Stuartblog2

It’s incredibly frustrating when I find a concert announcement for an unfamiliar musician and the announcement doesn’t include a link to some music. An artist bio and band photo isn’t going to get me to a concert. Neither is a 30 second sample. Free (legal) music is everywhere now. This is nothing but laziness and bad marketing.

The most recent culprit is the Kent State Folk Festival (details on Upcoming). I saw the program in a copy of Scene. I was interested so I went to the website. No music. Even though I’ve been reading about online music issues I don’t really listen to it a lot. And I’ve never had a reason to embed it anywhere. I spent a few minutes slapping together a widget before I realized that I wasn’t entirely sure about the legality of that particular solution. Ultimately, I had to do a little googling but it wasn’t more than should be expected from the artist or the event’s promoter. I shouldn’t have to do it. It’s way too much work for someone on the fence about attending the concert in the first place. Why should all of us have to do it over and over when the organizer could just do it once?1

Now, I’ve pretty much run out of steam. Maybe I’ll come back when I’ve got a little more attention to devote to this and I’ll actually listen to some of this music and decide whether I want to check out the festival. But I didn’t last year. Or the year before that. Obviously, I’m not a folk music super fan. But I would go if I got hooked by one catchy song. People like me are the festival’s chance to 1) spread good music and 2) collect a little more money.

This is a perfect illustration of why, despite some chaos and panic, the digital revolution is a tremendous boon to an overwhelming majority2 of musicians. I’m continually surprised when I see people who aren’t taking advantage of it.

1. Also, if someone with a vested interest had done this they would hopefully have done a better job. I just picked the first thing that worked which has advertisements. Perhaps this can be avoided, with the cooperation of the artist if necessary. Also, I just picked the first song I found from a small list of what was available. I have no idea whether it’s representative of what you might expect at the concert because I have no idea what that is.
2. All musicians? All types of music? What about classical music? Yes, I think so. But that’s another post. Trust me. I’ve spent way too much time trying to shoe horn it into this one. Don’t expect that post any time soon. It will wait until I’m looking at the Cleveland Orchestra’s website and once again frustrated at having to choose from so many completely unfamiliar performances.