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On Being Organised

Lighthouse, beach and sea at Tweedmouth

At the start of the year someone said to me they thought I was the most organised person they knew. Which was very nice of them, thank you kind person.

After that, it totally went to my head and I had an idea back in May to do a post on being organised, or, rather, how to be organised, and I’ve been scribbling notes and putting it off and self-censoring ever since. It bloomed into a 4-post series, and then started to evolve into a book outline, which just wasn’t appropriate – dammit, Jim, I’m a composer, not an author. I don’t have time for writing books, especially not those that have been written before, by people much more qualified and experienced than me, in much more organised (yes much lol) ways. So what was I adding? Not a massive amount, certainly not any that warranted the level of off-hours brain space. Said brain is like a dog with a bone sometimes. read more

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Are Decisions Based On Emotion Bad For Business?

Or

What Would Mr Spock Do?

I’m going to come right out and say it.

I think emotions are key to business. They are a precious tool that should never, ever be ignored. They are the central line of dialogue between your higher brain functions and your subconscious, the route to your creative well.

And you can be creative in business. In fact, you must.

The important caveat in all of this: first you must disconnect from those feelings. Be the observer. Your emotions must not rule your behaviour, but instead inform that behaviour, balanced by the facts. read more

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Women, Money, Success and The Bechdel Test

The year is flying by. April is speeding to a close as I finish up the bulk of the music on a very cool project for the V&A Museum down in London. More about this challenging experience in later posts nearer the time the exhibition will open…

I’m starting work on a new feature film in May. Again, more about that when it’s underway.

The theme of women in society is quite heavily featured in both of these projects. With the recently highly successful Everyday Sexism campaign, the reality of what it means to be female in today’s society is very much the flavour of the day. I don’t think I’ve written much (or anything at all) about this here. I think, on the whole, I’ve been incredibly lucky to work with men and women for whom equality is second nature, whether in the face of sexism, racism, homophobia… it very rarely has become an issue. But then this interesting article turned up in my feed and I did a double take – I wondered if some form of insidious, culturally-accepted sexism had affected me without realising it… read more

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Networking for Newbies

Nobody likes networking. It is a fact. I have yet to meet a single person who says, “You know what, I just LOVE working the room! All these people I don’t know, so many faces, so little time, let’s DO THIS.”

More likely it’s, “I hate these events… they don’t work… I’ve never gotten a single job from networking… can we leave now…” (that last one is usually me).

As a newbie/new entrant/recent graduate you’ve no credits, no evidence and no confidence. A nervous bag of sweat. It’s tough, no lie. All you can rely on is the talk. And attempting to ignore the looks of the person you’re attempting to schmooze… over your shoulder – at the rest of the room, working out where their next target is. read more

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Jetlag, Blogging and Self-censorship

I have jetlag and it doesn’t seem to be lifting. I’m up at 5am as I have been for the last few days after returning from Singapore with the magnificent Slung Low (more on that later). I’m tired at 7.30pm and out like a light before 9pm.

I read somewhere that it takes a day per timezone crossed to re-synchronise with the new clock. That means I’ll be all sorted by next Monday…

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Recently, a pretty popular post about Marketing I wrote yonks ago for SCORECastOnline got reposted, so I had a little gander and it occurred to me that one of the suggestions that had actually worked for me in the past (pretty significantly) was ‘Content Marketing’ ( = blogging) and that I hadn’t written for this here ol’ site in a fair while. read more

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Music, Copyright and Licensing (Oh, My)

Music copyright law. Not the most exciting of topics. Or the most straightforward.

But here’s how it works when we work together…

When you commission me, I’ll write a piece of music, specifically to your brief. It’ll fit to picture or to a specific duration.

You’ll pay a fee and that fee will include the work I do on the piece (composition, arrangement, production, recording, mixing, etc), and also the license(s) we both agree on in order for you to use the music. read more

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Let’s Talk About Money

“How much do you charge?”

Good question.

Money is that epic elephant in room when you are a ‘creative’ in business. I’ve been thinking a lot of late about pricing and money. It’s the ultimate love-hate relationship. I love it for what it can enable me to do, but then I hate it when there isn’t enough to do what I want in the world!

How the hell do you put a price on your creative work?

Here’s Dan Pink’s talk, magnificently illustrated (literally), about what motivates creatives and their creativity.
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