Enraged Music Instructor

Watch this video for a good laugh.

Enraged Music Instructor!

Preparing for our upcoming presentation!

PRESENTATION OUTLINE

12 max/ 12 min for questions

each person speaks for 2 minutes.

Video: 1-2 mins

Transition:

“Just show up in the studio, even if you aren’t feeling inspired on that day” –Jacki B

emphasized the fact that the most important thing to do in continuing to grow as an artist is to simply show up in your creative space, rather it is a studio or practice space….but if that is the most important thing, what happens when you don’t have a place to show up too?

SLIDE 1: Mission Statement Quote (SAMMI)

Brief Introduction

Who we are…the poor musician, a non-profit organization

What is our opportunity (sammi/caitlin)

SLIDE 2/3: What is our Solution: an online network (TAM/AUBREE)

a. What have we done?

-we figured out how to consciously construct an online network that will sustain itself

b. What is our credibility?

- raised awareness: getting students involved

- communicated ideas

- built a community

- career center, alumni relations, etc.

SLIDE 4: What is our future...where we are going (CAITLIN)

-selling what it could become

-WHAT DO WE NEED to make this GREAT

-if you gave us money where would it go?!!!

SLIDE 5: NEXT STEP: expanding our WEB presence

-creating a web page URL/ online platform

-hosting an alumni event

-WEBPAGE…what we would want from this: instant, direct emails to alumni, google map

-increasing our data base, expanding our city networks

SLIDE 6: Conclusions: LOGO (group)

-the goal of this whole thing was our bigger picture but due to time and budget restraints we had to scale down our project. However we knew that the important part was fostering a community, which lead us to build a network for musicians of all ages and talents. Once we have the support of the community, the soul of our project, we knew a physical space could thrive in the future.

YOUNG IDEA/PRODUCT

ANY QUESTIONS?

QUESTION: PREPARE

Logistics

-Current budget

-Future budget…future growth

-Marketing ??

Customers: Bullet Point for Marketing Plan

Identification of customers: Musicians of all ages, levels, and backgroups who are within the LU network

Various customer segments:
1. LU Seniors/Upcoming graduates: These customers are looking for a way to establish connections and are most excited about this organization.
*Target using various social media platforms (FB, blogs, videos, etc), 3 informational seminars in the LU Conservatory & at the Career Center, Seniors Are you Ready Yet?

2. Recent LU alumni: (1-5 years out of school) These customers are looking for a way to establish connections and/or give back to their alma mater. They may have strong feelings toward LU and can easily relate with the stresses of graduation.
*Targeted using email and social media

3. Older LU alumni: (5+ years out of school) These customers are looking for ways to "give back" to Lawrence University. They are eager to help the poor musician with contact information and connections. They may also be potential monetary supporters. These customers are essential to our company because they are the "product."
*Targeted using email, social media, the alumni office, and the career center.
**Potential target would be alumni weekends, where the poor musician could raise funding.

Just FYI - I also uploaded the video to the Facebook group wall. It should show up shortly when it's done "processing". If any of you admins are Facebook friends with the people in the video please tag them!

The Poor Musician Network - Final Cut

A 2 minute promotional video to help everyone figure out what we're all about.

Many thanks to Alex Bunke for putting this all together for us!

Video

Alex Bunke created an amazing video for us! We really need to write him a thank you card or do something nice... maybe itunes gift card like Caitlin suggested?

New logo created by MAD Designs

What does everyone think? I like the idea, but I would rather have the inside of the guitar case lime green to match our brand.
Yes, No, Maybe So?

Interesting article

Since we are studying Entrepreneurship and our group happens to be the women group, this article from the Wall Street Journal (link) might be of interest.

Why Are Women-Owned Firms Smaller Than Men-Owned Ones?

I think this is a great idea! Having moved to Chicago after Lawrence and not knowing anyone, I know how hard it is to get a music career started in a new place. Fortunately, it's worked out pretty well for me and I'm always happy to help a fellow Lawrentian. I do not have a piano or practice space so I can't help you with that idea, but I've made a lot of connections and occasionally have gigs, jobs, etc., to pass along.

Good luck with your project!

-Natalie Hall (cellist)

New Images!

