This session of The Trailer Music Composer’s Podcast has an truly important message.

It’s both a pep talk AND a kick in the proverbial……

Have a listen to find out – and become more motivated to compose!

Transcript:

Hey guys, welcome to another session of the trailer music composers podcast.  In today’s session I kind of want to give you guys like an inspirational pat on the back, you know this is again obviously for me as well, the kick up the proverbial that you need to get doing what you’re doing.  And I’m going to approach this from a specific angle because I think it’s really important for you to see this.

I don’t know about you but I kind of grew up thinking that, or at least hearing from other people that doing hobbies for money was a little bit self-involved, you’re that kind of like tortured artist who needs to communicate this with their music.  And the thing I’ve grown to realise is that is completely false, I mean obviously if you focus too much on yourself that’s  a bad thing, but focusing on communicating your emotions, your feelings and your experiences through creativity is an incredibly healthy thing to do.  And doing that will ensure that you stay connected to something really important.  And that’s your truest self, you know your higher soul, whatever it is you want to call it.

But the really important thing of this, and this was a really huge mindshift to me, and that’s why I’m sharing this with you today.  Because it’s not selfish for you to pursue your passion for writing music, it’s not selfish for you to spend your time practicing your art, you are actually a tool for the world.  And I don’t mean that in an offensive way, you know you’re not a bunch of tools, I mean you are of service to the world.  I’m a big believer in the fact that we’re all here for a reason, and if you undeniably believe that your reason is to create music then that is your gift to the world.  

Now the reason I’m sharing this is because for me like thinking of my music in this way meant that rather than being like shy to share my stuff or like holding back, it’s actually, what it’s done is its meant that my output has grown exponentially and it meant that I feel that actually you know what I would be doing a disservice to the world by not sharing my music and my creativity.  And that’s exactly the message that I’m trying to communicate to you guys.  You would be doing a disservice to the world if you didn’t share your music, share your creativity.  And the wonderful thing is, we, in this day and age, well in this day and age we have so many outlets, and on top of that we have so many easy ways to share our creativity.  

So when you sit down with your track, and you do this track, and oh I’m not sure if this is very good, you know when you let the inner critic take charge, tell him to bugger off and focus on this, the work you’re producing will be for somebody.  It will help somebody, it will inspire somebody.  It’s kind of like playing with acts of kindness, but our act of kindness is to create a piece of music.  I mean you think back to your life as it is now, and you think back and go ok, well how many times have I heard a piece of music that’s absolutely filled me with joy, or helped me connect with the sadness that I’m trying to ignore, or inspired me to write my own piece of music.

How many times has that happened, I mean that’s just music, if you apply this to photography, to art, to film, to books, to play, to any kind of creative language it’s such a huge thing.  And it suddenly takes a whole new angle of the work you are producing.  You are actually giving gifts to the world with your music.  And that’s so beautiful.  And the reason I want you to get this into your head is so that you start pursuing, actively pursuing what you want.  

Whether what you want is to get your music on trailers because remember if you get it on trailers think how many people you’re going to pass that music on to, how many people watch a trailer.  I mean thousands, millions, a huge amount of people hearing music.  If you want to get your music on streaming platforms then do it.  Because what you’re doing, whether it’s two people, whether it’s 2,000,000 people, you are going to be doing some service for other people, you are going to be passing on that beautiful gift.  So a nice little message from me.

And this is the nice thing, because I’ve been more active in being out there than I ever have been, i.e through this podcast, my YouTube channels, my courses etc.  I’m getting people approaching me, not like that, I’m getting them approaching me saying hey Rich, thank you for this, it’s really helped.  And that is so beautiful for me, tis like oh yes, my time was well spent.  

And that’s the thing you’ve got to think about, I want, I did that thing that every musician does, I did this probably 10 years ago, years ago now, I was like hey I’ve got all this music on my hard drive, I’m going to release this and the world is going to be set on fire with my talent.  So I released it and nothing, nothing, nada.  So it just sat there, my music, it just sat there.  I didn’t realise it, it has been put on to all the then new distribution platforms like Spotify etc. and then after a couple of years I took them down, I took them down because I felt embarrassed.  

And all of a sudden I had an email from this young lady saying hey I just wanted to say I don’t know where your music has gone, but your music inspired me to learn to play the ukulele, and from learning the ukulele I’ve started releasing my own music.  And you know that was so powerful.  I was just like there’s me walking around thinking why haven’t I got millions of fans, and yet what I had done inspired somebody with my music.  You know the album was like, it was called Mr. Monocles Quirky Delights.  It was an album I produced really early on in my career with Vic.  Boosey and Hawkes was the music publisher in London and aiming at the advert market, you know the happy, clappy, whistling, Ukulele stuff, which I absolutely love doing by the way, PS.  It’s super fun.  And I just thought well you know I’ll just release it because nothings happening with it.  And it inspired this one person.

