Christopher Davis

Today, on the radio, I heard this great commercial. First, it puts you as driving a car driving down the road following a truck full of pebbles. Then the focus shifted to the pebbles, all the same — except one. One brave pebble that, when the truck bounced, flew out. This pebble flew wonderfully until it lost momentum, and fell on your car. The windshield was damaged.

This was a particularly vivid story, really well done and well acted. Very convincing. And I thought to myself, “whatever auto-glass repair shop thought this up is amazing.”

Until the commercial turned into being about a brand of oil. Companies take note: if you’re going to tell me a story, try to make it relevant to your product. Thanks.

I think it would be outstanding if when purchasing an mp3 album, there were fields for friends’ emails. Then those friends would receive a few mp3′s from the album and a link to where they can buy it (less the cost of the mp3′s they already own, of course).

Think of how powerful a tool that could be.

When you go to an orchestra concert or an opera performance or a chamber music recital the real value is the experience of the event. The feeling of being in the seat — of experiencing profoundly moving works first hand — is really what you pay for.

This is exactly the same reason for attending a rock concert or going to an open mic night. We go because we like the way it feels to see live music. When Metallica came to Iowa while I was a freshman, I had to go — I had to see the band that had had such a huge influence on me live. I was not disappointed.

If the fundamental reason why people attend any sort of concert is the same, it’s no wonder why art music concerts seemed to be attended by an older generation. Music organizations cater to that age group’s tastes and likes and dislikes.

It’s not as if a night at the orchestra is any more or less expensive than a ticket to a rock concert. Cheap or free tickets for young people is not going to inspire a new generation of art music lovers. Changing the way we think and present concerts might. Maybe arts organizations can take some lessons from rock concerts.

Music fans are assaulted with thousands of musical tidbits every day. And it’s become less of the listeners job to find music, and more of the artists job to reach fans.

Art musicians and ensembles are stuck in the past. You make a CD, you sell some. But mostly you perform. You tour around the country, playing gigs for universities and various civic music organizations. And the whole time you play to the same people: that same demographic that listens to art music and has forever.

It seems to me that most of the people who listen to art music are those who play an instrument involved in it now a days.

Then there’s everyone else. It’s hard to be offended by Beethoven or Mozart or Copland. It’s easy to misunderstand it, and not really “get it” at first. Almost everyone in the world would sit through a short piece of art music and go, “Yeah, that was okay.”

Those are the people I want to talk to. If art music is going to remain viable, musicians need to start reaching out and trying to connect with those people on the fringes — the people who would sit through a piece, but don’t love art music yet.

But Who?

The real question is who is going to lead. I have no idea. It would be incredibly easy for a chamber ensemble to reach out to fans. Start posting videos on youtube, find peope on twitter interested in what you do, connect, create someone who knows about the ensemble. A committed string quartet or some other similar chamber ensemble could easily divide up the duties and create some great fan interaction.

Bigger ensembles get more tricky. There’s still this cult-like following around conductors, so it seems that a conductor or music director would be the logical choice to lead for bigger ensembles. Of course, that would mean the director has to step down from his cultural aloofness.

I think the real potential is in the composer. Many people tend to identify with certain composers. If you like a work in one genre or instrumentation by a composer, chances are that composer’s musical language will appeal to you in different genres. That’s powerful. Composers need only to reach out. Just today I stumbled across a guitarist/composer named Gyan Riley (Terry Riley’s son) who writes great music. I’d never heard of him, and he’s released two albums of original music. Imagine if would have found me on twitter or youtube! Instead I stumbled upon a video of him posted by a random guitar society.

Smart programming combined with outreach can convert those people on the fringe. That’s what I’m interested in: turning those people on the fringe into active listeners who appreciate art music and go to concerts and recitals. Most importantly, I want to turn those people into the fans who bring their friends to recitals!

The first step of all this is for musicians to take a step back from the insane ego they seem to develop. I know professional guitarists who believe they are above interacting with their fans online. Yet they happily nod and smile and talk when a random audience member walks up to them after the concert. Some strange things going on there.

Now, who wants to hold casual Friday concerts at the symphony? Seriously. $2 beers and you can come in a t-shirt. The only catch is that you have to listen to some orchestral music. Now that’s a concert I’d attend.

Fuck inspiration. Really. Fuck being in the mood to do something.

Be a master of a personal universe — don’t wait for inspiration, create it.

When I started blogging nine months ago, I did it on a whim. I found out later that professional blogs, like the one I was trying to create, spent longer times planning before the launch. These people sit and come up with 20 posts that go up before the launch, they think carefully about everything.

If I had decided to do that, The Classical Guitar Blog would have never happened. My action in creating the blog generated the inspiration for the posts. As the blog gets older, I have to dig deeper and think harder about what I write. Again, the action of of starting and maintaining the blog generates inspiration.

When a musician practices, thoughts come and go. Thoughts about overcoming a technical challenge pop into their head. Smart musicians harness the inspiration they’ve created by practicing and write the thoughts down in a practice log for review later. That practice log serves as an inspiration and direction for future sessions. Just by starting to practice, a musician can create inspiration. They can create desire and direction for future sessions.

Don’t wait. Don’t expect some magical fairy to bless you with a certain mood. Do it; become completely absorbed. In action, there is all the inspiration and desire ever needed.

“We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action.”
-Frank Tibolt

1. Be a Business

   I’m going to go ahead and say what may people probably think when a business follows them: no thanks. Businesses on twitter are stupid — a business doesn’t really have a personality and I can’t put a face on a business. Not only that, but chances are this business is not going to add much value to the tweets I read.

