Composers and Agents

By -
As per previous posts I've been pondering if it's time to find an agent. After asking number composers who are working in the field (many who have agents), I have been given some very sage advice by James Guymon. "My best advice is that the right time to have an agent is when they come after you. If you are making money, they will come find you and try to take at least 10% of it. You can then determine whether they will pay for themselves or not. But agents really don't go get work for composers - they negotiate the deals and create a sense of importance on the part of the composer, who can't be contacted directly, that translates into the mindset necessary to ask for and receive higher fees. "But even with an agent, my experience has been that composers are the ones primarily responsible for researching potential gigs, working their own contacts, and then letting the agent now what leads have been qualified and how to proceed with the actual contact. So if getting work is the problem, then getting an agent will only bring a piece of the puzzle. It is possible, and highly likely, that a composer who has trouble getting jobs would continue to have trouble getting jobs with an agent." So, since agents haven't come knocking on my door yet, I guess I need to still do a bit more on my own...
However, all this said, literary agents are important for writers, often before they publish their first book. The difference might be that there are a lot more books published (with a fair amount more money involved).

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Role of Music in Opera

By -
There are numerous books on the topic, and every composer, librettist, director, singer and audience member has their opinion as to what role the music should play in an opera. In a play without music, the words ought to support the meaning behind a character's actions. However, in the case of action movies, often times the action is what tells the story and there aren't words, just images to forward the plot. We might hear music to accompany action, build tension, but the action tells the story. Musicals tend to speak until the emotion of the moment just "has" to break out in song - unless it's something like "Mama Mia" where the dialog is the rails we travel on between songs; the songs themselves, written before the concept of the musical, are the focus of the production, while the story is secondary. Operas are a different beast. The music provides emotion to the words spoken, but it also plays the role of ambience when there is only action. In &quo
Read more

Episode 210b: Joyeuse le départ

By -
Image
Podcast:  Play in new window  |  Download Subscribe:  Apple Podcasts  |  Android  |  Google Play  |  Stitcher  |  TuneIn  |  RSS Provost Cunningham has Transmigrated, but to where! What is Dr Sage going to do with his body? And how can she bring home her friends, Abigail and Erasmus, without also bring home Cunningham? What are they going to say when they find the “skeleton” she’s hiding in her closet? Cast: Eddie Louise Clark  as Dr Sage Chip Clark  as Professor Savant Justin Bremer  as the Narrator Emily Riley Piatt  as Abigail Entwhistle, Calypso & Dean Stewart Written by  Eddie Louise Theme music by  Unwoman Sound Design by  Chip Michael
Read more

The Art of String Quartets by Brian Ferneyhough

By -
Image
When an artist sets paint to canvas, there are brush strokes used for different effects. Sometimes those strokes are subtle, imperceptible; they produce works of art like the Mona Lisa . Other times the very obvious nature of the stroke is the art, as in works by Van Gogh. With some composers of music, the notes on the page are their craft. How those notes translate into an aural experience is what defines some composers as great artists. Brian Ferneyhough has a masterful command of the techniques of putting notes on the page. These techniques are sometimes so subtle, even though written in black and white, they escape detection. Some of what he attempts with his music is just that, to escape detection, to bury the framework, diverting the ear away from the structure, so only the music is heard . The subtlety is so fine it is almost imperceptible. Even though he studied at several institutions, he is considered self-taught, studying scores from Boule
Read more