I love TED – I could suck up an entire week of time just sitting watching the different lectures. I’m always interested in different topics and how they relate to my interests, my world. I’ve been inspired by many of the segments and will often email a link to someone I think would find it interesting. This morning I watched one that would interest and benefit all of us from the geeky, techy to the artsy fartsy. I found myself listening to it a second and then a third time.
This is worth 12 minutes of your time:
We are obviously in the midst of an Arts Reformation, and I do hope that folks will embrace these concepts. Those of you who know my background in the arts will not be surprised when I say that I am always energized and inspired when my work in the social media space involves an artist or organization involved in the arts. I can say with certainty that 100% of the people I’ve consulted with in the arts have been astonished by the reach they achieve once they embrace social media. Blogging, live streaming, a web presence, webinars – there are literally endless ways to creatively promote the arts online.
I have a client that wrote the music for her entire album with producers via Skype. She then flew out to the studio to record her vocals. This arrangement reduced the amount of travel, and significantly cut the cost and the amount of time it took to produce the album.
Donovan Stokes
One artist who has leveraged a number of social media platforms to promote his work is Dr Donovan Stokes. Stokes is a master bass performer, teacher, writer, composer – all around expert in his field. Most admirable to me, is his use of Skype. Stokes has developed a Skype Music Studio where he can instruct his students using the Skype video function. While this might not be the best method for teaching technique to young developing musicians, it struck me as an incredibly brilliant way to teach more advanced students from a remote location. A musician’s time is so precious and the day to day scheduling of students, rehearsals, lectures etc. can be incredibly difficult. The implications are huge – so huge in fact, that I reached out to “Dr D.” for an interview and will be working on a piece for Technorati on the use of Social Media in the performing arts.
Do you know someone in the performing arts that is using social media in an innovative way?