DIY Artist Toolkit

UG - Undergraduate

While creating new work within a performer-composer-producer continuum, many contemporary musical artists also operate within a do-it-yourself, release-it-yourself milieu. This series of 5 workshops, based in the Experimental Pop program but open to musicians and artists from across the institute with an interest in DIY production and promotion techniques, will equip the DIY artist with skills and strategies to navigate the ever evolving/collapsing/reforming music industry. Sami Perez (independent musician, music producer, and director of Wiggle World recording studio) will offer workshops on booking shows and tours (routing, contracts, budgets, promoters and promotion, designing and selling your own merchandise); designing screen printed posters (from idea, to sketch, to Photoshop layout, to screenprint); and bringing your record from rough mix to release (including mix strategies and demystifying the mastering process). Def Sound (independent musician, poet, and Grammy-considered artist) will offer workshops in promotion and marketing (visual communication, social media, supporter networks and writing a compelling artist's bio) and "systems of reciprocity" (how to not get exploited in contracts or publishing deals).