Artist Workshop

Thanks to both the professional speakers and those who attended MEISA’s artist workshop. The message was clear: if you have a passion for music, you will find a way to work with it.

Our brilliant speakers were:

Mark Himmel of Relay Recording, who explained the basics and answered technical questions about home recording. Mark discussed both the possibilities and the limitations of home recording, and got all sound engineer-ish when he whipped up this graph:

Look at Mark go!

Max Lewis and Ben Miller of Central City Recording, who outlined what professional recording involves, how to set expectations and fully prepare for a session (i.e., have everything written and practiced, and not expecting too much), how to be most productive during a session, and explained that singing into Central City’s answering machine will NOT get you professionally recorded for free.

Max Lewis, looking thoughtful.

Jacob Wooten of Motion Productions, who strongly emphasized the basic principles of organization, politeness, accomplishing what you say you will (which can be pretty creative, like his impressive fliers), and always whipping up a quick contract just in case. Also, make sure you know your audience and choose a venue accordingly. It’s all to create the best show possible - listen to this guy; he has been promoting shows and managing performances since he was fourteen.

Jake has organized everything, from tribute concerts to a fetish party.

Chris DeVille of Columbus paper alive!, who recommends getting to know music journalists, asking their preferences, and giving them plenty of lead time before you need to be written amount. He also says it’s helpful to label your music with names of other artists to which your music is similar. Also, don’t clutter their inboxes with attachments, and don’t hover over them at concerts and events while you’re networking…it’s annoying.

Chris, maybe in the process of telling us which are huge dicks of the musicians he's interviewed.

A huge thanks to Bassel, who organized the workshop. Thanks, Bassel! I'm sure that next year MEISA will present more speakers, more information, and maybe some food...

Look, there he is!