Today we’d like to introduce you to Jonas Petersen.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I started my journey as a musician probably the minute after I was born. We did not have any TV or radio at home, but my mother would sing to me all day, all through my entire childhood.
Growing up I remember acting as the radio in the car by singing songs because we didn’t have a radio! And then, at the age of ten, I was taken to a classical concert and was so fascinated especially by the violin section that my mother signed me up for violin lessons the next day.
Fast forward 20-something years, I am the go-to person for anyone who needs a string orchestra accompanying their song or movie. I still can’t believe that I have been making a really good living for many years now with just this intense focus on violin and string recordings.
It has really been an incredible journey, and even though the focus on strings was always there, it feels like I have lived many lives and had many careers. I started as a sound engineer and music producer when I was 16 and had an incredible career working alongside the best musicians the planet has to offer.
Even long before I came to LA, I was heavily involved in big international productions and projects. Hans Zimmer came to Vienna in 2011 to record music for “Sherlock Holmes 2 – A Game of Shadows,” and I was fortunate enough to spend the entire week in the studio with him. That’s how I received my first major Hollywood credit.
The same year we worked on “Madagascar 3 – Europe’s most wanted,” and again I was the trusted violin – recording – sound engineer. All my life I have been really fortunate to be able to work closely with the most incredible and accomplished musicians and artists the world has to offer.
For many years I have been the right hand of star-violinist Aleksey Igudesman in Europe, and through him, I was introduced to and have worked with legends such as Roger Moore, Hans Zimmer, Joshua Bell, etc. All these projects and collaborations really helped raise the bar in every way.
As a young musician and sound engineer, you don’t know how quality sounds like. You think you do, but in reality, nothing you do is even remotely good enough to compete in the real world. All these years of being pushed to delivering top world-class results were crucial to my later success.
A few years ago I got the opportunity to produce a song for a big Disney commercial. A lot of money was involved, and very little time. The challenge: re-write, find a good singer, produce and completely finish a pop song on radio-level within not much more than 24 hours.
We delivered in time, and the song went on to winning the Clio Award, the biggest advertising award in the world. It took about four years living and working in Los Angeles to transition from “we have enough talented people here, we don’t need you” to a place where I am getting more projects that I can handle myself.
Part of the journey to get there was the focus on a very small niche within the music business that allows me to thrive and do my best work every day, without having to deal with the constant stress that so often comes with living and working in the entertainment capital of the world.
My clients come to me because they cannot get what I offer from anyone else. That puts me in an incredible fortunate position that not many people have in this town, and I will be forever grateful to all my mentors and friends who helped me on this path.
I am lucky to be at a place in my life where I can choose what clients I want to work with, I earn significantly more than most of my peers in my industry, I have been awarded the biggest awards in the industry and my projects are regularly broadcasted on TV, on the radio and talked about.
We just recently had a top-chart position on Radio Disney, and another song was exclusively premiered on Billboard. So, all in all, it’s been going pretty well for me!
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
I don’t think a smooth road to success exists. For me, to this day, the biggest struggle still comes with not knowing what tomorrow is going to look like.
As an artist, as a freelancer – no matter how accomplished – it is really hard to predict where the next project and opportunity will come from, when it will come and if it will pay enough to support the lifestyle I am currently living. I have learned over the years to live with this fear and even embrace it. Why not take even bigger risks if the future is already unpredictable?
Struggling is part of life, and every overcome obstacle shapes your personality in a way that nothing else can. Every single thing I have ever learned came out of some kind of mistake or obstacle I was facing. And again, embracing it always seemed like the better option to me. Relocating across the world from a little town in Austria to Los Angeles to successfully work in Hollywood?
Just by yourself, without any financial support from anyone? That is definitely not an easy thing to do. But after successfully going through with it I feel like Goliath. You’ve got a challenge for me? Something difficult? Bring it on, I can do anything!
