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Hi Chris,

I'll respond to your hello here because I've had no requests from people to write apologies for them, so I'm out of that business.

Anyhey, It's nice to chat. Let's talk about Pianomadam.

To be serious for just a moment, I think the opportunities in classical music are the greatest when the artist dedicates time on a regular basis to communite directly with fans. It's true that you can push the professional critics off of your stage if you let people hear your stuff for free so as to make up their their minds. But in the world of classical piano there are two camps

1) Lisitsa
2) All the rest

A slew of piano artists have gone youtube, some direct, some through proxies. But Lisitsa is the only one to use her youtube channel to regularly chit-chat with her fan base. She also reaches out directly to them on other social media. Let's face it. This is the Facebook era and everybody wants face time with those they admire. An artist who responds to little-old-me in person is hard to resist (except in your case ) .

The phenomenon is even stronger in the visual arts. Not on youtube of course, but on Facebook and even Linkedin. People put a piee up for feedback and then get inquiries about a direct sale. Forget the number of likes. Money talks!

In June my wife was contacted by a Museum in Berlin and a curator at the San Francisco Main Public Library. Both inquiries were about purcha$ing one of her pieces. Both inquiries came through Faceobook. She got another from a museum in Moscow through Linkedin. People are linke in in Moscow? Who knew?

It's a different world out there, a little awkward for me, and my wife is a reluctant convert. But you can't argue with succe$s.

Now abou your blatant self-promotion on the apology thread

Pure gold..............no
Pure eveil.............no
Pure brass _ _ lls....yes

Ha-ha . . . I hope you're prepared for a long wait.

It's good this topic has come up, because there ARE things we could be doing.

For example, back in the 70's, the guys I was playing with, and I, decided to play it smart instead of grinding it out in the bar-band scene. At some point we decided to put on our own gigs by renting halls, community centres, repertory cinemas, what have you, hire security, get a liquor license, got our friends and spouses involved, billed most of our gigs as seasonal parties (New Year's, Hallowe'en, Christmas, Easter . . .), worked it out so that we had at least one per month, and we ended up making a LOT more money. No agent, handled our own advertising, made a lot of mistakes but corrected along the way and got good at it.

A young concert pianist, whose name I can't remember off-hand (I think his last name started with a "B"), rented Carnegie Hall and promoted himself at that time, releasing his first album on which he played Mussorgsky's Pictures At An Exhibition. He went on to have a pretty good career. Michael Beroff? Something like that?

The Mnozil brass organisation is worth studying from a business standpoint. They're very popular right now, becoming even more popular as word gets around.

The point being that you have to pretty much make your own work these days. There's no venue, so you have to create one.

Turandot,

Li$it$a = gold...(perhaps green)

Seriously, I've not had time to do what Lisitsa has done (to that extent), but I began improving my website and youtube channel these past couple of years, and my upcoming season is much better because of it. Also, writing about music and giving pre/post concert chats that help people get to know how I'm uniquely relating to the art really works. I don't know if you've checked out Jeremy Denk, but he's the gold standard in this respect. His NPR videos are great. My take-away is that classical music is thriving in many, many places - especially mid-level community orchestras and opera companies. It's really interesting to see - also exciting.

Great to hear about your wife! That is incredible news - I'd love to see her work.

Now for Pianomadam... It's all Pianoworld lore now - along with the First Act superstore. It's a goofy biz sometimes, huh?

OK, now back to our regularly scheduled "new blood" thread! (I bow, exit stage right)

BC

If that's how much you care, go find yourself a Yamaha or Kawai and be done with it. Fine pianos, not too expensive, you won't have to worry about much.

Austrian Wine Marketing Board?

Greetings -

It sound like you have a plan. That's good.

Two thoughts, and I am trying to be constructive here, while admitting low probability of being useful.

1) All those guys working the oil sands the next province over probably could use some entertainment.

-looking at the other side of the coin-

2) Michaelha mentioned Hiromi Uehara on youtube. But she also tours like crazy.
http://www.hiromimusic.com
And click tour.
I noticed in the major population centers of Europe, it is difficult not to miss a tour stop. Hardly anything at all in the central swath of the American continent. I take that as an indication of where the biz is.

Much like an academic marketing study, one must identify the market & customer, provide the product they want in a manner that is supported by your specific competencies.

Best wishes-

Didn't mean to imply that YouTube was a substitute for live performances at all, simply that YouTube is a great way to get exposure, marketing, etc. I mean, who's going to spend money on a ticket to a live show for someone they've never heard of they're there for other reasons.

I actually believe that live performances is critical to a successful music career. Gone are the days when recording artists could make one good song, put it on the radio, and everyone had to blindly buy the whole CD with 10 other "filler" songs for $15. People either illegally download MP3's these days or listen to it for free on Spotify, etc.

Hiromi did tour the US. I saw her here in San Francisco at the SF Jazz Center I think in March or April. She toured something like 5-10 North American cities. I think she's touring a lot of Europe now because of all the summer jazz festivals. But I might agree that people in Europe do appreciate real music more than Americans, and know how to enjoy life more in general.

