Your mistake is that you assume "aspiring" professional composers are even considered as part of the supply and demand by the major players with money to spend, and it has only ever been these major players that offer good pay for music. While royalties are getting to be a mess with streaming, it seems to me that pro composers are making possibly more than they did in the past on commissioned work for these companies.

Universal Studios, as an example, is not going to pay John Williams or any other professional they work with less money because people can pirate Cubase and Spitfire and they get 100 emails a day from such people. In the case of such long-time pros, I'm sure their income per job is only increasing.

Studios would rather pay John Powell, or whoever the next John Powell will be, a quarter of a million to do a score than ANY of the legions of people offering to do it for exposure and a ham sandwich.

Because one of the major issues is competence. The more accessible something becomes, the more that standards will drop as a whole. I didn't go in that direction of chasing the low-hanging fruit of low brass brahms and root-third string ostinato.

In the last 11 months, I have been contacted now by two different film directors who licensed some of my music as temps about doing the full scores for their films (and offering money) because I am the "anti-Hans Zimmer". Their words; not mine.

So yes, there are far more self-proclaimed "composers" churning out pop-song-for-orchestra pieces that all sound the same, generic "trailer" pieces, or "Dune" snoozefest ambience, and some of these people through sheer nepotism and in-group preference get big jobs: However, people who can really compose are in shorter supply than ever.

There's no way to respond to the cultural and philosophical aspects of this question without writing a full-on article, so instead I will just focus on the simple economics.

There is no way, for the majority of people, to have a good life working a 9-5 anymore. It is not the '80s or earlier anymore.

The idea of "just go to school, go to college, get hired and retire after flipping 3 houses" of the boomer generation is dead and gone.

The only way you will ever have any real money and freedom is with entrepreneurship. It's why you see all these women, including married mothers, showing their holes on OnlyFans.

That offers you a way better chance of netting a six figure income — enough to buy a home, land or start some other business — and time with your family than cranking out 50+ hours a week on "the grind" and missing out on your kids' entire childhood.

Whatever "real jobs™" left that still offer this as a possibility are extremely few in number, and out of the attainable skillset of the masses.

 

Ive made a living as a composer since I left school (Im 62 now, retired and fortunate enough to only work on projects that interest me)

Here's the thing - its a very different world now.

When I started out I was doing jingles for advertising agencies. It was the 80's, the money was incredible and the work was mostly fun. I then moved into TV series and Doco work in the 90's. The money was less good but the work was far more interesting.

In the last two decades its all been quite demoralising. The money is non-existent and the work is generally dull.

But here is the thing - Ive kept pretty much all my own publishing and THAT is where Ive made really good money. Im still getting royalties for shows I composed for in the 90's and 2000's from Europe and Asia and every now and then I get a whopper cheque for the most unlikely TV shows. It seems to me that if youre lucky enough (and yes, its virtually all luck - Im not that great a composer) you'll have shows that are played in Schools and Universities as part of a curriculum and THEY pay exceedingly well.

All I can say with any certainty is that if I was starting out now Id be digging ditches for local council within the month. The work just isnt there.

Also, I used to throw my rejects into Library Music agencies like Pond 5 and Envato, etc. That was surprisingly lucrative up until about 3-5 years ago. Now AI has left that scene totally devastated.

Weird times now for the budding composer.

 

The best chance 99.999% have of ever scoring a movie or TV show is to make the movie or TV show yourself and then score it. It will be a lot less work and a lot more fun than trying to get a paying job scoring something corporate produced.

I agree that it is not the 80s, 90s or even 00s anymore. Monopolization, covid, the strike... have taught the paymasters that music doesn't matter and it definitely isn't worth paying for. There is definitely a race to the bottom for anyone who was left. Talking about movies, "tv", advertising and trailers... the party is over. I think we are about 12-18 months out from a viable AI solution for 95% of corporate streaming content creators needs.

 

AI is overhyped

 

Actually, being replaced by AI in film or in the advertising field is underhyped.

 

As @The Aural Aesthete mentioned, TV series composing is much more demanding than film. In film you get more creative in a way. In TV you gotta meet the deadlines and they are always last minute things going on (at least in my area). I'm not a composer, i'm a re-recording mixer and i work closely with composers. One thing i can tell, is that we have no holidays, Sundays, etc. We talk pretty much after hours and i get new tracks at 4-5am to use in the next day's delivery. The most important part (other than my main composer is a machine , writing tracks on the spot) is the sound of it. I work with 3-4 composers simultaneously and the one who nails it everytime, is the one who has the best sound. Not the best chord progression etc. He might send a piece with just 3 chords but it sounds like a full polished production sound , even from his unmastered demo. You could even use that part and no one could figure it. It makes the production sound valuable. Anyone of us can listen for example a Steinwey-like piano with lush sound and distinguish it from a MIDI sample (even if both sounds are sampled). The end result is what counts. That is his greatest distinction from other composers and that is the same reason that Hans Zimmer is dominating blockbusters. He doesn't have any complex compositions that only a genius would compose. He has THAT sound , that sells. This is where the money is. Make your production value look like a million dollar budget polished mix and you'll get new doors open for you. otherwise you will not make a progression.

