Hey all,
Welcome to the first post of my blog. I wanted a central place that wasn’t Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn etc. that I can post focused updates on.
This past year (and particularly the last few months) have been really exciting for me. Outside of finally finishing my Berklee degree (and despite covid royally screwing up my plans/original timeline), I’ve made a lot of progress career-wise and started a few new projects that I’m excited to share with y’all!
First off is my scoring tech blog, scoringtech.net. I made an initial blog post there a while back, but have been waiting to do more because I wanted to add a video element to it. Now I finally have that set up, I’m good to move forward and start making content more regularly. This blog is intended to focus on the more technical/IT side of scoring tech rather than the more musical side of it. You can read my first post about storage drives - here.
Speaking of content, I have been vigorously reading this year. I have read more books in the past 6 months than I have any year of my life by far. Many of these were business/sales books and I am currently working on a small video series on YouTube where I discuss these books in the context of music making/composing. The goal is to discuss books that aren’t generally considered to be part of the standard musical canon (such as Adler’s Orchestration), but I’ve found to be personally very helpful and informative such as Stephen king’s “On Writing” or Tom Hopkins “How to Master the Art of Selling”.
In addition to the #ComposerBookClub series and scoring tech videos, I will also be releasing various vlogs of my on going projects - including short films I’m scoring, gigs, recording sessions, etc. Pretty much anything I find interesting in my life I may vlog about.
Finally, the last major update I’m excited to share is I am officially launching an ad music house focused on jingles, advertisements, and any other sonic branding needs. It’s called the electric raindrop audio company, and will be located at “electricraindrop.com”. I am so excited to focus in on this and get it off the ground. I hope to actually employ other composers/team members one day in the future and grow this into a full-fledged music production company. So if you’re reading this and personally have or know someone who has a business and would like to get in contact, I would love to get in contact.
Other quick/notable updates for this year so far include:
One of the projects I’ve worked on this year, The Fire that Won’t Stop, has gotten into a
couple film festivals: The Venice Film Festival, The Paris International Short Festival, and the
Hollywood International Golden Age Festival.
Some of my work with zest media group has been released, with more to come. Definitely check out Wonderland and the soon to be released “Repeat after me!” It’s something you won’t want to miss!
With the covid restrictions lifting in NY, I the Brooklyn silent film festival should be getting rescheduled soon where I was selected to compose and perform an original score live to picture. I’ll share more information as soon as it’s available.
Locally, I am working on starting a community group focused on artists and creative in my county to collaborate and share resources and am also working on establishing weekly open jam sessions in my hometown.
Lastly, I’ve been getting back into photography and restarted my photography Instagram account @joe_chris_photos. It’s a good way to step away from all the music/technology I deal with day to day and just experiment in a stress free way.
Some other projects I have in the works are:
Updating the 2-3 year old tracks currently on my site (A Story My Grandfather Once Told Me…, Witches, Biohackers, Rainy Day, and The Coast of Ireland) to more recent compositions
A Musical collaboration with a local brewery - a modified version of Ben Houge’s concept of the food opera but adapted to the more synchronous event of a beer tasting. Currently getting ready to pitch to a few of my favorite places, so fingers crossed
A book on IT/tech in the music world, will to hand in hand with my scoringtech.net blog and expand on and share a lot of the same concepts. Some of the blog posts will likely just be excerpts from the book as I write it.
Producing a small series of audio dramas, some of which will continue my experimentation with surround sound and other spatialized audio formats. I will be doing music, sfx, recording dialogue, and editing it myself to serve as a sort of portfolio of audio skills.
A short self produced EP of some of the songs I’ve written over the years - both my “serious” and “comedic” songs.
Live-streaming music production/Eurorack sessions on twitch.
Rescoring and performing silent films live at some local bars with some local musicians
Also trying to get a live band together to play around here, but this one is more of a maybe than a definitely since it’s hard to find players. Though if you or someone you know is looking to join a pop/rock band for the summer in Rockland please hit me up!
Working towards getting my CompTia ITF + certification.
An audio based VR experience
Overall, it’s been a very exciting time and I’m looking forward to spending the next half of the year fully following through. Though I have a lot on my plate, always feel free to reach out if there’s anything I can help you with.
Wishing you all the best for the rest of 2021 and beyond,
Joe Chris