, he is your friend for sure, but what I am talking about is, that you should be aware that this person you would like to get connected with on social media is certainly not instntly your friend. Meaning, you should still have respect and treat your new added “friend” with the same manners as a person you just met for the first time!

Be someone!
Imagine the following situation. You go out with a few business guys or friends and there is at least one guy always and constantly talking about work. Ask yourself! Is this lame or is this lame?
Back in the days when I was totally crazy about guitars and practicing like mad for 8-10 hours a day, I think I was a hell of an annoying guy when I was out with my friends, because on every possible moment I was constantly talking about music and guitars. Everywhere. Always!
I mean, if you are interested and passionate about something, it is absolutely comprehensible that one wants to share all kinds of things and knowledge and it can be absolutely interesting to a certain point, … but other guys have a life too! Even if those guys are all musicians, there should be a time you simply switch to something else.

So what do I want to say with this? On social media, think about being or representing a person, not just working updates. Even though if you do working updates regularly without hyping and causing server overflow, it is vital to also show who you are! Music is all about emotion and if I am checking out someones music, I also want to know the person behind it, which strengthens my feelings if this person is the right guy for the upcoming job. Think of working updates only, as a bio summary without the foto!
Please don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that you should post private stuff, but from time to time show what your hobbies are or what you are interested in. If you are into modeling art, people would surely appreciate seeing your new sculptures. If you are interested in cosmology I would be surely interested in having a good discussion with you! Be someone! Show what drives and inspires you!
I can tell from my own experience that I had the pleasure to get connected to a person I now work with, only because of a little discussion about some non music related topics!
In the end it is not just about your music, but about YOU, the composer!

http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2012/01/03/25-things-writers-should-stop-doing/

Recently found this article. Pretty helpful and inspiring stuff!

Here is my 2nd demo for ProjectSAM’s new sample library “Orchestral Essentials”. Hope you enjoy “Ginnungagap”.

In case you wonder about the title, please read on (taken from Wikipedia):
In Norse mythology, Ginnungagap (“yawning abyss”) was the vast, primordial void that existed prior to the creation of the manifest universe, corresponding (both in etymology and in meaning) to the Greek notion of Chaos. An alternative etymology, linking the ginn- prefix in Ginnungagap with that found in terms with a sacral meaning, such as ginn-heilagr, ginn-regin (both referring to the gods) and ginn-runa (referring to the runes), interprets Ginnungagap as signifying a “magical (and creative) power-filled space”.

check out the video (and the track) I had the pleasure to write for ProjectSAM’s new upcoming sample library “Orchestral Essentials” – no other library has been used!

Dear follow up composers,

every month I receive a lot of emails from you guys and first of all I want to thank you all for taking the time writing me. I also want to thank you for those kind words and compliments regarding my music, tutorials and articles I have written so far – last but not least I feel seriously honored and touched that I have been an inspiration to many of you and kind of a drive to carry on!

However, here comes a big BUT (… and believe me, this BUT should be way bigger than I am able to write here!), because when I roam through all those emails or think about what feedback I have written, it all comes down to a very few points I can – and this is pretty sad – simply generalize. I would go that far and say that I easily could set up a multiple choice email on which I just need to fill out a few gaps, tick some little boxes and send it back.

Since this would be kind of unpersonal and a bit offending in a way, I thought that I dedicate some time to write a blog post about these general points … and I am not lying when I say that these points pretty much sum up ALL the points I always criticize on your tracks.

So here we go … and please, before reading, have in mind that this post isn’t about bashing, ranting or putting my foot on your slain head. It is about some very serious points to consider when sending out emails or posting to social networks or forums introducing your music:

Please stop excusing yourself!
I know I covered this in a previous blog post, but I seriously want to make that clear again.
It is not the best way to introduce your music to someone and already excuse yourself for work in progress, for not having enough time to finish the track, for being sick and therefore hearing everything dull, for not knowing what you do, for getting lazy, … and countless other excuses.
Let me ask you a question: Do you go for a date and the second you meet your girl you say:
“Oh, I am sorry but I have bad breath because I had some onions yesterday and due to some time issues I wasn’t able to brush my teeth yet?” … I think you get it!

It doesn’t really matter to whom you send out your tracks. If you ask for feedback or if you send you to apply for a job. Give the person at the least the illusion that your track may actually worth listening. The ironic thing is, I was always right on how that track would sound like by not listening to it and only reading the excuses

If you copy and paste, do it in an appropriate manner!
I know, copy and paste is really necessary and helpful in countless ways, but please consider to change the pattern or at least a few notes after pasting the part. It seriously gets annoying to listen to the exact same four bar percussion loop for almost three minutes. Honestly, compare almost everything you do musicwise with sex! … wait a minute, sex? Yes, SEX! With other words, be passionate about what you are doing! Change patterns, change structure and feel the love and energy and most important – react to it! Don’t be boring!

“Use the ModWheel. Luke!”
- Stephan Römer

I can easily say that almost 60% of you guys, never even considered to touch the ModWheel or – what I am trying to say – considered implementing dynamics in your compositions. To me the most important thing to bring life to a track done with sample libraries is to make use of a variety of dynamics given by the specific library. Today we can change sample layers easily from mp to ff with the ModWheel, we have loads of Gigabytes on articulations available, almost every parameter can be changed – make use of it!

Don’t be lazy!
Seriously, we all have things to improve on. No one is perfect and life is (or should be) a neverending road of progression, improvement, evolution and learning, but one thing you can or should control for sure, is being lazy. This is definitely something you should not be, … and please, not even mention in a message.
Is the paradoxon becoming more clear while you read this? … “Hello, please let me know how to improve my track, but I should say I got lazy during the middle part” …

Don’t share for the sake of sharing!
To be honest, this is a topic which really annoys me most and almost makes me angry.
People posting tracks for the sake of just posting the track. They didn’t care about the composition or what to say with it. They simply throw together a few loops combined with some sterile horn melody and a low string staccato patch, crank those three or four channels up with a limiter and post the resulting to almost every forum and social network they are registered on (which is probably almost every known social network known on this planet) and tell people that they tried something John Williams-ish. Hello? Seriously, I mean HELLO??

If you are one of these guys, I seriously ask you: Do you really ever think, that someone would be interested in something you quickly cranked out for the sake of showing it around? Shouldn’t you invest time and some sweat into your compositon to blow away people and receive some awesome comments … isn’t sharing really about just showing what one has achieved and created … or is it more important to share just something, no matter what?
How low can it go

Finally I really want to set this straight again!
I LOVE getting emails from you and I really enjoy to help out and it makes me really happy to hear that I was inspiring some of you along the road, but please consider these above mentioned points. As you have hopefully noticed, all these things are not hardly to achieve theoretical and practical lessons which need years to even become an apprentice in – No! It is simply some advice to care about … and if you care about it and consider it for your upcoming tracks, you already ARE a 200% better composer!

Thank you for reading!

Check out my new official demo for Eduardo Tarilonte’s new upcoming library “Desert Winds”!

http://www.bmi.com/news/entry/552948?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=October+2011+eBulletin&utm_content=October+2011+eBulletin+CID_fcbfb4e217347f5d4345335bc1ade3ad&utm_source=Email+marketing+software&utm_term=5+Things+Songwriters+Can+Do+To+Move+Their+Careers+Forward

found this article on the BMI website! Actually very helpful!