Hiring Audio Professionals - A Guide - ACT IV: Signs of a Good Composer Checklist

There is no single template for a good composer. Different projects require different temperaments, skills and ways of working. However, there are a few things worth looking for if you want somebody who can do more than simply produce competent music on command.

Clear Communication

A good composer should be easy to communicate with. They ask useful questions, explain their process clearly and make sure everybody understands what is being delivered, when it is being delivered and what happens when something changes.

They should also be able to interpret feedback without requiring you to speak fluent composer. If you say, “This section feels a little too safe,” they ought to be able to work out what you mean, ask sensible follow-up questions and turn that into something actionable. You should not need a music degree to give notes on your own project.

Versatility

Versatility is useful, particularly in games where a single project may move between several musical languages. That does not mean every composer needs to be equally brilliant at orchestral writing, techno, death metal and nineteenth-century chamber music.

What matters is whether they understand style well enough to adapt their musical vocabulary to the project, rather than forcing every job through the same handful of tricks. A portfolio should show some evidence of range, but range alone is not the goal.

Creative, Not Generic

A good composer should understand genre without becoming trapped by it. If you ask for horror music, you probably do not want somebody to reach automatically for the same string scrapes, low drones and reversed piano sounds heard in several thousand trailers before yours.

References are useful. Conventions are useful. Clichés occasionally have their place. The point, however, is to work out what your version of that musical language sounds like, so that the score belongs to the project rather than merely demonstrating that everybody involved has heard the same Spotify playlist.

Collaborative

Composers work as part of a larger production. That means taking direction, discussing ideas, understanding other departments and accepting that the best musical idea in isolation may still be completely wrong for the project.

They should be able to take feedback without turning every note into a referendum on their artistic worth. Equally, collaboration does not mean silently agreeing with everything. A useful composer should be prepared to explain why they think something will or will not work, then find a solution with the rest of the team.

Technical Knowledge

How much technical knowledge a composer needs depends on the project. For film, that may include spotting, synchronisation, stems, delivery specifications, editing workflows and mix requirements.

For games, it may also involve middleware such as Wwise or FMOD, interactive music systems, looping, transitions, states, parameters and the relationship between audio and the engine. They do not necessarily need to be your technical audio designer as well as your composer, but they should understand where their work is going.

Writing three minutes of beautiful music is of limited use if nobody has considered how it is actually supposed to behave once the player starts doing things.

Relevant Portfolio

Look for evidence that the composer understands the kind of work you are making. That does not necessarily mean finding somebody who has already scored something almost identical, because hiring purely on superficial similarity can be rather limiting.

Instead, listen for the things that matter to your project. Does the music support what is happening? Can they handle shifts in tone? Do they understand pacing? Can they create a strong musical identity?

If you hear something interesting in their portfolio, ask them about it. Why did they make those choices? What problem were they solving? What changed during production? The answer will often tell you more than the track itself.

Attention to Detail

Good composers tend to be annoyingly interested in details. Instrumentation, transitions, voicing, rhythm, arrangement, texture, dynamics and the relationship between music and picture or gameplay all matter.

For interactive projects, that might also mean thinking about how layers enter and leave, how a loop behaves after the fiftieth repetition, or what happens when the player does something inconveniently unscripted. If something in a composer’s portfolio catches your ear, ask why it works the way it does. There should probably be an answer.

Time Management

Professional reliability is rather less glamorous than artistic vision but considerably more useful at 4pm on delivery day. A composer should be realistic about schedules, communicate problems early and deliver when they say they will.

Last-minute changes, delayed builds, rewritten scenes and shifting milestones are normal parts of production. Nobody can make time cease to exist, but an experienced composer should be able to tell you what is achievable within it.

Be slightly suspicious of anybody who claims they can absorb unlimited revisions, impossible deadlines and constant scope changes without consequence. Physics remains undefeated.

Industry Knowledge

A professional composer should understand the basic business around their work. That includes contracts, licensing, ownership, usage rights, delivery requirements and the practical implications of whatever agreement you are proposing.

They do not need to replace your lawyer, but they should at least know what they are signing. If you ask whether their fee includes a licence, a copyright transfer or some other rights arrangement and receive only a haunted expression in return, further questions may be warranted. Or, preferably, hire someone else.

Emotional Awareness

Music can influence tension, momentum, scale, intimacy, discomfort, excitement and a dozen other things that are inconveniently difficult to describe. A good composer should understand not only how to create those qualities, but why a particular scene or moment is supposed to feel a certain way.

“Sad” is not much of a brief. Sad because somebody has died? Sad because somebody has won but paid too much for it? Sad because the audience knows something the character does not? Those are different musical questions with wildly different answers.

Ego

Everybody has one. There is no need to bring it to every meeting. A composer should understand that good music and appropriate music are not always the same thing. You can write the greatest cue of your career and still be told it does not belong in the scene. Ask me how I know. That is part of the job.

