The Fredösphere

Via Renewable Music, I found composer and radio manager Cary Boyce at Sequenza21 giving some marketing advice to composers.  I think it will be interesting to anyone.  A key point:  packing your bio with long lists of academic achievements will help win you your next teaching position, but makes you look dorky in other contexts.  Also see David Rakowski, who skewers composer's dorkified web pages deliciously:

I am endeavoring not to use that breathless press-release style prose -- especially the stuff written in third person -- that so many composers use on their sites, as we prefer first person plural.

To all this advice I would add:  find a way to get an audience to fall in love with your music.  Do that and everything else will be taken care of.  Oh, thanks, Mr. Fredösphere!  You've made it all so easy!  You've given away your secret!!!

Oh, and yet one more piece of advice: try not to vomit into your own lap on live television.

(Although, maybe this filmmaker guy is playing some kind of very deep, counterintuitive game.  When I heard that very contrite "I'm sorry," just before that anchor chick announced the commercial break, I suddenly felt overwhelmed by a wave of sympathy for the guy.  It's like what Oscar Wilde said:  the only thing worse than people talking about how you went on live television and vomited into your own lap is people talking about how you went on live television and didn't vomit into your own lap.  He was quite the genius, that Oscar Wilde.)