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Originally posted by Sharp11
I've been making a good living as a tv/film composer for many years now, here are what I feel are a few essential traits of a successful tv composer.

1. A thick skin, a very thick skin: you must never take anything anyone says about your music personally, nor must you think they don't know what they're talking about (even if they don't). You'll also need to take disappointments in stride (see #6).

2. You must know everything you can possibly know about ALL kinds of music: You'll often be called upon to write anything from an Aaron Copland-style fanfare to a sexy,steamy romance cue and you simply have to know how to do it, and do it FAST. It helps if you can play more than one instrument, I play four. How you accomplish this is up to you, I graduated from Berklee's composition department and subsequently studied scores for many years, still do. I'm often surprised and disappointed at the number of "musicians" who know so little about music and are unwilling or uninterested in knowing more.

3. You must have good equipment: I run an HD rig with a DMXR100 as a front end, I have a Yamaha C5 grand piano (always in tune), a collection of great guitars and basses, lots of percussion, good mics and pres, lots of essential plugs, synths a gigasampler....it's the composer's arsenal of today. I also have an excellent room with Ethan Winer's superb bass traps.

4. You must be an excellent engineer, secretary, PR guy, musician, composer, housecleaner and coffeemaker.

5. You must NOT be an attention *****!!! Chances are you'll live in anonymity for a long time, even as you pile up awards.

6. Be patient: some things happen quickly, but some take forever, I'm in line for a major motion picture and have been for almost two years now, and this after cultivating a relationship with a director that began six years ago by doing freebies. And I STILL might not get the gig.

There's more, but I'll spare you guys the rest.

Cheers

Please go on. Also how did you start? I recently did a movie trailer
for an independent film (thier still filming it) for free,but how many
of those do you do?