Recording Connection Sky Felix: Composing for TV but still paying dues

Staying busy is the goal, especially in the freelance world of composing for film and television. Staying busy means you have a job, which means you’re making connections which means you’re building towards your ultimate goal. These days Sky Felix, a Recording Connection graduate, has been staying busy with composer Michael Corcoran. Sky has been working with Michael on projects that range from American Pie and New Year’s Eve to Best Friends Whenever and Shake It Up.

Today, Sky has a blossoming career even though he was hardly certain about what he wanted to do just a few years ago. Although he was going through the right motions in his life, there was no burning desire, no definite goal on the horizon. Music had its place—that of being relegated to a hobby or pastime but it was hardly at the front of Sky’s mind as a viable career choice.

I was in college and I was like, ‘I don’t know what I want to do,’” he says. “I took some nonsense classes at college just to appease my parents. And then we stumbled across…I don’t even know where we found it. It might’ve been in a magazine, Mix magazine or something, we saw the Recording Connection advertisement. And my mom’s like, ‘Look at this.’ And I’m like, ‘Hey, that’ll be pretty cool. I’m pretty much making beats right now for no reason. I might as well learn what I’m doing because I don’t know what I’m doing.’”

Sky applied for the Recording Connection and was paired with Donny Baker of ES Audio in Los Angeles. His time at ES was perfect for him. Sky immersed himself in his apprenticeship and took as many opportunities as he could to expose himself to as much of the craft as possible. He jumped in with both feet, made connections, and honed his skills. This led to him working on an entire album with an indie artist he met at ES. Then, a job lead came his way from a fellow Recording Connection student.

The lead was for as assisting position with film and television industry composer, Michael Corcoran. When Sky got the job, he kept it cool and just focused on the work and watching his boss at his craft. His confident air and willingness to step up to the plate soon led to bigger opportunities. “From there, it just snowballed…one day, they were like, ‘Oh, Disney called because they need a music editor. We’re going to give you this gig.’ And I’m like, ‘All right. That’s cool.’ And I didn’t really know what music editing was!”

Nevertheless, Sky took to the challenge and did well. The opportunities have kept on coming ever since.

It went from me editing music to me, now, composing music for this show. So that was a big step up…We just did the pilot, then it got picked up. So then I ended up doing 23 episodes of this show and every week or so, I would have to do 13-14 pieces of original music for the TV show.”

Despite his successes and the fact that he’s hardly looked back since starting Recording Connection, Sky Felix says he’s still paying his dues and learning on every single project that comes his way.

“You don’t get to the top quickly,” he says, “You have got to work on it. And I’m still working on it.”