[ddots-l] Re: A friend of mine sent me this
- From: "Dancing Dots" <billlist1@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 16:18:09 -0400
Thanks for sharing. No, I have never heard of him. But he probably never
heard of me either. (grin)
He's not blind, is he?
Regards,
Bill
Bill McCann
Founder and President of Dancing Dots since 1992
www.DancingDots.com
Tel: [001] 610-783-6692
_____
From: ddots-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ddots-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Greg Brayton
Sent: Friday, March 19, 2010 1:09 PM
To: ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [ddots-l] A friend of mine sent me this
The article is below, does anyone know about this musician?
You've probably never heard of Todd Hahn, but you might have heard his
music.
Hahn, 47, has scored soundtracks for everything from
President Obama's campaign commercials
to History Channel
documentaries
. He's done work for the Learning Channel, WETA (where my wife is employed),
National
Geographic, and a host of other current and former politicians and
advocacy groups. Think U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton,
former president
George W. Bush and even the
Swiftboat Veterans.
The musical entrepreneur grosses more than $500,000 in a good year,
pocketing more than half
that after expenses.
He has no employees. Works at home. Loves what he does and gets to hear his
stuff on
television.
And $50,000 worth of technology makes it possible. A piece of music software
called MIDI
(music instrument digital interface) allows the Potomac resident
to pound a set of piano keys and reproduce in a couple of days the sound of
a symphony
orchestra that once would have taken weeks and cost a small fortune.
"I call up the guitar sound and the computer will re-create its sound," he
said. "I can
offer a dramatic musical score for a relatively inexpensive amount
of money. And all that money [that would have gone for the orchestra] goes
to me."
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I call it a miracle of productivity.
Hahn has at least $10,000 invested in music sounds alone on his computer,
ranging from a
harmonica to a full 120-piece orchestra. He performs hundreds of
jobs a year, charging anywhere from $750 to compose background music (called
wallpaper) to
$2,500 and above for a more complex score that pulses a political
ad.
"I've developed a niche business here in D.C.," he said.
How?
"A convergence of three things," he said. "I was at the right place at the
right time
meeting the right people. The technology was right. And I was creative
enough to deliver a decent product."
<!--[endif]-->
Hahn learned piano as a kid in Akron, Ohio, from a former professor from the
Julliard
School. After graduating from the Institute of Audio Research in New
York with a degree in audio engineering in 1984, and after a short time at
the University of
Akron, he studied music composition at Julliard himself. His
first job was as an assistant engineer at a studio in Cincinnati. The
studio, known as the
Fifth Floor, was a hotbed for funky band music. Hahn was in
his early 20s, making about $20,000 a year.
He calls those days "the starving artist years."
There were a lot of very talented music and advertising people working in
Cincinnati at the
time. Chalk it up to Procter & Gamble, the ginormous consumer
goods manufacturer headquartered there. An entire sub-industry of music
studios, filmmakers,
sound people and advertisers grew around the company.
"I was the third-string guy, helping score things like industrial films,"
Hahn recalled.
Soon, the third-string guy graduated to solo gigs. His first job was writing
the music for
an admissions video that Dennison University wanted to send to
potential students. That led to other college jobs and to freelance work for
places such as
the Columbus Zoo, for which he would create music for dolphin
and penguin exhibits.
Hahn was soon making $50,000 a year. He quit the Fifth Floor in 1986 to go
out on his own.
He moved to Columbus and opened a small studio with $20,000 he
had saved. He started cold-calling companies, producers, movie directors and
others.
"If I was lucky enough to get a job and the client liked it, then word of
mouth spread. Once
you are in a production community in any area . . . your name
starts getting around."
The lessons from these years were valuable. To get his foot in the door, he
would write some
pieces on the condition that he would charge a fee only if
the buyer liked the result. Over time, he learned how to set a price for his
work.
"They would say, you've got $2,000 to do this show, and I would say, I will
do it and give
you one revision if you don't like it."
The big turning point -- every entrepreneur has one -- arrived when a
childhood buddy hired
Hahn to score internal videos for the American Federation of
Teachers, which is headquartered in Washington. A Bethesda audio group
called the Soundsters
offered him a job at its studio off River Road in 1990.
Hahn loaded his equipment on a rented truck and drove to Washington, where
he quickly did
the soundtrack for a Discovery Channel multi-part documentary
about military aircraft and hardware.
He scored a 20-minute internal film for the National Institutes of Health
that taught
scientists how to dispose of radioactive waste.
A friend introduced him to media consultant Mark Putnam (now Murphy Putnam
Media), who was
looking for something more dynamic than old tunes to infuse political
ads. Putnam hired him to score the political ads for a Putnam client who was
running for
mayor of a big city. The idea for original music caught on, and
Hahn's niche of political business took off. Now it brings in well more than
half of his
revenue.
"During a heavy political year, I can bill half a million dollars or more,"
said Hahn, who
left Soundsters in 1993 to go out on his own. Hahn said the key
to keeping his clients happy is relying on their input and knowing what they
want. His goal
is to stir so much emotion in listeners they will vote for
the candidate.
"Music is a catalyst for emotion," he said. "Once you put music against the
scene, it
explodes. Just watch 'The Magnificent Seven.' You put music to that
and all of a sudden these guys on horses are heroes. That's what we're
trying to do when we
are selling a candidate."
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