Artist/Teacher Bios: A Look At Who's Doing It Right And Why

I've had a lot of subsequent input from my article on rethinking artist bios. As a followup, I wanted to look at a few artists who are doing it right, why they are effective, and how artists can better frame their life in order to create a magnificent bio.

First, the bio that is moving, compelling, and the best that I've seen. Here are the first few paragraphs from James Rhodes:

James Rhodes had no formal academic musical education or dedicated mentoring until the age of 14 when he began to study with Colin Stone. In 1993, mental health issues stopped him taking up a scholarship to the Guildhall and he stopped playing the piano entirely.

A chance meeting, 10 years later, with Franco Panozzo, agent to Russian concert pianist virtuoso, Grigori Sokolov led to James having a brief tutorage by the renowned piano teacher Edoardo Strabbioli in Verona Italy.

Suffering further setbacks due to health issues it was not until 2008, when Rhodes met his present manager, Denis Blais, that he was encouraged to record his first CD. This enabled him to bare his soul and put many of the ghosts of the past to rest.

Wow. Genuinely moving. James takes what is generally considered to be a weakness (mental illness) and spins it in such a way that it creates an immediate engagement in his journey as an artist. Read James' bio and you will be compelled by his personal story, and desire to know what his work is all about.

From Zoë Keating's bio:

Zoë Keating is a one-woman orchestra. She uses a cello and a foot-controlled laptop to record layer upon layer of cello, creating intricate, haunting and compelling music. Zoë is known for both her use of technology - which she uses to sample her cello onstage - and for her DIY approach, releasing her music online without the help of a record label. 

I want to explore Zöe's work after those first two sentences. You can't ask for more in a bio page, and Zöe's site thankfully directs you to the next steps.

Ted Dykstra of 2 Pianos 4 Hands makes you chortle from the outset:

TED DYKSTRA (co-writer) started playing piano at age six, and peaked at age 12, when he had a particularly memorable string of firsts competing in the Edmonton Kiwanis Music Festival. His acting career began at a young age in St. Albert, Alberta, playing the 2nd Bird in Once Upon A Clothesline, but his breakout role was Bilbo Baggins in his school’s Grade 8 production of The Hobbit.

Sarah Butler of the Millwinders could easily say that she is one of the greatest rockabilly voices of her generation (she is), but prefers to take a humbler approach:

Sarah started with piano lessons at age five and music has been a constant influence in her life. She soon discovered that belting out ABBA songs into a candle stick microphone was an effective way to both entertain her parents and enrage her older sister at the same time. Growing up with Patsy, Roy and Elvis blaring from the stereo on weekend mornings, Sarah had the classic voices imprinted on her DNA from the get-go.

As a teenager, she got herself a 12-string and began writing songs. Longing to play the upright bass in her high school jazz band, Sarah was instead forced to settle for the baritone sax. It wasn't until many years later that she approached her old high school music teacher with an offer to trade her sax for the beat up jazz band upright. Listening to the greats, she taught herself to play, and continues to use her voice and the bass as a way to express her deep love for music. Sarah's dream ride would be a '32 Ford Highboy Roadster.

Liz Parker's teaching bio grabs you from the first sentence:

In the Parker household, talk of quitting piano wasn’t casual dinner-time conversation. It meant a SUMMIT MEETING in the LIVING ROOM. Liz graduated from the Royal Conservatory of Music at 15 with a Gold Medal for the top mark in Canada and she holds her Licentiate from England’s Trinity College of London and her Bachelor of Music from the University of British Columbia. 

Teaching since 1985, Liz loves working with kids to achieve great marks in the RCM exams. She combines a sense of fun and instilling discipline for maximum results. No slouching or flat fingers! To compensate, treats are handed out after student recitals. She teaches in the Queen/Bathurst area, meaning coffee/shopping options nearby for parents to while away the lesson time. 

Liz's bio might seem a little unstructured, but it's written with a very specific order in mind:

• groovy but strict
• credentials
• focus of instruction
• specific location

All the critical boxes are checked, with an extra helping of fabulous. Liz (pictured above!) also operates the LIZPR agency in Toronto, and here's what she had to say earlier today on Facebook about what a publicist can do:

This is part of my image make-overs I do for clients. I will read the standard bio, chat with the client, get to know his or her personality, and inject that into the bio. I think the more entertaining the bio, the better. You're too close to your own materials; get someone with experience and perspective to do it.

Because at the end of the day, as an artist you have to answer the question about why we should actually care. There are thousands of first-rate "sought-after" classical musicians who are "compelling performers", "thrilling audiences", and "emerging as significant artists". We all occupy the same space in an art form that is perhaps dying. What makes you different?

