Composing for a Living?

Originally Posted by Smart_A1ec

lol quoted by "The Accordion Kid"???
and you spelled Accordian wrong, it's Accordion. Sorry I just get OCD about grammar and spelling and such

and yes, you should see my grandpa play, the way he has everything memorized, like the whole Rhapsody in Blue, plays it flawlessly and says "Well that's not nearly as good as I was 20 years ago when I could actually move these darn fingers"
Hmmm i should record him, he promised to play for us tomorrow

Haha, my bad.

lol it's okay, but i had a thought:

The hardest part about becoming a known composer and getting to write for films is getting known right? Once you get yourself known as a good composer people will want to hire you, right?
Well since I still (obviously) live with my parents and don't really need to make myself a living, I could get myself out there in the world and get myself a reputation now and then when it comes time to get out of college, people will already know who I am! right?

or am I totally out in the weeds?

There's a catch-22 with your statement.

To be well known... you kinda have to be good...

Not saying you aren't...

But college helps with that.

well yeah but if i got pretty good between now and the end of college...

Being a film composer is a tough life, and can be rewarding, but often is not. you are completely at the mercy of the director, who will ask for an enormous amount of music in almost no time at all, and you will need to be fluent in all styles of music. Even then, they might not like it, you would get paid a marginal amount, and that is EVEN if someone finds you. It is a lot to do with connections, as was mentioned earlier BUT DON'T DESPAIR.

If you decide you want to make money and go for programming, you can always still compose... performances are just more rare.

Originally Posted by Michael A. Garman

Being a film composer is a tough life, and can be rewarding, but often is not. you are completely at the mercy of the director, who will ask for an enormous amount of music in almost no time at all, and you will need to be fluent in all styles of music. Even then, they might not like it, you would get paid a marginal amount, and that is EVEN if someone finds you. It is a lot to do with connections, as was mentioned earlier BUT DON'T DESPAIR.

If you decide you want to make money and go for programming, you can always still compose... performances are just more rare.

1. If you are doing what you love, who cares how much money you are making??

2. I like working under pressure, e.g. if my mom or dad tells me to clean my room by like 5pm, I won't do it until 4:30 because I don't feel compelled to do it until I get stressed about doing it... or something

3. If he doesn't like it, he can fire me for all I care. I like it, that's all tat matters to me I know that will come back to haunt me..

4. I don't actually want to be a programmer, I established that and what I really want to do on like page three or four or five or something, just look around for one of my longer posts.

Originally Posted by Smart_A1ec

If you are doing what you love, who cares how much money you are making??

Bill collectors, landlords, repo men...

*sigh*

Well if worst comes to worst, I can always move back to mom and dad... but why should I ever have to if I am making what I need doing what I love?

I can't remember where I heard it, but there was a saying about something like "you get what you give" so if you give everything you got,, you gotta get something worth something...

I mean we went to holiday world a few weeks ago, ahd an extra ticket and we gave it to someone, a few hours later whilst waiting for my dad to get out of the bathroom this guy comes up and just gives us like all his prizes that he won from all the games (w00t big huge teddy bear)

what goes around comes around...

I may be repeating myself, but one of the surefire ways to "make it" in the composition career is very simple really:

SLEEP YOUR WAY TO THE TOP!

YEAH!

...

Sorry, no wall of text this time!

the only thing I could make out form your... frankly really random post was:
do oyu mean you can only dream your way to the top?