Oh and by the way, before working on a series that turned out to be good and opened new doors for him, he was almost bankrupt. This ist the part that you just need to be lucky enough to work on such a project. Then comes the PR and new doors

 

The same oxymoron has been around for decades. Which is? - You need a great CV of compositions and jobs to always get the really good work, but if you haven't got a good reputation doing this, how can you get the really good work? I agree with everyone who said it is much harder this century.

The Internet, quality sampled Orchestras and instruments at everyone's fingertips that are gradually replacing the need to hire many musicians as a couple of examples, means nearly any musician can theoretically write a decent composition and put it out to the whole world.
One thing that has not changed is when you meet the director, or producer, or author, or corporate owner...etc... Your attitude. Because the Internet provides them with an abundance of decent music and writers to choose from, how you come across will sell you, because it is likely, that unless you have discovered a brand new style that is uniquely yours that everyone wants, there are 100s of thousands who can do the job as well . Talent is cheap.

Think of it like your own music you write for yourself. It's your baby. Their film, doco or game or project is their baby they are trusting you with to write perfect music to match their vision. They may like the music but if they do not feel you are a good fit as a person, it's all over.

 

Last edited: Oct 4, 2024

It's overhyped. I don't know of anyone who has actually been replaced by AI in "real jobs" and where film/games are concerned: no one outside of the indie realm, and even there it isn't entirely replaced. It will vary on project, but what seems to be more common right now is generative AI for greenscreen backgrounds. Some people might use AI for chroma key but not music; others, music but not chroma keys.

The arts have historically been the only field in which automation increases the value of "manual labor". In the '90s, autotune was heralded as the end of real singers, but people are now only more impressed by singers who can actually sing on pitch, and the existence of autotune has not prevented them from having a career. Samples have not put orchestras out of business, because people using them were never in a position to hire real orchestras, or at least not the complete ensemble, anyway.

Indie game devs and such who couldn't afford to or didn't want to hire real composers either blatantly stole music, got some desperate n00b to do it for free, or bought premade loop packs and threw it together. I believe that was the case for "Undertale".

AI is simply another option instead of using loops or stealing stuff.

Where the big dogs are concerned: Some of the absolute biggest movies and most acclaimed ones of the last 10 years were so because of their heavy reliance on practical effects. Most recently: Alien Romulus.

As I said: Automation in the arts increases the value of "doing it for real". The same cannot be said for blue collar work. Now that robots have largely taken over milking cows, the value of doing it by hand has only declined. They make guitars in factories, but people still shell out thousands for hand-made ones.

"Theoretically", but practically it is a different story.

 

Most of what passes for music now is so terrible AI might have written it anyway, so who cares if it was written by AI or a human? It's all crap. AI just contributes to the huge amount of background noise and static that anything that had any slight glimmer of decency or humanity gets swallowed up in. Let AI take over, what honest difference is it going to make? How is 90% of what Hans Zimmer puts out any slight improvement over AI beyond the fact that he has access to a few interesting real instruments that AI doesn't?

 

Yes the entire American Actors unions went on strike to protest the possibility of it ever occurring which was Global news and why so many of people's most loved shows went on a hiatus. So there is total validity in that thought process. I am yet to meet anyone who does not have millions of dollars who would like to be replaced.

 

I saw a video of a cat standing on a keyboard set to a pad patch and it came out sounding more musical than "Dune"

 

...yet.

 

no, I cant.
I have to work on a "regular" job.

Like this

 

I dont want to make a living.

 

In the first place, the idea of making a living as a musician is wrong.

A long time ago, a certain music group suddenly announced their disbandment at the height of their popularity. When they explained the reason for their disbandment, they said the following.

"What is success as a musician? I don't really know. When I started thinking about it, I gradually became more and more depressed. Does making a lot of money from music mean that you're not doing the music you like?"

If you become famous and sell well, does that make you a successful musician? From a business perspective, the answer to this question is yes, but if you ignore the business aspect and get to the essence of what success is for a musician, the answer is no.

There are plenty of great musicians who don't have hits, and plenty of musicians who can't make a living from music but who write great songs.

My extreme opinion is that all musicians should live a life like Van Gogh.

 

Last edited: Oct 12, 2024

Anyone who used to make a reasonable side-income from stock music sites will strongly disagree with you.

Not to mention composers who were previously earning 6-figure incomes from the same sites. For me it was just a dumping ground for client-rejected tracks, but some of the music Ive heard created via AI, though not my genre or taste, has been extraordinary.

 

Without highly placed connections in the scene today, I think it is a definite no now. At my age I really don't care, I compose for my own pleasure and will never stop, I play and share my music with friends and their appreciation of my work is what pleases me the most. I don't have to compete to or impress anyone. My advice is just play with passion and enjoy.

 

sure

twice in a year

 

Ridiculous

 

There are still people making reasonable incomes from stock music sites. Maybe not "pond 5" and the like, but professional libraries with connections, yes.