For Jazz Musicians who don’t want to fall behind in the multibillion dollar gold rush for musicians and artists.
The purpose of this presentation is to demonstrate how you can uplevel yourself as an independent musician in the shortest amount of time possible, regardless of which country you’re in, your instrument, your degree, your favorite records; independently, especially in 2024.
In this presentation you will learn how we discovered a multi-billion dollar market for jazz musicians, and how building a brand is not what you think it is.
To understand the multi-billion dollar market, to achieve innovative success that aligns with your goals as a musician, you must shift your perspective from “building a business” to “building your brand” and being the most competent modern musician that you can be.
In other words you must understand that your brand is your business, and your business is you. Ironically enough, if you actually have your brand together, you will play better.
This is for you if you’re a serious independent musician or your business services musicians, and you’ve identified that your business actually complements your playing, and that to succeed in this day and age musicians are required to be professionals.
Or, by first hand experience, you’ve toured, been approached or are signed by labels, recorded albums, and understand the power of representing yourself with professionally, and you’re looking to navigate your next steps as an artist through a tactical understanding the music industry and music market.
Maybe you don’t have the personal connections and insider information from those making moves in the industry, which takes up a ton of time both on and off of your social media accounts. Then, you have to figure out how the algorithm works, what to do with it.
You are a musician who sees the future of what it will require to succeed both musically and professionally, struggling to effectively find a balance between entrepreneurship and top-tier improvisation.
Either way, you’re looking for the shortest path to clarity and ultimately achieve higher quality gigs and opportunities - the point at which your income from playing matches the intensity of your lifestyle and business, and leads you to financial freedom.
Music Industry Trends
Post COVID shutdown, war preparations, society ungluing themselves from quarantine and their digital devices, there have been massive advances in technology behind the scenes.
As a result of the introduction of massive amounts of technology being developed and introduced and implemented within enterprises, the largest corporations were able to cut down costs and optimize time. Many low performers in their jobs were lost, and many jobs were also created.
The speed of the transmission of information increased exponentially.
Similar to social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, new technology allowed for large amounts of text and video data to be processed, transferred, formulated, leading to the creation of more technology to keep up with the pace of big-data brokers like social media companies and credit card companies.
As a result, large enterprises who have relied on social media and financial technology for the last decade had no other option but to adopt and implement the technology in order stay up to date with the demands of the modern every consumers of digital media, or get left in the dust.
We are witnessing another mass adoption event - just like the Web, only 2 decades after, social media platforms.
We are in the middle of yet another digital goldrush which will not only impact our screens, but our day to day lives, positively.
Today, most people share on social media daily, make real-life plans, TikTok dances - we communicate and manage our time and lives with more ease and enjoyment because of social media. Most people work for companies and jobs which leverage social media, and have already come to leverage all of this new and powerful Post-COVID technology.
Thus almost 99% of jazz musicians are left in the past and without the help of a label or manager using the technology for them, stuck with a college degree that didn’t teach them about how to stay up-to-date in today’s global economy, unable to invest in themselves, their well being and their financial and personal futures.
In 2024 financial freedom doesn’t mean sacrificing your time and goals of becoming the best musician that you can be if you understand how to position yourself to leverage the new market and economy, and scale attention to reach brands, festivals, institutions and access a global audience of new fans outside of your followers who are hungry for new, real and powerful music.
Meaning you can effectively grow the quality and quantity of the attention on your brand and save hundreds of hours just by learning about this new technology.
When you are saving a ton of time, you can produce new fans, new business opportunities, and connect the dots to make thousands of dollars within a month.
However, most jazz musicians aren’t equipped to do so, because the technologies are new and require the understanding that any independent artist is the original entrepreneur.
Independent artists are the only people engaged with one of the most powerful businesses models in the world, performance. Yet, they sell themselves short and lose out because they don’t understand that as natural-born entrepreneurs, they are directly competing for the attention of fans, who are consumers, and engage with technology, the economy and personal lives.
As a result, independent artists often are caught in a stressful, demotivating, financially restraining gap.
Since the consumers and spenders in the market and economy have access to high-powered technology at their jobs and in their social circles, their finances, well-being, educations, expectations and quality of relationships and lives are at an all time high
However most jazz musicians aren’t equipped with the expertise or understanding of how big of a problem this is.
We are the only group of independent jazz musicians dedicated to fixing this problem every single day.
Track Record
Here’s the start - the co-founder of my quintet Kyle Benford (CEO of Helius Partners) and I partnered and started InTheShed.Live (now the Institute of Modern Improvised Music) in 2022. At the time, I was focused on mentoring students, which was essential to our setting the foundations for our vision.
