WIU Guitar Festival
This weekend, I’ll be at the Western Illinois University Guitar Festival.
The festival begins with a performance by Matt Palmer followed by two full days of lectures/workshops and two nights of showcase style concerts.
I’ll be giving a lecture titled “The Savvy Guitarist” (a deliberate play on David Cutler’s Savvy Musician) on Sunday morning. Topics will include branding and marketing. Sunday evening I’ll be performing for ten minutes in a classical guitar showcase concert.
If you’re in the Macomb, Illinois area, stop by this weekend! All events are free.
Freddy the Frog
The problem with this savvy musician approach, is that we could end up having people who are musical Nobodies marketing themselves (aggressively) with press-kits, advertising, websites, blogs, etc.; resulting in disappointment and ultimately bad publicity for the classical guitar.
Freddy the Frog
I believe that if you’re a good musician, your going to want to perform. You’re going to want to plan stuff.
Then things should come naturally and an audience should judge you on your true performance merits, and not on your press kit which states that you: “studied with so-and-so”, “finished this degree”, “won this competition”, etc.
A true musician will always shine, and a mediocre one will always need press-kits, reviews and shout out the loudest, obtaining for him-/or herself those audience who buy into cheap thrills (yes, I was thinking of Fisk when I wrote this).
Christopher Davis
The “Savvy Musician Approach” is definitely not about selling or promoting a bad product (shit playing, or otherwise). It is about making a living, and there’s plenty of room for musicians at the local and regional levels.
The Savvy Musician approach is about figuring out what you want your brand to be and working towards that. Just because someone isn’t a concert level player who does 50 recitals/year doesn’t mean they have less desire to be successful in their niche.
-CD