a wise man once said "do or do not, there is no try". And of course Lucas was right; you create or you do not create. Just go for it.

Write some ideas down. You'll have good ones and bad ones, but at least you'll have done something.

Take risks, achieve and above all, have fun.

Like any decent artist, I avoid trying to look like one. I don't go to events or join organisations, because I'm not trying to pretend to belong.

I just write music, that's who I am.

I started scoring fan films, doing the occasional small project here and generally networked through working. After a few years I was asked to score some war games, a few tv series and it sort of went from there. You learn by doing, just be who you are.

Another thing to consider is the whole concept of "breaking into" or "making it" the industry. When I first started in 2005 I thought I would have "made it" when X happened. Then it would happen and I still felt the drive - still felt like I hadn't "made it" yet. So then my target changed to Y and so on. Breaking into the industry has never been easier, especially with the mobile market and it's low bar of entry. Nearly 150 projects and nine years later I still feel like I'm trying to make it. I've had some success and feel I'm a part of the industry, sure, but I'm always striving for that next goal. That next hurdle. And that's not a bad thing!

Like any decent artist, I avoid trying to look like one. I don't go to events or join organisations, because I'm not trying to pretend to belong.

Matt does things his own way - that's for sure. For some, attending events and organizations is crucial while it doesn't work for others. My advice - give all (or most) avenues a shot and see what pays off for you.

I listened to a few of your tracks and, honestly, I was surprised that you're struggling so much with confidence because you produce good work! Perhaps you're looking at this the wrong way. Nobody wants to work with a jerk and being egotistical is a massive turn off. Try to strike a balance between being humble and approachable while having confidence that you can deliver. I'd look for some projects that are already after the kind of music you can do really well organically. I'm talking about the type of music you'd write on a free Saturday afternoon just for fun. Something that already deeply aligns with your passions and talents. Once you've scored a few games that you're proud of - and can show off to other clients - I think you'll start to feel better about your own work.

Hello there Vincent!

I wish I could give you some good advice, but since I'm just entering the industry and you are there for like ten years, I don't feel like I'm able to. Just like you, I'm trying to understand this complex monster that game music industry is. But I want to tell you two things.

1 - I know you didn't came here for compliments, but I just finished listening to all your demo reel and man, you have some really good stuff! I think people only told you about the orchestral stuff because the first minutes are all orchestral parts. Maybe you should rearrange your demo reel, as others said, making it smaller. Try to mix the orchestral pieces with other pieces to show some varieties, like don't put them all together at the beginning and then go to other style, mix them all instead. Try listening to some of the demo reels from people of this community to bring some ideas! Really, you have a great material and you shouldn't feel this down (though I know sometimes you just can't control it).

2 - I saw your youtube videos too and I see people loving them. Trust these people! I know sometimes we tend to only validate other composers' compliments, but music is for everyone. On a game, it will dialogue not only with music composers, but with every kind of player, and it goes all the way to the people behind the game. Many game devs don't have a great understanding about music, they just look for one that will do the work for their titles. Is mostly their ears working and evaluating, not their composition skills. Of course you should look for advice from some other music composers, but don't forget that everyone can consume your music, not only composers, and their opinion should count too!

I wish I could say more, but that's it for now.

All the best to you, Vincent!

Cheers

Alright then.

Vincent,

Basically, you ask about three different things in the Emotional part of your first post: Self-efficacy, resilience, and goal-setting. I'll talk about self-efficacy first.

Self-efficacy is the confidence you have in a skill or profession. So, your self-efficacy as a composer is the confidence you have in your skills as a composer. The only reliable way to build long-term self-efficacy is to perform (i.e., compose), and to receive feedback—the more immediate and accurate, the better. Both are crucial. Ideally you'd want to compose all the time, and receive immediate feedback from a teacher or mentor—this is why often music students who just graduated from university have more self-efficacy than composers who have been teaching themselves for the same time. One way to get a lot of fast feedback is to post your music on many forums—if you practice music in a specific genre especially, you can post on genre-specific forums (e.g., hip hop forums when you try hip hop). Another way is to work on projects or with clients; even on free projects this will not only build your self-efficacy in composing, but also in working with clients.

I made a quick chart to illustrate how this works. I'll go into resilience and goal-setting another time.

[attachment=24518:self-efficacy.png]

(Behold my masterly crafted curved arrows!)

Cheers,

Chris

Edit: One thing I forgot to mention is that self-efficacy, as you can see in the figure, actively affects your performance. Our brain is an incredibly efficient processor, and it's not going to waste any more resources than necessary on a task (trivia: it even takes a lot of shortcuts, which is how logical fallacies happen). If the brain doesn't believe it's going to be very successful (i.e., self-efficacy is low), it is not going to try very hard.