And the same thing happened, I also had released some piano stuff of mine, I just took down and then somebody emailed me saying hey where’s this music, I’ve had this on my playlist for years and all of a sudden it’s gone.  And I just was  completely unaware of the impact of the service that my music was doing.  And that’s where a little bit of faith has to be present in your life.  You know sometimes it’s a long and lonely road being a professional composer, but you know what, your music is out there doing something.  And that’s the amazing thing.  You know whether it’s on YouTube, whether it’s on Spotify, whether it’s on a trailer, whether it’s you know on your friends iPhone it’s doing something and it’s helping people.  So please take this to heart and do not stop, or do not prevent the world from hearing your gifts.

You might not see them as a gift right now, and they might not be the form that they will be in the end, but that’s why you must persevere.  You  must absolutely persevere and keep producing the work you produce, keep producing the work you enjoy and keep sharing it.  And share it in every way possible that you can because whether it gets two views ot 200, I’ll be honest with you, I have lot of monikers that I work under, and I don’t really say anything about them because I’m just producing them because I want to produce that music.  And it’s not specifically trailer friendly, so I don’t generally pitch it to Vic to put on trailers.  I just do it because I like it and it’s fun.  And this kind of like a cathartic exercise for me.  Some of those things I’ve put out there they have like five views, five listens, 10 streams.   But at the end of the say it doesn’t matter because five people have listened which is great.  Which is lovely.

And the other thing is you know obviously I can of course put time and energy into making sure more people hear it.  Which is what I am doing. And that is another thing, and this is the like selling your music is not selfish.  If you approach it like this, you are actually finding your super fans.  If you are acting like you are trying to find the music, the people who your music will help and will bring joy to, then it becomes, it becomes like a mission.  It’s like yeah, you know what, I might get some people laying into me for using ads or whatever, but actually me actively promoting my music is finding people who will enjoy it, finding people who my music can be of service to.  And that’s what you must do too, write the music, share it and promote it.  It’s not selfish, it is an act of service to the world.  That message is something that’s taken me a long time, you know a long time to grasp and fully believe.  But the more I do this the more I think actually the music I write has to be shared.  

You know think about those, the comical composers or artists whose music was not shared, you know imagine if Mozart hadn’t had his music shared with all of us, imagine if he just sat on his harpsichord just doodling going you know what I’m going to leave this one, not going to do anything with that one, just going to chuck it under the stool.  Think how much joy he would have taken from the world had he not shared that.

And the same with you, you know you don’t know what’s going to happen to your music, you don’t know what’s going to happen to your career, but what we all know is we love writing and we love the feeling we get of sharing our music with people, especially obviously when its a positive reaction,  I can’t think of anyone who likes it when someone says ah, I don’t like this its rubbish, that always stings a bit doesn’t it.  But that’s not the point, ignore that, who cares, focus on those people that you do make a connection with, with your music because you are of service to the world and you are important.  Whether you’ve got placements or not, whether you’ve got published or not, whether you’ve got a deal or not, whether you’ve got streams or not.  It doesn’t matter, do the thing you are meant to do which is write music, write music you love and enjoy and then share it.  This is such an important message.  It has to be done, you have to do it.  And I’m telling this to myself too, Richard you have to do it. 

I mean if I hadn’t have done, started sharing the music, ok, admittedly it was sharing with a publisher, but if I hadn’t shared my music I wouldn’t be here recording this podcast writing these courses, making these schools, getting these trailers, my music would not be helping all of those people.  

And also the other thing, the other angle coming at it from a trailer composer’s angle think of it like some of you might think it’s a bit arrogant, but actually it’s not, if an editor cuts a picture and he finds or she finds your music and enjoys it and cuts it to picture and they land the job then that’s of service to them.  As they are of service to you.  You helped them in their eyes land the job, and that’s what you will tend to notice, editors tend to work with similar composers or the same composers because it’s like hey this guy is great and I seem to win jobs when I work with this guy or girl of course.

So sharing your music is vital. You are of service.  And I’m going to keep saying it because it’s vital and I think it’s going to be one of my messages that i try to repeat to you guys and to myself you know, do what you enjoy, do what you’re curious about, and share your music to be of service to others.  Ok.  

I never ever thought about it like this when I was listening to  like Ben Folds 5 or whatever it was at the time, I never thought that they were doing like a service to me in that way, but they were, they were raising my vibration, they were lifting my mood, they were helping me in my life.  And that’s a beautiful thing.  

You guys are one hugely talented bunch, I know a lot of the music you guys produce, be it from seeing the trailer that you land or from you sending me demos or from listening to it on Spotify.  You are a real talented bunch, remember that just because you don’t have a big audience at the moment it doesn’t matter, keep working, keep sharing.  Keep promoting.  It’s of service to somebody.

Right guys.  That was awesome, you guys are awesome, awesome, awesome, thank you for listening.  And I hope you have a good week.  See you.

Music.