   I’m more interested in following the director of sales for a guitar company than following the guitar company. With the director of sales I can talk about a lot of things. I don’t feel as open to do that with just the company on twitter.

   Twitter (or any other social media) is about individuals. And, frankly, I don’t give a shit about your business — at least not right away. I might give a shit about you if you give me a chance.

2. Don’t fill out your description.

   Goes along with number one. Be a person. Write something about yourself. It’s short. I’m sure 160 more characters won’t hurt too much.

   Side note: if your bio contains the words “internet marketer” or “social media guru” or any derivative of them, I won’t ever follow you back. Just wanted to be up front.

3. Only post links to yourself.

   It’s like going to a cocktail party and repeating, “Hi! here’s my website!” over and over.

   “Hey Bill, how’s it going?”

   “Hi! here’s my website!”

   “What the fuck are you talking about?”

4. Send me an obviously automated welcome direct message.

   If I get a direct message with a link to buy something, it’s an automatic unfollow. Any automated sound message just comes off an insincere and gimmicky. I already checked out your tweets and description and website when you followed me. I don’t need to be reminded.

Twitter is fun, and I really enjoy it. I enjoy interacting, and it’s very casual.

But those late adopter companies who are just getting in on it now thinking the key to converting twitter followers into true fans by pushing have it all wrong. The above four objects can be cured with one broad solution: be a real person. Real people (and leaders) don’t push ideas to people hoping they’ll bite and become fans. We live in a pull sort of world. If I want something, I can find it on my own. I can read reviews and ask friends and determine the best solution. A company that doesn’t have my trust is not going to convert me into a customer. Force-feeding me tweets about your greatness is not going to earn that trust. Being a faceless business isn’t going prompt me to buy (I have Amazon for that).

I get a certain feeling buying from companies that do something for me first. I feel like it’s the right thing to do. These aren’t companies that pushed themselves onto me. These are companies like Biotest that provide a place for fans to interact. Biotest doesn’t expect every person who’s a member to buy, they’re just happy to have members and make a high quality product. That’s why I buy protein and other supplements from them. When the folks at Elite Fitness Systems took the time to answer my questions with no motive other than helping me out, I knew it was the right company to buy from. Now I recommend Biotest and Elite to anyone looking for weight training and nutrition information. I do the job of their marketing departments; that’s a powerful thing.

Don’t push. Be generous. Give. And, above all, be real — develop relationships.

Music theory (common practice harmony) texts suck. They’re dense. And filled with a lot of trivial bullshit.

For instance, if studying a diminished seventh chord (vii⁰ or vii⁰₆), a text will probably briefly explain what the chord is meant to do. Then the book will spend the rest of the chapter explain “correct” ways to do the voice leading to and from the chord — how to control the dissonance, in other words.

In most cases, students get so focused on the voice leading concepts and so worried about writing “good” four part harmony, they forget that the most important idea is how the chord functions. What is it meant to do, from what other harmony does vii⁰₆ come and to where do it go. That’s the important part.

That’s how you get really good at music theory. You figure out the big concepts. You reduce the the verbose crap into one concept, then summarize the little details as generally as possible after the big concept is grasped.

Real Music?

Unfortunately studying basic harmony though “real” music is often impossible — at least when looking at piece as a whole. But looking at isolated cells is okay.

Introduce a big concept, study its application in cells of real music, then study how the little details work out.

Back to vii⁰

In the case of vii⁰, the tricky details, when writing voice leading is how the dissonance (the tritone resolves). Most books will spend pages explaining the three ways. But if a student has already studied the resolution of V₇, they know how a tritone resolves: inward to at third (if written as a diminished fifth), outward to a sixth (if written as a augmented fourth), or, in some cases, the tritone can resolve by moving in parallel motion to a perfect fifth.

If they haven’t studied V₇ yet, the concept of tritone resolution can be introduced as ancillary to the big concept of what vii⁰ does: move to tonic or, if in first inversion act as a passing chord. It a substitute for inversions of the V₇ chord; that’s a concept that’s easily related to other big ideas already studied!

The big concepts matter first, the little concepts don’t make any sense with out them. Think big.

Some people matter more than others. Simple. Not surprising, but somewhat disturbing in our Utopian, everybody’s-special world.

But still, some people matter more than others. Like a brand that has build up trust and loyalty among its customers — brand equity — individuals can build up a sort of social equity. The individual version of brand equity.

How person is perceived by their tribe is social equity. Do people trust them?

Do people following me on twitter perceive the links and content I post as good? Does that increase my “standing” in their eyes? Does that mean my word carries more weight?

I think it does: if someone likes what I post and respects my opinion (whether agree or disagree with it) that’s an amazing thing. And it’s something that has to be cared for and developed.

As Gary Vaynerchuk says: the fact that one person is following you or friends with you or reads your blog is awesome. That’s one person that is truly interested in what you have to say, and that’s something to be thankful for.

The one thing I truly regret about high school is that I never played a competitive sport.

Probably because I was so caught up in video games and guitar (and I was horrendously out of shape). There’s something pure and real about giving yourself completely to an event. Whether a loss or a win, you learn something about yourself when pushed to your limits.

These are the same reasons I love weight lifting so much. I love it because you learn things about yourself in the weight room — lessons that carry over into real life. You learn about your limits; you learn that they don’t matter. There are no limits.