Successful Musicians Podcast – Episode #42: Chasing the Dangling Carrot: Sherri Chung’s Path to Creative Fulfillment

Successful Musicians Podcast Episode 42

Interviewee: Sherri Chung

Interviewer: Jason Tonioli

Hey, this is Jason Tonioli. I’m a piano player that grew up believing it wasn’t possible to earn a living and support a family with music. I’ve proven that idea was wrong and I’ve met hundreds of other people who have found success with their music. This podcast features stories of musicians who have found their own personal version of success and fulfillment in both music and life. This podcast is meant to inspire musicians and help them believe in their abilities and motivate them to share their talents with others. This is the Successful Musicians Podcast. 

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Jason:  Welcome to the podcast. Today, our special guest is Sherri Chung, and she is a composer who has done all kinds of different film stuff. Sherri, as I’ve been researching about you, I’ve just been impressed and then I dove into some of your music and was listening and I had about two to three hours worth of awesome music that I listened to. You’ve done things for CBS and HBO. I think right now, there’s some projects you probably don’t even have posted on your website. You’ve done an amazing job with orchestrations. You’ve worked with some amazing people. I know you went through the Sundance Film Music program that they had as well. I probably just did a terrible job of introducing you but welcome. I’ll let you fill in the blanks a little bit.

Sherri:  Awesome. Well, thank you so much for having me Jason. It’s a pleasure. It’s great. I know you’re doing such really great work on the podcast and for your listeners, so I’m happy to be here and I’m honored. Hopefully there’s something that I say that’s helpful in some way.

Jason:  Well, let’s rewind back. I love hearing the journey that the musicians take to get to wherever they are today. I think there’s so many kids out there and young people that think they want to be in the music industry and there’s just so many different directions that people can go. I have no doubt that you’ve got quite the path. I know you’ve been to several different schools and probably grew up loving to play the piano as a kid and never had to fight with mom to practice, right?

Sherri:  Actually, it’s really true. It really is. I was five years old. I wanted to play piano. I begged my mom for lessons. She’s like, well, that’s nice, honey. I think I was four when I started asking her. We did have a piano and she’d play. It was mainly for church stuff and really just chill, serviceable kind of things. I just really wanted to play. I just kept asking her for lessons and finally she said okay, we’ll try it out. I think I forgot who my first teacher was but I think it was just the music teacher at school or something. It was whatever age you are when you’re five but yeah, I was one of the kids that just practiced all the time. I loved it. I would practice before school at five in the morning. I will practice when I come home. I really, really loved it so no I did not actually have to fight with my parents.

Jason:  Well, you were a much better student than I was. I was not that kid. I was the exact opposite. When you were a kid, did you come up the classical path and you were learning a lot of classical music?

Sherri:  Yeah, for sure. I didn’t think of it that time but I really did wanna play. I was super into technique. I was super into playing fast and playing well fast. I really really wanted that kind of thing. My parents and teachers said we’re going to do classical training because that’s where you get the most technique from and so I grew up playing and studying that kind of music. In sort of in tandem, I was also involved in the church in terms of the music. We had a lot of music at the churches that I went to. I would play the piano for the choruses or in the choirs, or I would play in bands. I also played trumpet very poorly, but I would do that in some of our brass band stuff. I would also sing. There was lots of ways to apply what I was learning, which I think is probably what gives me my most stable part of the background because I was going to a lot of band camps, a lot of music camps in the summertime, and I was involved even in schooling and courses growing up, and I would play in the pit orchestra for musicals and for concerts.

I would just be involved in so much music that I was learning things and I was applying them right away. I was just heavily involved in that. I’ll get right to it because it wasn’t that far off. I was about 12 or 13 when I saw the film, Robin Hood – Prince of Thieves and it has an amazing score by Michael Kamen. Of course, I’d seen movies before and I’d experienced lots of music before, but this was the film where I watched this and it just blew me away. I just love the kind of storytelling in that music, whatever the music was doing to whatever the picture was going on, it really just moved me. It was really arresting, and I was so stunned and super inspired. That was the moment when I was like; “I want to do that. That’s what I want to do”. That soundtrack was the first soundtrack I ever bought. It was also my first compact disk. My compact disks were very new, whatever they were, they were very new to me. They were still very expensive and not something that was just super easily gettable. Of course, in those kinds of years, in true form, you immediately record it onto a cassette. I don’t think I had a disk man at the time. I only had one. I would make sure that I had it in all the different ways to play it but yeah, it was like that score. 

