#5

How to audition a composer

So, you now have an idea of why you want music, what to look for in a composer and when to look for one. So now let’s focus on where and how.

Where is very simple. It usually comes down to 3 ways.

1. Word of mouth
   This is the most useful method. A composer will have honed their work enough for someone else to recommend them to you. It is the best way to find a composer because you are getting a recommendation from someone you trust, though it is a good idea to check if the composer will be able to adapt to your project or even to you.

2. Online and social media
   Forums about music-making, film-making and game-making will always include composers. Write a shoutout to composers or post in a forum and you will most defenitely get a response from all kinds of music composers.

3. Networking event
   Film festivals and game festivals are a good way to meet new people in the industry, including composers.

Sometimes you just find THE composer for your project - either you hit off really well personally or enjoy that composer’ s music. However, let’s say you’ve made a shoutout and you have filtered the composers down to a short list - how do you pick the right one?

Well, a good starting-point is to hire the composers for a quick demo based on something related to your game or movie. For example, you can ask them to create a demo for a specific scene or level.

Take this example from a brief, kindly authorised by Nicolas, director of the indie-game “Kandria” (currently under production):

Important notes from this brief include:

• Duration
  Important as it provides an idea of how much work there is to do.

• Type of music (combat, gameplay…)
  Important as it provides a sense of mood and function.

• If you are expecting to loop (this just applies for video-games)
  Important because it tells us if a piece should end or if it should end in a way that ties back to the start of it.

• Enough backstory about the world of your project
  Important as it helps us to feel or understand the world we are trying to “paint” with sound.

• Reference tracks
  Important in case you have a specific style of music in mind or even just an idea.

• Deadline (provided later in this brief)
  Important because it tells us how much time we have to work on all of the above.

After you provide your brief to the composer, my suggestion would be to give them enough time to work on it and be sure to communicate clearly with them during that process. This will help you to understand how composers respond to you, how they receive constructive feedback and react upon it, and also what overall chemistry you feel there might be with your prospective composer. See who feels best in the end.

Note: each company has its own procedures. Some companies/producers/directors will only send a movie file of the part they want the composer to score without much or indeed any accompanying information. In the end, it depends on the kind of music you are looking for and the kind of collaboration you want it to be.

P.S. WHAT TO EXPECT FROM A DEMO

For most composers out there, demos won’t contain live orchestras nor will be mixed and mastered in professional studios as those things involve a really high budget. So, for most composers out there, unless that budget is made available to them, their demos will be produced at home using the computer software and hardware that’s available for them with a possibility of a few live players to bring out more emotion to certain parts of the music.

If you want to get the attention of decent composers, then be willing to pay the composer for their time - 400 Euro is an acceptable rate.

“Cool J, so how should I proceed after I find the music composer for my project?”
That will be in my next post!