I particularly like the way Julie L. Rogers puts it:

As an artist or band, you’re going to be repeatedly forced to explain yourself. And if you are incapable of communicating – in words – who you are, what you sound like and why someone should care, you’re not going to go very far. In short, you’re going to need to write a bio.

The most important thing to remember is that your artist bio is not a rambling autobiography or the introduction to your future memoirs: Your bio is a professional sales tool. But many new or emerging DIY artists cannot necessarily afford to pay a high-quality professional bio writer and are tasked with writing their own. When you sit down to write your bio, you need to know that it is just a small part of a much bigger picture: your marketing strategy. Your marketing strategy must communicate what you have to offer to your fans. And you need to show your value in terms your fans can understand.

If you want to be taken seriously as an artist, you have to have promotional material. And your bio is one of the most critical components – if not the most critical component of your press kit. (Sorry, but no one cares about your music if you can’t introduce yourself properly.) Your bio represents your first opportunity to spark interest in someone who will be a champion for your music. Besides communicating essential information about you, a well-written bio portrays you as a professional that has some understanding of the business you’re in – music. And when you take some time to thoughtfully craft it, you convey to your fans, to press, media and labels that you are serious about making music your career. 

What are some other particularly effective artist bios that you've noticed? Leave a message in the comments.


 

Rethinking the Artist Bio

The best way to write a convincing online bio is to craft it in a concise manner, with a view towards who is reading about you.

Nikki Loney writing in The Full Voice lays down the hard truth:

A poorly written teaching bio can actually deter people from wanting to study with you.

She continues:

Shorter bios using “I”, “me” and “my” rather than stuffy third-person seem to be the trend now. This works better for online bios that tend to be more conversational and have a limited number of characters. Try including a “fun fact” about you to grab the reader’s attention. Remember, most people will never read your full bio if it is too long. There is a fine line here between divulging too much information and establishing trust by providing enough information for people to feel they know you. 

In other words, you're going to be better off formulating a shorter statement that parents, students, presenters, or listeners can identify with, and which will resonate with them.

Nikki in her workshops mentions David Story's About Me page as one of the most successful teaching bios ever written. Here's his first paragraph:

At 14, I began my piano studies, an enthusiastic, motivated, but somewhat unfocused teenager. Luckily, my determination at the piano overcame my inefficient practice habits. 

David, in his confessional approach, spins his unfocused teenage years into something that parents and students can universally identify with, thus turning a weakness into a marketable strength.

The reader is everything. It might be useful to have a separate bio that lays out a fuller picture of your performance career (see picture above) geared to recital audiences, as well as a separate online bio or About Me page that lays out what you're about, but in a more concise manner, and with relevant links so readers can take next steps, either to check out your content, contact you, or sign up for your services.

Disagree? Take a look at About Me pages from successful online personalities such as Penelope Trunk, Merlin Mann, Myke Hurley, David Seah, and Ryder Carroll. The upfront honesty and engagement is what hooks people online. As musicians we are no different.

How to Subscribe to the Collaborative Piano Blog on Flipboard

I got a huge surprise this morning when I opened up Flipboard on my new iPad Air and found that this blog is one of the featured blogs on the Classical Music channel. If you received a new smartphone or tablet for Christmas and want to receive CPB updates via Flipboard, here's how you do it:

My Flipboard (red ribbon at upper right) > Music > Classical (second from the top under Sections)

From the Classical channel, you can subscribe and receive CPB updates along with the rest of the blogs featured in the stream (such as Classical Convert, NPR Classical and On an Overgrown Path).

Otherwise, turn to the second page and look for the Sections sidebar. Tap on the Collaborative Piano Blog title and subscribe (blue button at upper left).

Classical Music and Social Media: A Changing Landscape Within a Changing Landscape

I've been reading some interesting thoughts on utilizing social media to build careers from press and blogosphere in the last few days.

Valentina Lisitsa built a huge following on her YouTube channel, and connected with new fans in a way that established artists didn't, or couldn't, writes Elizabeth Boyle in the Washington Post:

Lisitsa is sometimes surprised that her videos resonated so much with audiences. She’s an impeccable pianist who has been heralded by critics, but even the most famous musicians haven’t developed her large digital fan base. Pianist Lang Lang has fewer than 10,000 subscribers listed on his YouTube channel. Yo-Yo Ma has fewer than 2 million views. Itzhak Perlman? Fewer than 1 million view on his official channel, even though he joined YouTube a year before Lisitsa. Her dominance on the site is unparalleled.

“I think maybe people are very attached to the simple style,” she says. “I’m not dressing up for the videos. I’m not about fashion and don’t care about impressing people with elaborate productions.”