24 Violins – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
My main business these days is 24 violins. We deliver a full section string orchestra recording within 24 hours to clients all around the world. Luckily, with the technology we have available these days, I don’t need to have a full orchestra sitting at the studio all day, I really just need a few very good and flexible musicians and my own experience as a sound engineer, producer, arranger and mixer to make this happen.
Most of the projects I work on are incredible songs from artists of all genres. Some of them already have a string-arrangement laid out; for others, I will write and pre-record it as well. I work very fast and in real time, so when I write a piece for string quartet or string orchestra the composing part happens in my head and a lot of it just gets recorded straight away.
I still write out the music for my musicians to play from, but with today’s available tools that happens within a few seconds and is instantly available. Especially the speed and efficiency I work with on a daily bases is only possible because of my decades of experience working in large studios alongside incredible top-of-the-line artists – I don’t have to second-guess myself anymore in my decisions.
Any creative and technical work happens instantly and gets sent out a few minutes later. Attending large orchestra sessions here in Los Angeles and Europe always makes me realize how antiquated especially this part of the business is.
In our time and age it is expected from every guitar player, bass player and drummer to be able to record themselves in their own studio at home, yet when it comes to classical music there is still a big gap between the musicians and the technology/skills needed to make quality recordings and deliver quickly and reliable.
So part of my journey is to teach traditionally trained musicians to leave their comfort zone from time to time. To sometimes ignore what is written and just play how they feel it. And on a broader scale, to allow themselves to feel the music instead of trying to accurately reproduce what has been written down.
All top-performers and artists work this way, yet many very talented (and well-booked) session musicians don’t allow themselves the freedom to truly express themselves. This has always been my main focus, especially as a producer. It goes as far as allowing a very imperfect singer to really shine through expressing themselves truly, while on the other hand letting a meticulously crafted perfect performance not get drowned in perfection-boredom by adding something unique to it.
I have worked as a mixing engineer for many years, and in combination with 24 violins, I have really been able to offer something unique that is hard to find. Often my clients hire me to mix their song and replace the string sounds with the recording of real musicians.
Other times I get booked to produce a song from the ground of that specifically cries for a string orchestra or a string quartet. This niche has definitely been working very well for me over the last years, and I am working on exploring it even more with artists that I really like and believe in.
What is “success” or “successful” for you?
In my career, I was really fortunate to have worked very closely with people who I have been my heroes all my life. People that for me impersonate success. Observing how they see their success, how they act, how they feel, what they do to keep moving forward in life made me understand what success actually looks like.
Success is not a set point where you arrive, and that’s it. Success itself doesn’t really exist. There is always something next to strive for. If you talk to anyone who is truly successful in the eyes of the world, they will all tell you that they are still somewhere in the middle of their journey. They are humble and thankful for all the success they have had, but they still feel like there is more. There is always a new challenge.
For many years, my definition of success was about reaching the ambitious goals that I had set for myself — getting a credit on a major motion picture. Working and making a living in Hollywood, being recognized as one of the top in the industry. But now, after achieving many of these milestones I have come to realize that true success really just lies in yourself and how you feel about the things you do.
Being successful is not the same as feeling successful. Being successful is often used in the same sentence as being happy. And I think we all can agree that success without happiness is not real success. At least not the kind of success most of us strive for. Yet, in most cases, reaching our success-milestones really doesn’t solve the issue of happiness.
Often, especially in Hollywood, it is quite the opposite – you reach success after working yourself to a wreck for decades. You might feel overwhelmed and truly grateful receiving that Academy Award, yet deep inside the connection to true happiness is just not there. Real success to me means being happy and content with the situation I am in.
Being okay with what I do, how I look, how I come across, how I live. That certainly includes achieving some of the milestones I have set for myself, because I need to turn the feeling of “what if I had just done this, what if I had taken that risk” into “I did it!” or “I tried, and I learned from it.”
Contact Info:
- Website: www.24violins.com
- Email: [email protected]
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pg/SymphonicPlanet
Image Credit:
Main photo: Michelle Packman
Noor Che’ree, Mariusz Magnuszewski
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