Carly Lyman: From Colorado to a K-Pop Hit and Sync (Episode 191)

Everything you do is an audition.

Carly Lyman grew up in Westminster, Colorado, between Denver and Boulder, and moved to Los Angeles about ten years ago. Today she is a songwriter, producer and vocal producer, an artist in her own right, and VP of Music at Powers Music Group, working alongside composer Devin Powers (whose episode ran the week before). She also co-wrote "Tamed-Dashed" for the K-pop group ENHYPEN.

Episode 191 opens with Nomad and new co-host Joel Meza setting up the big theme, then Carly tells her story. It is a guide to making it as a songwriter in LA without the forced networking, and to balancing a day job in the music business with your own art.

Get in the oven

Carly is a transplant, and so are Nomad and Joel. Nomad moved alone from Florida to Nashville, to Japan for a year, back to Nashville for eight years, then to LA, jumping in cold every time. Joel came from Salt Lake City. His analogy for why you have to be present to win is one of the best the show has heard.

"You're a piece of cookie dough, and if you get in the oven, you're going to become a cookie."

Joel Meza, 4:35

Stay in the fridge and it is safe, secure and easy, and nothing happens. Throw yourself in the fire and you grow. You don't need everything planned out first.

Joel's two lessons from his own moves are urgency and patience. His recent tour with a major pop star came from a guitarist he met four years earlier who called when a drummer fell through.

"Urgency in your actions, patience in your mindset."

Joel Meza, 12:25

Nomad tied it to the O in ETHOS. Wanting it now is subjective, driven by emotion. Knowing it will take time to grow is Objectivity. And as Joel pointed out, the way to get perspective when you're starting out is to seek mentors and work with people better than you.

A day job inside the music business

Carly met Devin while assistant engineering a session in her last year of college. He was looking for someone to help push his new trailer music label, a mutual friend suggested her, and six years later she helps him oversee about six labels, from cinematic TV underscore to vocal and trailer music. On a small team, she talks with music supervisors and composers, gets the right tracks onto each album, finds placements, and even makes the cover art.

She studied commercial composition and arranging and didn't know sync was a job until the offer came. What she got was a job that pays the bills, a role inside music, and a mentor who supports her creative work, from gear for her home studio to co-writes for the libraries. Along the way she learned how the business works: what a fair licensing fee or producer fee looks like and how to start a negotiation. That is the career musician mission in action: a strategy for a sustainable career. Diversify or Die.

She also knows her lane. She respects underscore composers, who write music that has to fit scenes they have never seen, but at heart she is a songwriter and producer. Nomad called that self-aware: niche down and lean into what you do best.

Showing up is 90 percent

Carly calls herself an introvert and a "studio girly." Networking events give her a little anxiety. What works for her is simply being there.

A friend invited her to sit in early on a hang with a producer. She just chatted, and when he asked what she did, she said she was a musician who loved to produce. That producer turned out to be a major K-pop writer and producer, and she worked with him for about two years. One Tuesday he called and asked if she could get to the studio in an hour. She said yes. That song became, in her words, her first Billboard number one.

"I think just showing up is 90% of what you need to do."

Carly Lyman, 31:30

Nomad made the other point: if she had still been in Colorado, the answer would have been tomorrow on a flight, or a video call. It isn't the same. And when she tried leading with her resume, it went poorly, with the side-eye to match.

Relationship building, not networking

Music supervisors get pitched constantly. Carly's approach is to be human: compliment the shirt, ask how they got into supervision, find out who they are. You don't have to be friends with everyone. Find the people you connect with, and the collaboration and the "do you have a song like this?" calls come more naturally.

Nomad shared how he once "networked" a guy at a bar who said networking felt awkward. He complimented the guy's retro sneakers, and they ended up laughing about 80s shoes over a beer. Then he told him that was the whole secret. Be yourself. And go in expecting nothing: be pleasantly surprised instead of anxiously disappointed.

Good enough, and knowing when to pass

Carly still gets the "can I actually do that?" feeling with every new gig. She reminds herself they asked her for a reason, and her dad's advice that there are always doors open, it's just whether you choose to walk through. She doesn't believe in saying yes to everything. Sometimes she thanks them and recommends someone better suited, which still shows her value for the next project.

When a session goes badly, she lets herself feel it, then asks what went well and what to learn. If a producer loved a compressor she didn't know, she studies it before the next session. Nomad shared his own first and last Danny Elfman session: great for most of a 12-hour day, then a few requests outside his forte and a piece of gear he didn't have. People also call back the good hang, Carly says. The song might not be great today, but you can make a great one next time. Low maintenance / no drama.

The big audition

Every gig Carly has landed came from auditions she didn't know were auditions. She recently got an engineering gig because a friend's friend needed help with Logic.

"If you keep showing the world and showing the people in your community what you're working on, what you love, what you're good at, I think that is the big audition."

Carly Lyman, 54:05

That is why she sees social media as a double-edged sword. Don't shove it down people's throats. Show what you do in a human way. Nomad refuses to even call it content: it is his life and career, captured. Desperation, he says, is the kiss of death when you're looking for work.

Her own artist project started when Seattle pianist Jason Lux saw her singing on YouTube and invited her to cut three acoustic covers, including "Landslide." His audience helped those covers find tens of thousands of listeners organically, which gave her the confidence to release her originals. Nomad's advice to every songwriter who wants to write for big pop stars: start with the people in your circle right now. And handle your business. Carly made sure she got her writer share on the K-pop hit.

The takeaway

Get in the oven. Act with urgency and wait with patience. Show up, be human, know your lane, and keep showing your community what you do, because you are always auditioning. When your one-hour call comes, prepare like a pro with the free Audition Secrets guide.

Get the gig. Keep the gig. Build the career.

Watch on YouTube or find every episode on the TCM Podcast page.