Again, you’re 12, 13, 14. What are you really doing at that point? My mom, again, was like “well, that’s nice” but we didn’t really know what to do with that. At the same time, back in those days, the internet wasn’t what it is now. You couldn’t Google search anything. You couldn’t watch YouTube videos. You couldn’t educate yourself in the way that you can now. Yes, you have libraries. You know what those are, kids? We go to libraries. I would go to the school libraries and I would check out the scores and listen to the tapes. Most of the time you had to stay there and listen to them because you couldn’t take out the score and the thing. There’s all kinds of ways to learn about it then but there weren’t a whole lot of resources to teach me what to do or where to go or how to do the film scoring thing.

My family, we had known about it, it was just  a really difficult industry. You have to really be prepared. It’s just a really, really difficult industry but no one ever really could tell me why. In any case, I don’t want to get ahead of myself.

Jason: Oh no. I’m just thinking, with that Robinhood, Prince of Thieves, I can remember I was in seventh grade. I can still remember that the only music you could find for it was the Brian Adams ‘Everything You Do, I Do It For You’ song that you might find at the piano store and heaven forbid, there’s no YouTube or anywhere to find the actual scores for the film. They really wanted to just listen to it.

Sherri:  I’d go to the music stores for the sheet music for piano, and my mom, bless her heart, would just buy all the singles. It was just maybe two bucks each. The really expensive ones were like four dollars each so you could get less of those. You get this sheet music, this piano music, you go home and you play it. I have to say, though, I was always disappointed because as a pianist, you could tell the people who had done the arrangements if they were truly pianists or if they were more guitarists, because some of these, I was like “this is ridiculous, this isn’t playable”. That’s when I started to just teach myself the chords and say, okay, screw the piano reading. I could obviously read music, but this is just too difficult because it was not pianistically written. By the way, I don’t know for sure in terms of that particular arrangement. I’m just saying a lot of times I go and I would just start working on the chords myself, playing a little bit of a cross between by ear and by reading the music, by reading the chords and figuring it out and just doing that.

Then, I would just sing the song. That’s a lot of the start of where I became the singer, songwriter, or the person who’s able to sing and play at the same time. It just interested me. Then from there, I did get creative, and I was like, okay, I think I want to write songs. My lyrics were always super stupid but a lot of times I wouldn’t even write the lyrics. It was just more doing vowel sounds and things, vowel sounds that more rhymed because to me it was more about getting it written in my head, the melody and the harmony and structure and all that thing. I’m totally jumping around in this. Now that I’m saying it’s like going to those music stores and doing that, you get a sense of how music works. You get a sense for how songs work and then studying more scores, you realize it’s studying more music that’s not song form. You start to realize, wow, there really is a difference between this kind of music in the classical world, this kind of music in technical, classical, or a ballet, or a concerto, or a song, or a movie score.

There’s all different forms or different ways to do it. Anyway, that was the start of all this. Everything just really interested me, but it was also a little frustrating. A lot of times, too, I think a lot of it just came about because I just filled in my own blanks, if you will, or finished the sentences myself.

Jason: I still remember sitting with my cassette tapes. I’m that old too and there I was, trying to explain…

Sherri: We’re that young. This is quality. This is quality age here.

Jason: I think the cool thing was coming up through that evolution of the music, I mean, virtual instrument libraries didn’t exist. You might find a keyboard that had a really lousy orchestra sound that you could push on. I think I went in for about 15 years, was in search of a decent orchestra, symphony sound to put with my piano, and I was just never happy because you’d hear it on the movies, and I wanted that as a musician, and it just wasn’t available. It’s been awesome to see how, in the last five, 10 years, how much that has evolved.

Sherri:  Well, to your point though,and I don’t want to jump or cut too far, but I’ll just say this real quick. I decided to go to school for composition and theory. There were very, very few programs that were teaching film composition. One of them was in Berklee in Boston, which I did get into, but I couldn’t go. I couldn’t afford it. That was the only one that I really knew about or one that was possibly feasible and tangible to go to. I decided to go for composition and theory, which gave me the whole background and good foundation but to your point, I felt the same way because the school that I went to at the time were just starting out their music technology classes and curriculum. They were just getting into Sibelius and Finale. They were just getting into Logic and all those kinds of things. I was trying to learn them, but it was really frustrating because no one really knew how to teach it. I don’t have that mind where I just go immediately towards that. I was still pencil-paper because we were still being taught pencil-paper while we were in tandem all trying to learn with this music.

Again, I think other schools were a bit more advanced and they were just a little further down the road. This is not the school that I went to and it was frustrating because my pencil-paper-work was much slower than what my brain was writing. I found it really frustrating and I found it difficult to keep all of these ideas in my head because when you’re writing for a group of people, an ensemble, the score reduction thing was something that I was again learning in tandem, and I wasn’t able to really employ anything yet that was working as fast as my brain was. My skill level wasn’t quite there.

