# Can I acquire a salary position as a Music Composer?



## OceanMan187 (Sep 19, 2022)

I apologize if this is a dumb or unrealistic question to ask, but I would like to know what my options are for sure. I recently graduated college with concentrations in Game Design and Music Technology. I want to have a career in which I make a decent living off of music composition/production for film, TV, or ideally video games. I understand that this can be possible by growing a business as an aggressive freelancer, but I was always hesitant towards that path considering that sort of income can be very inconsistent. I see leagues more positions for sound designers in game companies than I do music composers. Should I lean towards sound design instead? Am I possibly in over my head in regards to my original goal?

Any enlightenment in regards to this aspect of the entertainment industry would be greatly appreciated!


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## Henu (Sep 20, 2022)

I can answer from the gaming side, having been working as an inhouse guy for half of my life.

Yes, it's possible, but very rare compared to the sound designer field. Not many AAA companies have in-house composers due to the pipeline of their games and smaller companies can't afford to keep one.
So the best bet is to reach out for the mid-tier league and possibly companies which release or update games ("games as a service") on a steady basis. Also in many cases companies may want to combine these two crafts under one position...which in my opinion is undervaluing the importance of both.

If you are personally oriented into sound design as much as into composing, you have way better chances to find a steady inhouse job doing sound design. No matter which country you come from, the ratio is easily 10:1. I know tens of inhouse game sound designers in Finland and only two inhouse composers, and I think the other left his position already going freelancing instead.

For reaching out the companies, it is extremely important to be ready to cater _all _their needs. This means that you shouldn't send an email about "doing music for games" but being able to provide them music for games, trailers, marketing videos and whatnot. The actual game content is just a fraction of the companies' musical needs, and usually they don't realize it themselves. 
To sell them this idea you need a vast portfolio of music. As a music supervisor, I can safely say that roughly 80% of the composers reaching us out are people who do two sorts of music: "epic" and "emotional". And 80% of them sound exactly like each other. What the companies actually need is different styles of music, done convincingly enough. Not another string ostinato, actionstrike pattern or that dreaded reverbed piano. So if you're trying to reach out a gaming company, tailor your portfolio to their needs- not your own. Pitching music to King is a completely different take than pitching music to Riot.

Another thing to consider: many composers do not want to be "locked" to their current inhouse job, which in 95% of the cases prevents them to do music for other game developers. So that also needs to be kept in mind when thinking the possible career of being an inhouse composer in a gaming company.

Nevertheless, I wish you luck in your search and if there's any more questions please let me know!


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## Jeremy Spencer (Sep 26, 2022)

OceanMan187 said:


> Should I lean towards sound design instead? Am I possibly in over my head in regards to my original goal?


Only YOU can answer that question. If sound design is not the path you want to take, then don't waste your time. However, pursuing a career as a full time composer, with a consistent income, is a tall order these days. It is entirely possible in time, but will require a ton of networking in the industry and most likely relocating to a major hub such as Los Angeles (nor sure where you live now). Henu offers some great advice, and has a lot of experience in the gaming world. Most of all, don't give up!


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## AceAudioHQ (Sep 26, 2022)

Henu said:


> and smaller companies can't afford to keep one.


Or don’t need a composer since 50% of the employees make music anyway 🙃

Also the whole industry is extremely competitive, when I founded my games company, in the first 6 months I got probably 50-100 mails from composers offering their music.


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## AlexRuger (Sep 26, 2022)

AceAudioHQ said:


> Also the whole industry is extremely competitive, when I founded my games company, in the first 6 months I got probably 50-100 mails from composers offering their music.


That honestly seems low. I wouldn't be surprised if you got 100 emails per _week._


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## AceAudioHQ (Sep 26, 2022)

AlexRuger said:


> That honestly seems low. I wouldn't be surprised if you got 100 emails per _week._


Well, considering we didn’t advertise the company at that point and few people knew about us in general since it was only a few people. I bet bigger companies get way more


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## Ian Dorsch (Sep 26, 2022)

It was a real eye opener for me when we ran a Kickstarter for our game back in 2016 - constant cold emails from composers, many of which contained disparaging remarks about the music in our trailer, along with links to some of the worst demos you can possibly imagine. Just insane levels of Dunning Kruger effect. One semi-legit dude even friended me up on Facebook and then waited about a week before he tried to poach my gig, and when I called him out he blocked me. I say this with great affection for my composer friends, and for the many wonderful folks here on VI Control: on the whole, composers suck.


