An Untapped Opportunity for Musicians and Composers

Earlier this week, I wrote a post called Repurposing Your Creative Work which talked briefly about how artists today can find new ways to either increase exposure or creative new revenue from their existing catalog.

I want to highlight another potential opportunity that I have personally been aware of which I have not seen many musicians take advantage of. It’s not for everybody, but it is at least something for everybody to think about.

Just as an example, there are thousands of universities with multimedia arts and film programs around the world. Every single student that passes through those programs needs new, interesting music to put in their projects. Some of them will want to use songs they already know and love, but a large portion of them are looking for something new to help build their creative vision. That weird experimental track you recorded at 3am and have hidden away on your hard drive may be perfect for one of them.

I worked on the crew of several film shoots this summer with students from the LA Film School. Every single one of them was struggling to find appropriate music. They didn’t have the budgets to license any mainstream songs or hire known composers; they were looking for (relatively) new musicians and (relatively) unknown composers to develop relationships with so that they could grow together and collaborate going into the future.

That’s a lot of potential opportunity.

Granted, chances are low that that person is going to be the next Coen and make you famous (you wouldn’t want that kind of fame most likely - it is often short-lived). But there exists the opportunity to both increase your exposure and build relationships with people that will need music and composers for the rest of their careers.

——————————————-

Just some quick food for thought for the weekend! Hope you all have a good one!