Alex Brubaker

MMC had 2 days of music business sessions - Friday and Saturday. With having class on Friday, I unfortunately wasn't able to make anything on Friday. Basically, I got to conference to register and missed the last session of the day by 5 minutes. It was a bit disappointing, but not nearly as disappointing as the backlog of traffic that turned a 15 minute drive into an hour... Then, of course, I got to play Friday night at Pint's and Saturday at the open mic. After that, I was finally able to attend some sessions.

Being the good engineering student that I am, I took some notes. Right now I'll just cover the first session with some thoughts I have on the notes I've taken. The first bullet will be his point and the second will be my response.

Grabbing Your Music By the Balls - David Sherbow

• "There is no culture anymore. It's all been sold and shipped off."
• In today's society this is very much the case. Though we've had a huge increase in album releases in the past 10 years, there's been a steady decline in the musical quality. A "culture" that has come to revolve around auto-tune and American Idol is seeing music as a get-rich-quick scheme, rather than an art form. This is leading to more and more mindless garbage being produced. Of course there are the gem-in-the-rough kind of acts that embody culture and art, but with more and more music and media being pushed down our throats, they're easy to miss.
• Customer service is your job
• I don't view playing guitar as a job. It's a "job" but as long as I'm playing at said jobs, it will be for fun. When it starts to become a job, then I won't play out - simple as that. I've worn myself too thin before and have had to cut back on playing so that it would be fun again; it worked. So if I'm just going to play for fun, then that will leave the "job" portion for customer service. I've definitely been trying and I feel this blog is one of those steps. Obviously there is more that I could do, but it's all a process that will be happen over time
• Playing for free is better than giving away free music
• The main point Sherbow made on this was that everyone gives out free music. With everyone doing that, it devalues music handouts and you won't make fans. Fans are made by relationships and relationships are made during and after performances. Ultimately the goal is to make fans who are fans for life and the bottom line is that they aren't made by free music.
• Be deliberate about e-mail lists
• This means not only connecting with fans through email, but being intentional about getting names on that list. Honestly, I get maybe one or two email's per gig. Clearly, I could be doing this better. Over the next few gigs, I'll work on implementing a more deliberate plan for my email list. I always feel pushy in asking people to sign up with the list in hand, but I guess it's a good way to see whether people are in it or not. If someone doesn't like that I ask them for their email address, then I guess they're not who I want as a fan ...right?
• Attrition, Collaboration, Unification, and then Engagement
• The key steps in music business success.