So, once upon a time I was a part of a performance group who broke new ground and won a few awards for doing new stuff well. That group was Carolina Crown, a drum and bugle corps, and the show was Bohemia, in 2004.  Our costume/visual designer talked to us about his designs once and said.. “dont forget the field is green”- many innovative new ideas are weakened by some of the most basic realities. Oftentimes its things like the fan on a harddrive, or the sound of the projector, the color of the floor, etc…

Which brings me to Emergence last night. The Ballet deserves high marks for pursuing what’s next in the performing arts.  Ballet is a historically conservative genre.. it’s primary products are displays of classical beauty, gracefullness and stories that involve queens and princes.  As an artist, it was great to be up close and personal to incredibly athletic, mindbendingly fluid dancers doing new work! But it was weird to be so close that you could hear them breathe over the music.  For the first time ever, you could tell how hard the choreography was because the dancers–with all the grace and poise of true professionals– got more winded as each performance went on.

To my mind, the challenge is the change of scale.  I imagine that this is just what i would hear or experience if I were on stage at the Nutcracker.. but the audience experiences the Nutcracker at a much larger distance and in a completely different acoustic environment.

An additional thing to think about in doing cross-disciplinary projects is which system of etiquette will be in force.  Classical music has one system, ballet has a system, and visual art does too.  It’s not all that common for musicians to join hands and come forward for a curtain call… ever.  It struck me that many of these “social protocols” may have something to do with the personalities involved.  It’s probably good to just formally acknowledge which system will be used- at least for the sake of the performers. Curtain calls take a bit of practice to get right.

Lastly, if you’re endeavoring to put on one of these cross-disciplinary performing events.. it might be good to enlist a few technical theatre people.  There are some techniques and devices (as well as terminology) that can really help professionalize the innerworkings of an event like Emergence.  I loved that each piece was followed by a 7-10 minute talkback by the creators, this allowed for set and costume changes by a very busy and very valuable stage crew.

Emergence was a great success!  There’s another show tonight if you want to get tickets:

PS:   if you’re dreaming about doing something like this, consider renting a video switcher/scaler, and enough video monitors so the technical team can see what each feed is receiving- without the audience being able to see.  It’s a fantastic safety net for events involving projection.

Well, I heard back from the folks at SECAC, and I’ve been invited to speak!

My abstract was called: 1,000 True Fans: Has the Internet replace Patronage?  The event is October 17-20, 2012 and is in the gorgeous down of Durham, NC.    If you’re in the area that weekend, it’d be great to meetup. 

http://www.secollegeart.org/annual-conference.html

Well, I heard back from the folks at SECAC, and I’ve been invited to speak!

My abstract was called: 1,000 True Fans: Has the Internet replace Patronage?  The event is October 17-20, 2012 and is in the gorgeous down of Durham, NC.    If you’re in the area that weekend, it’d be great to meetup. 

http://www.secollegeart.org/annual-conference.html

People have told me (and it was probably an Inc. article) that being an entrepreneur requires guts of steel, because you’re either soaring high with news of what you’re achieving or racing towards sudden death.   Today was the latter.  Friday was definitely the former.

So Soundcrawl is working to book real, honest-to-goodness new music acts this fall, and not only is it requiring me to act like a grown-up it’s also incredibly more expensive than anything I’ve done so far.  Friday was the day the groups all called back interested! (hurray! we’re gonna be a real festival!) Today was the day they wrote to ask me how much money I’ve raised yet.  (stomach tightens.. lump forms).

Today, I also wrote a pitch letter that I thought was terrible, but it was really just in my head.  I wish I had just “eaten that frog” last week because – it worked! I now have one financial backer for this project.  TIP: always write a hack version and send it to the donors you have the best relationships with.  They will be the most forgiving; and they are likely to say yes anyway.   That’s who’s said yes so far, but that’s important to have a win under your belt before your pitch the riskier prospects.

Tomorrow’s task: send the better-than-before pitch letter to REAL institutions in town. YIKES!

This fall in Durhan, NC. for a panel called: Let’s Talk: Creating Community for a Sustainable Life in the Arts
The 3Cs (communication, collaboration, creativity) are essential 21st C skills for a sustainable life in the arts. This session seeks projects that create connections, expand outreach, and foster community through DIY initiatives, social networking, blogging – self-publishing, and/or socially engaged practices.
Not sure if I’ll get selected, but I was honored to be asked: here’s what I submitted as my Abstract:

One thousand true fans. Has the internet replaced patronage? One thousand true fans is offered as the minimum requirement for a viable career as an independent artist in our interconnected digital world. Are one thousand true fans enough?

To what degree can we replace real-world interactions with digital communication? Should we all just use Kickstarter and etsy? What value does professional training have when the cries (and wallets) of the masses are only a click away? And what’s the priority– “likes,” sales or conversation?

