questions How do you get commissions as a composer?

Hello! I am a 15 year old composer who is looking for work soon. I have been writing since the seventh grade and now I am in 10th. I have been commissioned by my own director to make a piece for our band which I have almost successfully finished, it will be preformed for our spring concert. I start my music major next year and I'm trying to find how to actually make money off of the thing I love so much. If I could please be instructed on how to get commissions and things I need to setup (portfolio, website, etc..) I am willing to invest money into it. Thank you!

7 hours ago, NicholasG said:

Hello! I am a 15 year old composer who is looking for work soon. I have been writing since the seventh grade and now I am in 10th. I have been commissioned by my own director to make a piece for our band which I have almost successfully finished, it will be preformed for our spring concert. I start my music major next year and I'm trying to find how to actually make money off of the thing I love so much. If I could please be instructed on how to get commissions and things I need to setup (portfolio, website, etc..) I am willing to invest money into it. Thank you!

 

Firstly, there is not much in the way of money to be made composing concert works in the modern era at all. I have personally never met a composer who makes even beer money composing concert works. Today, the rich people who hire for composers are companies producing media like television, advertising, films and video games.

Games:

Everyone and their dog wants to be a video game composer these days, as these are most popular with Gen Z, Alpha and younger Millennials. It's where I got my start when I was 18, but the truth is there is actually not much demand at all for music in video games, the present high-budget industry is a dumpster fire, and the market is absolutely saturated. The other problem is that the software industry works on an almost exclusively "for hire" basis and pay on a "per-minute of music" model. Both of these suck big time because it places a blanket value on your work and does not pay royalties (you'll hear in a minute why that is a very big deal). In the late '90s and early 2000s, games were actually a very lucrative job because most studios would crank out 1 game per year, and they would hire someone in-house and pay them up to six figure salaries with benefits. Those days are a long gone. Now, they own EVERYTHING you do on a buyout, take years to finish, and do not pay royalties or kickbacks. I've actually heard of some studios who have enacted policies of not hiring any composer who is signed up with a PRO. Why they're not getting sued is beyond me.

So what's the reality there? Well, for professional reasons I won't say his name here, but I know a professional video game composer who scored a big game we've probably all heard of. It came out in 2009. He said that 2010 was the poorest financial year of his entire adult life. You see, the game industry pays on that "per minute" model I mentioned and no royalties. A big studio might pay you 2000 USD per minute of music if you're a name in the industry. The average game needs 40-60 minutes of music.

Now that sounds like a lot of money, except these games (assuming they are even finished at all), will probably be in development for 3-5 years, and they typically do not commission more music than they need at any given time. This means that you could spend YEARS on a project only for it to collapse (had that happen myself more times than I can count) or by the time it comes out, you'll have made less per year than you would have working at McDonald's. Plus, as I mentioned, they do not pay royalties or kickbacks even if the game sells millions of copies. An orchestra like Video Games Live picks up your music for touring performance? Not only will you not get a dime from it because the studio demands the music on a buyout, but the video game PUBLISHER will actually receive all royalties from those performances. It's supposed to be illegal, but they keep getting away with it.

I'm not saying turn your nose up at a good game deal if it comes along, and maybe when you're older the industry will be different, but I would NOT recommend seeking out video game jobs very much and keep in mind: The only people in the industry really making a living on games specifically are hugely-popular composers scoring multiple big-budget games at a time: It is very difficult to land even one major game.

Film/TV:

If there is one thing about composing I wish that I realized MUCH earlier, it's that television is where it's at. Not only is there far more demand for music in anything that was captured with a video camera and broadcast, but it still pays the most. You can be a no name and make a handsome living in television music if you have the patience, skill and commitment. 

Why is there more demand? Because there are far more commercials, TV shows, trailers, reality shows, documentaries, etc. being produced and broadcast across the globe than there are video games being developed with a decent budget for music.

Why is there more money? Films or other motion picture require a higher budget to get made in the first place, so they are more likely to actually pay. Another bonus is that music is almost always the VERY last thing needed for a film or TV show, so the project is ready to be released and not years away. Film and TV companies are wealthiest potential clients for composers, and on episodic TV, it is not uncommon for even nobodies to earn 5 figures per episode.