There is dynamic current music happening, in all genres and new explorations.
And there are upcoming excellent piano technicians and tuners,
some of them prefer to stay in the background,
still learning their craft.

I don't want a Yamaha or Kawai. Just because I'm impatient and frustrated doesn't mean I don't have specific tastes. I have already bought and paid for a new instrument.

I am not sure that's true.
1. I use Spotify (a lot) but it's not free (10 bucks a month) and is supposed to provide artists a steady income.
2. Illegal MP3 downloading is a hassle, especially for classical music. Itunes and comparable online stores sell quite a lot of music.

You have? What is it?!

I may have missed it in the replies above and hopefully I’m not falling off into the weeds when I ask this… Aren’t elementary school age kids in countries in Asia, such as Japan, required to take piano? (Emphasis on the word "required".) Thus, instilling in the kids music theory, piano skills, which produces, down the road, a strong skillset for mathematics, analytical/reasoning, etc. for future engineers and doctors, plus spurring on future techs/tuners, too? I wish we had this same emphasis here in the US… Just compare our math & science scores to other industrialized countries, I believe we need some help…

You're right- the central US (and Canada) are a vacuum in terms of venues, but that's exactly the reason we should be playing them, especially the classical and jazz venues.

You might be surprised how well-attended classical and jazz venues can be in the most unlikely places. The Royal Winnipeg Ballet and the Winnipeg New Music Festival are great examples. Your first impressions is, "How on earth can this exist HERE, of all places?"

I live in rural Saskatchewan, and old-timers have often surprised me with their knowledge of classical and jazz artists who used to go out of their way to tour here. The trumpet player Mendez, for example, used to tour the prairies.

We should also be playing lesser- and least-known venues because often the people living in them are starved for something besides pop and country.

Also, if we ignore such places, we risk losing those people forever.

Bottom line- you either build a market or lose it.

I've been studying, writing and writing about classical music, probably a lot longer than you've been alive. I began composing in the 1950's.

You're probably not old enough to know how the classical world has changed since 1963. Most orchestras today are amateur organisations that keep the genre going, but like jazz musicians are enthusiasts without being the real deal.

That is simply not true. Caruso's recordings, from 1902 to 1920, were hugely popular, for example, next only to recordings of John Philip Sousa's band music. Artists like himself were a huge draw back then. What's even more telling is that most orchestras at the time were professional organisations, not subsidised like they are today.

Jazz was the popular music of the day in the 1920's (aka The Jazz Age or Era). It remained big, with thousands of professional big-bands on the road, until the end of WWII. Classical music was likewise a big seller until the mid-1970's. Across the board, the mid-70's is considered the high-water mark for recording as well.

gsmonks, I'm baffled as to why you'd make assumptions about someone's age based on no information. Believe it or not, some of us on these forums do remember the 1950s and 1960s.

You may have been writing about classical music for a long time. But given that you referred to all contemporary classical composers as "taxidermists", I'd say you haven't been writing about it very intelligently.

Maybe things look different in Saskatchewan than they do here in Boston...

Markarian stated his age in post #1

While it may not be a tidal wave of young people entering the field, I think the piano technician community actually does have a pretty good influx of young blood. I'm 35 and know quite a few technicians around my age, and even a few quite a bit younger. The North Bennett Street School in Boston has an excellent piano technology program, the Chicago School for Piano Technology has had a great nine year run (although sadly this is its last year in operation), there's a great school in Ontario and Florida State has a piano technology program as well.

Of the people I graduated with, all are at the very least working successfully part time in the field, a few are primarily doing rebuilding work, and several others have established university jobs and are affiliated with the local Steinway stores.

If you look at the major classical music festivals (Tanglewood, Aspen, Interlochen, etc), while the head technicians are well established, the majority of the maintenance work is handled by young techs who are relatively new to the field. In addition, these young techs are making their way into the manufacturers' factories. I know that Steinway has in the past couple years brought on at least two techs both in their 30s, one as a concert tech and one in a more technical role to help spur improvements. Mason & Hamlin, being so close to NBSS, have a host of young techs working there.

There's hope out there.

Spotify is a good model and hopefully it will start to reverse the trend. Although it has a very high conversion rate of paid subscribers (20%) relative to other freemium models which are typically 1%-10%, still 80% of it's users just deal with the ads. But I suppose Spotify shares the ad revenue with the artists.
http://press.spotify.com/us/information/

But this shows the record sales in the US.

1973-2009
http://www.businessinsider.com/these-charts-explain-the-real-death-of-the-music-industry-2011-2

2007-2014
http://www.statista.com/statistics/273308/music-album-sales-in-the-us/

Perhaps the ratio of paying users is much higher in the "real music" crowd since we might appreciate the artists' efforts more and/or realize they have a much smaller base than a Rihanna or Katy Perry.

For me, I listen to it for free first, if I like it I usually buy the MP3's on Amazon.

Gsmonks, would you like to explain this remark? Suggestion: make it good.