In other words, her genuineness of style connected more with YouTube audiences than the so-called greatest performers of the age, whose hired social media professionals couldn't gain anywhere near the same traction with this audience.

The most popular cellist in the world on Twitter: Zoe Keating. Norman Lebrecht mentions recent research by Nancy Baym on how Keating and other musicians utilize social media metrics to identify and connect with specific audiences. It turns out that Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and mailing lists are completely different segments of the community. But even the most elegant social media dashboard setups can't do the impossible: create the language and content that will help one connect with a specific audience. With the internet, the traditional gatekeepers (eek - I'm now one of them) don't have the influence that they once did. That's why it's possible that a so-called lightweight pianist can leapfrog the supposed greatest pianists of the age to become the world's most popular pianist on YouTube. (For the record, I adore Valentina's playing, and introduce her work to my students all the time).

Back in late 2005, there were a few weeks where I, having recently moved to Toronto to look for freelance work, had no gigs and was trying not to get depressed. So I started this blog, which started out slow, but over the ensuing years resulted in opportunity after opportunity presenting itself. It laid the groundwork for both much of the work that I have now, and helped me to realize that path that I felt I should follow, non-traditional as it was.

Back in 2005, there were only a few dozen classical music blogs around. Now there are hundreds, perhaps thousands. The challenging part about today's social media landscape is that platforms are reaching maturity, but the ground never stopped shifting. Classical music blogs might not have the impact that they did 5-7 years ago. Twitter may have peaked. Facebook is still an important vehicle, but it's saturated. Those involved in the arts know that their timelines are filled with endless Event and Page invites.

Being the first on board utilizing a certain technology or platform isn't as easy as it used to be. Nevertheless, there will be upcoming success stories, and some enterprising musicians will continue to bypass the gatekeepers and leapfrog their way into the profession in new and interesting ways.

3000 Likes and Counting

The Collaborative Piano Blog Facebook Page experienced another milestone yesterday, with its 3000th like. For those of you not yet on Facebook, you're missing out, as a lot of the action these days is happening on the CPB Facebook page, including links, commentary, and funny pictures with hidden pedagogical value. I can already think of at least 4 people who have had an inestimable value in helping me with the direction of this blog who have so far refused to participate in Facebook - you know who you are. And I understand that many people in the profession would prefer not to be perceived as participating in social media for professional reasons.

However, a conversation that I had with a professor of collaborative piano earlier this year humbled me, and reminded me of the responsibility that I have with the direction of this blog and its social media outposts. This well-known teacher said that when undergraduate pianists show up for her freshman collaborative piano class, nearly everything that they know about the field is gleaned from the Collaborative Piano Blog. Although I've spent countless lonely hours on this project over the last 7 years (and not as much as I should have with this season's busy teaching load), I'm still surprised when I discover its reach in the musical community.

Thanks everyone!

Follow...no...Join....er.....Like the Collaborative Piano Blog Facebook Page

Not all the action on the Collaborative Piano Blog is actually on the blog these days. Join Like the CPB's Facebook Page (with 1100 fans and counting) and you'll see a lot of stuff that won't end up here. Many of you will have by now heard about the hilarious Parker's Practice Tips series by University of Toronto faculty member and Gryphon Trio pianist James Parker. Since he uploads his videos to Facebook, they're only viewable within its walled garden. As of tonight, I've added Out of Tune Piano and Lieder Translations Parts 1 and 2, with many more to come in the next few days.

I've also recently discovered that there are several key figures in the collaborative piano field who secretly read CPB articles in their free time, but who won't join Facebook because it would "send the wrong signal" or "damage their standing in the profession". Never fear, all is not lost. Here's what you can do: simply ask one of your students to log into Facebook between lessons so that they can visit the CPB Facebook page and watch the videos. Then ask them to go to People for the Ethical Treatment of Accompanists for the really lurid horror stories of the pianist's life...

Live Chat about Music and Social Media on Wednesday at 1pm EDT

At 1pm EDT on Wednesday, July 14, Amanda Ameer will be hosting a live chat for Chamber Music America on the subject of music and social media. The chat is a follow-up to Dave Allen's Social Skills article in the July/August issue of Chamber Music. If you're interested in participating, you can find the live chat widget embedded below. I'll be participating as well, and look forward to hearing your thoughts on Facebook, Twitter, and the wild world of social networking in music.

Thx #followfriday

A huge thanks to @pianogeek, @eusebius24, @rachelvelarde, @gracepiano, @pkpiano, @arsaureum, @docudramaqueen, @DinaPianoStudio, and @TexasDutchie (whose hilarious self-correction appears on the image on the left) for the kind #followfriday wishes on Twitter. In case you're new to the social media phenomenon Twitter, be sure to follow everyone on the above list if you're interested in networking with some awesome people in the arts. And don't forget to follow me on Twitter as well.

