Today: Mar 28, 2024

Blueprint project speaker relays music management experience

Haljit BasuljevicContributor

Grit and grind are inscrutable key resources for someone breaking into the music industry when it comes to building rapport, consulting artists and readily adapting,
according to Steven Laguerre.

“You can take 20 minutes writing the perfect email and people won’t even respond,” said Laguerre, whose main practice is business in healthcare. He also does music managing on the side. “It sucks. It really does. You’re going to get adversity; you’re going to get no’s and things like that. When you’re so passionate about it, it’s a little different.”

Laguerre relayed his experiences working inside the music industry as a part of the Blue Project: Music and Management event hosted by Kendall Manderville, a senior recreation major with a concentration in youth and development, in Adanti Student Center Room 201 on Tuesday, Oct. 29.

Social media, sampling, dropping singles and creating connections with other representatives in the industry are duties a consultant manger must perform, but perhaps the most adverse was first crossing that threshold, Laguerre said.

He said to remain stagnant and unnoticed is to never set foot in the place one desires to work in. Even a janitorial job will get you inside the building. Cold calling other agents and artists, even after so many silences and wasted efforts, would eventually yield a call back.

“There’s the expression that when one door closes, another opens,” said Laguerre, “which is true, but it was really hard to get that first door open.”

Now, with three years of experience, Laguerre advises aspirants to study statistical trends in radio and TV, how timing is essential when new music comes out and understanding the sound an artist is trying to engineer. Social media was a unique dynamic in this respect because the potential for it still being realized, particularly in the realm of marketing, he said.

He added that, for instance, in order to be marketed properly, audiences must familiarize themselves with the artist to the point that they becomes instantly recognizable. He said how this leaves an imprint on social media users who hear about or want to check out new music. Algorithms, the data used to track traffic on these websites, are now being studied so the artist who posts can find exactly what time their post will maximize the most views.

Manderville said models who look to promote themselves can be given a set schedule of when they should post. This can lead agents and artists in a better direction on when they should drop their album or single, Laguerre said. Business major Azaria Porter, sophomore, said she found Laguerre’s talk insightful and clarifying.

“With my major, it’s so broad. I wasn’t so sure where I would like to go with it,” said Porter, “so, it helped clearing up some of the ideas I had in my head.”

Laguerre underlined the importance of passion being the ultimate arbiter of how one willingly persists, no matter if it is a lucky or lousy day.

“It’s a give and take thing. I’ve enjoyed all of it and I’m learning a lot,” said Laguerre.“But, again, I feel like, even if it doesn’t come, I have to be ready for that just in case and eventually realize that I might have a hiccup, but eventually will come back to being consistent.”

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