Daily Inspiration: Meet Daniel Tauber

Today we’d like to introduce you to Daniel Tauber.

Hi Daniel, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I started my journey in music at a very young age. I began playing the violin around age four and the piano around five. Throughout my childhood, I was constantly playing and performing, but it wasn’t until I got accepted into a Juilliard Jazz Camp in Melbourne that I started envisioning my future as a musician. I vividly remember watching all the teachers perform at a jazz club called Bennett’s Lane and being enthralled by both their technical brilliance and soulful playing. Their emotional expression always resonated with me, but seeing those musicians perform made me aspire not only to enjoy music but also to excel at it.

After high school, I applied to various colleges and commenced a Jazz piano performance degree at the Victorian College of the Arts. However, I eventually chose to attend Berklee College of Music. I realized that staying at the Victorian College would make me a fantastic musician, but I also wanted to form connections outside of Australia, knowing that much of the music industry was based in America.

I graduated with a film scoring degree, minoring in video game scoring, after four years. Then, I packed my bags to start as an assistant to a composer in Hollywood. I secured this job by first being an intern during my Junior year. I did this by willingly undertaking all the technology tasks that others disliked to make me seem indispensable when I left. Unfortunately, the assistant role was unsustainable due to organizational issues within the company. More importantly, I saw no clear advancement path from my position, making it seem like a dead-end.

Thankfully, a few months in, an acquaintance from Berklee, whom I hadn’t expected to hear from, offered me a composer role at a studio in the valley. He reached out to me for two reasons. Firstly, I had been the piano player in a film scoring orchestra for which he was a composer. To ensure I performed his pieces well, I arrived half an hour to an hour early for each class to practice the new compositions. This habit allowed me to perform far better during recordings instead of learning on the fly. Secondly, I had been accepted into a selective class called ‘Composing for Silent Film’, a challenging and sought-after course in film scoring that involved conducting an orchestra to music I and six other students wrote for a popular silent film and touring it around the US. The combination of my work ethic in the film scoring class and my achievement in getting into the ‘Composing for Silent Film’ class opened the door to this new opportunity. It was a significant step up from my previous job, so I eagerly accepted it after wanting to fulfill my obligations at the prior job.

That was about five years ago! Since then, I’ve been working at Audiomachine. The learning curve was steep for me and the other five composers who started alongside me. However, with continuous projects, along with tutoring and patience from the head of the company, Paul Dinletir, we gradually gained the experience needed to excel in our roles. I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to work on such amazing projects and am excited about what the future holds!

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It definitely hasn’t been a smooth road! Outside of the struggles I mentioned in the story section, when initially moving to LA, it was very difficult for me to just find affordable accommodation. I remember not having much left over after rent, and with utilities and insurance on top of that I had to have a lot of meal replacement shakes to help get me by day to day!

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
So I’m a composer who specializes in writing music for trailers and video games. My music can be found in a variety of ad campaigns, such as for the 2022 Winter Olympics, Among Us, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, as well as for video games like Call of Duty Mobile. I’m probably most proud of recording in Abbey Road with the London Symphony Orchestra. That was a gigantic honor for me and amazing to hear them record.

As for what sets me apart from other composers, I’d have to say it’d probably be my ability to work very quickly if needed without compromising quality. The sheer amount of times I’ve had to hit crazy deadlines over the years with difficult requests has forced me to adapt and get used to working well under a lot of pressure.

Networking and finding a mentor can have such a positive impact on one’s life and career. Any advice?
I think finding a mentor and networking mostly comes down to a numbers game. If you email 100 people who are interesting to you, chances are maybe 10-20 might get back to you and then you might have a professional relationship with a handful of those. The overwhelming lack of response is not personal. Most people just have crazy busy schedules. If you can stomach messaging hundreds of people and demonstrate a humble eagerness to learn and grow and not think you’re the bee’s knees, that’s when you’ll start to find the people interested in investing in your success and growth. That process helped me when I started out trying to find an internship. I think after all the cold emails, I ended up meeting up with just three people, and then only one of them offered me a job.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.dantauber.com
• Instagram: danielntauber