Image: Jon Rose
Lots of people love what we are doing here at Musomap and they are super excited about our World Musician Day event. Some people less so…
Here is an example of a typical response that has made us think.
"I have to say that, as an artist, I’m not a big fan of popularity contests or indeed, competitions of any kind, as I don’t see art or music as in the same light as sport or other more competitive activities. It’s all too subjective & the idea of the band with the most friends winning is certainly no benchmark of artistic merit." (Mark)
'Mark' has a good point. As artists, and local performing musicians ourselves, we find shows like X Factor and other music contest shows that are driven by popular audience participation generally crush the spirit of new music and creativity.
World Musician Day is driven by a process of Peer Review and Recommendation
First up, this event is for musicians. We assume good music will gather a massive crowd of friends and family too.
The line up for World Musician Day is selected by the musicians exclusively. Not the general public. Every musician (hobbyist, amateur, student, professional) is encouraged to sign up and cast their vote by recommending the musicians they believe are creating something new, powerful, important, relevant and useful.
If every musician gets involved the end result will help us get to the bottom of a very important question.
If we are trying to seek out good new music, who better to ask than the musicians of the city?!
World Musician Day has been created to help us achieve this.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, nearly 300,000 individuals in the community are actively involved in the creation of music on a non-professional basis. These people, along with professional musicians, are important and we want their voices heard! Who do they value musically?
This Project is Lasting
The fallout from our event and sign up process will be an extensive Global Map of Musicians that is driven to share and create more local music opportunities. We believe this is a massive opportunity that is yet to be tapped.
To finish, here are two observations we often discuss.
We believe local families, friends and neighbours do have a substantial amount of money for musicians! We think that it's the beginning of something quite profound when a musician brings together a sound that resonates with their community. This quite often leads to bigger and better things. We believe friends and family have more money for musicians than record labels. For example, when was the last time EMI Warner paid for a new piano at a nearby school?
As musicians ourselves, we know there are literally hundreds of accessible local acoustic venues in every community that are simply going to waste. Most musicians are unplugged and acoustic. Get involved. Collaborate.
World Musician Day
www.worldmusicianday.com
The Global Map of Musicians
www.musomap.com
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