Now I’ve never been a huge John Mayer fan. Not that I don’t like his music; I just haven’t listened to it too much. After reading this, I think I may start.
The blog post is from a clinic that Mayer gave at Berklee. Sometimes I wish I had pursued that… But it’s too late and I’m happy to have music as a side gig, so let’s not be sentimental.
Getting to the post, a majority of the it is geared towards social media – Facebook, Twitter, blogging, and the like. Mayer urges students serious about their music to not let self promotion be distracting. Interesting. So often these days you hear about the next new thing in social media, how it can help your band, how every musician is doing it, etc. Hardly ever do you hear Mayer’s approach.
And I couldn’t agree more. Social media serves two purposes for musicians – getting more fans and keeping them updated. Occasionally social media is used for collaboration, like a lot of what Matt Stevens has done, but that situation is an outlier.
So you have two goals of social media. However, as Mayer puts it, “
This time is a really important time for you guys because nobody knows who you are, and nobody should. This is not a time to promote yourself. It doesn’t matter. This is the time to get your stuff together. Promotion can be like that. You can have promotion in 30 seconds if your stuff is good. Good music is its own promotion.”
Sure, it’s good to put a word out for yourself, but so many artists are dwelling on that. Trolling the web for potential fans should never be a concern that interferes with your music. When it does, and IT DOES, there’s a problem. Mayer goes into more depth, explaining how he lost sight of the music through social media promotion.
My favorite quote of the post:
“I remember playing the guitar through the amplifier facing out the window of my house onto the street in the summer time – that was social media in 1992.”
Try being good and get recognized by that. Play until your fingers bleed, your hand cramps, or until you’re late for whatever less important thing you’ve got afterwards. Don’t be distracted by anything. Sure updates on upcoming gigs are fine, and so is the occasional facebook campaign. But the second that that takes away from the music, you’re doing it wrong.
I’ve noticed this social media phenomenon a lot lately. Over the last two years of school I didn’t play too much outside of gigs. However, my social media presence and promotion was pretty decent. Now that my evenings are free from homework, facebook and twitter have taken a back seat and I’m playing and progressing like I used to.
Now, my social media presence is a twitter post here and there, occasionally a facebook status, and blogs that I write at work on my lunch breaks. I’ve got a second album to be thinking about, bigger gigs to plan, and some new instruments to learn. I don’t need to be trolling for fans. It’s not a numbers game, it’s about the music.