I guess what I’m saying is when I finally got more into the technology, which was after I graduated, I just taught it myself and I learned it myself, and then as new things progressed and new things came out, I would just acquire and teach myself, then finally I did go to graduate school for specifically film and television composing. That’s when I really took all those classes and learned all of those things and learned even more. That’s when I felt like I could finally write, or I should write the music that is in my head and represent the music and demonstrate the music that’s actually in my head. For me, while I grew up on pencil paper, I knew that that wasn’t for me. It just wasn’t for me. I can do it, but it was never something that I could do as fast as the ideas were coming to me. I think I straddled that. It was a really good time for me where I was learning the fundamentals and I was learning the hard way, the very analog way, which I think was good. Technology was what helped me blossom as a writer. It’s something that I could really use and could match the speed at which I was wanting to create.

Jason:  I’m curious because I grew up writing on paper. I still remember in high school, it was about my junior or senior year, they had a computer that was hidden in this little office, and they’d been given a free student license of Finale but nobody knew how to use it.

Sherri: What version was it? Because I had the quarter inch floppy thing.

Jason: I want to say we were at three and a half, but not five and a quarter yet. So, it was…

Sherri:  Yeah. I still have it by the way. I should take a picture of it. I still have my copy of Finale. It was so clunky; it was so difficult to use.

Jason: I’d written stuff out on paper but if you didn’t have a piano there, you had to have it perfect to go and then click every single thing in. I think there is a benefit in writing stuff out note by note on paper and I’m curious about your opinion on this. I use an iPad now. I find that I put more thought into each note rather than just playing a whole bunch of notes making it thicker where it sometimes feels like it gets a little bit clunky when you..I don’t wanna call it lazy, when there’s so many notes that they think it’s going to sound good, but if you’ll just strip it back, sometimes the more thought I put into that, writing out one or two notes is better than when I do it on Finale when I can just do it the easy way.

Sherri:  I think you’ll get found out real fast how you learned orchestration. Did you learn it on a computer or did you learn it on a computer or did one learn it actually by working with the sound and actually writing it out? Or I should say writing it out, but just really understanding orchestra and ensemble because again, I straddled that world where it was like I was learning real orchestration. I was learning proper orchestration, the very stuffy formal way but then I also filled in a lot of gaps for myself using the computer and there’s a danger in that because when you start to take your music to a live orchestra and you’re just like, why does this sound like really, really bad?

Jason: Why can’t they play that?

Sherri: Here in LA with these musicians, they’ll make anything sound good. If it doesn’t sound good to your ears, that’s on you. That’s your work. That’s your writing or your orchestration and that’s to your point. I think that’s a really important thing. If you’re going to write, not even just orchestrally, if you’re going to write with live musicians at all, or even not, because I feel like it also teaches you about frequency range and that thing whether or not you’re writing it on paper. Now, to answer your question, I had to make sure that I’m learning it. I’ll write things in but as I’m writing it, also because I know the orchestra and because I know the theory of it and the science of it. I’m not a scientist at all or a math person, but the idea, the physics behind music and frequency ranges and how certain things sound muddy. I understand how to work the orchestra because I learned that way. I don’t fall into those traps but I have fallen in those traps in the past. I know that the composers who are just newer composers definitely 100 % are falling under those traps. I see it all the time.

If I’m listening to someone’s music that’s in a panel that I’ve given or I’m teaching, I’m a guest speaker or guest teacher or something at some of the NYU or USC or anything, and you hear and see their music, you’re just like “Oh, yeah, I can tell that you’re still learning that part”. We’re all learning so it’s not like I’m not learning about it. Yeah, it’s a danger. I don’t mean to sound so heady about it, but in my line of work, it’s a real thing to think about because when you take that to an orchestra, it’s not going to sound right if you don’t really understand how the orchestra works and how those instruments are really supposed to be used.

Jason:  In avoiding those traps, let’s say you’re one of those newer composers, how does one get the feedback? Are there support groups? Are there mentoring groups that people are signing up for? I’m curious where somebody could find that.

Sherri:  Well, for one, study scores. 17:05 Study scores, get the music. You can get it anywhere. You can get the scores for free. You can get PDF or something like that. Study the greats. Start small. Here’s my other thing. Start with a quartet. Start with studying the quartet and start with writing for a quartet because that’s when you get your counterpoint, your harmony, your one to one, all those things. Even if you don’t know all that stuff, which you don’t have to know, I think it makes a stronger foundation if you do. You start with a quartet and see if you can get friends. If you know two violinists and a violist and a cellist, get them together and say can you play it and see what they think? And then say let’s work together. If you get friends, it’ll do that. If you mess up a quartet, I’ll say it in a positive way. If you understand how to write for a quartet, if you understand four-part harmony and four-part work, four-part music, you’ll be able to work with… You’ll be able to do just fine in an orchestral setting.

