05-12-2017, 09:42 PM
(This post was last modified: 05-12-2017, 10:34 PM by Mattias Westlund.)
Even though I have done a number of commercial soundtrack projects by now, I'm still very new and unaccustomed to the whole "trying to compose for a living" thing, and the game music business still surprises me from time to time. I think one of the most difficult things is knowing when to decline a job offer. I mean -- every job is an opportunity, right? You get to write more music, you get another credit under your belt, and you get paid. But sometimes... sometimes that job offer is shit and will do you more harm than good, and you need to watch out for the warning signs.
Here's my three main reasons for NOT accepting a soundtrack gig, or even backing out of one. Maybe this list will need to be extended eventually but at this point in time these are my worst experiences.
1. People who do not understand how much time and work a particular task requires, and who refuse to see reason no matter how elaborately you try to explain it to them. If someone asks me to compose an hour of orchestral music in two or three weeks, I say whoa there cowboy, that is not going to be possible. And I explain why. The expected and sensible response would be "Oh, wow, I did not know that. Then how much time would you need?" But on a couple of occations I've had people say things like "sure you can!" or "I believe in you!" which is both funny and incredibly unhelpful. It doesn't matter if you believe in me because obviously you have no idea what you're talking about. Sure, I could throw something together as fast as humanly possible. But it's inevitably going to be a rough, uninspired mess that a) you won't be happy with, and b) I wouldn't want my name associated with. So, no deal.
2. People who (despite not being musicians, and despite having hired me to compose the music instead of doing it themselves) can't trust that I actually know what I'm doing and insist on sticking their nose into EVERY little bit of the process. I mean, obviously it's perfectly fine to have detailed opinions on the tracks, that goes without saying. But when people start throwing musical terms at me that they pretend to know what they mean and try to micromanage what specific instruments are doing, for me that sends up a whole bunch of red flags.
"I think this part needs to be in 4/4."
"Uh, it is in 4/4."
"Yeah, but like more 4/4!"
"Right. Like 5/4?"
True story, believe it or not. If you're reading this, game developers, that is some ridiculous shit right there. If I'd hire a programmer for developing a game, I wouldn't be pestering him/her several times a day about changes to the code, I would just assume that s/he knows what s/he's doing. Why can't musicians be shown the same amount of trust? Because everyone knows what music sounds like?
3. People who ask me to do legally/morally dubious things, like plagiarizing existing music. Thankfully this has only happened once. I assumed that the example music I was provided with was just that, an example, and that they wanted something in a similar vein. When it turned out they wanted something that sounded almost EXACTLY the same, with only some notes shuffled around, I said nope, not going to happen. I don't want my name associated with plagiaristic music. To which they responded something along the lines of "fuck you, you're not going to last long in this business". Funnily enough, this was several years ago and I'm still here but to my knowledge their game was never released.
At this point I should mention that for the most part my experiences with various game developers -- big and small -- have been very positive and the above is definitely not representative of the business as a whole. It's just a few bad apples. But I'm thankful for having run into them as it makes me a little wiser.
Here's my three main reasons for NOT accepting a soundtrack gig, or even backing out of one. Maybe this list will need to be extended eventually but at this point in time these are my worst experiences.
1. People who do not understand how much time and work a particular task requires, and who refuse to see reason no matter how elaborately you try to explain it to them. If someone asks me to compose an hour of orchestral music in two or three weeks, I say whoa there cowboy, that is not going to be possible. And I explain why. The expected and sensible response would be "Oh, wow, I did not know that. Then how much time would you need?" But on a couple of occations I've had people say things like "sure you can!" or "I believe in you!" which is both funny and incredibly unhelpful. It doesn't matter if you believe in me because obviously you have no idea what you're talking about. Sure, I could throw something together as fast as humanly possible. But it's inevitably going to be a rough, uninspired mess that a) you won't be happy with, and b) I wouldn't want my name associated with. So, no deal.
2. People who (despite not being musicians, and despite having hired me to compose the music instead of doing it themselves) can't trust that I actually know what I'm doing and insist on sticking their nose into EVERY little bit of the process. I mean, obviously it's perfectly fine to have detailed opinions on the tracks, that goes without saying. But when people start throwing musical terms at me that they pretend to know what they mean and try to micromanage what specific instruments are doing, for me that sends up a whole bunch of red flags.
"I think this part needs to be in 4/4."
"Uh, it is in 4/4."
"Yeah, but like more 4/4!"
"Right. Like 5/4?"
True story, believe it or not. If you're reading this, game developers, that is some ridiculous shit right there. If I'd hire a programmer for developing a game, I wouldn't be pestering him/her several times a day about changes to the code, I would just assume that s/he knows what s/he's doing. Why can't musicians be shown the same amount of trust? Because everyone knows what music sounds like?
3. People who ask me to do legally/morally dubious things, like plagiarizing existing music. Thankfully this has only happened once. I assumed that the example music I was provided with was just that, an example, and that they wanted something in a similar vein. When it turned out they wanted something that sounded almost EXACTLY the same, with only some notes shuffled around, I said nope, not going to happen. I don't want my name associated with plagiaristic music. To which they responded something along the lines of "fuck you, you're not going to last long in this business". Funnily enough, this was several years ago and I'm still here but to my knowledge their game was never released.
At this point I should mention that for the most part my experiences with various game developers -- big and small -- have been very positive and the above is definitely not representative of the business as a whole. It's just a few bad apples. But I'm thankful for having run into them as it makes me a little wiser.