How-to courses… good ones, bad ones, run away?

[echoflex]

CMM2020, you can probably learn everything about getting in the door here on MLR. You might find it more streamlined on Jesse’s site. He has a whole playlist of videos for the business side of things.

But you are also hearing it from ONE pro and a few guest Pro sync composers. Here on MLR, there are many more voices. It’s not that much to join for just one month ($20 I think) and take a peak. But you should do what I did and first go through as many of his free videos on youtube as you can. There is a lot of info there.

[LAwriter]

My $0.02 – not relating to any person or organization mentionioned here (unless it fits of course).

A question for the curious……

Is learning flat out wrong, outdated, shortsighted, or misguided “facts” helpful – or worse than figuring things out for yourself the “hard” way? Will it take you wrong directions? Will it waste your time and money?

Food for thought. Because of all the subscription / course based info out there, almost all of it that I’ve run across has run counter to my personal experience in the business. Just sayin’….

When I comes to libraries, a quick look at their web page will tell me what I need to know. Are they selling to “composers” or are they selling to broadcasters, production companies, videographers, etc.. If composers, I run. Fast. Waste of time. If someone is selling me a “course” of action to “make it”, I’ll look at their credits. One of my earlier posts pointed out a glaringly obvious shortcoming in a sellers reputation. I’ll leave it at that.

Getting involved in one of these organizations is a lot more than the cost of the program. There’s the potential cost of being mislead in the wrong direction. Again, my own personal opinio based on a couple decades + of doing this – not gospel fact.

[DavidM]

Over the last few days, I’ve been reading many posts here on MLR and elsewhere, and there were people saying back in 2013 that the sync music market is saturated, that there’s no money to be made. 6 years on and guess what – there’s still new composers cropping up and existing ones selling music. Somebody in the future is going to be responsible for providing the cues for video games, commercials, TV progs, films etc. As long as what we do is in demand, useable, and put under the noses of the right libraries and supervisors, there’s no reason why that can’t be us.
Happy New Year folks!.

[Pat]

lol! It used to be a frustration of mine when I first started that anything I thought was a good idea to pursue, somebody couldn’t wait to tell me how much better it was back in the day before I started doing it. I’ve since learned to tune that out for lack of being helpful in any possible way. Just do what you do, take what you can use and throw out the rest and I would completely ignore the “We were just in time but it’s too late for you” crowd. Just try and bring your A game. My 2 cents.

[BEATSLINGER]

“We were just in time but it’s too late for you” crowd

Thanks Pat!
HA! I do sound like a Grumpy Old Man.

GET OFF MY LAWN, YOU PESKY KIDS!! Hahaha

[DavidM]

Thanks Pat. Good advice and wise words.

[Pat]

My thought is it isn’t so much that paid courses necessarily teach you so much “more” than you can probably learn for free but that some people feel they learn “better” in some kind of structured situation that courses offer. Some people want to be able to monitor their progress as proof that they’re actually learning stuff where grabbing tidbits here and there and asking one off questions all the time isn’t enough. I’m kind of like that. If that is you, maybe try the sync course for $20 a month. If it works for you it would be worth it. If not you didn’t blow a $1000. From what I read you have 30days to try it out so there’s really not much to lose either way.

[Advice]

The main thing is: Answers should generally not be absolutes. Most things (or at least many) are not black and white, 100% bad or 100% good.

[Pat]

lol!

[Davez]

Great thread here, thanks for sharing. I’m going to slog it out by working on my craft and following some of the advice given here. I have no doubt it will be challenging but I think that is where the reward is. Its nice to find this kind of frank discussion in a free forum. I just renewed here for a month and will be going through the libraries per the suggestion by Beat.

[BonomoMusic]

Dude, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I clicked that link to Jesse’s IMDB page, and he’s got 33 credits, not just two.

[Mark_Petrie]

I’m sorry, but my IMDB page has hundreds of shows, and thousands of episodic placements on it. And I give info out for free to anyone who bothers to ask.

You put all your library placements up on IMDB?

[Xave Ryan]

Ditto on Sync Academy by Jesse. I’m not new to song writing but I’m very new to trying this sync stuff. I found Jesses site great value and you dont have to pay for the year in advance. The course are really well organized. He covers the different genres in their own section. And a very good section on what exactly sync is and how libraries tend to work.

[Author]

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