What do you do (career wise?) What does that entail?
I work at a music house that provides music for commercials. I guess my “official” title is Associate Composer/Studio Engineer. Gotta love those slashes. =)
I’m basically a music assistant/producer to my boss who is a composer. He composes a track and I will take it and add percussion, record live musicians, sing (sometimes) and finally, mix the track. I use Digital Performer to do all of this, which is the DAW (Digital Audio Workspace) primarily used by all the in-house composers at the company.
2. How did your career begin?
My path was a very strange one. Long story short, I studied business in college and wanted to be a cutthroat businesswoman at an ad agency. I wanted to wear stilettos and business suits, take really important phone calls during dinner (“sorry, I have to get this, it’s my client”) and travel the world for meetings and shoots. Yeah, well, I obviously watched WAY too many movies.
I landed a job at a big agency right out of college and quickly found that I hated it. I realized, at the tender age of 22, that if I’m going to work for the REST OF MY NATURAL BORN LIFE, I better be doing something I take pleasure in! That’s when I decided to try music. I figured I better make the career change now while I’m young (and poor) with nothing to lose! I mean after all, I took piano lessons for like, 3 years in elementary school, so I had that going for me.
I bought myself a nice MacBook with all the trimmings and got to writing. Started doing little ditties for friends here and there, just to get my feet wet. Mind you, I had never written a piece of music before! (Side note, I recently listened to those old tracks again… atrocious. Like video game music, only not cool.)
I visited a bunch of companies and did informational interviews and eventually landed an internship at the company I work for now. Then I just worked from the bottom up. When a position opened up, I went for it and got it! So remember how I said I went to business school and not music school? Yeah, I basically had to learn everything on the job. But I’ve found that this is one of the best ways to learn. The sheer terror of potentially losing your job happens to be extremely motivating! ;) I definitely had to pay a lot of dues before I was allowed to set foot in a studio, but it eventually happened!
That was actually long story long, sorry guys.
7. What was your first major project?
Working on a commercial for the Super Bowl!
What was your first job?
I worked at my best friend’s flower shop in high school! Sounds fun, but I never actually got to touch any flowers. It was a lot of sweeping and paperwork…meh. And spiders. Nightmare.
Did you know what you wanted to do for a living when you were in high school?
No. Again, I thought would be doing business or something like that. Music was always a pipe dream. I never really thought it was practical so I never bothered pursuing it. My family just wanted me to be able to support myself so they steered me towards a career with the best odds, which I absolutely appreciate. Not sure I would have done it any different if given the chance.
9. What is your favorite place to discover/purchase music?
I ask High School kids! You guys are so on top of it! As you get older, you have less time and energy to scour the web for new bands. I thought it’d never happen to me but working the 9-5 just takes it out of you!
Mostly I stumble upon music on blogs and while listening to Hype Machine. Oh! And KCRW.
13. Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
Hopefully still doing something I love while also making a living (gotta pay those bills!).
14. Who are you listening to right now?
This is super un-hip, but I’m totally into Beyonce’s new album. Given what I do, I really notice things like production techniques and I just think the songs sound really clean. But if I’m being honest (and I would never lie to you kids), I also like to dance and B brings it!
And for the hip answer, I seriously can’t get enough of Ravel right now. Pavane for Dead Princess? SWOON. I weep. Dork fest.