Dean Pertl

Thanks to Dean Pertl for informing Con students of the poor musician's booth at in the Science Hall Atrium today via the Conservatory Facebook page and mass email! Hopefully this will be the best Conservatory turn-out in the "Seniors: Are you Ready" event to date! Not only has Dean Pertl helped us reach Con students, but he also suggested we set up our booth in the Conservatory after the Career Center event today.

This is an opportunity we can't pass up - I told him we would visit Julie in the Con office asap.

Thanks for all of your great help, Didgeri-Dean!

Update: 5/13

Wow! We are on a roll! Great job ladies!

After a long meeting we finalized our "elevator pitch" and created an awesome poster! Our event is tomorrow and I know we'll look and sound professional.

We'll be the ones dressed in blue and green! Come find us! :)

Another Alumni Response

Love the idea. I'm a pianist living in the Twin Cities. I teach, so I
have some practice space, but it's all on crappy pianos, and I would
love the opportunity to connect with other alumni and practice on
better pianos!

Greg Woodsbie

A response from an alum in the Chicago area

Great idea! I'm not really on the performance end of things so don't have any studio access. Two little things I can offer:

1) I do have a piano in my apartment. Perhaps we could arrange a schedule if someone wanted to practice.

2) Merit School of Music has a lot of practice rooms for their students. It might be worth investigating whether they offer them to students with no other space to practice. There must be music organizations in most of these locations that could be contacted for that purpose.

Good luck!

Monica

The Birth of a new LOGO

I emailed Ian Wallace (MAD Designs) to create a logo for us and he said no to "donating his services." That's when I said "screw it, I'll just mess around on Adobe myself!" So, ta-da! This is how our new logo came about.

Hope you like it.

P.S. If you have ANY suggestions, please tell me. I can customize it so that it pleases all of us.

Alumni Information!!!!!

Alumni Information:

This is very interesting and I would like to be involved.
Let me know how I can help.
Charles D Bayne '95
312-519-0487
Dudley Bayne [dudley@dbayne.com]
----------------------------------------------------------------
Hi!

This is a quick note - I apologize! I'm in the middle of ending my own semester and dealing with projects in my hybrid career. Just an idea - can you contact the folks in Alumni Relations & Community Engagement who involved with the Lawrence University Alumni Association to see if they will do a Facebook plug for your effort?

I'm happy to help. Here's my contact information:

Joanna Messer
1447 Williamson St #1
Madison, WI 53703
630.291.5843

I have a number of contacts in the Chicago area, too, who are not LU alumni but are happy to do a solid for musicians in need. There are many LU alumni there who are great to know; the founder of the Merit School of Music, for example, is an older LU alumna, and they have some facilities. However, they will still come at a cost.

Furthermore, I have another friend - this one from my time at Carnegie Mellon - who has developed a project for people who are trying to both teach and perform in New York City. Whitney Gardner and her "business", In The Pocket NYC, were just featured this week in the Wall Street Journal. It's related to what you're after, but different enough. She may have some ideas as well about how to get going on an effort like this.

Kudos to you for taking an entrepreneurship course before graduation. We have to think about how to market our skills more than ever these days. Feel free to give me a call or to drop a line if you need anything!

-Joanna

One further note: if you are trying to have an event with alumni on campus, the 29th is during Memorial Day weekend; won't be good for a lot of people. If you want next Saturday the 22nd, move fast.

--------------------------------------------
Hello,
I am Shad Wenzlaff. A '94 graduate, living in Madison. I have a BA in Music, and studied piano.
I have a very successful piano studio here. It took me over a decade to "get my resources" together to own a piano, much less open a studio.
But I've always been quite resourceful, and except for 3 years of my post Lawrence life, I had access to a piano at least twice a week for practicing. Although twice a week isn't 'really' practicing.
But, these days, I teach a very large student load of private lessons each week, just to make ends meet and keep my space open. Im about to bring on 2 other teachers, who will be subletting space from me. But I have a rather centrally located studio in Madison, and have opened my doors to nearly a half dozen pianists in recent years who needed rehearsal or practice space. This is my "home away from home", and I teach here 6 days a week, but I'm happy to open my doors to a few musicians.
And a very odd set of circumstances led to my entrepreneurial success story. I'm happy to participate and share.
-Shad

Shad Ryan Wenzlaff
Art History Lecturer, Edgewood College
(cell: 608-695-4005)
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Hi Folks-

Good to hear that you're thinking ahead...at least as far ahead as you can before you graduate from LU. I'm a member of the class of '01 and I'm in my 7th year teaching chorus at Taft High School in Chicago. We don't own a grand piano at my school, but we could potentially offer rehearsal space depending upon what my administration agreed to.

