Daily Inspiration: Meet Jared Chance Taylor

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jared Chance Taylor.

Hi Jared, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstories.
I remember when I was seven reading a Goosebumps book about a kid who took piano lessons. I told my parents I wanted to learn piano and ended up totally hating it for the first few years. Thankfully, I stuck with it. As I became a teenager I began noticing all these different kinds of music my dad would listen to.

He’s an artist and he was always playing different stuff while he painted–from rock to jazz to hip hop to classical to you name it. Now as a composer, I think I often subconsciously draw musical inspiration from these memories. Anyhow, I began picking up as many instruments as I could and learned how to play them. I played in bands at my church, started songwriting, and continued taking piano lessons.

In college, I found my way into writing music for film and TV. I went to a school that only offered one film scoring class. I initially signed up for it out of pure curiosity. After an hour into the first class, I was hooked. I went back and took the class three more times for no credit just so I could soak up as much I could from it.

The professor of that class, Eric Allaman, is still an integral mentor of mine today. Shout out to him! He encouraged me to go make friends with film majors and score their projects. I’m glad I took his advice. Many of those film majors then are collaborators today.

After school, I was determined to make my living writing music. I lived on ramen and watermelon with a bunch of buddies just north of LA. My first six months after graduating were probably the most terrifying times of my life–I was scraping pennies to get by. Thankfully, an incredible director and amazing dude, John Christopher Pina, gave me the opportunity to score some spots that he was directing.

It allowed me to build enough of a reel to gain the momentum I needed. Before I knew it, I had more work than I knew what to do with. I’m grateful to be able to say things continue to feel that way.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Oh, anything but a smooth road! I’ll say this. Early on, I learned that it was important for me to not only have multiple projects going at once but to be both nimble and present in navigating multiple projects at once.

Practically speaking, unless you’re at Hans Zimmer status, it’s rare that a composer can get away with living on one project at a time. Music budgets today are just not what they used to be. So now, the name of the game, or at least my game, is connecting with and finding creative joy in the array of projects I have at any given moment.

It’s taken me some time to find a grip on how to do this and I’m still improving. I do everything I can to write the best music possible and be totally present to my collaborators and their vision, all while knowing that I can’t keep all my eggs in any one basket. It’s a strange tension, but I’ve come to enjoy that tension.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am a composer who primarily writes music for film & TV. Coming alongside directors, content creators, ad agencies, other musicians–brings me life. I love writing music and I love stories. What better thing is there for me to do than to craft music that helps others tell their stories? I experience God’s great pleasure when I do it. It’s just how he wired me.

At this point, I’ve done music for some large commercials, news outlets, documentaries, and a handful of TV shows. Those things have been extremely fun. But there’s one project I’ve worked on that I love to talk about.

A few years ago I collaborated with my friend John, yes Director John, on a project called Unseen Miami. There was a painter, Julian Smith, who had interviewed four blind people after describing a painting he had made of a beach sunset. He asked them what came to mind for them after hearing the beach sunset and he recorded their responses.

I then took those recordings and crafted music around their responses. Julian also went and made a new painting based on each person’s response. These paintings & music together were showcased as a VR exhibit at Art Basel that year to raise awareness and resources for a local agency that helps the visually impaired, Lighthouse for the Blind. I believe the exhibit ended up touring a few major cities as well.

It was just such an incredible thing to contribute to. I think about it often.

Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
What a cool question. I do identify as a risk-taker. I don’t know that I’d be able to do this if I wasn’t a risk-taker. I have no idea what projects I’ll be working on three months from now. That’s some risk! There’s also a risk of failure with each project I take on.

I believe there’s more value in learning from failure than there is in foregoing opportunity for fear of risking failure. We really sell ourselves short when we don’t allow ourselves the shot at something great. I get it–I used to be very afraid of things not going how I’d like them to.

Maybe I’ve just had things not work out enough times to realize that, even when things “fail”, I’m still going to be okay. We’re all going to fail. A lot. We can let that paralyze us OR we can eat it, chew on it, and grow from it.

And that’s not to say we shouldn’t count our blessings and be wise about what things are worth the risk. All I’m trying to say is that, more often than not, risks are worth taking if we’re willing to maintain a posture of growth no matter the outcome.

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: jaredchancetaylor.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jaredchancetaylor/
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/29GfkEnuiaWJrX3uM4PPLt?si=dx2BqMXqRDqvK1unHC3RZg

Image Credits
Kelsey Page