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## proggermusic (Sep 26, 2022)

Wow, stellar input from @Henu – and everyone else for that matter!

My advice for anyone fresh out of music school is nearly always the same: diversify your income, and find a number of employable music-related skill sets that you enjoy. I've been gigging, composing, and arranging for a couple decades, and today it's a balance of live gigs, studio sessions, notation/arranging work for an artist, writing and producing music for a podcast, and a bit of teaching (college, adjunct). I really enjoy that balance!

A decade or so ago, I was aggressively emailing as many game developers as I could, trying to get a foot in the door as a composer. I had a good reputation in my field already, and a good portfolio of original work, but... absolutely zilch came from it. And that's OK, I'm very happy with the balance of enjoyable work right now! Plus, after I learned how much money game composers usually earn, I regret nothing about how things panned out. I love games, and I love indie developers, but I never plan to see significant income from them, sadly.


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## Delboy (Sep 26, 2022)

Hate to dampen your spirit but my son has been trying to do same and has had not one answer from any contact lead he has found or been given ... searching for a job in composing has really become a faceless venture like many other career seek for graduates (bar I assume law/medicine) and why I guess 99% are freelance self employed. To be honest I would have thought the Uni would have prepared their students better for seeking roles in the industry - they did nothing bar taking the 9+k every year without fail and did nothing more than that ... nil support/advice or even invite companies in to give them career insight. Zilch.


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## c0nsilience (Sep 26, 2022)

Any creative field is bound to be highly competitive. Without dampening your spirits, and all talent aside, you'll need a combination of grit, networking, and sheer luck. Don't give up on your creative aspirations, but prepare yourself for the likely struggle that will ensue.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Sep 26, 2022)

No. Sorry.


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## MeloKeyz (Sep 27, 2022)

Delboy said:


> they did nothing bar taking the 9+k every year without fail and did nothing more than that ... nil support/advice or even invite companies in to give them career insight. Zilch.


Education has been and always will be a business rather than helping students out and preparing them for the work game.


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## JJP (Sep 27, 2022)

MeloKeyz said:


> Education has been and always will be a business rather than helping students out and preparing them for the work game.


At the same time, we must not fall too far into believing that education is only about preparing people for specific jobs. That is a trade school mentality which takes a far too narrow measure of the value of an education.

Many of the most important lessons I learned, and use regularly, were not tailored to a particular job or industry. They were much more general musical ideas. The technical aspects of this business are the easy part. The difficult part is learning musicianship, critical thinking, and how to effectively work with others. That takes years of guided study that often does not have a clear linear relationship to a particular job.



OceanMan187 said:


> Am I possibly in over my head in regards to my original goal?


One of the most important things to remember is that there are more people who want to work in music than there are jobs. This will color every part of your musical career. It's a very competitive business.

I also tend to advise new graduates, "Your vision of what your career should or could be is too narrow." I am working in parts of the music industry that I never considered and have made a good living at it. I never cared about film, TV, or video game music, but now that world makes up the majority of the work I do. Why? See my previous paragraph.


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## proggermusic (Sep 28, 2022)

MeloKeyz said:


> Education has been and always will be a business rather than helping students out and preparing them for the work game.


This is sadly frequently true nowadays, but it's not always true. There are still areas in the States where community colleges and state colleges/universities are affordable, high-quality, and focus more on educating their citizenry than operating like a business.

I wholeheartedly agree that operating schools "like a business" is, in the end, bad for everybody, and at least one institution mentioned in this thread is profoundly guilty of that. My father is a retired professor and department chair, and he fought that mentality valiantly as much as he could while he could.

EDIT – I meant to add something similar to @JJP – Yes, it's important to prepare young people for work, but education is about MUCH more than that. A well-rounded education will help inform and empower people to live rich lives, not simply to be worker drones. A citizenry that's well-informed about a wide variety of topics makes for a much happier and healthier civilization overall.


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## Gothi (Oct 19, 2022)

Henu said:


> As a music supervisor, I can safely say that roughly 80% of the composers reaching us out are people who do two sorts of music: "epic" and "emotional". And 80% of them sound exactly like each other.


By Odin I am happy to read this. I thought it was just me getting old, deaf, grumpy and insensitive to variations and nuances when I complain about many modern scores sounding formalized after same recipe. One textbook only in the business? 
Thanks for sharing.


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## Uncle Peter (Oct 19, 2022)

Henu said:


> or that dreaded reverbed piano.


