We were lucky to catch up with Lauren Conklin recently and have shared our conversation below.

Lauren, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

In 2019, I realized I had to make a major life change. I had been performing for as long as I could remember – I got my first regular paying gig playing fiddle when I was 9 – and had reached the point where I was sleeping almost twice as many nights in a hotel/bus every year as I was at my own house. I loved (and still love!) performing and touring but after that long doing just that and nothing else, I had major burn out and wasn’t feeling fulfilled creatively. I had worked my whole life to get to the point I was at, of being so busy and constantly working as a performing musician, and it was terrifying to find out that that life was not bringing me the joy and satisfaction I had always thought it would. I sat down with my husband, who has always been my biggest encourager, and we talked about what to do. He suggested that I just take a leap of faith and take some time completely out of touring to try some different things and see if I could either find something I loved more, or would maybe start missing the road life and be re-energized to start back again. So at the end of 2019, that’s what I did. I said no to all the tours that asked me, and I started just doing things I loved instead while trying to suppress the panic that came with the realization that I no longer had a job and was just crossing my fingers that I would find some unknown better job to do. I have always loved to write instrumental and have a strong background in string arranging, so I started looking into ways to build on those things and came across the idea of scoring films. I downloaded some music-less clips and practiced re-scoring them, and realized that I absolutely loved it. Film music is so diverse and you can have so many different sounds and feelings and genres within one project that I was able to really draw on a lot of the different musical cultures I got to experience while touring, and it was so energizing to work in a medium that combines music with visuals to bring out certain feelings and reactions from the audience. By Fall 2020, I had landed my first feature film and dove right in. It was such a learning experience, and I realize now how crazy it was to take on not just a short film or additional music work as my first project but to do a whole 2 hour, music heavy film as my first professional scoring project. But I loved every step of that project, and since then have leaned in to that world as my full time job. I still do a very limited amount of touring and performing, but am now able to just play shows that are really fun and can say no to some of those runs that were causing me to feel so much burnout back in 2019. Stepping away from that touring world with no backup plan was so scary and such a huge risk, but I am so incredibly glad I took the leap. I found a creative outlet that brings me so much fulfillment and allows me to work with so many creatives in a much wider variety of fields – the collaboration between music, narrative, and visuals in film is so unique and I love being able to help bring stories to life through score. And as an added bonus, I’ve been able to reclaim the joy of performing now that it’s not my primary work!

Lauren, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I grew up in Nashville, and started playing violin at age 6. When I was 9, I got my first regular gig playing with a bluegrass band every Saturday. They were all 65+ and industry veterans, and I am so lucky that I got to play with and learn from them from such a young age. They liked to just shout out some obscure song I’d never heard in the middle of a set and then announce that it was time for a fiddle solo on it, so I learned really quickly to improvise and not be afraid of jumping into the unknown. I performed with them as well as in orchestras and for a variety of film and television programs throughout elementary/middle/highschool and then went to Belmont University to study Commercial Music Performance. Once I was at Belmont and got to meet and make friends with so many amazing musicians, I started picking up more touring gigs as well as session work. For a lot of my college career, I would fly out on weekends and play gigs, do my homework at the hotel, and fly back to Nashville for class on Monday mornings. After graduating, I kept touring and playing sessions, and started to write string arrangements as well as playing. I feel so fortunate that I got to tour and perform with so many incredible artists and in so many amazing places, and will always be grateful for those opportunities. The whole time I toured, I always enjoyed learning about the musical culture of the places I visited, form Norwegian folk fiddle tunes to exploring some of the different modes of Middle Eastern music. Now that I have transitioned away from touring and am composing full time, I feel like a lot of those places and sounds show up in my work. I love to write film scores that incorporate unusual instruments I ran across or play with scales you don’t hear often in Western music. I’m also grateful for the years I spent playing sessions and really getting to learn firsthand how the orchestra works together so that now when I’m writing for orchestra I can pretty easily identify what kinds of things each instrument will do best and envision how to create different soundscapes. I’ve been going back and forth between Nashville and Los Angeles the past few years and am so excited to continue diving deeper into the world of film scoring and orchestral composition. Film scoring is such a rewarding career because you get to work with creatives from all different sectors – producers, directors, script writers, actors, editors – and all come together to bring a story to life. The cross collaboration between different art forms is a really special thing about film.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I have always been such a perfectionist, and growing up training as a classical violinist the idea that everything has to be 100% perfect before it begins to be acceptable was always very ingrained in my view of creativity. A lot of classical music – auditioning for orchestra placements or solos, for example – involves an extremely high level of critique and the drive for perfection in those settings can be all consuming. For a long time, I carried with me the idea that everything I created had to be perfect before I could share it with anyone, even though when you’re writing there is no such thing as “perfect”, there is only “completed”. There was a point when I just realized – if I never share my work, no one will ever know I exist. And I also realized – this idea of perfection just doesn’t exist, and as long as my work is bringing someone joy or helping to tell a story, that is all I can hope for. So I started releasing music and posting clips of my scoring work on Instagram, and it has been so fulfilling to realize that there are lots of people out there who like what I do and I was being way too hard on myself chasing this impossible standard for so many years. I hope that all creatives will learn this lesson – what makes your music or art beautiful is that it is an expression of your unique and beautiful perspective on life and the world. There will always be room for improvement, creativity is a journey not a destination, but at every stop along the way it is worth reaching out and sharing your work because there are most likely lots of other people experiencing similar things as you who will be able to find joy or peace or hope from listening to your work and knowing they’re not alone.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Social media has been a really great tool for me in my career. It is so cool that we get to live in a time in history where creativity and collaboration are not limited by physical location, and social media is such a huge part of that. I started building my Instagram in particular close to ten years ago, and am so glad that I did. I’ve had so many opportunities come through that platform – I’ve gotten to perform in the Middle East and Mexico, met directors I eventually scored films for, connected with artists I’ve gotten to write string arrangements for, and even met other creatives who ended up becoming great friends. One of the most important things to realize about social media today is that if you are a creative, your social platforms are basically your business card now. The first thing I do when I meet someone I might work with is pull up their socials to see what they’ve done, what they’re working on, and how they present themselves to the world from a public platform. For those who are just starting to build their social media presence, I would recommend taking an honest look at your page – pretend that you are your own client and try to decide if what you see looks like someone you want to work with. When I was building my following from the ground up, I posted exclusively about my work. Now that I have my pages at a place that I feel good about, I will occasionally post something from my personal life (I have a very cute dog who deserves at least a few slots!) but I do still filter everything through the lens of “what would a director think if she looked at my page right now?” My other advice is to think carefully about what you say – anything you post on social media, whether you delete it or not, is basically there forever because people can screenshot or save your posts at any time. I always want to make sure that anything I post or write is something that is bringing more joy or value to people who see it. The big downside of social media is how many people feel overwhelmed and depressed by the constant negativity and comparison game it tends to create, so it’s important to me that I am a positive presence in that space. I think that in the long run, that can help you to build a following too – people want to follow things that are educational, or inspiring, or just make them happy!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.laurenconklin.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/lalalauren678
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@LaurenConklin
• Other: TikTok: www.tiktok.com/@laurenconklinviolin