The 2025 Half Yearly update!

(Whoops, wrote this in june and forgot to hit post)

Man, what a year it’s been. 6 months ago I quit my job at the brewery and went full time into music again. It’s been a lot of ups and downs, and every morning I wake up terrified but also so excited. I’ve gotten to work on so many awesome projects that I never would have imagined, and my ability has grown 100x. I used to struggle with my relationship with music, but I am happy to say that I’m really falling in love again with it. Ironically, it’s the forcing myself to do it for me (especially for like social media type stuff) that I found myself really enjoying the process again.

In my previous update, I wrote about how that era of my life was somewhere between a gap year and a boot camp. This current “Era” is a crash course. I am learning so much through trial and error, but I am also finding a lot of successes and victories along the way. I’ve always said my favorite means of learning is trial by fire, and boy do I feel the flames.

Anyway, what are we up to these days?

• In terms of scoring, I’ve worked on a few shorts, a documentary, and a feature this year. I’m very excited to share! I’ve got to explore things from new techniques to new styles of music I’ve never even heard of. I’m also learning that my biggest “frustration”, is my 13 year old computer. An upgrade will be in order soon for sure.

• Electric Raindrop Audio, my sonic branding agency, is finally getting somewhat steady work as well. I am focusing on scaling that right now and aiming to start hiring more composers/musicians more frequently. I am really excited to see how this grows.

• Tech Book - I swear it’s coming. It’s a matter of banging it out in my free time, which unfortunately is quite limited these days.

• Sonic Tastings/Food Music book - Whelp, cat’s out of the bag (not that many of you read my blog) but I am pushing hard on writing and finishing a book on this realm. There’s so much interest around it and I keep seeing more and more events going on. I want to share what I know because I know I’m an expert here.

• I put out a handful of podcast episodes for Coffee with Composers - my podcast on creativity and career advice! I’ve gotten to interview a ton of awesome people so far, and I’m so excited to keep doing this. My sonic branding podcast, Sound Matters, has a trailer episode out now but will be hitting it’s stride soon. The third of the three podcasts I mentioned in my last post is almost out as well - that one is a very fun one and I’m excited to find time to work on it.

• Dance Collabs - still working on these! Have 3 in the works and I don’t think you’ll be able to guess any details about them lol

• The Youtube Channel - I recently launched a YouTube Channel where I am going to be posting a LOT of content. Long form content is so much more interesting to me than short form, though I undertstand the reasoning to do both. However, I am finding the longform content is a great way to encourage myself to explore projects I’ve wanted to. I’ve hit a few tumbles as I learn about video production, but as this workflow gets easier expect to see more and more content posted there including tutorials, gig vlogs, experiments, film essays, and more.

• The Newsletter - If you’ve read this far, you probably care about who I am and what I do more than the average stranger. Thank you for that. I have a newsletter where I send updates once a month collecting all the major stuff going on, as well as a cookie of the month recipe (because I love cooking/baking and why not??) Please consider subscribing if you’re interested! Every little bit of support helps

• Game Jams - I’ve found a lot of fun/success hosting weekend jams for composers on Itch.io. I have a discord that’s up to almost 100 composers who want to work on music and just do it for the love of the game. Starting next month, I will be adding a second jam focused on synthestration. Eventually I hope to host one a weekend. I even want to do a large scale “Sketchtember” challenge, challenging composers to write as much music as possible during the month of september - I think that’s a truly awesome way to grow.

• Back Pocket Material - there are a LOT of opportunities I’ve come across in the past few months. It is genuinely hard to keep up with them all, but as I learn and continue to develop as an artist, an entrepreneur, and a creator I am finding more and more possible and within my grasp. I am learning so many new skills from the entirety of marketing, to video editing, color grading, lighting, video production, storytelling, speaking, listening, cold outreach, and so much more. As I said in the start of this Blog post, I wake up terrified everyday but also truly excited. I think I am on the way to creating a path in film scoring that is never, or at least rarely, done and that’s so fun and exciting to me. The novelty never wears off because there are so many novel ways to keep this entertaining when you’re not just doing client work. It’s overwhelming, sure, but I also see a lot of great return on my time and financial investments coming soon.

Looking forward, the idea is scale, growth, and acceleration. For this second half of the year, we will hopefully hit full throttle and truly see everything I’ve been working towards start coming to fruition. We will check back in with another update in 6 months so stay tuned!

Until then,

Joe Chris