Hard Lessons
Composers who create music for film and television need thick skin. It's a hard lesson to learn that it doesn't matter how much time you spent creating the track or how great you think it is; the only thing that matters is whether it works for the user or not. I was once hired to create music for a short film for IBM. It was a big break for me, and I worked like crazy to create a track that had the excitement and energy the visuals and editing style needed. I was up all night getting it perfect. Early studio days at Omni. Aaah, analog! The next morning the producer from IBM showed up at my studio to hear the track. I played it for him and held my breath. "It doesn't really work for me," he said. "What else have you got?" I was devastated. I started to protest that the track was great, that it fit the picture perfectly and that I had almost killed myself to get it done. But he was unmoved. That afternoon I created an...