My own artistic CV would look vastly different if it were not for the internet: an international festival of avant garde digital arts made possible by newsgroups, message boards, YouSendit, Paypal, Kickstarter, and email. Sponsorships and even full collaborative artistic creations have been developed entirely in the digital ether.

This is the new normal: made ever more possible by new platforms like Twitter, Pinterest & Tumblr. These shareable sites accelerate the speed of ideas and increase the impact of innovative work. Our hyper-connected world allows independent artists to thrive on their own terms, build relationships with fans and collaborators no matter what continent they’re on, and be heard by tastemakers and thoughtleaders.

Here’s what’s terrifying me this week:

This May I’ll be teaching a 5 week course in “Artrepreneurship” at The Brick Factory in Nashville.   The classes will cover practical things like Trademarking names, copyrighting works, best practices for email negotiations;social media strategies for careers, etsy, kickstarter,  pitch decks etc.  We’ll  be using “Making Ideas Happen” as a textbook, and be bringing in some guest speakers to cover pitch decks and intellectual property law.

If you’re an artsy person who’d love to leave your day job, we’d love to have you!

Until we get the course setup online, just email me kyle {at} bakerexperiencegroup.com if you’d be interested in the course.

The class will meet on Sunday nights in May at 6pm and costs $99 + the book.

You keep the credit, but no one gets paid.

2) You make Other People Money

You don’t keep the credit, other people get paid.

3) You Make Money.

You keep the credit, AND you get paid.

With the death of the Label Deal, step 2 has become more obvious.  The dream I struggle with is “Patronage,”  where I write something so cool that some guy comes up afterwards and offers me a full salary to keep creating.    That feels like “making money” so most artists keep thinking that way.  Haydn was the live-in composer for a family for like 40 years.  It sounds glamorous… but it was really more like being a staff composer for Disney.  You wrote what they told you to write, when they told you to write it, and they paid you what they wanted, and owned all the work.

It was really you making them money, but it felt like you making money.

Now the curtain has been pulled back.

I’m honored that two whole people have asked me for career advice this week, but I’m really only at step #: Make Other People Money.  When people ask me to join their project, my goal is to help them make bank on the project.   I’m not that old. If I can help them “print money” on their project,  They’ll  :1) move up a tax bracket or two 2) get invited to A List events and projects and 3) Owe me a favor, thus increasing the number of A List/Team creatives I know personally by 100%.

This isn’t to say I’m not compensated for my contributions,   I just want to make sure that they make more on me than they pay me.

So, if people aren’t opening their sentences with “How much would it cost for you…”  when they pitch you projects, you aren’t at #3 yet.    How can you provide them value that they can capitalize on?

(it’s fine to serve as an apprentice to an established pro.  Are you costing them time and resources, or are you enabling them to bring more work into their shop? Don’t get snotty.  If they pay you $10/hr, are you doing work at a level that lets them bill the client at $20? $40? $100? Or do they have to go in behind you and do it again? )

I get it. Dave Matthews is either a genius, or a sly pseudo-artist con-man.  That’s fine, believe what you want.  In working with Daniel, I’m rediscovering Dave on Spotify, and between that and Wikipedia I’m finding a new appreciation for what this group has accomplished.  I get that they really have only one song (and Tripping Billies is it) but this song is a force of nature.  The cross rhythms, the integration of the parts.. its just this side of chaos and UNBELIEVABLY electric..

Oh yea… and it was on their first EP.  No wonder they got signed.

DIY Artists take note… keep pressing your coal until you have a diamond.  You need a piece that defines a sound.. that stakes a claim… that demands respect and attention.   Excellence to the point of profanity.

Only in Nashville.

I’ll try to post some clips as they come available.

2) There isn’t a ladder to where I’m headed.  I’m building it.  What COO got up this morning and said..” Today I need to find a composer who can sell posters, design sets and publish theological essays while administrating arts projects…”  (if you do know one, have them email me!)

3) I need better communication mechanisms.  People are often confused by how I communicate.  Not what I communicate, but HOW.  I need to put bigger handles (and paint them orange) on my ideas.  Ideas like “this should be a phone call” and an increased emphasis (in my mind) of asking concrete questions. I also now understand why they invented conference calls. 

4) To change gigs, I need a new kingdom.  The one I come from doesn’t have the position I want. Rather than spend a lifetime trying to convince them they need a “me” and should pay for it; I need to hit the road and find the people who need my skills and ideas.  That’s starting to happen, and in a kingdom I’d never thought of: the visual arts. 

5) More shots on goal.  Like most amateur artists, I get excited by every new possible project and depressed when one doesn’t work out, convinced I scared them off by something I said on my blog.  The reality is more likely that they lost their funding, or their boss said no.  The solution isn’t necessarily for me to become a better shot.  I mean, there are goalies in the world, and sometimes they stop pucks. What’s really needed is more shots.  More potential projects= more completed projects= more paid projects.  I used to think that it was a 1:1 ratio. (as if I had 100% accuracy!) But it’s probably more like 3:2:1.