Work was pretty slow due to the strike, but the career was also quite active as many of the films I’ve scored in previous years were finally making their way into the festival circuit. Growing Pains for example premiered in Boston and NY this year, and Cornucopia premiered all over the country, including at the SITGES film festival in Spain, which is awesome as it is one of the oldest and largest horror/sci fi film festivals in the world - and it’s Oscar qualifying!
Last December, I was at a holiday party at a studio in Westchester where another person I met and I had just interviewed for the same job with a sonic branding company that agency. When neither of us got the job, I went full steam ahead on getting electric raindrop materials out there. It’s been an on/off side hustle and passion project for the previous year but as the year draws to a close I finally picked up multiple clients almost a year to the day since that party and am really looking forward to what the next year has in store for me there.
I still post on scoringtech.net, in fact, this year was the most interesting for me. Though I’ve posted considerably less than in previous years, I’ve also received way more feedback from composers I had never met before. People sliding in my DMs, messaging me on instagram and discord and letting me know how much they enjoy what I do. This has been the most interesting thing because when I post 9 times out of 10 it feels like I’m posting into the void. Like everything else, big plans are in place here for the expansion of this blog into something so much more.
Where I really had fun this year musically was on hosting my own freelancing projects. The Murder Mystery projects I do were probably about as big of a success that a small side hustle could be before it becomes something too big to handle. Our largest performance was a hybrid gala/fundraiser done in conjunction with Habitat for Humanity for around 150 people, including many members of the local government. A huge success!
If I had to look at the various “eras” of my career, this year almost feels somewhere between a gap year and a boot camp. I did not work on as many “actual” projects as I would have liked - understandable considering the absolutely abysmal state of the industry right now - but at the same time I put my nose to the grindstone and really developed my skills in the areas of sales and marketing while also digging deep into passion projects. So much so that I’ve actually been doing not just sales for a day job, but marketing too now for multiple local businesses. The next step is to pour myself into my own work the way I do for others.
That being said, there are always irons in the fire getting ready.
First off: the “learning experiences":
I started a newsletter and a podcast this year on music tech news. Wasn’t exactly what I wanted, but I learned a ton about how the format you deliver content in is important, as well as what people are really looking for in that space.
Sonic Tastings - this is actually the first year since starting the project that I haven’t done it. In fact, I haven’t even tried to sell it (but I did turn down a few gigs!). This is not exactly a “failure” of the project but rather a failure of my schedule. When I work for a brewery all day, the last thing I want to do is come home and write music for a brewery. That being said, discussions are in the works to bring in the next evolution of the sonic tasting series. What was before was only a prototype, but now interest is gaining, I understand marketing (as well as this project!) much deeper, and there is much more to be done.
A short EP of original songs - What I once considered to be a vanity project for me with 0 passion behind it now excites me once again. The “failure” here is I wrote it off too soon. It is still a low priority passion project, but boy am I excited to share some of the music I’ve been working on. Does it count as a failure if I “kill” a project intentionally, and then do it anyway?
Teaching - similarly, I never wanted to teach again once I left School of Rock. Now, I genuinely want and would love to - just on my own terms with my own students.
Anyway, other project updates:
The IT Music book. Oh boy. This has been literally YEARS of my life, on and off and on and off again. Every time I come back to this book, there are crazy advancements I have to update - even with trying to write a book about the core fundamentals! Of course, the fundamentals stay relatively the same for decades until I start to write about it. Anyway, it’s nearly complete. The format changed from a PDF or a print book to a more modern web based book, but this will allow me to be more adaptable with it and treat it as a quasi-book-blog hybrid. Can’t wait to share
Digital Hygiene - holy smokes is my Digital hygiene atrocious. A year ago I wrote about the need to update my website. A year later I have not. Same tracks. Same old graphics. Same poorly laid out text, headers, etc. I learned a lot at the brewery, I will be getting to this (and my unholy out of date IMDB) soon
Podcasts: I have 3 in the works. That’s all I can say. I’ve recorded multiple episodes already, and having learned from my previous attempts - these are going to be way better!
“The Soundscape Museum” - literally the only thing stopping this from being a thing is the website host situation. I want a very specific website style here, and am debating coding it myself. But there are issues with that (and time) but I think it could be a fun little hobby to do it in like a late 90’s/early 2000’s style static web page. Nothing fancy. The problem is if I do want to incorporate fancy from time to time. Will I be able to just export assets from RNBO? Can I run quadrophonic or binaural audio in a basic engine via html? I know nothing about how this all works and only want to build once, so that’s where I’m at right now.
Dancer Collabs - Dance has always been a passion of mine (watching, not performing) and I am so excited that I finally have a few collaborations with dancers in the works! More on this soon
Typically, these posts I make often ONLY focus on work. Lately however, I’ve been trying to have a much healthier work/life balance and have been actively taking time to enjoy hobbies. I’ll write about a few of them below:
I was always an avid hiker. But this year in particular, I hiked at least 2-3 times a week for a while and explored a majority of the best trails in the Hudson Valley region. I am experiencing NY as much as I possibly can, because who knows if I’m going to still be living here next year or not?? In that, I’ve also been running quite a bit. It’s such a good way to see things I normally wouldn’t and explore. I also trained and ran a half marathon this year - this past weekend actually! I plan to do a few hiking challenges next year too - including trying to tackle the catskills 35ers and maybe some of the Adirondacks and really see what NY has to offer.
I’ve been spending more and more time in the city these days too. Manhattan and Brooklyn mostly. Lots of great places, amazing food, people, etc. My biggest complain is I wish I could experience the night life in the city more - but getting home is an absolute bitch.
I also am about to Rock Climb at a rock climbing gym for the first time on Sunday and have a tentative snowboarding trip & polar plunge coming up too (first time for all of these)
As I finish off this blog post, I’d like to throw out into the world something I’ve been contemplating lately. Erich Fromm wrote about how love is an art and must be practiced like any other art. With that in mind, I’ve been pretty burnt out towards the end of last year - which I think is another reason I didn’t do as much music as I would have liked. So lately I’ve been trying to treat music like any other relationship in my life and practicing loving it more than just practicing the “art, mechanics, & business etc” of music. I feel my efforts have been helping and definitely feels like this is a topic I may explore in further blog posts either here or on scoringtech.
Thank you for your time & have a great 2025,
Joe Chris
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