If You Build It, They Will Come

As a musician, the number one thing we need to have, besides a medium to exert our art, is a listener. Audience attendance is something that most musicians, if not all musicians, worry about. If you were to play in a popular club for instance, most managers would tell you that you have to sell "X" amount of tickets or they won't let you perform there. In grade schools and even universities, concert attendance is the one thing that can make or break the night. Imagine a group of nineteen, twenty, and twenty-one year olds stepping out on stage to perform a set of songs that they have been rehearsing for probably two months, and when they look out all they see are their mom and dad, maybe a grandparent and a little sibling; four to five people in a room that could easily seat 500. It's not as if there isn't support for that student, its that if the student wanted to perform only in front of their family members, then why not just set up a family barbeque? So the question then arises, how does one, be it a local group trying to gain a fan base or a school or college trying to increase audience attendance, gain a bigger supportive following? Simply put, how do we go

from this...



TO THIS?

Well, even though the above image may be a bit of an exaggeration, it shows that with the right promotion and exposure, it certainly is possible. The first thing one needs to consider is what one is doing currently and how those things have worked out. Associate Professor and Director of Jazz Studies at the University of Connecticut Earl Macdonald has a blog post about his struggle with this very issue here. One thing he asks is what is he not doing that could be better? Of course he wants/needs his students to attend the concert (because they are being graded on this), but how does he motivate them to even want to come to a concert that is most likely not going to make them feel any more accomplished because of the lack of audience members?

Well I always believe that if your not getting the results you want, you should be doing more until you do. So my thoughts on this matter are as follows. Number one is: how are you promoting? Are you promoting locally or regionally? Are you making the promotions attractive to potential recipients? Companies in America spend literally BILLIONS of dollars a year trying to figure out the best way to advertise and entice consumers to by their products. If you think I'm exaggerating here's a link to make you realize that I might actually be underplaying exactly how important advertising is to companies. There's even a science to how to understand what works and what doesn't. Check it out here. As one can see, it all starts with advertising; and doing it effectively.

Secondly I personally feel that quality is equally as important. If your going to advertise big, you better deliver big. To advertise for a school concert so that you bring in an audience yield of one hundred, you want to make sure these one hundred people enjoy their time. I wouldn't get one dimensional with the program in this case. I would diversify it and make it interesting for many people. For instance I would make the audience wait for a "main event" (i.e. the jazz ensemble) and surround that act with a small act from the school dance team, or maybe a rousing performance from a great gospel choir. Something to that effect will really draw people out of their homes because the more performers are involved, the more people will come to support their loved ones.

Lastly, I believe its all about location ultimately. One reason that its such a big deal to perform in NYC is because its such a populated place. I did a performance at Lincoln Center in March of 2014 and the audience yield there was fantastic (obviously). But it did follow the things I mentioned earlier, such as proper advertising and a litany of other performance groups surrounding the "main event". It made audience members feel like this was an entertaining experience and not simply another concert that they wouldn't feel bad missing out on.

Obviously from a music education stand point, your audience is mostly going to be made up of supporting family members, which is perfectly fine. However you do, as a teacher/motivator/role-model want to branch out and let your students understand that a musician isn't limited to performing only for mom and dad and grandma. They can do REAL concerts (meaning perform in a place that's not their school and for people who aren't related to them and, preferably, for money) and have people who don't know them tell them how great they sound. That's a special moment I believe all young musicians need to have. And I believe as educators we can provide that inspiration by giving them a good example of what it feels like to perform for big groups; what it feels like to be applauded by a big audience. Everyone deserves recognition for their accomplishments. And I feel that our students deserve to feel recognized for all the hard work they did leading up to their concert time. That concert, no matter what age you are, is a special moment. The moment where you can stand in the spotlight and claim your place in time. As an educator, I want nothing more than to help make that moment as special as possible.

  

Making Sense Of Song Logic

When I had to give my class on the basic form of songs I thought it was going to be a subject I was fairly comfortable with. And indeed I was comfortable with it. The biggest issue though was making sure my students understood it as well. As a musician it's very hard for me to talk about it in non-musical terms. I would equate it to a doctor attempting to discuss his patient's current fitness/ well-being in non-medical terms. It's quite possible but fairly difficult as there is a lot a vocabulary that we as musicians understand, in order for us to communicate on a deeper level, that those who aren't musicians would instinctively know. That becomes a simple matter of are we teaching our students what we need them to know?

My main focus was to help my students understand that like many things in life, music has structure; songs have a structure. From this structure determines all that we know and love about the musical experience. This structure has worked and been modified constantly ever since it's invention because musicians are like mathematicians by the fact that we always want to crunch numbers and groupings of numbers and see how complicated we can get; then we get to see where that complexity has landed us. It really is an enthralling experience which is why those who are good at it, such as J.S.Bach was, become master's in our world. Bach is a great person to teach song forms with because he was a master at many song forms. In fact his whole early life was dedicated to the experience and experimentation of song forms and sounds.

In short I noticed that though I introduced different genres and basic ideas, I could've engaged my students more by having them actively participate in this discussion either with cards they could hold up that would be labeled according to the different sections of the song form, or even by having them look for songs or think of songs that fit a standard ABA song form. I must say that these types of discussions are my favorite because they show the logic and beautiful structure of music. It never fails to amaze me that for people who aren't musicians song writing to them is such an awesome thing, and indeed it is, but the average person will never truly appreciate why we hold composers such as Bach, Mozart and Beethoven in such high regard until they learn song form and structure at the very least; and let's not even talk about music theory.

This experience for me was literally the epiphany to my teaching career because it showed me that with simple ideas and fun concepts I could teach anyone, regardless of age, why a song is a song and build an appreciation for music in them beyond what the lyrics in their favorite song make them feel. I watched a TED talks video on YouTube yesterday (here's the link) talking about this very idea; the idea that we as educators can create that magic in our classrooms by being engaging and helping our students yearn for the knowledge we wish to teach them. I think we could all benefit by this philosophy as well as the understanding and practice of teaching in a way that reaches everyone. But I digress. Simply put I'm very fortunate to have had this opportunity because I can see myself slowly but surely being more effective at teaching the subject I love with the effectiveness I wish to have.