I'm really more asking the general question... Have you as a composer ever been through a period of crisis where you think you're not good enough. And what techniques did you use to get yourself out of it? How can one boost their own confidence, from a psychological standpoint (that is, aside from getting "objectively" better at your craft, which I also will ask about in the second part of the post)?

you're focusing mostly on stuff in the "orchestral section"...

Sorry for confusion here, I'm talking about Orchestration - choices of instruments, how they're mixed. Not your orchestral pieces. You are asking what tools help you boost your marketability and self confidence. Is a lot of playing around, crafting your own sound. Most of writing I find is figuring out what the music will sound like, actually creating the musical part of it almost writes itself once you have a sound down. That sound is part of what gives your music an identitiy, not just the notes.

When I hit this same wall, I picked a style/genre of music - or something to score then concentrate on that for a month or so. I listen to a lot of music in that genre, and analyze what each composer is doing to give the music a particular feel. Writing over and over until I figured out the idiosyncracies that make up a particular style. These idiosyncracies may be musical but they are also mix choices, and choices of instruments working together and processing choices.

Here's a realworld example of expanding your skill set while under pressure - I had 4 days to come up with something.

My loose direction from the developer was to make something that feels like students practicing kungfu but semi whimsical.

I am not versed in writing traditional chinese music, but figuring out what makes up the music helps figure out how to write something that sounds like traditional chinese music.

The wild flute fx you hear in the song is just myself playing along with the music and creating overtones and trying to play something similar - I am not a flute player either... parts of real flute mixed with sequenced flute gives it a very live - mystical feel.

Here is the music in software. You can see it is actually very simply composed. The vocal chants were myself layered to sound like a school of students practicing their move.

The point I'm trying to make is that with these kind of approaches - figuring out what makes music tick and then applying it to yourself can yield some very interesting results and thus a style of music that is your own interpretation / style.

I took that idea and then ran with it just to practice and expand upon the skill about 2 years later I came up with this little experiment

https://soundcloud.com/groovyone/playing-with-japanese-asian

Here's another great article about sound production techniques used to shape these composers's style.

http://www.rastsound.com/artist-workflow-i-trifonic-and-amon-tobin/

Musical choices are only part of what makes up a track - expand your pallette, expand your production, and it will open up new ideas.

I started scoring fan films, doing the occasional small project here and generally networked through working. After a few years I was asked to score some war games, a few tv series and it sort of went from there. You learn by doing, just be who you are.

Sometimes we try to be like others too much. I might be guilty of that. Perhaps we need a balance. At least, maybe that's what's best for me. Going to conventions, workshops, and these types of things might help me, talking to other composers about the craft.

1 - I know you didn't came here for compliments, but I just finished listening to all your demo reel and man, you have some really good stuff! I think people only told you about the orchestral stuff because the first minutes are all orchestral parts.

I listened to a few of your tracks and, honestly, I was surprised that you're struggling so much with confidence because you produce good work! Perhaps you're looking at this the wrong way. Nobody wants to work with a jerk and being egotistical is a massive turn off. Try to strike a balance between being humble and approachable while having confidence that you can deliver.

Thank you. As I said, it might be a little hard for me to believe, but it does help. I think the thing is... I don't necessarily need "compliments" in the typical sense. It might be good for me to have more constructive feedback, both positive and negative. That is, focusing on the "why", not just simply stating opinion. I've gotten plenty of critical negative feedback from various people, but this is the first I've gotten legitimate positive. It sounds pathetic to say that I (or anyone for that matter) need encouragement to survive. The industry requires a thick skin after all. But when I think about it further... is it so unreasonable to need that? Positive reinforcement is just as effective as negative punishment in any type of learning. For someone in a creative craft, it is just as crucial to know what they're doing right, so they can keep doing it! Perhaps people assume you already know the positive, so they only state the negative. That's certainly not the case for me; I have no idea what to think. So anyway, I think what I need to is make more contacts and get more continuous feed back, just like you said Nyaanyaa.

Here's another great article about sound production techniques used to shape these composers's style.
http://www.rastsound.com/artist-workflow-i-trifonic-and-amon-tobin/

I will definitely check this out, thanks.

2 - I saw your youtube videos too and I see people loving them. Trust these people!

I recognize that they say nice things, and I'm really glad the enjoy the stuff. The only reason this doesn't help me that much is because 1) they're not my compositions and 2) let's be honest, the bar for youtube is not that high. But still, it does bring me some happiness to see that people derive entertainment from it!

I wish I could give you some good advice, but since I'm just entering the industry and you are there for like ten years, I don't feel like I'm able to. Just like you, I'm trying to understand this complex monster that game music industry is.

Your words were immensely helpful, thank you.

____________________________________

All my closing questions from my last post still stand. You've all given me a great deal to think about! Thank you again!