The big thing however is "royalties". Whenever your music is broadcast on cable or streams, the broadcaster must pay royalties negotiated by a PRO (Performing Rights Organization) who represents your music. For broadcast TV, you will often get paid X amount of dollars (this can be hundreds, especially if you wrote the main theme) regardless of how many people are watching, anywhere in the world. Whoever wrote the "paw patrol" theme as an example is making very good money doing nothing, simply because that theme is being broadcast at all hours of the day, in damn near every country.

HOWEVER

While there may be more demand and money to be made, this does not mean getting into TV or Film is easy. Far from it.

You must understand that professional media composition is NOT a career for the young men. I was 18 when I was getting paid to write for some Ubisoft devs making their own games, but I was in an absolute minority in that age bracket. Almost everyone scoring major projects (in any media) is at least 30 years old, so you will need a plan outside of music for life for I'd say the next 20 years.

Companies with money to spend on music are not going to take on just anyone for what is a job that (generally) has a very high skill ceiling and extreme deadlines. Even if you write great music, they cannot count on a 20-something male to not go out and party on the weekend and fail to deliver on a TV show or film that's release was set in stone BEFORE they even did principal photography. I've heard from other film composers that "our industry is the only one that is on time every time". I don't even know what would happen in film if you missed the deadlines because it never happens. It would be an absolute disaster and you'd never get hired again. Ever.

So you need to not only ask yourself, but prove that you are up to that task, and you will need to know everything about composition and music production like the back of your hand to be able to deliver professional "mockups" and great pieces of music in very short timeframes. 

So how do you get the gigs?

Firstly, at your age, as I said, even if you're good, it is unlikely you will get any "commission" work that is paid at all. That being said

1. Hone your craft, invest in a good PC with a fast processor and high-end sample libraries. This will cost you thousands, but if you shop smartly and take care of it, it will last you a very long time. 

2. If you go to post-secondary for music, connect with the film students and offer to score their crappy student films. As the years go by, if these wannabe producers and directors wind up growing into not-so wannabe positions in the industry, and you're still on good terms, they might just bring you along for the ride or recommend you to someone who will.

3. Get registered with a PRO. If you're in the US these are ASCAP and BMI. I'm not from the US, but BMI collects international royalties for me. It doesn't really matter too much who you're with, and it's free in most countries to register. 

4. Once you are composing fantastic pieces with top shelf production quality, start reaching out to what are called "Production Music Libraries" and pitching some of your portfolio from your website and youtube account. What do production libraries do? Not all TV shows or advertising (in fact quite a number of them) require custom scores. This is particularly true in reality tv and documentaries. PMLs work with professional film and TV studios to provide the music in these cases; film directors also sometimes use them to find "temp" music for their movies. In some cases, if they really like the temp, they'll even reach out and hire the composer directly as has recently happened to me with my "Lost Worlds" album. It works on a 50/50 split. When the studio licenses a track, they pay an upfront fee negotiated by the production library. This can range from not very much to 10s of thousands of dollars; it all depends. The library will have registered your music with a PRO and this will be linked to yours via what is called an "IPI" number (which you get from your PRO), and then they will pay out any royalties owned every quarter. Most libraries also pay out quarterly. The library will also earn royalties on their "publisher share" of the music, while you earn the "writer's" share.

If you start at that around say age 20, you might have hundreds of pieces in libraries and many of those licensed out and earning you some decent income by the time you are 30.

5. Ideally once you've got all the previous under your belt, you can find out what films, tv shows or whatever are in pre-production and don't have composers signed on yet and reach out to the studios directly via phone or email and while most will still not get back to you, some will if your portfolio and placements are impressive enough. THEN you will start getting professional commissioned work if you haven't already had people reaching out to you first. Don't try this with companies that are the biggest Hollywood studios like Universal or New Line or something; they definitely already have composers and will just hang up or send your email to spam.

6. Never stop meeting people who create and making friends with them. 

And you've already got step 0 down: Start young.

Hope this helps