Association Nationale des Metiers de l'Accompagnement Musicale

I've previously looked at ways that collaborative pianists have organized themselves regionally, including the Accompanists' Guild of South Australia and the Accompanists' Guild of New South Wales. Therefore, it was a very pleasant surprise indeed to learn of the Association National des metiers de l'Accompagnement Musicale, a French organization which translates literally as the "National Association of the Trade of Musical Accompaniment". 

ANMAM appears to be the largest of the professional collaborative organizations I've seen, covering a large number of companies, schools, and individuals operating in France. If you're looking into working or studying in France in the collaborative arts, the ANMAM site is your definitive resource, with news, history of the association, job listings, and programs on the site, to name only a few. If you're not too comfortable reading French, you can always use Google Language Tools or Babel Fish to translate a page into English.

Association Nationale des Metiers de l'Accompagnement Musicale

For a sizable collaborative pianists' group that has grown in the wild, be sure to check out People for the Ethical Treatment of Accompanists on Facebook (FB ID req'd).

Previously on the Collaborative Piano Blog:

Classical Music's Encounter with Twitter

 9 Places to Connect Online With Other Pianists

10+1 Ways to Advertise Your Services as a Collaborative Pianist

Free Ebook on How To Connect With New Media

Many of you may remember Drew McManus' memorable How To Connect With New Media series on Adaptistration, which looked at how individuals and organizations in the arts can successfully navigate and connect with the minefield fascinating, yet challenging world of new media.

For the recent National Performing Arts Convention in Denver, Colorado, Drew has kindly reformatted this entire series into a free ebook. For anyone that hasn't read the series already, here are some of the topics covered:

• What constitutes new media sources and how to identify them
• Participating in blogs, forums, and wikis
• Creating genuine relationships
• Writing press releases and marketing materials for bloggers
• Do's and Dont's of how to contact bloggers

The document is in .pdf format, so you can open and read it with a variety of programs, as well as save it to your computer.

How To Connect with New Media by Drew McManus

The Networked Performer

Chris Brogan has just written a very useful article about how performers can use technology to advance their careers, featuring the example of pianist Grace Nikae and her use of social media to connect with audiences. Some of the tools that Grace uses to build her brand are Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, and Facebook.

Grace Nikae's official website
Stretching Intervals, her insightful blog
Grace's MySpace page
Grace's Twitter page


Here she is playing an excerpt from Scriabin's Second Piano Sonata:

More About Social Media, Trust Economies, and Classical Music

Grace Nikae has just written a long response to some of the questions I posed regarding Chris Brogan and Julien Smith's ebook manifesto on emerging trust economies on the web. Grace's article is required reading for anyone in classical music that is the least bit interested in the redoubtable field and its encounter with technology. I couldn't agree more with the heart of her argument, which is that the underlying motivation for engaging with people through technology should be a personal and artistic vision rather than a desire to get more engagements or fill seats:

The death of any artist is the day they stop growing - the search should continue to the last day of your life, until the last breath you take. And of course, I don’t mean simply locking yourself up in a practice room and looking only at scores for the rest of your life - although there are many people who believe this is what is meant by growing and improving. One has to grow consistently as a human being, in all facets - emotionally, mentally, spiritually - because this is what will always color the lens through which one can perceive and understand humanity, and thereby deepen one’s relationship and understanding to the nature of music and art itself.

Free Ebook Manifesto on Trust Economies--Is This Relevant for Classical Musicians?

Trust Economies: Investigation into the New ROI of the Web is a new ebook manifesto by Julien Smith and Chris Brogan that addresses the ongoing debate about trust in today's marketplace. Musicians should take a serious look at this article as they work in a field where authority and trust are often two separate things. Here's a small excerpt:

The goal isn’t to roam around on social networks handpicking friends. Instead, get involved with communities of interest, and grow these experiences and relationships BEFORE you need them. And remember, if you are building relationships strictly for business, they will have less impact. That’s because being part of relationships is what real people do.

When you enter a market, be a real person. Act like one, care like one, and feel like one. Those subtle signals, verbal and non-verbal, help people figure out how to react to you and see whether they should hand you any of their attention.

I've had a number of conversations with people on this issue in the last while. In the musical field, authority and influence often have very little to do with trust. Yet the world of Facebook and MySpace are threatening to overturn that order and replace it with a situation where demographics and recommendations rule the day.

How will this impact the world of the arts? Is the best route to professional success in classical music achieved by staying away from technology in the interest of privacy and getting recognized the old way, via cover letters, auditions, and interviews? Or is it more important to develop a large number of friends on Facebook and release your demos on MySpace?