Kyle wrote down first marketing strategy based on my content and brand. In days we expanded my brand’s reach by 1700%.
In the first 30 days, we had maybe spent $400 on office supplies and technology.
By 45 days, we had made $7.5K using social media.
In 90 days we generated attention that led us to securing collaborations and opportunities with Grammy Award Winning Artists such as Wynton Marsalis, Nicholas Payton, and Jon Batiste, major gigs, we were contacted by labels, media agencies and doors began to open up.
**During this time we provided a discourse of improvisation, composition & personal development based seminars hosted with educators & viewership from around the world.
In addition, we taught a 6-month program geared toward Music and Artist Development.**
I built from 5K viewers to 10K new viewers, to 30K+ viewers weekly, adding an additional 27.1K non-follower views to our profile. Locals knew who we were because of Instagram, and we had created global viewership by sharing the music that we know and love.
**During this time we provided a discourse of improvisation, composition & artist development based seminars hosted with educators and pioneers in music.
Nicholas Payton:** Nicholas Payton is a Grammy Award-winning jazz trumpeter, pianist, composer, and bandleader. He has been active in the jazz scene since the early 1990s and has released numerous acclaimed albums as a leader. Payton is known for his virtuosic playing and his ability to blend different styles and genres into his music, including traditional New Orleans jazz, swing, bebop, and hip-hop. In addition to his work as a performer, Payton is also an educator and has conducted master classes and workshops around the world. . ****Nick Payton has been instrumental and helpful in effectively communicating his ideas on music's most complex topics in a truly insightful manner to us at #InTheShed.Live. . The lessons learned from Nicholas Payton have led me to develop a stronger understanding of the historic significance of our music and how to internalize it at the highest level.
In addition to featuring A-list artists, we also created partnerships and agreements with The Juilliard School, Jazz at Lincoln Center, and the Ministry of Education of the Bahamas.
The impact even led us to be recognized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
Some of Our Members 30 days #InTheShed:
Dor Baron an 18-year-old pianist from Israel focused on uniting the world through the power of jazz music. Through the InTheShed infrastructure he has broached an agreement with the top Jazz Education Organization in Israel and educational pioneer Yonatan Voltzok.
Pannonica Jazz is the program Dor grew up learning from, and now he has put himself in a position working with this program in a context connecting them with #InTheShed, The Juilliard School, and Jazz at Lincoln Center, ultimately helping his hometown broaden their network and impacting his community for generations to come.
Kara Kaizen - a talented multi-disciplinary artist based in Miami, Florida. In 30 days of working with ITS, she has solidified her own arts community in Florida “Open Existence” which she now is creating a network of different artists across different fields and bringing people together. We have helped her create a similar business model and platform infrastructure as #InTheShed, and she can now use that information to service her business growth.
Jeffery Miller is a world-renowned Trombonist from New Orleans who has collaborated with major acts such as John Legend, The Jonas Brothers, Wynton Marsalis, and Jon Batiste.
Dayna Stephens is a world-renowned composer and saxophonist regarded as a pioneer of modern jazz music. Dayna contributed a 40+ Page Document on the Art of Improvisation and Composition
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Eddie Henderson:
Eddie Henderson is a jazz trumpet player who has made a name for himself collaborating with major acts such as Herbie Hancock, Roy Hargrove, and Dexter Gordon. He is also an educator, having taught at the University of California, Berkeley and the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York City.
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Gary Bartz:
Gary Bartz is a legendary American saxophonist and composer who has been active in the jazz scene since the 1960s. He has collaborated with many notable musicians, including Miles Davis, Art Blakey, and McCoy Tyner. Bartz is known for his innovative and versatile approach to jazz, incorporating elements of funk, soul, and R&B into his music. He has been recognized with numerous awards and accolades throughout his career, including a Grammy Award for his work with McCoy Tyner.
Businesses, Educators and Musicians from around the world gathered to learn and contribute to our platform both with and without our direction, following a 60 day schedule of events.
Around the same time, Kyle started to make connections from his experiences in 2021, where he had independently found a way to consult Fortune 500 companies, All-Star Athletes, executives of 8 and 9 figure companies, and made up to $70k a month in the process.
He saw that the musicians that he had helped InTheShed faced an extremely loud problem: poor time management, not enough money to save time, and a very limited idea of what marketing actually is. He had a hypothesis that independent artists and large companies are very similar in terms of the problems that they face. Keep in mind that he had spent 2 years building marketing plans and advertisements for solo entrepreneurs up to large companies.
He was right.
True Design Multiservices made $88K in its first month, we didn’t spend a dime to make that money, and we were paid for our musicianship. This cemented our understanding of the massive market that independent artists are a living and breathing part of.
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The Massive Market Potential
