...And I can't even find a decent music academy in my area..

Edit:and I am poor

 

With a pensionable sideline as a government employed janitor, you can
If not, you could always be a conductor...
For CP Rail

 

What do you mean by make a living?

 

Can you win a lottery? Because that's basically what it is. If you can afford to move to Atlanta or L.A. and live while you give blow jobs to the right people (and you have some basic level of ability) than sure, probably.

 

its all about them connections

 

i avoid watching any kind of such vids anymore....they just play with the stress of people....stressing them even out more

 

Two things:

The hard reality is that most people don't go very far because they aren't very good.

In that case, your only option is to rely on things like connections and industry nepotism which, if they were in your favor, you would not be watching videos like this.

The second thing is that if you are exceptional and really work hard at the craft and put yourself out there, build up royalty revenue, etc. and just keep showing up for years and years, then you should wind up making some worthwhile money.

Most composers in that situation should be able to net at least one project that pays well enough, or cumulative ones, that they can reinvest that money into some other sort of self-sustaining business so that you can get out of wageslavery, which is what most of us ACTUALLY want. It's what I did.

"Film composer" is not a young man's nor a newcomer's game. You can't jump in at say 30, hell even your late 20s, and think this is a reasonable goal before you're an old man. Just about nobody under 40 is scoring lucrative film, TV or games and those who are 40+ and scoring lucrative gigs have been in the game, being relative nobodies for decades.

It's also not for the unserious "it's all subjective" type of musician. 3 chords and a tune can get you buy in the pop world just fine, but you're going to have to really know your stuff to be an excellent media composer and win over clients, and you're going to have to keep working at it for years to gain that sort of traction.

Most people just don't have the discipline and time preference for it.

 

You don't choose the music,
But music chooses you

as one songwriter wrote in his lyrics...and I agree with him

 

The most useful statements I have seen consistently made about the three most important things to make a living as a composer or musician all seemed to be identical in sequence and they all indicated you only get one shot to get it right.
1. Attitude 2. Reliability and last, 3. Ability. But you do need all three each person asked indicates.
There are many people just as good as any of the others out front in the public eye that nobody has heard of, so there seems to be some truth in that.

 

im a hobbyist but:
- why would you want to make a living as a composer? i make music because i have fun while doing it. i cant imagine myself being hard pressed because of deadlines, or whatever. and then you have to suck up and make music you slightly don't like, or follow trends, etc.? i've made some orders on fiverr and made some money out of it all, but it gets boring doing what other people ask you, then i'm not happy with the track and i feel i could have done it better, etc. etc.
now as a mixing/mastering engineer thats another thing of course.

 

like most things in life, you have to define your goal,project,career etc, whatever the object of your desire is you have to define it. the more you can define it, the more it becomes obvious what is needed, what can be achieved, a path to achieve it etc.

one of the things early on is to figure out, "is it feasible?" ie, do i have the innate desire, and the ability and resources to pursue this thing to completion?

then, "to what end?" - what will i hope to accomplish by spending time,money and other resources on "this project" vs something else?

then "what would I gain (or lose) from pursuing this thing?

can you make a living? 1st you have to define what making a living looks like to you. and it will be a range(or should be)
new car every year? 3 vacations a year, apartment in the city,and a home in the country and maybe a vacation home somewhere nice?

pay the bills, eat every day, buy a round at the pub every now and then?

live in a squat with a pack of "unusual" blighters and your shit keep disappearing?

figure out what making a living looks like in your proper future, then figure out what path will get you there, not the other way round.

problem solving 101. break large problems into smaller subsets and solve them in the most sensible order to reveal the answer..

 

connections are just as important if you're good, they're just a lot easier if you're good

 

they run the business without getting their hands dirty

 

Yes, the most lucrative job is broadcast television simply due to royalties and consistency. I wish I had realized that sooner. The least-romantic option is often the most lucrative.

It's not uncommon for even lesser known guys to make 10k+ an episode, and then you get the highest royalty payments because you have the most minutes of music in the episode and presumably the main theme as well.

Streaming royalties like Netflix are shit but the flipside is you could negotiate a considerably higher upfront fee.

The tradeoff is you need to be even more disciplined than a film and certainly game composer because you have to write a lot more music, consistently and on tight deadlines.

I know a guy who, at least last I talk to him five years ago, has a steady job scoring cartoons for a branch of the Disney Channel. He's not a celebrity, but he makes a six figure income every year just from scoring a single season of a show, and that's not counting 30 years of royalties from past TV shows that still air or stream.

Let me tell you, when I was young(er) I worked almost every shit blue-collar wageslave job imaginable and even holiday electronics retail.

Composing orchestral music to picture in the comfort of my own home was better than all of them combined, unquestionably.

 

Mark Mothersbaugh made more scoring music for film and television, than Devo ever made, but DEVO gave him the visibility to be asked to do soundtrack work, so often one's music opens other doors.

 

A living can be made in the music industry, but the more people who get in, the less the average payout will be. This is oversimplification, but holds true on the macro scale. Supply vs Demand. We have more supply of musicians/producers/composers than tv shows/movies/commercials/games in the entertainment industry. This was almost opposite before, thats why higher pricing was common. Equipment was expensive and low supply too. Now every PC is a studio, and Ai makes more people feel competent.

I have worked with some established people/brands in the US doing sound design and production. I never made it "big", but I made a living. It is really about who you know, or where you are at a specific time of need for your skill. Nowadays,

A few things I realized in my experience making music for money.

• It is not the same as your passion unless you are highly established or financing the project to direct the music the way YOU want. Often, you will be following directions and decisions of stakeholders that go against your "feel". This is the hardest hurdle I think...accepting that what you want is not what they are paying you for. Sometimes you make music you don't like, or have to learn a new style quickly because you want to keep the cleint.
• Deadlines rule, and sometimes your perception of perfection will make you late and no one will be impressed about it when late. So you end up transforming from someone who carefully crafts with 'all the time you need' to crafting time-efficient workflow and templates to produce the standard expectation with hope for time to add your 'special sauce'.

I went into computer science after a while. I like predictable income (with infinitely more potential) and making music with my own schedule. I still get contract work and can decline if I don't like it, with no threat to my bills. I like music more this way. Other perspectives are welcome.

The market has changed a lot, but I watched the change in slow motion:

• competition driving the price of music works down; I remember getting $500 USD for a day helping with a production. Now you can buy an instrumental for $50, record vocals at home, and use plugin mix presets. The respect for work is at all-time low.
  
• record labels (I witnessed in New York) slaving producers and artists - even stealing ideas from high-priced creators and having the slaves make variations of it at low cost. I was offered this kind of job, and the executive producer (managenent, not musician) was interested in more than just my talent...so I declined as lost access to a huge network...but preserved my butthole.
• streaming services taking the majority of revenue from the industry. Spotify fully exploits loopholes to using revenues (that could go to artists) to buy up real estate (write-off), put studios in it and tell artsits "We have a place for you to record", but of course its more to it than that.

I wonder these days, do people want to make money with music because they are afraid of the other challenges of adulting? I get it, we all want to do what we like for a living. At least where I live, there's a lot of sacrifice required for that, and sometimes it can be regrettable. I've met touring musicians and producers who never started a family because always on the road. They never learned other useful skills in case some changes in economy or health.

Its similar to YouTube influencers who compromise integrity for survival because they don't want to go back to the work force. Like the "programmers" making videos about coding, but never writing any code in the video, just small talk taking advantage of people genuinely interested in learning.

If you have a comfortable lifestyle to pursue music career without consequence. Do it! If you are the common person who will have a family or other important responsibility after school, prioritize another skillset and let music be your lotto ticket, not your only option. Remember that successful musicians and artists also struggle with depression...so the money did not help in this regard for one of the reasons I mentioned -what you want vs what stakeholders want.

Sorry for the rant, hope it makes someone think deeper than the dream.

 

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.