I mean, there’s a lot more to learn. What do you do with the woodwinds? All that thing. Start with that because I think the best way to learn it, the feedback is, fortunately or unfortunately, however you want to look at it, the best way to do it is by doing it in front of other live musicians. You know what I’m saying? Getting their feedback and getting them to talk to you and say, hey, this is what. Work with an orchestrator. Work with somebody who actually really does this as a job and orchestrates music and looks at your thing and say, hey, listen, this is where you’re going to run into… This color isn’t going to sound the way you think it is because of X, Y, Z or this is actually this rhythm that you have there is not really going to cut through because it’s under supported or because you have another rhythm hanging on in the same area in the same frequency. So don’t have your double basses doing something while you have your tubas doing something else. If they’re in the same frequency range. That’s all orchestration. That’s not even really necessarily writing music per se.

The way I write music is I’m also orchestrating at the same time because I’m writing coloristically as well. All I’m saying is I’m throwing a lot at your listeners right now. I guess I’m saying to answer your question, 19:11 the support group would be the professionals that play the instrument. The musicians that play the instruments, they’ll give you feedback. They’ll give you feedback on their specific instrument. If you don’t know how to write for French horn, you play up or do a French horn part and they play it, you’ll say, wow, this is a little out of range, but you could drop it down the octave or you could do and you can experiment, you could hear it. That’s going to help you with individual instruments. Then when you get to a group, like I said, start with a quartet or start with just who you have. If you’ve got a friend that plays a clarinet and a friend that plays tuba, oh, my gosh, that just sounds like the greatest time right there. Write something for them. Write something for the two of them to play together. You’d be really surprised how that will influence and teach you when you write for someone else.

Jason: I’m guessing that if you even rewind back the clock, even before you were doing stuff with the orchestra, you said you were doing the old church hymns. A lot of these old classic public domain songs are master classes on some of that harmony and how to… It simplifies it out at such a level that you really can’t understand it better. I think so.

Sherri:  Yeah. SATB, four-part harmony right there. You can just learn the voices. It’s the same thing. My church had a brass band. I wasn’t actually learning the string instruments. I was actually learning the brass. I was learning all of it through brass. It was just such an interesting color. Then again, going into school with choir and I didn’t really play in an orchestra because I didn’t play any stringed instruments. Then going into composition and theory as an undergrad, as a degree, what was cool about that is I was taking all of the major families of instruments. I was learning them myself. We’re all like these college age kids who like playing clarinet. It sounds really bad, but we’re learning about the instrument and what the ranges are and what that’s all about. Back then, totally, in the church, we had contemporary stuff going as well. Still, 100 %, I think that I consider myself a composer first, and then I’m a film and TV composer because that’s an entirely separate skill set entirely. It’s a difference, it’s separate.

21:31 You don’t have to write for the concert world in order to be a successful film composer. You don’t have to be a film composer to be successful in any other thing. Honestly, I think that there’s an added layer of craziness once you get into the film scoring part of it.

Jason:  For sure. I’m curious, your definition as you look back on all of the different things, projects you’ve done and worked with a lot of people, what would you call success or successful musician? What does success mean to you?

Sherri:  It changes. It’s so interesting because… and I say this a lot to people, too, because they’ll say, well, what? I’m going to tell them it’s for me, it was, I want to write music for television and film. Well, I was already doing that before I even went to school. I wasn’t doing it very well, and the films weren’t that great. Once I realized I started doing that, I was like, Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What I really need, 22:32 my idea of success is really I want them to make good films, or I want them to be films that people have seen. Oh, okay, okay, okay. So, then you get there and you’re like, Okay, cool. I’m working on this thing and people have actually seen it or played it at a festival or something. Then I was like, no, no, no, that’s not what it is either. I kept changing it. Honestly, it became 22:57 if I could make a living first starting out just doing anything in music, I just want to make a living doing anything in music whatsoever. For a while, it was piano teaching. I was orchestrating for people. I was an assistant to a lead composer. I was jumping on one of those music preparation teams, so that would be when music is going to go to an orchestra. Sometimes there’s what’s called a copy office, and then they will just send their music to this copy office, and they make it into a beautiful piece of score paper and sheet music and scores, and it’s printed and taped and sent to the stage and there it’s amazing. I would jump on those teams, and I’d do some proofreading. As long as I stayed in music, to me, that was what it was. I was doing some composing, but it mainly wasn’t composing. I wasn’t making enough money just for the composing. My idea of success was just that. I really want to stay in music and make sure that I’m making a living on that. Then my idea of success became, now I want to be just like film and television scoring, a media visual scoring.

Jason:  My guess is that path to get there, all of those other things that you did along the way, even down to being the piano teacher, that all added and made it easier for you to have opportunities 10, 20 years later now that you knew somebody that worked with the copy office or whatever you put in the time and you were a 20 year overnight success or more than that even, for all we know.

