The Silence Before the Storm

Gareth Cousins philosophically reflects on 40 years in freelance film music, turning quiet anxieties into warrior resilience for iconic scores like Gravity, Notting Hill, Dark City and Suicide Squad.

Recording Frank Ilfman's score for A Mistake in Abbey Road Studio 1

Forty years. That’s how long I’ve been riding the same relentless wave in film and television music production. I started at Abbey Road in 1986 on a 1 month trial as a wide-eyed technical engineer fresh out of an electronics degree, convinced that if I just worked hard enough the opportunities would keep coming. 2 weeks later I was assisting on a Siouxsie and the Banshees album, and within 2 years I was engineering sessions. I went freelance in 1993, believing the phone would never stop ringing. It did, of course. And when it did, the silence was deafening.

I used to worry about those quiet stretches. They still arrive—sometimes for days, sometimes for weeks—but I no longer greet them with the same clenched-jaw anxiety that once kept me awake at 3 a.m. staring at the ceiling in my Stratford-upon-Avon home. Today I meet them as a battle-hardened industry professional - a Warrior, if you like. The shift didn’t happen overnight. It was forged in the crucible of Gravity’s recording and mixing sessions, in the marathon post-production of Suicide Squad, the gruelling overnight programming sessions of Dark City, in the quiet aftermath of Notting Hill’s global success, and in every Attenborough documentary score that reminded me why we do this in the first place.

Let me take you inside the rhythm that almost no one outside our industry truly understands.

The Silence Before the Storm

Freelance life in film music is cyclical by design. One week you’re the invisible score mixer of an Oscar-winning soundscape; the next you’re refreshing your inbox like a teenager waiting for an email. Early in my career the quiet terrified me. After leaving Abbey Road in 1993 I had a mortgage, a young family, and the nagging voice that whispered, “This is it. The phone has finally stopped for good.”

I filled those voids with worry. I’d tinker with half-finished library cues that went nowhere. I’d call contacts I hadn’t spoken to in months. I’d lie in bed calculating how many months of savings we had left. The irony, of course, is that those very weeks of worry were the soil in which the next big project grew. But I couldn’t see it then.

What changed? Time. And a thousand small realisations that accumulated like multitrack overdubs on an old analogue reel.

I began to notice that the quiet days were never truly empty. They were gestation periods. When the phone is silent, the mind is truly free to wander. I started using those windows—not to panic, but to experiment. I built new sample libraries. I revisited old compositions with fresh ears, producing library albums. I read avidly (mostly classic sci fi, if you are asking). I spent time with my family, planned holidays, finished in the studio in time for dinner with my wife. I walked with my dog in the fields around my home and let ideas arrive unforced.

A warrior understands something the worrier never can: stillness is preparation. The bow is drawn back before the arrow flies.

The All-Consuming Fire

Then the call comes. And when it does, everything else disappears.

I’ve lost count of the times I’ve told my wife, “This one will be different—normal hours.” It never is. When you’re mixing a hybrid score for a Netflix blockbuster or fine-tuning 120 stems for a Dolby Atmos theatrical mix, time becomes elastic. Days bleed into nights. Weekends often cease to exist. Exercise? A distant memory. Family dinners get replaced by a meal at the mixing desk. Friends stop inviting you because they know the answer will be “I’m on a film.”

There have been projects where I slept in the studio for 3 straight days. Not because anyone demanded it, but because the music and the picture had fused into a single living entity that refused to let me go. Times when 2 weeks working abroad evolved into 7 straight weeks away. The work consumes you because the work is you.

And here’s the philosophical truth I’ve only recently learned to accept: that total immersion is not a flaw in the system—it is the system. Film and television music isn’t a 9-to-5 craft. It is a calling that demands surrender. You learn not to fight the fire; you become the fire. The flame will eventually burn itself out, and when it does, the quiet will return.

The trick is not to fear either state.

The Philosophy of the Pendulum

After four decades I’ve come to see our industry as a perfect metaphor for life itself: constant motion between opposites. Yin and yang. Tension and release. Silence and symphony.

The worrier tries to control the pendulum. The warrior learns to ride it.

I no longer measure my worth by how many weeks the phone has been quiet or how many all-nighters I’ve pulled. I measure it by presence. When the quiet comes, I am fully in the quiet—creating, reflecting, restoring. When the storm arrives, I am fully in the storm—focused, relentless, alive. Both states serve the same purpose: they make the music better.

I’ve also learned that the “cost” of family, friends and exercise may be reframed. Yes, there were years when my children were small and I missed far too many bedtimes. I carry that. But those same children grew up understanding passion in a way few kids ever do. They watched their father pour everything into something he loved, and they learned that love means absolute commitment. I’m very proud that both my children share the same passion for their work as I do.

As for exercise and friends—well, you have to learn to adapt. I play as much 5 a side football as my schedule allows, and the family bought me a bike for my last birthday. I’ve learned that the deepest friendships survive long silences because they’re built on respect, not constant availability. The people who matter understand.

What I Wish I’d Known at 22

If the young Gareth Cousins who first stepped in to assist on the Banshees session in Studio 2 at Abbey Road could read this, he’d be stunned. That kid thought success meant never having another quiet day. He was wrong.

Career success, I now realise, is having the quiet days and knowing exactly what to do with them. It’s looking at a 40-year career and seeing not a straight line of constant productivity, but a beautiful, jagged waveform—peaks of creativity and valleys of necessary rest.

To every young mixer, editor, producer or composer reading this: the worry never fully leaves. But it can be transformed. Let it become fuel.

The greatest scores aren’t born in the loudest sounds. They’re born in the space between the notes. In the quiet where worry once lived.

And when the next call comes—and it will come—you’ll be ready. Not just technically, but philosophically. Not just as a craftsman, but as a warrior.

The pendulum swings. Ride it.

— Gareth Cousins

5th March 2026