Award Sounds Music, Photography and Consultancy

Even arranging a loan with your bank manager is a form of collaboration. Ok, it's a purchase of a product by you from them, but if responsible, then the bank should be acting in partnership with you. I'm working on a few projects where I can see finances becoming an issue in the medium term. I could also see a few of the project members funding their own areas. None could fund the whole project, but as each could fund their own area, the project could still work. It's like pooling resources but more controlled.

8. Opportunities

People know people. Some of those people will have their own projects they want to proceed. It's back to the adage of being in the right place at the right time. By working with others, you'll pick up more contacts and build a reputation for yourself.

9. Exit - contracts

Whatever the collaboration, figure out how it can break up cleanly. It's one of the best pieces of advice I've ever heard about partnerships; the first thing to do when starting any partnership is to work out how to dissolve it. Working partnerships and collaborations do break up eventually, so you may as well put the time in now to understand who takes the rights to which pieces of work. If you can't agree that now, then maybe that particular collaboration's not for you.

10. Projects

Projects may just be the embodiment of a person's aims or that of a group of people. It gives them motivation and impetus to head towards a common goal. Set up a project if you're not sure about long-term commitment (either from yourself or the other members).

Think about using side-projects where you commit your time but not as much as you would to your main projects or your day-job. They can provide useful outlets for experimenting. Make sure everyone involved knows what level of commitment the others are providing. It can be mixed, but useful if everyone knows where they stand first.

11. Bands

Just as jamming with other musicians can be a great feeling, get yourself into a band. Remember it's not just about the music, it's also about the interaction of the people; their common aims, goals, their talent (or lack of it), their attitude to music, to the band and to life. Bands are a great vehicle for musicians and as a composer, you're missing out if you've never played in a band.

12. Other media

Doing everything yourself on a project nowadays is easy, but doing it well is out of the reach of most of us. Doing it to a professional, world-standard level on your own is out of the reach of everyone of us, unless you have a lot of money to spare and a few years to learn and implement everything you need.

Now that there are so many variations of the media product, it's getting more difficult to keep up. For instance you can write music, but can you produce it within the constraints of the media and making use of the quirks of the media?

• radio plays
• feature film/movies
• shorts
• tv - documentaries, comedies, adverts
• games
• promotional material - e.g. company annual events, wedding DVDs, Idents
• theatre plays
• musical theatre
• phone ring tones
• computer software
• radio adverts
• on-hold music

Collaborating with others means you can concentrate on the main parts you want to be involved in. Unfortunately you'll have to balance that with what your collaborators want.

• Page 1
• Page 2
• Page 4

Technorati Tags: music collaboration production mixing composing playing instruments guitar bass strings drums people working