These weeks leading up to Easter always offer musicians plenty of gigs. Luckily, I’ve been blessed with notable opportunities to make music, and more importantly, converse with people in (what I think is) our target sector.
Just yesterday, I premiered a brand new tuba solo. The church that hired me is known for giving ample commissions for artists, and I am lucky to have accepted many of those payments over the years! This fortunate gig gave me an opportunity to converse not only with my fellow musicians, but also the composer, the bandleader, the musical director, the choir director, the recording engineer, the sound engineer, the videographer, and even multiple church pastors about our proposed service. There responses gave me much more hope than I had this time last week.
While the musicians and bandleaders shared similar skepticism as other people I’ve interviewed (What makes this different from other gig-finding services? Do you really think there is that much of a need for artists that hasn’t already been met?), most of my other interviewees had favorable comments about our venture.
The composer noted that he never would have started writing liturgical music had it not been for someone reaching out to him and telling him that a church was looking for compositions. Had there been an easier way for that church to find composers, he could have found his passion years ago. Now nearly all his commissions are worship related and he loves it!
The musical director noted that while he does have a ‘short-list’ (a list of substitutes for when any regular members can’t make it) now, when the program was starting and lacked funding, he couldn’t find musicians to save his life. I mentioned that our app would also have the information of hobbyists, amateurs, and semi-pros and his eyes lit up! He told me that if he could’ve found “Christ-loving amateur musicians who wanted to serve,” he could have got the program off the ground much quicker.
While the choir is completely volunteer, choir director still had an interesting bit of information. He mentioned that many of the members drive quite a distance just to be a member of this strong choir. When I brought up the semi-pro aspect of our service, he mentioned that sometimes, artists who aren’t professional are willing to go through great lengths to practice and share their art. Amateurs often pave the way for future paying opportunities, and connecting amateurs might be an important feature.
The sound engineer and recording engineer expressed similar doubts as the musicians, but with a different twist. The sound engineer mentioned that since the gig-finding was often very “who has the equipment, and who doesn’t,” perhaps we could make an easy way to show who has access to what equipment. The recording engineer seconded this and added that many recording artists specialize in going to venues and recording there, while others have specialized studios. It will be essential to simply and obviously display the features of our various artists. I believe we are banking on unique fits between artists and their venues, so highlighting these differences will be essential.
The videographer had a similar comment about equipment, but also mentioned the strong role of camera angles and editing in their work. The art of shots, views, and angles is as personal and free as musical improvisation, which I had no clue of until she went into great detail. A portfolio is absolutely essential in order to pick the right videographer. Perhaps we should make a portfolio for all artists? That would take a lot of storage, but I think it might be necessary.
The pastors gave some feedback I was not expecting. They specified that personality and disposition were vital to anyone they hired at the church, arts related or not. They had no interest in working with difficult or ornery people. One of the pastors mentioned that he had no patience for staff that didn’t take pride in their work, or lacked the initiative to speak up when something wasn’t right. Another pastor mentioned as an aside that he hated to work with smokers, and could always tell when one of the staff was a smoker. They didn’t generally receive a call back, even if they did good work. The other pastors seemed to be in affirmation with this notion. I am not entirely sure what to do with this information, but it is an interesting aspect to consider. Those who hire artists are hiring people, not just art. The people have to be as good of a fit as the art is. How can we ethically profile people to be the right match for our clients? Is that something we should even consider?
There’s a lot of information to consider in these interviews. I hope my team finds it as useful as I do!
… and as always, thanks for reading!
-Will VI
ASU Arts Entrepreneurship Graduate Seminar 