Sherri: That’s right. That’s what’s really interesting because for me as a musician and as a composer, I wasn’t composing all my entire life, but I was working on the skill of music and the practice of music and the profession of music since I was five. Doctors don’t even train that long. You know what I’m saying? They have to train for a long time and for good reason. It’s interesting. I would say now that I think it’s also difficult for any one of us, or it is for me anyway, to say that I’m successful. 24:54 I think it’s one of the reasons that my definition of success for myself keeps a dangling carrot, and I almost won’t even allow myself to say that I have reached success because I am absolutely 100 % making a living writing for film and television. Additional things that I collected over the years that I wanted to be is I’d like to be respected by my peers. I would like my peers to say, I’ve seen your work, or I think your work is really amazing. I’m like, I’ve seen your work and your work is amazing. For that to be genuine, and I do get that, that feels like a success.

I’m doing a project that people have seen and heard. My music is getting out there. Music is meant to be heard, and so it’s actually getting heard. I have opportunities. I have nothing but open roads ahead of me. That feels like that’s all of my definitions of success and yet it’s still very difficult for me to say, I am successful. I don’t know what that is. It’s a weird psychology, but for me, I don’t want to get too complacent.

Jason:  I think as I’ve talked with a lot of people, the term success almost is that one little point. When I get to do that one thing, when that arrives, you think, okay, but every time I think I’ve hit those goals, all of a sudden you get a little bit of a high, like, oh, yes, I got it, but then it’s over now, what? I think as I’ve been talking to people, fulfillment and success are… I think fulfillment is almost the goal that we need to aim for and find out what are those things that make you happy or that bring you joy that’s going to last. Oftentimes it ends up being mentoring or giving back or having left something that helps others. You become the sensei at the top of the mountain that people can benefit from the path that you blazed. Those little successes or reaching of goals, as you’re describing it, it’s like, well, it just keeps moving.

Sherri:  Yeah, it’s so true. I almost feel like it’s not that we should look for other people to tell us, but I almost feel like it’s on someone else to say, Oh, wow, you’re really successful. You really did that thing. And we’re like, oh, that’s amazing that you said that, but I think you’re exactly right. It’s really about the fulfillment of something because I’ve had projects where someone’s like, oh, my gosh, I totally saw that thing. It was so awesome and I’m like, that piece of crap? My score. Or I’m like, I hated that project so much. Or I mean, this sounds negative, but I actually mean, it’s like, look, sometimes it’s just a paycheck. There’s been times where I’m like, I’m really, I don’t feel like that was my best work. I did my best, but I don’t really feel like it was my best work and then that thing ends up being something that people notice. Again, it’s like, to your point, it’s not always about what we think of as success more as well, what do we think is fulfillment? There are some projects that I’m like, Wow.

More projects than not where I’m like, I just had so much fun doing that project and no one’s ever seen it and no one’s going to see it. I had so much fun doing it and it was creatively fulfilling. I met this amazing director, and they may or may not go on to make anything ever again. That project was really, really fulfilling. 28:14 Success is almost like it’s in other people’s hands to say that, but you shouldn’t wait for that. You shouldn’t give those people power but you’re right. It’s really what fulfills you. Did you have fun doing it? Did you learn something? Did it challenge you in a way that helped you grow? Did you get a great relationship out of it? Maybe one that’s just a simple friendship. Maybe you never work together again, or maybe you do work together again, or maybe all those things because it’s still life. We still have to experience life as well.

Jason: If you could rewind the clock back and go have a conversation with yourself, maybe 20 years ago, and give yourself some advice, what would you tell that person?

Sherri: Then 10, 20 years ago, I’d probably say, 29:07 Stop wasting time, go faster. I would probably say stop wasting time. I probably would have told myself or really tried to work hard on getting myself out of the city that I was in at the time simply because the opportunities weren’t there. Instead, I was milling about trying to figure out… I knew what I wanted to do, but I was in the wrong place for it. I think I would have told myself to immediately go back to school instead of taking some gap time. I probably would have said stop wasting time. Another thing that I would tell myself is probably 29:48 stop being so afraid. I think that’s just life in general. It’s like, wow, what would we do? What could we accomplish even faster? If that’s needed. It’s not always about speed or anything, but what could I have learned starting earlier had I just operated in spite of my fear as an artist and creative? It’s hard what we do, and I shouldn’t say I didn’t say I have no fear. It’s more like, as I just said, do it anyway.

30:19 Sometimes the fear doesn’t go away. You’re just going to have to do it afraid. I think that if I could have learned that a little sooner, I think I would have saved myself a lot of…

Jason:  I think a lot of people think of opening your mouth and just being friendly, even sometimes they think of it like sales. They think the word sales is a bad word, where you’re trying to sell yourself or sell the idea, hey, I can help with your music to other people. I’m sure that’s a really scary thing to… and then to the point where you don’t ever even open your mouth or reach out to some of these people to look for an opportunity.