You might also want to contact Anna Najoom '01 (you can find her on facebook or najoomclarinet@hotmail.com) since she's doing more of the performing professional/studio teacher route.

You could also contact alumni groups for SAI and Sinfonia...they might have ideas and/or be more established and be able to offer you space to use. I'm not a member of the Northwestern SAI alumni group myself, but I'm sure they're not too scary.

My wife and I live in Rogers Park, but we have a small place so we can't really be helpful with regards to offering space in our home.

Good luck!

~Dominique Martin (and Monica Blacconeri '02)

B.A. Choral/General/Instrumental Music Ed.

M.Ed. Educational Leadership

90 alumni emailed

Great news! We now have over 45 members on our Facebook page and I emailed over 90 alumni this afternoon!

We're on our way!

Alumni Letter- draft

Here is the draft of the email for alumni -

Dear Lawrence University Alum,

We are a group of Lawrence juniors and seniors currently enrolled in an economics class titled “Entrepreneurship in the Arts and Society”. For this class we’ve been given the task of developing and putting into action an entrepreneurial endeavor of our choosing and we need your help to make it all work! Here’s what we’re trying to accomplish –

For starters, our project is called, the poor musician. Having watched our musician friends from past years graduate and move out into the real world, and facing the prospect of graduation ourselves (and thus the loss of the ever-convenient conservatory facilities), we are working to develop a network that connects graduating musicians with alumni currently living and working in the biggest cities in the Midwest (Chicago, Milwaukee, Madison, and the Twin Cities). We received your contact information from the office of Alumni Relations and wanted to make you aware of our project with the hope that you might be willing to participate in building this network.

It is our mission to connect Lawrence graduates seeking practice space and/or, in the case of pianists, an instrument on which to practice, with more established alumni that might have the resources to help a fellow musician continue to hone their skills by welcoming them into their home or studio. This way, musicians who might otherwise have to spend extensive amounts of time searching out appropriate practice space can instead settle into a consistent and productive practice schedule with the help of this network of “poor musicians”.

We are currently in the very earliest phases of this endeavor and for now your participation is mostly “digital” in nature. We encourage you to reply to this email with an thoughts, suggestions, or simply with a few words of support for our project. If you are involved with Facebook you can also join our group, “the poor musician”, and jump into the discussions and networks we’re building around musicians in Chicago, Milwaukee, Madison, and the Twin Cities.

Finally, we hope that you might visit our project blog at: http://practicespacenow.blogspot.com to follow our progress developing a networking event that will take place on campus in the next weeks. If you’re in the neighborhood we hope that you might stop by to chat with some soon-to-be graduates and start really building this network and spreading the word! Music is around us!

Thanks for you time and please feel free to contact any of us with questions, comments, or words of wisdom!

Caitlin, Aubree, Sammi, and Tam

NYC spaces- Similar Idea

Also - my Professor Mizrahi (my piano professor) sent me this link:

http://nycpaspaces.org/show/about/welcome.html

This is kind of what we're trying to put together, but I think connecting just the Lawrence network of alumni will make us unique and create a more trusting community.

Results from Meeting with Career Center

Last Wednesday Tam and I met with Kathy at the Career Center to see if we could get their support for our Networking/ Recital event. We were really interested in having the Career Center back us so that our emails to alumni looked more professional and official. In addition, Professor Galambos had mentioned at our last class that there is a Lawrence Scholars in Business event approaching, and we might want to see if we could attach ourselves to that event.