Feedback should begin a conversation about the work, rather than an emergency meeting about the composer’s feelings. You are not simply looking for good music. You are looking for the right music.

Testimonials and References

Testimonials can be useful, although naturally everybody puts the flattering ones on their website. It is worth looking at who the composer has worked with, whether those collaborations appear to have continued and, where appropriate, whether they can provide a reference.

Do not expect unrestricted access to every previous client. NDAs, confidentiality and the general inconvenience of repeatedly bothering former collaborators all exist. But if you are making a substantial hire, there is nothing unreasonable about wanting some evidence that this person has successfully worked with other human beings before.

And remember:

“Edward Ray delivered astonishing, genre-defying work before we even asked for it.” - Arnold Schwarzenegger, presumably

How to Assess a Composer’s Portfolio and Demos

What to Listen For

When reviewing a composer’s work, try to listen beyond whether you simply like the music. Ask what it is doing.

Does it support the scene? Does it improve the pacing? Does it create tension where tension is needed? Does it leave space when dialogue or sound design needs to take precedence? Does it have an identity of its own?

For games, pay attention to how music interacts with gameplay. If implementation examples are available, look at transitions, intensity changes, exploration versus combat states, looping and how naturally the score responds to what the player is doing.

For film, listen to how the music handles dialogue, pacing, emotional changes and important narrative moments. The technical production matters too, so listen for clarity, dynamics, arrangement and whether the music feels deliberately constructed rather than simply dense.

If there is a particular piece you like, tell the composer. Better still, tell them why. That gives them useful information about your taste in terms of work they already understand intimately.

Custom Demos

A bespoke demo can sometimes be useful, particularly when the project needs something unusual and neither side is completely certain whether the fit is right. Speculative work should still be treated sensibly.

Some composers will produce a short test without charge. Some will charge for it. Some established composers will quite reasonably decline to audition at all. None of those positions tells you much about the quality of the composer.

If you request a test, keep it focused. Give them enough information to understand the problem you are trying to solve, and agree beforehand on the expected length, deadline and terms.

Thirty seconds of music may tell you plenty. Asking somebody to score half your game as an “audition” tells them something too.

The most useful part of a demo is often the conversation around it. Why did they take that approach? What did they understand from the brief? What would they change if the project moved in another direction? Can they explain their decisions?

That tells you whether you are dealing with somebody who can merely produce music in the right genre, or somebody who is actually thinking about your project.

For the record, I will sometimes produce short demos where it makes sense. I simply do not regard free speculative work as a mandatory entrance exam for composers.

ACT V

How I Work:

This section is inevitably a little more personal. The rest of this guide has been about choosing and working with composers generally. This is how I tend to approach the job myself.

Before I start writing, I want to understand what the project actually is. That means more than being sent three reference tracks and being told that the music should be “dark, but epic”.

I want to understand what you are making, why you are making it and which parts of it matter most to you. What is the central idea? What should the player or audience remember? What should the project feel like that its competitors do not?

Once I understand that, conversations about music become considerably more useful.

If you tell me a scene should feel angry, I want to know what sort of anger we are dealing with. Violent? Humiliated? Controlled? Desperate? Triumphant?

The same applies to almost any emotional description, because context changes everything. I will look at the characters, environments, pacing, dialogue, colours, mechanics and whatever else helps define the world. Sometimes the most useful musical reference is not another piece of music at all.

This process also gives us a shared language. Instead of spending the project saying things such as “make it twenty per cent more exciting”, we can talk about what the music is actually supposed to communicate and why.

That tends to make revisions considerably easier. It also gives me enough context to challenge an idea when I think there is a better solution. I do not see my job as simply taking an order for thirty minutes of music and returning thirty minutes of music. The useful part is working out what the project needs in the first place.

That may mean recommending less music, changing where music appears, designing a system rather than writing another cue, or spending money on a live performer in one place and saving it somewhere else. Occasionally it may mean pointing out that the original plan is making life unnecessarily difficult. The same applies to budget. Tell me what you are working with. If the figure is fixed, fine; we can decide where that money will have the greatest effect.

If you are not sure how much music you need, I would rather help work that out before anybody starts counting minutes and multiplying them by a rate.

As the project develops, I prefer regular, useful communication. I will send work, explain important decisions where necessary and make sure we are still heading in the same direction. There is no point disappearing into a studio for three months, emerging with ninety minutes of immaculate music and discovering that everybody imagined a different game.

Ultimately, the score has a job to do. It needs to support the world, characters, pacing and identity of the project.

Sometimes that means drawing attention to itself. Sometimes it means doing almost nothing. The important thing is that those decisions are deliberate.

If there is one idea I would take from this entire guide, it is this:

Please do not begin a conversation with:

“I need thirty minutes of X genre. What do you charge per minute?”

As you hopefully now know, there are far better places to start.