Sherri:  It’s true. I would say in the film, film and TV world, music world, that’s tricky. That’s a tricky one because the industry likes humility and confidence. It’s an interesting thing, balance strike, because I’ll be really honest and say that sometimes I get emails from people that have just graduated from whatever school they’ve graduated from and they’ll say something nice about music, whatever, and they’ll just say, here’s my skill set, and I’d love to come write for you. I think I could learn a lot from you. I admire their pluck. I admire them putting themselves out there but to think that somebody can just jump right out of school directly into writing for any composer who’s already in the industry is just new. That’s a very new thing.

Also, if you want to work for somebody, maybe you should say, not what you can learn from them, but maybe what they could help you do, what you were saying, too. It’s an interesting thing but at the same time, I do think you are right. I think that if we never put ourselves out there and speak with competence and just say, hey, this is what I’m good at. I don’t know if you need any of this, but I’m really good at… By the way, it might not be something that you… It might not even be a music thing that you feel really particularly good at. You could be really good at organization. I have really great organizational skills. Do you need that? Do you need that on your team? I could do that for you. I’ve had people, like interns that I’ve taken on. They’re just like, whatever you want. I just graduated and there’s things I need to learn, but I’m here for you and however I can make your job easier. That’s just a great attitude. I would say specifically in this film, I can’t speak for the band world or singer songwriters, even though I try to dabble in that, but I can’t speak in that world. I can say in this one, it’s that fine line between definitely knowing your worth, always knowing your worth. Then it’s like, you also want to come at it and say, hey, I’m going to show up and do the work, and I’m going to keep my mouth shut and listen.

Listen to what I can learn from that situation. Anyway, I think it’s right. I think it is important to say, hey, this is what I feel confident about, or what I feel competent about. Then try and see if there’s any way you can help someone else on their team because on these projects, nobody wants to be stuck in the trenches with jerk. It’s a difficult job. It’s a difficult job that we do. It’s art and commerce. It’s creativity and commerce. That’s a really, really difficult combination. Sometimes it works really well, and sometimes you’re going to have to put your art, your ego aside. It really has to go aside because it’s not what this is about. This is a service industry. It’s not just about what I’m feeling or that thing. It’s about what’s needed for that project and sometimes you have to, as Stephen King has been known to say, sometimes you have to kill your little darling. What I’m assuming he meant by that, what I mean by it is, it’s like your greatest idea ever. That is such a good idea and you do it for that picture and your person, your director, whoever is like, I’m not feeling that. I don’t think that that’s the right theme or I don’t think that’s the right melody. Gosh, I was really hoping for a melody. You’re like, Wait, this is it. The melody is right there. It’s obvious. If you’re explaining, you’re losing. Anyway, all that to say is 35:07 you have to know your self-worth and you have the competence about it but at the same time, sometimes it’s not the right idea and you just have to boot it out and try again. It’s not a reflection of your self worth as a composer.

Jason: As I’m hearing you talk about these different people that have contacted you, I think one of the things that the humility factor really goes a long way, I think. I see a common thing when I’m talking to different individuals who have made it, I guess, in the industry, I want to call it that. They’re lifelong learners. It’s very rare that you find somebody that thinks they know. I think the more you learn and the more you work in the music industry, the more you realize… At least I feel this way. I just feel like, my gosh, I don’t hardly know anything. Even though I’ve done lots of cool things, man, I almost feel less capable some days than just because there’s so many new tools and it can be overwhelming. I think those who are wanting to be lifelong learners and reinvest. I see lots of people, they finish college, and they think that was their last payment they’ll ever want to put into education. Then you run into other people who spend thousands of dollars sometimes every year just trying to learn new things and grow. I think there’s definitely something to be said for people who are willing to reinvest in themselves even after they get out of college for the long run.

Sherri:  Yeah, I agree 100 %. You totally find those guys in the industry, too. They’re the ones who think that they don’t have to learn anything else. I’m definitely one of them. I’m just like, I don’t know what has happened the past few years, but I have a long way to go.

Jason: It’s one of those where I think you have to consciously set aside time because once you start working and doing a job or whether it’s in music or anything else, all of a sudden, all your time goes… Your time can get eaten up really fast and if you don’t consciously say, I’m going to set aside 30 minutes a day, and whether it’s learning a new piano piece or learning how to work on a computer program or whatever it might be, I think eventually it’s going to catch up to you if you aren’t reinvesting in yourself.

Sherri: I agree. That’s well put.

Jason:  We talked about this a little bit, but if you are talking to those interns who are going to reach out to you… So not only being willing to do anything, is there email? Is it doing research and studying a bunch of composers and deciding what they want to do or who they want to work with? What advice do you give to the student sitting in that USC, the class, really wants to do what you’re doing?