After delivering our pitch to Kathy, she expressed her concern with the limited amount of time to put together an event like this (and still have it be successful). We started to discuss the Lawrence Scholars in Business Entertainment Event, but it seemed like this did not fit with the mission of our idea. This event was more focused on people in the entertainment industry (TV, film, etc.) and less with musicians. She did bring up the "Are You Ready" event that will be held in Science Hall Atrium this coming Friday at 3:30-5. This is an event where Lawrence seniors can attend and get some basic information about things like buying your first car, finding an apartment, cooking for one, etc. Each of these have their own booth with information packets and a representative to ask further questions. She suggested that perhaps we could have a booth as well. This booth could be something like "How to find practice space after leaving the conservatory" or "Networking and Practice Space for Musicians". At our booth we could have a list of alumni in various cities that have agreed to be a resource for Lawrence Alums as well as spaces that we already know of. In addition, we could encourage students to fill out a short form listing their name, city they're going to, email, and instrument so that we can build our resource list. Our booth could also have our short movie, and cards with our facebook business page. Kathy also noted that we would need a representative there to answer questions, whether it's one of us, or someone else. I suggested that I would talk to my piano professor, who has a lot of experience searching for practice space in New York City.

What does everyone think about this? Tam and I decided to go for it because it seemed like a better option than the Lawrence Scholars in Business event, and more feasible than creating a networking event from scratch in 5 or less weeks.

FB goal!

GREAT NEWS! We hit our weekly goal of 30 students on our Facebook page!

Now we need to get alumni to join. Maybe goal of 5 alumni and 10 more students for next week?

good news

I emailed Greg Griffin about the potential of hosting the event in the Campus Center. He said it is "certainly possible". He also said that if we decide to do it over there, we should try to select the date very soon because they are very busy the remainder of the term.

Event Details

EVENT: The Poor Musician: Life After Lawrence for Musicians

Performance Date: Saturday, May 22^nd or 29^th or June 4th

Cause: Raise awareness for the lack of performance & practice space

Who’s our audience? Lawrence students, alumni, recent graduates, professors

What’s the hook? FREE Networking event for musicians, free performance, free food

Theme: Old & New?

The Poor Musician: musicians wear shabby clothes, decorated “poorly,” contradiction between beautiful instruments & the poor life of a musician,

Set up: Inside: trash cans, shabby decorations, draped sheets, candles,

Marketing/Advertising: Facebook page, campus flyers (head shots & quotes), hopefully something through career center (LU webpage?!), Downer table flyers, posters in con, campus center, dorms, chocolate covered coins on table, brochures

Budget: food $50, decorations, suggested donation?

Goals:

GET ALUMNI AT EVENT! GOAL: 10-20

GET STUDENTS AT EVENT! GOAL: 30-50

GET A BAND/BANDS: Baroque? Jazz? Sammi? Caitlin’s quartet

The Poor Musician Networking Event

To Do List (as of 5/1/2010)

VENUE:

1^st choice: The Outer Edge, Benjamin King (sammi)

2^nd choice: campus center CONTACT Greg Griffin (dao)

3^rd choice: The History Museum (aubree)

SUPPORT:

Talk to Lawrence Career Center (Kathy), life after LU networking seminar (aubree, wed @ 2pm)

Contact Alumni Relations Office (dao)

Contact Dean of Conservatory (sammi)

Contact Bands/Musicians (all)

Contact Hyde Music Store for rental opportunities

MARKETING:

Facebook Page: Once alumni respond, put information on there (aubree, all)

-get 50+ members in a month (we're at 21 now!)

-advertise event: flyers/headshots (sammi)

Target locations: Madison, Chicago, Milwaukee, Twin Cities

Facebook Map?

LinkedIn Page? Create & announce event

ALUMNI:

Alumni list –email, phone numbers (tao)

Divide list and send email about cause and event (all)

NEXT MEETING: 1pm Wednesday (before our Career Center appointment)

ONGOING: Keep updating the FB page!! If we are not friends, please friend me so I can make you an admin (cough, cough sammi!)

See you in class tomorrow!

