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Completely agree with Mlmusic.
I also agree with Michael. However, I don’t think it is exactly about commerce vs art, as you said Michael. To me, at least, is not an issue of “art”. I think it’s more like an issue of quality vs. quantity. You can write “Imagine” or “Yesterday” in 5 minutes, if you’re talented like those guys from Liverpool. Or you can spend two years trying composing a track and still that track may suck, from an “artistic” point of view. So, art is not my point. My point is “production”. In order to produce a track to make it sound really “professional” (or “world class”, as Trackmaster put it) – regardless of its artistic value – there are limits to what anybody can do in 2 hours or 4 hours (or 4 days, for that matter, depending on genre etc.) My guess is that if you make 1 or 2 or 4 tracks per day, chances are that your track is unpolished to say the least. You do sacrifice quality for quantity. Even if you don’t realize it. And yes, there is a correlation between time and quality. How could it not be? Great production is often about a thousand tiny details adding up. Ask the top mixers, ask the Pensado’s of this world. And that takes time. Of course, that doesn’t mean that such track won’t sell well, or won’t be a success, or won’t be accepted by top libraries in the business. It may well happen. And if you’re smart and talented it may happen quite often, like it’s happening to Trackmaster and others I guess. All I’m saying is that THERE IS a trade-off between quality and quantity, for all of us. Pretending that there is no such thing is just silly. Nowadays, it’s just happening in this business that such trade-off is clearly pushing us to favor quantity over quality. As a music producer, I may have to deal with it it and adapt (or die). I might even embrace it. Whatever. But as a music lover (and as a music production lover), I think it’s pretty sad.
My 2 cents of course.GM Nailed it and MlMusic is spot on!
TBH, I tried that. Making a track a day. I set a template based on a previous good sounding track to avoid any time consuming technical hurdles and instrument loading, and then went for it.
Logically, in a day, I should have been able to complete track. Tried a couple of times, never succeeded. The reason is that when I compose I just let the magic happen and enjoy the process. That results in getting out of the template I had set, suppress or add instruments, applying creative effects, tweaking the core of a synth, thus review the mix, take time to step back then come back to it, i.e. all the little details that give soul to a track… The composing of a draft takes just a few hours, it’s the refining that is lengthy…
On the other hand, I think Trackmaster has a great point in terms of making a living as RF/NE composer… It doesn’t look good. Based on the revenue coming from what I have out there, I would need around 5-700 music pieces to pay all bills and live decently. That means at my current speed, about 7 years… and there is no guarantee that by then, the first tracks won’t be buried very deep (track lifecycle).
There are no bright-line rules, no guaranteed formulas for success. There are as many paths to success and failure as there are composers.
What worked for me, won’t work for you. What works for you won’t work for me. What worked for me in the past doesn’t work for me now. Change, grow, adapt and repeat.
“My guess is that if you make 1 or 2 or 4 tracks per day, chances are that your track is unpolished to say the least.” GM
Like I asked earlier. Are you (GM or the people bashing/not comprehending 1-4 cues a day) making a living (or most of it) writing production music? If you are making a living off 50 cues a year, I’d love to see it. Not to sound rude, but just because you can’t do a killer track in 2-4 hours, doesn’t mean no one else can. My “unpolished” tracks have been used by American Express, Heineken, Kmart, NBC, Honda, and tons of reality shows, etc. They are pro on every level. One of best sync fees so far was from a cue that took literally 30 mins to write, record, and mix. No loops, 2 live instruments. TV composers who write for a specific show sometime do 40 plus cues a week, it’s not like I’m some amazing fast composer/mixer. I think either you have no concept of writing production music for a living, or you have a killer gig writing a cue or 2 a week for $1000. If the later is the case, good for you!
I am always tortured by these threads. As Michael pointed out: art vs. commerce. I always felt that quality was my only weapon, since there is so much music out there….much of which is mediocre (yet getting used/licensed anyway). I am envious of those guys that pump out 3+ tracks per day and I have tried that, but always come back to the art of it. Win or lose, I am shooting for quality in writing and production. EDIT: I wrote this before seeing Overdub’s response to GM.
The value of a production music track lies in it’s usefulness to the end client. The music serves the picture as far as TV music goes. A great track, as far as usefulness is concerned can be made in an hour or 14 hours. The time spent producing the track is not that important to the person picking the music. I think conception is one of the most important factors. What does the track do? Does it convey a feeling? Does it fall in a specific type of genre/ style/feel that someone would be looking for? Such as Tension/ Happy/ Sad/ Kitsch/ Specific Era/ World/ 1920’s/ 60’s Rock/ 40’s Jazz etc. This can sometimes be done with one instrument and a 20 second cue. Or it could be done with a complex orchestral cue that takes days to make. I think all is good. Make every kind of track you can think of and make them the best you can whether that takes and hour or a week. Some come out better than the others.
They are pro on every level.
This is the concept that these threads ALWAYS get hung up on.
1) There is quality — as in “pro level” work that will function just fine in TV placements, etc.
2) Then there is “quality” — as in what your college / academic composition professor would grade as an “A” or what critics would call meaningful “art.”
#1 is what you need to be proficient at to earn a living as a “production music composer.”
If #2 is your goal, your passion, your aim in life — in most cases writing library music probably isn’t for you. You will be very unhappy with the music that you need to write, day in and day out, in order to survive. Of course, there are exceptions.
The value of a production music track lies in it’s usefulness to the end client. The music serves the picture as far as TV music goes. A great track, as far as usefulness is concerned can be made in an hour or 14 hours.
Spot–on! Mike Verta can “speed write” most people under the table! He completes tracks like this as speed writing exercises in a few hours!
http://mikeverta.com/wordpress/music/demosandsketches/wonder-woman/A podcast from the guy Michael mentions (Mike Verta) that discusses the subject based on his experience. It analyses the issue well.
http://mikeverta.com/wordpress/podcastsandtutorials/podcast/training-vs-working/Impressive composition for a few hours work btw. There is definitely some skill here!
If you work on a track for days to polish it off, why not just make the best track you can make and work on the same track for 40 years? That track would change the world.
Funny!
Sometimes I feel like I’ve been working on / getting to the same track for years. Maybe that’s the goal of a composer – to get to ‘that track’. Or maybe it’s getting late here and I need to go to bed… (I’ve been trying to finish a particular trailer track for the past week)
I know that was sarcastic, but you are out of touch… We can easily tell. People make radio records in 2 hours these days.
Name one.
Assembly line music may be “radio ready,” that doesn’t mean that it’s great, or even good, music. It merely means that it’s marketable. People will by anything.
I once asked a radio exec if I should make the track I was working on great, or if I should “dumb it down.” He said — exact quote, “it’s impossible to be too stupid for radio.”
Radio ready or broadcast ready has more to do with minimum standards of sonic quality than compositional sophistication.
Again, that’s where these threads stumble — on the word “quality.”
When you use that word, one group of composers is thinking about how it sounds and the other group is thinking about the level of composition.I’m more or less neutral on the issue. But, if you’re going to argue you should at least try to understand what the other person might mean by “quality” instead of saying they’re living in the 70’s, etc.
Thanks Art,
It was a very interesting thread that triggered many reflections, and it was a real shame to see it go west like this.
I also know who he is now and listened to his stuff. I find it actually not bad at all, but all his tracks have the same sound, despite the genre…
I would feel quite un-satisfied if this were to be my repertoire. I prefer to be proud of my musical research, accomplishments and diversity, and prefer also these accomplishments to be my route towards success, than exceptional organisational skills… Even if it takes a little longer…(It probably will 😉 )
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