Sherri:  I will say this, I say this a lot of it, and it’s something I thought of over time that I think it’s good to work in your arena and then, let’s say, out of your arena or above your arena. Maybe the league is… I don’t want to put a hierarchy to it but working in your league and working above your league, so working in your league would be just what you’re ready for. The contacts that you make, the projects that you’re getting, you’re working on student films, you’re working on the things that are… Word of mouth is getting… Good word of mouth is going on about your work and so you’re getting more projects in that way. Again, that’s like in your league doing that thing, always pushing. Again, I don’t want to make it seem like staying in your lane, but I think it’s important to understand the value of working where you are, working from where you are because there’s a lot of things. It’s just like life.

It’s like when you were in seventh grade, it’s like maybe you’re anticipating, oh, my gosh, I’m going to go into high school, but you’re not ready for high school yet. You can’t do that work. You’re not ready for it yet and you don’t really know that you’re not ready for it because you’re like, yeah, but I’m in seventh grade, so I’m no longer in sixth grade or even eighth grade or whatever it is. Or let’s say you’re in high school, you’re like, you’re not ready for college yet. Just know that you’re not ready for too many things that are outside of your league or above your league, you will fail upwards. Spend the time working where you are. It doesn’t mean you can’t push boundaries. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t punch above your weight. I’m constantly punching above my weight. Sometimes it’s just like, Cool, that’s cute. Well, we’ll let you know. That’s fine. That’s fine. At least I got in that room, and I saw what it was like and now I can prepare myself.

You should definitely keep pushing but I just mean, there’s a lot of value in working for exactly where you are because then you get to figure out, what’s your computer system going to look like? What’s your favorite sample libraries? What’s your system of organization of naming files? How do you want to talk with your directors and your showrunners or whatever? How do you want to conduct your business? How do you want to figure out your schedule? How do you want to juggle three or four different things that you’re going to have to juggle because you can’t possibly make enough money on one project? How are you going to work your life work balance? Do those things before you start punching too far above. Let’s just say if you want to be an assistant, which I did, that was a great way. I don’t know if I set out to do it, but I was certainly open to doing it. You don’t have to be an assistant. It’s not for everybody. It’s not the only way to do it but a lot of success in this industry has been made by this apprenticeship where you become an assistant, and then from there you can maybe get to do some orchestration work, or maybe you get to do some clerical things, or maybe you get to do some things that maybe they’re not even writing.

Then you start to learn as you’re working out of your league, then you start to learn how that composer is doing it. Oh, and I don’t mean copy what they’re doing. I’m saying you’re learning how somebody’s doing it on a much higher level than you are, and you can say, that’s really cool. That’s a really smart way of doing that. I wonder if I can apply that to my own projects and you start figuring out, gosh, that doesn’t work for me because I don’t have enough money for that system thing or whatever it is. I think that the idea of working in your league is really important. It should not be devalued. Then the idea of working out of your league or above your league, trying to work for somebody who’s further along in their career than you are, learning from them, even if you’re not working for them, maybe just learn them, hang out and see if you can come to a session of theirs or take them to coffee or that thing and ask them if there’s anything you can do for them and in the meantime, would they mind answering some questions for you?

41:26 There are so many ways to be successful. There are so many ways to make a living. When I first started, again, I was a part time assistant and then a part time orchestrator. I did the piano lessons. I taught piano lessons. I jumped on all the other teams and I worked on little student films and student projects and 48 hour film festivals and commercials and library music and shorts and indies and all those kinds of things. To me, I was pretty high on the idea that I’m doing it. I’m doing it. I like making a living, not quite all yet just writing, but I’m making a living, I’m doing it. I think that’s really amazing. There’s total hope. Also, now more than ever, there’s a bunch of shows out there. There’s a bunch of content makers and they’re trying to give people different new shots or newer people the shots. In some ways, I think it’s a lot more accessible of a career than it was when I started. I’ll never say easy, but I absolutely will. I think it’s a lot more accessible now than it was when I started. I think there’s also a lot more composers who are trying to get in there than there was when I started.

Jason: There are 50 other people that would love to be in your shoes and they’ll do it for less.

Sherri:  Which should be really motivating. It should be really motivating because not everybody is just cut out for all of the different facets. There’s also so many different ways. I have a great composer friend, and he went to school with me and he’s just really fantastic. He just fell into the music editing world. Now he’s super happy, makes a great living, and is very successful. Not what he originally started out to be doing, but now he’s doing this, and that’s okay. It just spoke to him differently.