Cheers,

Aubree

Letter to Alumni Relations (for the record)

From: Ðào Minh Tâm [daot@lawrence.edu]
Sent: Friday, April 23, 2010 12:49 AM
To: Alumni
Subject: Request: alumni contact list

Dear Alumni Relations,
I am a student in the Entrepreneurship in the Arts and Society (Econ 180) course. For the class project, a group of students, including me, are aiming to build a network between graduating musicians and alumni who are currently living in big cities in the Midwest. As many graduating music majors face the difficulty of finding a sufficient practice space and/or instrument after they just graduated from Lawrence, we hope to connect them with alumni who may be willing to open their homes to host/ provide these seniors with the necessary practice spaces or instruments.
We hope Alumni Relations can help provide us with a contact list (name, email address, phone number) of alumni who
(1) are currently living in one of these cities: Madison, Twin Cities, Chicago, Milwaukee
and
(2) graduated from LU with a music-related major (music performance, composition, music education, etc...) OR (3) are working in the fields related to music.

If you have any question about the project, please feel free to contact me
We are looking forward to your cooperation.
Thank you very much

Business Networking Page on Facebook

To do list:
1. Create Facebook Page
2. Take headshots, gather quotes, print on brightly colored paper
3. Search for Alumni contacts in Madison, Milwaukee, Chicago, & the Twin Cities
4. Write email draft for Alumni

posting

I will post this blog to the class blog just so they know that we are up and running!

Brainstorming

I have been trying to think of a clever name for our project and I was wondering what you thought of this name..."The Poor Musician" Other suggestions that Sammi & Caitlin came up with..."The Homeless Musician." I just don't want people to confuse this website/place with a homeless center. haha

Also I found this through a google space...looks like someone in Austin, TX had a similiar idea.
http://www.musicgym.com/austin/music-rehearsal-rooms/index.php

They called their music lounge "The Music Gym" which I kinda like.

ALSO look at this yelp! I found. Proof that this idea is needed.
http://www.yelp.com/topic/boston-music-practice-rooms-with-piano

"Realizing" Our Idea

Here is a summary of what we discussed in the meeting with Adam today:

The main concern in this meeting was that it would be difficult creating something tangible from our original idea, to create a practice space available which would cultivate a community of musicians. Like we said before, starting a coffee shop is a huge undertaking in itself, and finding the space, sound proof material, pianos, security, etc. with limited funds is much bigger than a 6 week project.

The first question Adam asked is whether an organization like this already exists (we weren't sure...). This is something we definitely need to look into.

Adam also stressed that when "realizing" this project, we should be thinking that we take this idea and create something that has some kind of value for society. That is, create something in the world that didn't exist before us.

We mentioned the ideas we had in creating a website that would show a mock set up of practice rooms and space, the marketing idea we discussed last meeting (photographs of "homeless" or "soon-to-be-homeless" musicians with a blurb about this problem), and bounced a new idea off of him. Before the meeting we briefly discussed keeping the focus on the community of musicians and perhaps create a network or kind of consulting group that would help musicians find practice space in different areas.

Aubree brought up the idea of "couch surfing" (http://www.couchsurfing.org) and thought maybe we could come up with something similar - practice room surfing, homeless musician surfing - creating a network that could help you find a place where you could practice. We would still have the long term goal in mind, but work small scale until then.

Some of the issues with this idea are 1) building a website (who could do it, payment, etc.) 2) the security issues behind it. How could we insure that the information of those using the site would be protected? 3) Who would maintain this site after the course is over?

The last thing we discussed was in regard to the security issue of this site. To scale this idea down even more, perhaps it might help to test out this idea with Lawrence students, faculty, and alumni. Adam basically said that people are more willing to help and trusting if they know that its within the security of the Lawrence community.

Did I forget anything? Please comment if I did, or if I misinterpreted something...

Either way, we should meet about this and fast!

...Sammi

Mission Statements For All!

So we drafted a first attempt at a mission statement in the hopes that it might clarify how the rest of the term should progress. This is what we came up with so far - I'm sure it will change over time but I think it's start.

Knowing how difficult it can be for musicians to find a practice space in an urban setting, we seek provide a secure and consistent location where musicians of all ages and abilities can practice, perform, network, and share their love of music both with one another and with a larger community as well.

We believe music should be accessible and so, in addition to a physical practice space, we also seek to cultivate a relationship with the broader community, making connections outside the immediate network of musicians by giving our customers the opportunity for live performance in our facilities. This series of performances will give younger musicians valuable experience, while granting more established groups a bit of publicity, all while giving the gift of music to anyone, musician and non-musician alike.