It's true that working in the music industry is incredibly competitive, and making a living as a musician can seem impossible for many musicians. The truth is that in today's music industry, for most musicians, it is impossible to make a living doing just one thing, but it's not impossible to make a living if you're able to find income from various sources - this is how many musicians work today, and I'd argue it's the only way to work today. You shouldn't stretch yourself too thin with these income sources - you can master only a small handful of skills and use those to generate lots of options. Let's take a look at 10 ways to make money as a film composer:

This week was the 10th anniversary of the passing of film and TV composer Jerry Goldsmith, and on Monday I wrote a little post to take a short look at his incredible career. After remembering all the great music he had written, I wanted to put together a little list of my favorite Goldsmith scores (in no particular order).

Stories of love and romance are possibly some of the oldest in our storytelling history, predating film by thousands of years. In music, love is by far the most common topic - and that's nothing new. Romance through music has been around almost as long as music itself. Today, the marriage of music and film (see what I did there?) has given us a new way of experiencing these emotions as stories are told with breathtaking visuals that bring us closer to the characters and music that pushes you to tears, often without you even noticing that it was there. This Valentine's week, I'd like to give credit to my top 10 romantic film scores. I should note that not all of these are stories about romance, but the scores do have a romantic aesthetic.

With 2013 wrapping up, I thought I'd put together a list of my favorite (mainstream) film scores from the past year. I doubt you'll be surprised by the list, but feel free to let me know if I missed something!

It's sort of common practice for Christmas movies to be scored with wall to wall Christmas songs, with maybe a few seconds of traditional underscore in between. Because of this, there is no shortage of "Best Christmas Movie Soundtracks" lists out there, filled with a diverse (or sometimes not) variety of popular holiday covers. But what about the movies with an outstanding emotional underscore? Here are 5 Christmas scores to check out:

Can you tell I'm a little excited for Halloween already? It's only 48 days away for those who are curious. Anyway, in the spirit of Friday the 13th, I thought I'd put together a little list of my 13 favorite horror film scores. It wasn't easy to cut it down to just 13, and I tried to consider the newer scores as well as the classics. Some of these aren't so much "horror" as they are thrillers, but the scores deserve to be on the list. So, without further ado: