Today we’d like to introduce you to Tristan Barton.
Tristan, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
My introduction to music was at the age of 13, where I started receiving private drum lessons in my hometown of Cairns, Australia. I went on to study a Bachelor of Music, majoring in drum kit performance. During my time at University, I was lucky enough to go on a student exchange trip to Sendai, Japan in 2010 where I studied Japanese and Music Composition. This was an awesome experience that allowed me to discover composition in a unique setting that ultimately had a massive impact on my career path today.
After graduating, I returned to Australia and began composing/producing music from my laptop, not really having any sort of career direction in mind; I just did it because I loved it! While working in hospitality and playing the occasional drum gig, I got my first job writing music for a publisher based out of Montreal. This leads me to sign with a number of different music publishers including Premium Beat, Art-List and Musicvine. Since signing with these publishers, I began to receive a custom composition request, where people were asking me to write bespoke “scores” for their short films, commercials, and personal projects.
Towards the beginning of 2017, Jordan Taylor Wright reached out to me and wanted to simply chat about some projects he was working on. I actually didn’t know too much about him at the time, but I was just super keen to start creating with the guy. Since working with Jordan, I have been fortunate enough to have worked on campaigns for Audi, Tiffany & Co and Ferragamo. This also leads to involvement in Usher’s Special Olympics 5oth Anniversary Concert Intro, where I was able to score a piece and also collaborate with Usher’s Musical Director.
Has it been a smooth road?
As with anything, I believe you have to fail to get better at what you do, and I failed a lot. Before getting my first writing gig, I was working in Hospitality for about seven years in order to support myself.
During that time, I sent a few demos to a variety of publishers, hoping to get picked up and added to sync catalogues. This didn’t happen and was actually very discouraging at the time. But I stuck with it, and just kept on trying to improve, not really caring about what people thought I was trying to do.
Sometime around February 2014, I sent off about 60 emails with a couple of tracks attached to a bunch of publishers hope to get a response. It wasn’t until about a month later that I got replies from only 3 of the 60 publishers I contacted. Win! And that’s pretty much how I started writing music for content media.
We’d love to hear more about what you do.
So I am a Sole/trader or Freelancer. I am a composer, producer, mixer and session drummer. I specialize in composing music for content media, working with brands and clients. I’m known for my collaborations with Jordan Taylor Wright, and my licensable music catalogues available through music publishing sites. I am most proud of managing everything my self.
As a small business, work can pile up quite quickly, but I always like to challenge myself in every aspect of what I do. I figure my style of writing is what sets me apart from others. I write the way I write, right or wrong. I try to always approach a project as honest as I can, so I know I am delivering the best of what I can do at the time.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
As I don’t live in LA, I can’t really comment, but having the majority of my clients I work with based out of LA, it’s definitely a hub for creatives. It’s a city I will be looking at relocating to in the future.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.tristanbartonmusic.com
- Phone: +61477898437
- Email: daptopr@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tristanbartonmusic/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tristanbartonmusic/?ref=bookmarks
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/tristancomposer
- Other: https://soundcloud.com/tristanbartonmusic
Image Credit:
Glen Saggers
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