Improving Your Music by 1000%

I read an article today from Wired about Google CEO Larry Page and how while most companies focus on improving by 10%, he strives to improve by 10x (or 1000%). If you're not thinking big, you're just keeping up.As always, it got me wondering about how the idea might apply to film scoring. What are some things that a composer could improve 10x over?

  • Compose 10x faster
  • Produce 10x more music
  • Record with 10x more live musicians
  • Write pieces that are 10x longer (production music tends to require 1-2 minute pieces, when was the last time you wrote a 10-20 minute composition? And I don't mean to picture.)
  • Get 10x more material out of a single piece of music. This could mean develop your motive further or also using a single piece to inspire 10 more pieces (a slower version, a minor version, etc)

Of course the 10x principle can apply to just about anything, but those are some of my first thoughts on writing film music. What do you think? What aspect of composing music for film could you improve 10 times over?Also be sure to check out the original article.

Previous
Previous

Applying the idea of Forward Writing to Composing Music

Next
Next

The Hitchhiker with Stephen Tobolowsky