Jason: One of the things as you’re talking about all this, I keep hearing those that are going to be successful. As you’re growing, there’s this proactivity. You’ve got to take those steps to learn and do it. I hear you. You didn’t say it out exactly this way, but I’m hearing you need to dive in and try and work at it and do these things. Don’t wait for somebody to tell you that, okay, when you’re my assistant, then you can do that thing. Don’t be afraid to dive in and try stuff and work at it.

Sherri: 43:53 If you happen to be an assistant, don’t just do whatever your job description is. You have to be careful. Don’t just start writing music. For instance, if somebody says, hey, you could take off if you want. Your time is done. You’re like, well, is there anything else you need? Are you sure? Is there anything else you need to stay after and do? You never know. Maybe you’re like, no, we’re just going to do a recording session. Can I just sit and watch? You don’t have to pay me. I don’t have to do any of those things. Read the room. If they’re like, Actually, no, this is actually maybe not one of the best times, but I hear you and I’ll get you in on something else. Great. Cool. Awesome. 44:26 Try to go above and beyond what your job description is because you’ll learn more and because it will look better. That person who’s hiring you will be like, wow, I really trust that person. Think of it this way, too. Those composers that you might be working for, they’re just like you. We’re all the same. We are all just trying to write good music. We’re just trying to please our people. We’re just trying to survive. We are all feeling the same creative struggle. I have been realizing the more projects I do, and some would say the more successful I’m looking. I don’t know if I feel successful. Basically, what I’m realizing is that the more time that passes, the feelings are still the same. They get a little bit more intense. In some cases, the struggle is real. It’s a difficult industry for so many reasons but all this to say, if you end up assisting somebody, believe you me, they are not without the same struggle. They are also going through a lot of the same struggles that you might be going through as well.

Jason:  Doing more and always doing more than expected. I think that’s some of the best life advice you can give anybody, whether it’s music or anything. I read a quote the other day, I heard it on a podcast or something, but I think it was Benjamin Franklin who said that most men die at age 25. We just wait until about 70, 75 years old until we bury them. I think as I heard that, I’m like, Oh, my gosh. If you look at so many people out there… And music, I think it happens a little bit with people where they love music and it’s a fun thing, and then they get in that job or go down that path where now they’re not doing exactly what they thought they were going to do. I think keeping that fire and love of the things you do is part of what’s going to keep you alive for real up until you’re 75 when you do… Whenever it is, you do pass away.

Sherri: Yeah, I agree.

Jason: I hate seeing the dreams of people crushed. I talked to so many friends and they’ve been working in their job for 5, 10, 20 years and they hate it. The first thing they tell you, well, I get to retire in this many years now. I’m like, I don’t know what that would be like. I enjoy what I’m doing. I don’t want to retire. What?

Sherri:  Same here, certainly as a musician, certainly as a composer. Honestly, the way I see it is I don’t ever have to retire because in some professions, you got to go. You know what I mean? There are certain professions, we’re not going to employ you any longer. You have to retire. I just, I see it as like, Oh, I never have to retire. You’re right. It’s all about doing something that you love for as long as you can.

Jason:  Well, there’s the, there’s the mic drop. Do things that you love and hopefully that advice helps somebody out there. Sherri, this is awesome, way longer chat than I’d even expected, but I learned a ton. It’s been really fun. I feel like I got a brand new friend but if people want to go check out your music, I know you can go on Apple and you can go on iTunes and all over and hear your music if you type in your name. Where should they go to get everything to find out about you?

Sherri:  Well, I will say my website, sherrichung.com is definitely one place to go. It’s a bit out of date, but there’s certainly things. I guess it’s a good place to do it. Or if you do have Apple or Spotify or anything, I did have several which was not normal, by the way, but several soundtrack albums that were just released in this small blast of things. It was the soundtrack to the second and third seasons of Kungfu, the soundtrack to a Peacock show called Based on a True Story, there’s a soundtrack to a show that I just did called Gremlin’s Secret.

Jason:  That was one of them I was listening to. Got a little bit of a Kung Fu Panda flavor to it, I felt like I was on a couple of those.

Sherri: Yeah, on a couple of Well, yeah, for sure. Then the fourth one that just recently came out is the soundtrack to a film called Happiness for Beginners. That just was released on Netflix two or three days ago at the time of this podcast. So it’s all out there, Netflix and Spotify and all those things. If anyone’s interested. But it also can be found on social media as well, pretty much just Instagram. I think I’m hitting up these days. Instagram @sherrichung.

Jason:  Awesome. Well, we’re going to put all that in the show notes. Thank you so much. I feel like we need to have another one of these chats because I think there’s a whole other area I think we could go that would be really fun for people to hear.

Sherri: Totally. I’m down. Awesome.

Jason: Thanks so much.

Sherri: Thanks so much, Jason. I appreciate it. Bye.

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Finding success and fulfillment in the music industry is possible. Looking forward to seeing you in our next episode.