Article by: Julian Weisser

Most of my days are spent working on the business and communications end of the music and technology industries. Because of my immersion in these areas I tend to read and absorb many ideas, concepts, and philosophies. They are all mainly related to doing business in a global ecosystem based around innovation and constant iteration as a startup. I have found the core concepts to be remarkably transferable to many industries and buyer/seller relationships.

Sometimes musicians ask me for advice on the business end of what they are trying to do. Admittedly, my advice is sometimes not even solicited but I give it anyways. One thing that troubles me is when very talented players tell me that they are not entrepreneurs. They say they are professional musicians. If you want to have success in this intense musical landscape you must be able to think like an entrepreneur or be willing to pay the team of people that can do that kind of thinking and ideation for you.

Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon defined the entrepreneur as “someone who engages in exchanges for profit; specifically, he or she is someone who exercises business judgment in the face of uncertainty.” The emphasis of this definition should be placed on the word “uncertainty.” Few things are less certain than what will become popular in the music industry. There is no formula for success and the pathways to that rare sliver of spotlight are numerous. Forget uncertainty, the music industry is very unpredictable but this actually presents enormous opportunity to those that know how to look at this kind of landscape through the correct lens: that of an entrepreneur.

I try to help musicians train their way of thinking so that they realize the broad scope of their actions and how easy it is to pivot and change direction when needed. When they are starting out, the risk of damage from a failure is nearly zero. This means they should observe how the fan/user reacts while they constantly improve things and are open to new ideas and directions. This is a core component of what makes up a lean startup; a term coined (and trademarked) by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Eric Ries. It’s a development philosophy used by everyone from Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com (where you can buy Lean Startups) to Mark Zuckerberg.

There is no reason for a band with a few hundred FB likes not to continually put out new material and see how the followers react and what gets them talking and sharing with their friends. If you are reading this article and you think you have an established audience you likely do not. Don’t feel bad because very few do. If you intelligently develop and improve based on your observations you will certainly gain fans but better yet you will have an understanding of who they are and why they like you.

Amanda Palmer recently spoke at Rethink Music about the freedom she has with no label and the stronger relationships she can build in the new industry with those that enjoy her music. “I don’t like using the term ‘fans’ with my fans,” stated Palmer while discussing her listeners, “it starts to feel patronizing sometimes.” Amanda Palmer has developed a large but tight-knit community around her music by being very open to “fans” on her Twitter account and blog. This falls directly in line with a thesis from the Cluetrain Manifesto that “markets are conversations.”

Those that have meaningful conversations with their listeners/fans/customers (take your pick while being mindful of the baggage associated with each) will have created the strongest bond and most emotionally invested stakeholders. This emotional investment creates evangelists, your best way of acquiring new listeners and your true backers. Gone are the days of labels investing money in experiments. If you can develop an organic following through constantly tweaking and communicating with those that care you will find immense support that is not hollow. As of this publication Amanda Palmer has raised $563,607 from 10,271 fans for a new album, art book and tour on Kickstarter. Unlike 10,271 typical investors that would care most about the financial success of the project they were funding, these fans care first and foremost about the experience they will be able to help Amanda Palmer create. Palmer talks to her fans constantly and they trust that she will be able to give them something they will love and value.

“Entrepreneur” is a French word but I assure you it is not a dirty one. If you are a musician interested in making that into your full-time job I suggest you consider yourself an entrepreneur. You are about to embark on the most uncertain and imprecise mission of your life and the bumps and bruises will be the lessons that make the biggest impact on how you proceed forward. Remember that the risks are usually much lower than they initially seem and that a meaningful conversation and constant improvement are key.

Please reach out to me to continue this conversation on Twitter @iamweisser

By: Christine Occhino

Years of classes, learning, trial and error, struggle, triumph, late nights, and great memories have all lead up to this moment in time. Your family and loved ones look on with pride, as you sit in a sea of your peers, experiencing one of the most surreal moments of your life thus far. You are officially a Berklee College of Music graduate.

I am part of the proud Class of 2011. It has been a unique journey for me. Though my time here has been similar to that of the other countless graduates, I feel Berklee truly creates a unique path specific for each student to experience. Any doubts or fears in my mind escaped me once my name was called to accept my diploma. The walk across the esteemed stage will definitely stick in my memory as one of the high points of my life. It was like my entire Berklee experience flashed before my eyes. I remembered my audition to get into the college, the day I received my acceptance, the nerves of move-in day in the dorms, the struggles with my theory classes, the many performances, declaring my major, working for student employment, moving into my first off-campus apartment, late nights in the practice rooms…all done within an instance. I never really knew what my older friends meant when they said that “the time really flies when you’re in college,” but it’s so true. Four years suddenly felt like a few months. And now preparing to embark on the next chapter of my life is real.

