Meet Risto Miettinen

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Risto Miettinen. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Risto below.

Hi Risto, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
Good question. I really wish I knew? I guess it comes from enjoying making music more than anything else. When I started playing guitar as a teen, I’d always run back home to practice which was far more exciting than homework. I was always obsessed with music and guitar magazines, studying them relentlessly. I’d say having passion is the most important ingredient of resilience.

Where it truly comes into question, is when things aren’t going well. We all get knocked down from time to time. For example in film music, the most dreaded “punch in the face” is rejection. Your track wasn’t chosen for a project, you didn’t win a pitch, your demo didn’t land you the gig. That feeling sucks BIG TIME.

All the demons of doubt start to surface – What went wrong? Am I good enough? Who got the gig? Why were they better? At those moments I find being honest with myself is the best thing that you can do.

I’ll listen to what I did and try to understand why it didn’t work? Study the failure, learn from it and get ready to battle the next one. Naturally, if all gigs I’m going for turn out as rejections that’s super depressing! Quite often, I’ll have several jobs on the go. And it’s natural that there will be few that don’t make it.

In my mind, I think of it as being an “army general”, one flank might take some hits, but as long as there is overall progress things are good.

And the biggest source of inspiration for me is the process. I still get really excited when I sit down to create a piece of music. Especially, when I get an idea “cooking”, as most creatives know, it’s an addictive and exciting feeling
to start adding musical elements (drums, strings, bass, etc) to your creation. Seeing and hearing it come to life.

Overall, I’d say I find my resilience in how much I love the process.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
I’m a film composer, writing music for various media. It can be in numerous scenarios, sometimes for filmmakers (producers, directors, etc). In which case we’ll probably have in-person or Zoom meetings and view a rough cut of a film or tv show. Then we’ll start working out what the music should be. Or it can be as a member of a music team arranging, synth programming, music designing, mixing for another composer, who needs a set of helping hands on deck. Or it can be for a music library, in which case I’ll write music for a music brief and then they’ll have it placed on a TV show, film, game or whatever future VR creation is around the corner.

If possible, I try to look for a new angle. On one project I trapped a bumblebee into a jar and recorded it, another time I recorded some pigs on a farm and used those as textures in music. When possible I love trying to experiment. I’d say that sets me apart from most folks. I’m always aiming to boldly go where no composer has gone before.

The most exciting and terrifying part is the creative challenge. When you a view a rough cut or get a music brief the adrenaline starts pumping, especially if there’s a tight deadline. Ideas start coming, at the same time you have to listen to the client for direction. Get creative and stay on the path at the same time. I can’t stress that enough “STAY ON THE PATH!”, because if you venture too far away from what the client wants, you’re likely to loose the gig. However, if you’re able get creative within the parameters given, there’s a chance for magic to happen, as creative collaboration. In the best case scenario you and the client will learn something new.

As an example, I recently had a chance to interpret some Christmas songs as world music, which was really fun. Hiring a Sitar player to play “Deck the Halls” as traditional Indian music or having a trumpet player play “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”in Latin style. I had no idea what it was all going to sound like in the beginning, then through trial and error I shepherded the project to fruition. And I’m really proud of the album.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Be Prepared to Adapt

The world is a forever evolving organism. Film music is no exception to that. Being willing to adapt is highly important. There’s always new trends, styles and sounds that your clients will want. It’s crucial that you keep up and you’re able to create those sounds.

On top of that there’s always new technologies emerging. Whether it be streaming, social media, VR or AI music creation. For example, you’ll need to understand how streaming changes the game, how will it effect royalties, deal structures and programming in general, or even what are the best settings to master your music at for streaming.

Or another example is AI. At the moment, there’s a lot of hysteria around it. Will computers begin making all the music in the world, would it be cheaper for production companies and studios to have music AI programs? We hope not. But that’s something composers definitely have to think about. What skills will prove to be beneficial in that type of climate? How valuable will working with real instruments become vs synthesized? Or will AI function more as an aid, taking care of tasks that can be automated? Nonetheless, adaptation skills will be called upon.

Technology Adept

Music production, whether in film or on the pop side is heavily computer driven. So having the ability to open up computers, understanding processing power, having a good knowledge of your music software and being able to troubleshoot in case of emergency are really important skills.

Good listener

Last but not least, there’s working with people. Whether you’re sitting in a room with a director, on a Zoom call with producers or receiving a music email brief. Being able to understand what someone is trying to get a across is extremely important. Especially with music, which can be very subjective at times. Sometimes there might be notes like, “we’d like it faster, but slower”, which will take some deciphering. By knowing, the right questions to ask and listening, you can crack the code.

I’d say to anyone starting out, always keep working on these 3 skills. There will always be moments when those tools will come in handy. And as a bonus skill, there is networking, that too, always ever-changing whether on social media or in person.

We’ve all got limited resources, time, energy, focus etc – so if you had to choose between going all in on your strengths or working on areas where you aren’t as strong, what would you choose?
I’ve found it better to invest into areas that you’re not as strong as. In my case, I can get more gigs that way. And I believe, we’re all capable of learning new skills in life. Also, like I said earlier the world is forever evolving and you’re almost required to learn new skills or you’ll get left behind.

For example, as a composer who writes a lot library music. I sometimes get music briefs that are for genres that might not be my strongest. If it’s a genre that I think I can learn and the only thing it will cost me is time, why not give it a go. If it fails, I’ll still have learnt something and there’s a good chance I’ll be able to improve it and sign the track with another library.

A while back, I was sent my 1st music brief for Lo Fi Hip Hop. And thought, why not give it a go. I watched some youtube tutorials from 20-year-olds and figured it out. And now I’ve done several tracks in the genre with several placements.

I don’t subscribe to the one trick pony approach, be a multi-trick pony!

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Image Credits
Gui Bittencourt

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