PRIVATE COACHING
““You will never maximize your potential in any area without coaching. It is impossible. You may be good. You may even be better than everyone else. But without outside input you will never be as good as you could be. We all do better when somebody is watching and evaluating.””
The Four Pillars
With 18 years of video game music industry experience, I’ve learned that there are four pillars required to create a successful & sustainable career:
Music Composition
Music Production
Music Technology
Music Business
Over the last decade of coaching dozens of video game composers, I’ve noticed that most composers tend to focus on only one or two of the four pillars, leaving vulnerabilities in their skill set.
Mentorship
What made the difference for me? Mentorship with industry pros. For thousands of years before us, blacksmiths, tailors, and engineers have passed their trades to apprentices. They understood what many have forgotten today–some skills and wisdom must be passed on privately. I’ve had the honor of learning from many of the greats including Penka Kouneva (Gears of War 3, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands), Garry Schyman (Bioshock series, Middle earth: Shadow of Mordor), & Jason Graves (Dead Space series, Tomb Raider series). Since then, I’ve had the honor of working alongside other A-list game composers including:
Hitoshi Sakimoto (Final Fantasy Tactics, Final Fantasy XII)
David Wise (Donkey Kong Country series, Battletoads)
Grant Kirkhope (Banjo-Kazooie, Mario + Rabbids)
Yuzo Koshiro (Streets of Rage, Super Smash Bros. series)
Austin Wintory (Journey, Assassin's Creed: Syndicate)
12 Months Program
Your career is in your hands. How have you recently invested in your composition skills? Production mastery? Technical proficiency? Business growth? Through my 12-months Private Coaching program, I’ll take you to the next level of your career. We’ll set goals together, create an action plan, and I’ll hold you accountable.
“I needed the push and to have someone hold me accountable as I was struggling to create my first music pack. Steven's coaching helped me stay on task, focus the marketing direction of the pack, and pushed me to finish by a deadline. I was able to finish my first full pack and it's now on three different game dev marketplaces.”
– Will A.
“When I first met Steven I'd just graduated with a Bachelor's of Music and had no sense of direction. Steven helped guide me to a career that I am happy with, while also helping me build the lifestyle of a professional composer. Steven was a pleasure to work with and was always available to answer my questions. I'd highly recommend him to anybody looking to advance their career or to get started!”
– Tomiharu W.
Meet Marco Llano
When I first met Marco, he was a trumpet player seeking to make a living in video game audio. We worked together to improve his production & technology skills by writing multiple tracks, experimenting with Middleware, and frequently talking through business strategies for finding more work. In 2022, he landed the Lead Audio Designer for Valkyrie Elysium (Square Enix), working alongside industry legend composer Motoi Sakuraba on music & sound.
Ready to Start?
It’s easy to start: book your free 15 min. Discovery Call below and fill out the short intake form to help me better understand how I can best help you. If I feel like we’re good a fit by the end of our call, afterwards I’ll send you a link to purchase your program. Then you’ll begin scheduling your 9 sessions over the next 12 months.
My schedule only allows for a maximum of 8 students at a time, so if you’re interested in working with me, please don’t hesitate to start your plan! If my roster is full at the time of our free 15 min. Discovery Call, you’ll be added to the wait list until another student finishes his or her 12 months program.
If you’re ready to level up your video game music career, book a free 15 min. Discovery Call below.
BONUSES
Downloadable Session Recordings: every Private Coaching session is recorded and available to download immediately afterward in our shared Google Drive folder. Rewatch our chats as much as you’d like. This can be extremely useful when I’m screensharing teaching resources, DAW techniques, tweaking sample libraries, experimenting with plugins, or chatting about very specific assignment details
Priority Email Access: I get a lot of emails every day, but as a Private Coaching student, I give you top priority in responding back to your questions. Need some feedback on your latest track? Need a URL to a software, business, or music resource? Need some suggestions about how to better complete your assignment? I’m here to help you regularly & quickly. I’ll respond back to you before my own paid video game developer clients.
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In our first session, we're going to get straight to work! The purpose of the first session is to unpack your goals and create an Action Plan together that reflects where you want to be in 12 months. Every Action Plan includes:
List of Assignments for you to complete before our next session
A clearly defined goal for the end (Ex. "to have 5 completed 2- minute tracks written in the Fantasy RPG style" or "to earn $1,000 in music income")
Session-by-Session Breakdown of how we're going to reach the goal together
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Once you've purchased the Private Coaching Program, you'll be emailed a link to Acuity Scheduler where you can book your 9 sessions within 12-months timeframe. This means that we'll meet once every 4-6 weeks.
Why such a long time between sessions? After doing dozens of programs with students over the years (esp. adult students), I’ve learned that it realistically takes 4-6 weeks to complete meaningful assignments. Not to mention how life tends to get in the way and try to stop us…kids get sick, pets need to go to the vet, house repairs, vacations, inclement weather, etc. This 12-months timeframe is carefully chosen to maximize our time together and get you the best results possible without our program feeling like a rushed whirlwind. I want to see you win in the game audio industry and frankly, that takes time. In the rare event that I have to miss a session due to an emergency, I will extend our timeframe accordingly with no additional charges.
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There are two payment plan options for the 12-Months Private Coaching program:
$400/mo for 12 months
One-time $4,500 payment ($300 discount)
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If you show up to all 12 sessions and follow your Action Plan, you'll get results. Just like a personal fitness trainer, I'm here to provide a customized plan just for you that caters to your age, experience, education, access to tools, and dedication (or lack thereof!). If you want this program to be an introduction to music composition, great! If you want to use this program to prepare for college applications, let's go! If you want to use this program as a professional investment to earn more game music income, awesome!
Whatever your goals are, I'm here to create a practical Action Plan that will give you real results. If your goals are unrealistic, I'll tell you. If your goals are too small, I'll push you to stretch yourself. The purpose of the first session is to unpack your goals and create an Action Plan together that reflects where you want to be in 12 months.
In the rare event that you work our Action Plan throughout the 12 months and don’t reach the goals that we planned for, I’ll continue coaching you for free until you do.