The Beach Audio Blog

Are you "freelance"? Is the work you do project - to - project? Are you a musician? Are you planning a move to a career that is more satisfying?
Do you network in hopes of achieving more to satisfy your insatiable lust for success and professional validation?

Okay. That's most people, I think.

In my long travelled little career in music and music business, I can't count the amount of times I said to myself "they're not paying me enough to do this." When I got out of my first round of recording engineering school in 2000 I promptly got to work recording any artists I could, and I got pretty busy. I started to get phone calls from artists or companies with hardly any budget that needed something done that could lead to very interesting and rewarding opportunities down the road. I recall catching myself thinking "they're not paying me enough to even leave the house!" So I would let the opportunity pass by.

Fast forward to 2004. A conversation with an associate leads to a "small - money - but - big - potential" gig doing audio for a morning tv show. I made the decision to do it no matter what. Getting up at 3:30AM to do the show every day sucked. But while there I aggressively pursued the chance to write music for TV and did so for anyone who would let me. The small amount of creative work I snuck in at the tv station happened to lead to rather lucrative opportunities in tv and film.

Now I think back on each time in the last 6 years that something interesting, creative, and difficult came up that on the surface didn't pay much but presented some very cool potential. I'm pleased to say that If it interests me, i do it... and the payoff has been huge.