Freelance: Early…Say Yes.
Starting a freelance career can be daunting. Assuming you have been forging a skill through academics or hands on training up to this point. You likely have enough knowledge to do the job, but no experience to get hired for the job you want. It’s the catch 22 none of us asked for, but we all must navigate.
I too was faced with this conundrum in the early days. The end goal was to be a studio recording engineer with a full calendar of bookings. (Sounds awesome right?) I reached out to every local band, record label, and recording studio I could find in the midwest with not much in return. Big surprise since my discography of finished records were two college Christmas records and my own band’s music. I didn’t have the experience yet and anyone I reached out to knew it.
This is the point that your goal of freelance independence gets tested. Bills, gas, and the occasional bar tab requires the holy green dollar no matter where it’s origin. I had been interning at the first iteration of Oranjudio, but not making any money. Bitching about the catch 22 to Joey Gurwin, another freelance engineer at the time. Joey knew the sound guy at a local bar called Ruby Tuesday’s. He said “He always needs good people to fill in, I’ll give him your name.” Hearing this, my thoughts jumped to “I’ve never done live sound in a club. Would they be able to tell?” “But I want to be in the studio, this isn’t the right path…” Then Joey said it paid $125 cash and all those thoughts vanished. It was an instant YES.
Those live sound gigs were a lifeline financially, but more importantly they made my studio skills better. Setting up a band to play live in 10 min many times over will stamp audio signal flow into your bones. I was also meeting 3-4 bands a show, which a few then became studio recording clients. A few months later a part time job moving and refurbishing acoustic pianos. Another YES that bought more time financially and gave a repair skill for acoustic pianos. Many YES’s followed. Podium speeches, school choir recordings, podcast equipment setup, livestreams, News ENG, live event loader… each buying some time and exposing me to more audio recording careers. The studio sessions were still always happening in the background though. Juggling these different type of gigs was making an actual living wage. Applying all the new skills and experiences was making the records better, which in turn brought more sessions. Eventually I’d find my happy place doing studio session recording and on-location set audio, but a simple YES still opens amazing doors.
When you’re starting out the ebb and flow of freelance life can be scary, but it can also be your super power.
