Why Support an Indie Composer on Patreon

When you support an indie composer, you are not buying a product so much as buying time — the hours it takes to sit at a piano and finish something that didn’t exist yesterday. Endtime Entrepreneurs is one person: Michael Clinesmith writes the music, builds the games, draws the dragon, and answers the email. Patreon is the part of that operation that turns “someday” projects into scheduled ones.

What it takes to keep a one-person studio going

Most albums you hear have a company behind them. Somebody fronts the recording budget, somebody else handles distribution, and a marketing team decides when it lands. A 22-track solo piano record like Piano Reveries looks, from the outside, like it came from that same machinery. It didn’t.

It came from one composer working between game builds, writing pieces that ranged from classical to flamenco to funk and chillwave, and then sequencing them into something that holds together as an album instead of a folder of files. The same person who wrote After the Storm also shipped the RPG the music grew out of.

That’s a wonderful way to make things and a difficult way to fund them. There’s no advance covering the gap between projects. Every hour spent finishing a piece like Working Through It is an hour not spent on paid client work. The math of an independent studio is simply that: which hours get to go toward the music.

What it actually means to support an indie composer

Streaming is generous with attention and stingy with everything else. A play is a lovely signal and a fraction of a cent. Buying the album is better — it’s a real, direct exchange, and you can do it any time on the music page. But a purchase is a single moment, and studios don’t run on moments.

A monthly pledge is different in kind, not just in size. It’s the only form of support that answers the question what happens next. Patreon membership starts at $3 a month, which is roughly a coffee, and what it buys is predictability: Michael can look at a calendar and know that a certain amount of composing time is already paid for.

That’s why patrons tend to hear about new work before anyone else. They’re the reason there is new work to hear about.

A closer look at works in progress

The other half of Patreon is access, and it’s the half that surprises people.

Members get exclusive tracks that don’t appear on the album or on streaming, sheet music for pieces they want to sit down and play, and a behind-the-scenes view of how a piece actually comes together — the version before the version you know. If you’ve ever wondered how a small idea turned into the three movements of the Sonatina in G, or what a piece like Jade’s Lullaby sounded like on the first pass, that’s the room you’re walking into.

It’s also where the dragon lives. Airy the Dragon is the studio’s mascot, the character on the album cover, and Michael’s composing persona — online he goes by AiryTheDragon. The Patreon page isn’t a donation box with a logo on it; it’s the studio’s actual back room, dragon included.

Nobody has to be a musician to enjoy it. Plenty of patrons just like knowing what’s being built and hearing it early.

Other ways to support the music

Patreon is the most direct route, but it isn’t the only one, and some of these cost nothing at all.

Buy the album. Piano Reveries is available directly from the music page, where you can preview every track before you commit. A direct purchase sends far more to the studio than the equivalent number of streams.

Play the game. Rebellion is on Steam, and it’s the world that gave rise to the album in the first place. If you want the game’s music on its own, the Rebellion Soundtrack DLC is there too.

Play the music yourself. Michael’s scores are published through Sheet Music Plus and Sheet Music Direct. There’s something particularly good about a piece like For Grandma being played in someone else’s living room.

Hire him. If you’re making a game, a film, or anything that needs a score with real warmth in it, Michael takes commissions through SoundBetter. Paid work funds the unpaid work; that’s how independent studios have always operated. You can also get in touch directly.

Subscribe and share. New music and trailers go up on YouTube, and subscribing costs nothing. So does sending Play in the Grass to the friend who you know would love it. Word of mouth is still how small studios get found — in 2025 the Vassar City Band performed the album live as a full ensemble, and that kind of thing starts with somebody hearing a track and passing it along.

Join on Patreon

If Piano Reveries has become one of your regulars — if Joyous is the one you put on to start the day — then joining on Patreon is the most concrete way to say so.

It starts at $3 a month. It gets you exclusive tracks, sheet music, and a real look at what’s being written. And it puts a small, steady amount of composing time on the calendar for a studio that would otherwise have to find it between everything else.

That’s the whole pitch, honestly. No hard sell, no pressure. Just a straightforward way to keep a one-person studio making music worth coming back to. You can join the Patreon here, and if you’d rather know more about the person behind the piano first, the studio’s story is a good place to start.

If this resonated, you can listen to and buy Piano Reveries, learn more about the music, or get in touch about a custom score.