I, like many other students, had done everything I could to try to secure some sort of job after graduation. The stress level was not at all improved with the current state of the economy. But after many visits to the Office of Experiential Learning and meeting with my Internship Advisor, I felt prepared with my resume, cover letters, interview skills, and industry knowledge. Months went by with various phone and in-person interviews, open-ended emails from employers, and frustration night after night staring into the endless abyss of job market postings on the internet. This, in conjunction with the stress of finals week, was not putting me in any sort of complaisant state of mind. My family reassured me that “everything will fall into place and happen as it is supposed to” as I rebutted with, “Easy for you to say! You don’t have two events to execute, four papers to write, three huge presentations, two final projects, and five in-class finals this week! AND I have my entire future out of my hands as I sit enervated by my Blackberry waiting for somebody to tell me that I’m qualified for a paying job after a $200,000 education and I’m not a total and complete FAILURE that will be living home until I’m forty!” As much as I enjoyed moments of drowning in my partly self-inflicted pity parties, I knew deep down that my family would be right. At least I hoped so. And then, when I least expected it, I received a message from Sony Music Entertainment asking if I was still interested in the position for their paid internship program with Columbia Records in NYC. It was as if the heavens had parted. As I sat on the T overwhelmed with emotion, I called back and told them when I would be available for a follow-up phone interview.

The next 24 hours went by very slowly. After much preparation, I conquered another interview with the hiring manager for the Digital Marketing department at Columbia. She told me I would likely receive a response about the job by the next day. Even though I felt confident about the interview, I tried my hardest to not get my hopes up. The next day went even slower than the last. I had my hardest finals for five hours straight and was exhausted after barely getting enough sleep during the last week between studying and Commencement Concert rehearsals every night. Midway through my first final of the day, I noticed my Blackberry blinking that I had a missed call and message from a NYC number. I could barely focus on the rest of my test. Finally, I finished and ran out into the common area of the 7 Haviland Building to listen to the message. It was Columbia asking me to call them back. My heart was pounding. I took a deep breath and made the call back to HR. The next few moments are almost a blur to me as I accepted the offer for a paid internship for the Big Red Program at Columbia Records/Sony Music Entertainment. They emailed me the offer within minutes and I called all of my family in friends frantically to share the good news. This was the Thursday before graduation.

I cannot explain the feeling of walking down the aisle to the graduation stage knowing that I had accomplished all of this. My whole life changed so quickly and it seemed as if everything I worked for, I got. My grades came in this past week, and I passed with flying colors. One of my best semesters yet…and undoubtedly the most challenging. Now I am preparing for my move out of Boston and back to the tri-state area for my new job starting next month.

So my friends, peers, and colleagues, I want to leave you with a sense of hope and trust that what’s meant to be really will be. We have all put in the hard work, and now it is time to embark on the journey of our lives. We are lucky enough to be able to study and pursue what we love the most, music. I know the sense of accomplishment I have experienced is one I will share will all of you too. We made it! A huge congratulations to the Berklee College of Music Class of 2011. As college President Roger Brown said during our graduation ceremony, “Not all of your dreams will come true, but may all of the right ones come true.” Couldn’t have said it better myself!

by Andrew Slotnick
Managing Editor

The world’s most widely broadcast sporting event is well underway in South Africa, celebrating the sport known as soccer in the USA—where “football” of course describes a sport that consists of using one’s hands to catch and carry an egg-shaped pigskin. While the visual excitement on the field is as stunning as ever, the roar of the crowd and the commentators must compete with a brand new menace: “BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.”

Anyone who has watched a World Cup game knows well the sound of a noisemaker so annoying I hesitate to call it an instrument, the vuvuzela. These ubiquitous plastic horns are crude bugles with a length around 3 feet and are capable of producing a sound pressure level of 127 dB, according to the news agency Agence France-Presse. Vuvuzelas pose a risk to spectators’ hearing as part of the general din at a World Cup match. The South African Medical Journal found that spectators near a vuvuzela in a simulated match environment experienced sound exposure well above South Africa’s legal limit for sound at the workplace.

As match attendees lose their hearing, viewers from around the world are losing patience about the change in atmosphere brought on by the unending buzzing sound. Complaints abound all over the internet, with the LA Times, Associated Press, and The New York Times Freakonomics Blog all voicing negative opinions. World Cup organizer FIFA has repeatedly insisted the horns will not be banned, which seems only fair since they are an important part of the host country’s soccer culture. So what are the millions of slightly inconvenienced fans to do?

Stephen J. Dubner of Freakonomics suggests that ESPN buy the horns from fans at the stadium to get rid of the noise, a prospect the enthusiastic South Africans would not relish. But a much simpler alternative exists. As Berklee students, we should know that an unpleasant sound at a fixed pitch is no problem at all for a bit of audio technology. Enterprising German fan Tobias Herre took matters into his own hands using a copy of Logic Pro and posted the results online. After discovering the frequencies of the horns and applying a little bit of parametric EQ, he was able to nearly eliminate the annoying tone of thousands of plastic horns. Applying such a filter to the stadium audio feed could easily remove most of the annoyance for audiences worldwide.

It looks as though ESPN is taking some steps to reduce the sound; an article on their website asserts “ESPN is altering the sound mix on its broadcasts to minimize the crowd noise.” Hopefully that means just reducing the buzzing tone, not the roaring crowd. The sound during the June 14 Paraguay-Italy game does seem pretty good, with the vuvuzelas present but not overpowering. For now, any fans wanting to hear live sound from the games must either put up with the vuvuzela, run their own outboard gear, or reach for the mute button.

The photo for this piece was taken by Dundas Football Club, used here under a Creative Commons license.