Life as a Composer

So, I am not that crazy haired man who sits at a piano all day watching the birds feed their chicks on a crusty winter's morning. I don't wear smart clothes all the time nor do I have the fascination with art. I don't speak proper, and my accent is more common than the number one top chart tune constantly played on the radio.

I am a woman who likes to dye her hair pink every now and again, but I'm not a DJ in a sense. Even though I can do that if asked. I love my classical music and some modern classical. I love ACDC and have the biggest crush on Lady Gaga.

I do sit at a piano to write, but mostly use our trustworthy MacBooks to write. I love my Mac, well did. It just saw better days and decided to give out and die on me. All my work, everything was on it. I couldn't write something for a solid two weeks and felt my brain becoming a degenerate. I didn't have any source of acceptable written arrangements as for what I was writing for (concert band) was too big to accommodate.

Fortunately, Apple has this amazing thing called iCloud which automatically saves all of my work to it. I received all my work on my new Mac and nearly cried — no exaggeration. My tears were held back.

Now anyways, for those people reading this thinking what is it we actually do, let me explain it in simple terms. The music you're probably listening to right now, someone wrote that. Do you know who wrote it or is it just the singer/band you know? It's sad isn't it. To think that our hard work and dedication to our music goes unnoticed by our inconspicuous audience. The point I want to make in this article/whatever you want to call it is that us composers don't get the recognition we deserve. I mean don't get me wrong, I love that people don't ask for my autograph or anything, I do have autism and would probably run away crying. What I don't like is the fact that big name composers still to this day do not get the recognition they deserve.

Let's start off with Hans Zimmer: he is my idol, and I have met him, he couldn't be a nicer gentleman. Whilst meeting him the thing I noticed is how few people were there to meet him. Less than a dozen or so. How sad is that? If it were, let's say, Ariana Grande, who doesn't write her own music, was to have a meet and greet there would be hundreds of fans. Just because she can sing and dance her way around looking hot makes her attractable to so many people. Hans Zimmer can sing, he's a musician after all, yes we are musicians too. I am not slandering Ariana Grande in any way, I actually really like her voice, she was just the first person who popped into my head.

Hans Zimmer has written some of the greatest movie soundtracks I have ever heard; he dominates the composition industry today. He has won Oscars for his music but does that get recognised? No they just show it in the Earlier on section. That, above everything else, pisses me off to the core. These days all the Oscars seem to care about is the actor and director. There are many other sectors into making a film, I mean you've got cinematography, animation, writers, costume design, makeup, props, and those are just to name a few.

To give you an example of how ridiculous this is:

The year Leonardo Dicaprio won his Oscar everyone was over social media like a hawk catching its prey. He was everywhere because it was his first Oscar. But do you know who else won their first Oscar that year? The thing I waited up until two in the morning to only find out who won at the very end in the dreaded Earlier on section? A person who is on his last legs and has imprinted some of the greatest old-fashioned film music of his generation? An 88-year-old man with the name of Ennio Morricone. He won his first Oscar ever. But did the media show this? No, it was all focused on how Leo won his first ever Oscar after acting for 31 years, but Ennio won his first one after 62 years. That's double the amount of years, double the amount of effort and everything in between. Seriously, fuck you Oscars.

We don't want to be stood on high pedestals. We just want the recognition we deserve. Without us you would have nothing to listen to. We just want to be thanked for the hard work we do to please your lives in a way nothing else could.

-S.D