😁


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## MeloKeyz (Oct 19, 2022)

Actually, I find being a freelance composer is much better than an inhouse salary-based composer for many different reasons. Creative freedom, able to write for several destinations, backend royalties, low salary,..etc. The salary must be big enough to compensate for the other missed opportunities and the missed royalties as I heard that inhouse composers aren't entitled for PRO royalties and that companies who permanently hire composers as employees put a strict condition on them to NOT join a PRO.


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## Henu (Oct 20, 2022)

MeloKeyz said:


> as I heard that inhouse composers aren't entitled for PRO royalties and that companies who permanently hire composers as employees put a strict condition on them to NOT join a PRO.


I think the biggest issue has been the hostile attitude towards each other. The PROs have considered gaming companies as "ripoffing composers who we must protect by any means" and companies have considered PROs "greedy bastards making the music usage too difficult". Luckily times have changed and nowadays both gaming companies and PROs are a bit more aware of each other's good intentions. But there's still lot to do, of course. I would personally never work for a company who would demand me leave PRO and nobody else should either.

In Rovio, where I work, _every_ composer who provides for us is getting a 100% writer's share and pretty much every piece of music we use is registered and there are people also in this forum who have provided music for us who can confirm this. When we release music soundtracks or use it in videos outside the game, the composers get their fair share. Granted, it's not much as we all know how well streaming pays in general, but it's more a matter of principle and acknowledge.


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## MartinH. (Oct 20, 2022)

Henu said:


> In Rovio, where I work, _every_ composer who provides for us is getting a 100% writer's share and pretty much every piece of music we use is registered and there are people also in this forum who have provided music for us who can confirm this. When we release music soundtracks or use it in videos outside the game, the composers get their fair share. Granted, it's not much as we all know how well streaming pays in general, but it's more a matter of principle and acknowledge.


This must be incredibly rare though, right? Didn't even think this was possible.




Delboy said:


> To be honest I would have thought the Uni would have prepared their students better for seeking roles in the industry - they did nothing bar taking the 9+k every year without fail and did nothing more than that ... nil support/advice or even invite companies in to give them career insight. Zilch.


Shame! Where I studied design, they told us in the first year that only about 5% off us are gonna land the job we want, and in later semesters they did give use useful advice about financial-, legal-, and organisational topics and how to apply or cold call for jobs. One course was held by a tax accountant and consultant and one course was held by a lawyer. To get a passing grade for the legal course you needed to reason about a case of contract law on a level that would hold up in court. And that education was basically free! However getting in in the first place was such a high barrier to entry that they filtered out about 90%+ of applicants there already. Makes much more sense that way imho, than charging a lot, taking in everyone, and dumping them onto the job market with false hope and poorly equipped to succeed.


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## Gothi (Oct 20, 2022)

Bane of composers:



> Aloys. — Perhaps the hope of future riches and possessions induces you to choose this life? If this is the case, believe me you must change your mind; not Plutus but Apollo rules Parnassus. Whoever wants riches must take another path.
> 
> Joseph. — No, certainly not. Please be sure that I have no other object than to pursue my love of music, without any thought of gain. I remember also that my teacher often told me one should be content with a simple way of life and strive rather for proficiency and a good name than for wealth, for virtue is its own reward.


J.J. Fux Gradus Ad Parnassum 1725


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## AceAudioHQ (Oct 20, 2022)

Henu said:


> In Rovio, where I work, _every_ composer who provides for us is getting a 100% writer's share and pretty much every piece of music we use is registered and there are people also in this forum who have provided music for us who can confirm this. When we release music soundtracks or use it in videos outside the game, the composers get their fair share. Granted, it's not much as we all know how well streaming pays in general, but it's more a matter of principle and acknowledge.


It wasn't always like this though, when I worked there the contract said everything made during work hours is fully owned by the company, but that was the olden times, it's good things have changed


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## Henu (Oct 21, 2022)

Well, that part is still correct and completely reasonable way to do it as a default, given that we are paid for our time. But that is about the _rights to use and publish_ the music- not your actual writer's share, which was basically just ignored earlier due to the conflicts with the Finnish PRO. So while Rovio does own the music tracks, you still have your rights to 100% Teosto (Finnish PRO for you non-Finns who might be reading this) credits.

Due to the abovementioned earlier conflicts with Teosto earlier, I believe that the credit sheets were never done in the early half of 2010's properly. There has also been some changes in the audio team structure since then and things are now also a bit differently organized than they were earlier. Which also means that if you want to, please send me a PM on the works you've done and I can make sure you are credited for Teosto from anything that might be missing! (Pinging you @AceAudioHQ for not missing this.)


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