We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jon Mohr. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jon below.
Jon, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s the best or worst investment you’ve made (either in terms of time or money)? (Note, these responses are only intended as entertainment and shouldn’t be construed as investment advice)
The best investment in my music career, by far, was working with a mentor on social media marketing. Prior to this mentorship, I was not fond of social media, and consistently went about promoting myself the wrong way. The most glaring example of this was using my Twitter account (that I’d had for multiple years prior) and marketing my music to my friends and also an audience of people who followed me because of my Minecraft work. Not to mention that Twitter just isn’t really the platform for me. I prefer Instagram for its strongly visual format.
I was browsing YouTube one day in 2019 and got recommended a video on using Instagram by someone named Adam Ivy. I took notes on his videos, dusted off my years-old Instagram and got to work posting content as per his strategies. Shortly after doing this, I started mentoring with him directly and this started a chain of events that led me to where I am now. My content got better, I connected with other composers and film directors, and began to see real, actual progress in my career. During this time, I started mentoring with another person—Avery Berman— (who had found ME through my posts on Instagram) on the sync licensing industry which opened up another can of worms.
Fast forwarding a little, the rate of commissions for me increased, I began to see royalties come in from my music being used on TV, my Spotify streams increased, and my network got stronger. I don’t promote myself on social media as aggressively as I used to because I am wrapped up in a variety of projects thanks to that foundation I built from 2019 through 2022. Bear in mind, I’ve done all of this from my apartment. I do not live in any big music city, but I’ve been able to carve out a solid niche for myself in the industry just by using social media and the internet. I am confident that I would not be where I am now had it not been for that pivot.
Jon, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I’m Jon, and I am a cinematic music composer and producer from Ohio. I also have a speech impediment that’s been with me since elementary school. I got the Yamaha YPT-210 as a Christmas gift when I was in elementary school, but didn’t use it much until 6th grade. Then, I dropped it for a bit, picked it up in 8th grade, dropped it again, picked it up in 11th grade for a Music Appreciation class, and in January 2016, I officially started writing and recording my own music. I did not know music theory so I learned it slowly by figuring out what sounded good and what didn’t sound good (to me). Fast forwarding through a lot, I now write music for a couple trailer music publishers (and have had my music featured in promos on Discovery, CBS News, ESPN, and FOX Business). I also compose music for films, some of which have gone on to win Best Score, and one that is competing at the international level in Portugal. I additionally wrote music for video games, my first one being TurBot (released on Steam). Outside of these endeavors, I am also the lead orchestrator for a metal band from Canada (single forthcoming), and I also release works as an Artist under my name Jon R. Mohr.
I feel most proud of an upcoming work that I wrote with a colleague from Atlanta–it’s an epic orchestral track with a trailer music-style production that we had recorded live by Budapest Scoring in August. I’m very proud of this project because I’ve wanted to hear and see my music performed by an orchestra ever since I started working with orchestral VSTs, and having it actually happen for real was a legitimate dream come true. The song is also the most complex track I’ve co-written, and the production (mix, master) was also the most daunting of my career so far. I am very proud of all the work we’ve put into this project, and it will be releasing soon as well.
Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?
The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss was a big resource for me. One of the topics he discusses is that there are always options and resources out there for you. For example—no one tells you that you can purchase YOUR OWN insurance, beholden to no employer. Affording it is one thing, but knowing the option is out there for you is very nice. Additionally, a great avenue for funding are Artist Opportunities grants. Simply searching for “artist opportunities grants” and your state/city on Google will yield results that are worth looking into. Again, no one really tells you these exist in the first place (I only heard about these from another music industry colleague, after a couple years of being in the industry).
The next big topic he discusses is this: creating a demand is difficult… but filling demand is easier. I know I specifically fill demand by composing music for trailer music libraries that editors can use in their productions. Filling that demand, rather than trying to create demand for my personal work as an artist, is MUCH easier. The profit margins of trailer music being used on TV can be significantly higher than Spotify or YouTube streams. With trailer music, you at least have a good idea of what your market wants, and you have a very good idea of who your market is. It can be much harder to find your market as a music artist.
The nice thing about all this is that I can take the income from my work on trailer music and use it to foster growth in my music as an ARTIST, and if you look at it from a top-down perspective… I’m getting paid to make music all the same.
Lastly, Tim discusses Selective Ignorance—I apply it in my life by being very conscious about what content I consume and how much energy I dedicate to it. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve noticed that my day-to-day energy has gotten more limited. There are many things to get angry about in this world, but I can’t do anything about a lot of them. That’s not to say you should be completely ignorant of important world events, but don’t fixate on them. I used to browse TikTok a lot, but I’d quickly fall into the void of the “For You” page and spend way more time on the app than I’d like. I stopped using it because of this, and I’ve noticed a significant increase in my day-to-day productivity. And honestly, there’s only so much “guy in his car yelling about a topical issue” content I can consume before it drains me (even when I agree with it). That’s not to say I need to be productive ALL the time however—I’m just more strict on what content I consume and when. I try to delay watching any form of entertainment until my work for the day is done (and it feels better rewarding myself with some funny or insightful videos after completing a task for a publisher anyway).
The other big resource that impacted my entrepreneurial/business mindset was college. In retrospect, I gained a lot from the Business Core classes I took during my time there. My major was Management Information Systems (so database management, ERP, etc.) and my Business Core classes consisted of organizational management, international business strategy, marketing, accounting, and so on. At the time, I hated taking quite a few of these classes, but now I believe that these classes helped cement a “business/entrepreneurial” mindset in me. There’s always resources out there, there’s always a way to get to where you want to go… you just need to look for it.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
My modus operandi as a composer/producer is to “…write music to inspire those who want to bring to life images and emotions that once vanished into time, to give soul and color to every new day.”
I try to express deep and hard-to-describe feelings while also creating huge sonic landscapes in my work as an artist. The reason for this is because I’ve always been fascinated by things that are larger than life—so large that they make us realize how small we are. Additionally, I have always LOVED fantastical, epic, and psychedelic works of art, as well as feelings and emotions that fall within those adjectives.
Lucid dreaming was something I was very into during middle school, and I DID manage to have a couple lucid dreams… but my excitement cut them both short. There was one time, however, where I was lying in bed for sleep, but I deliberately kept my eyes open to the dark ceiling and let a music playlist run with headphones on. I had some hypnagogic visions here (hypnagogia being the state between wakefulness and sleep) and that was one of my favorite experiences of my life. I was soaring through beautiful and psychedelic architecture, and if I wanted to “pause” and look at something more in depth… that thing I’d look at would become MORE detailed the more I looked at it. I had to be very careful with how much I physically moved, because any movement would make the visions fall apart. Eventually, the visions stopped on their own and I actually went to bed, but it was an amazing experience. I’ve tried to replicate it years later, but I just get too exhausted and fall asleep anyway. Perks of getting older, I guess. Haha!
But the feeling I got from that experience never went away… and that is one of the feelings I wish to express as accurately as possible through my art. I could talk about this existential, philosophical, epic stuff for hours, so I’ll just stop here.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://jonrmohr.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jonrmohr/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JonRMohr/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-r-mohr-1612881a9/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/jrmohrmus
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/jonrmohr