Strumming the Right Chord: The future of promoting local music

Twenty years ago, local bands that plastered the bulletin boards and telephone poles of Thayer Street and local independent record stores with flyers turned to social media and used sites such as MySpace to reach out to new fans and advertise to their hungry base. Ten years ago, many moved to Facebook and YouTube for greater exposure. Today, as new bands spring up and established regional acts try to maintain their status quo, 2020 presents a plethora of predictions for the future of promoting for independent artists. This is where Right Chord Promotions (RCP) aims to take the reins and guide the wild horses onto the right trails.

RCP’s founder Patrick Pine says that competing against bigger beasts in the same jungle shouldn’t prevent young bloods from getting in on the feast. “No entrepreneur or artist or entertainer should have to suffer because they can’t keep up with the online world where corporations have millions of dollars to make someone big,” says Pine. Today’s musical neophytes are always searching for promoters and bookers, some of whom don’t have the artist or artists’ future in mind. As he explains, “You could have a booking agent, but they’re not promoting those events for you unless they are making money. They aren’t developing your following online.”  

A musician of 16 years, Pine has been a part of The Funk Underground, Scruffy Aristocrats, Catnip Junkies and the Extraordinary Rendition Band.  Through his experiences, he saw the need for an entity that would help new struggling entertainers without taking advantage of them. Right Chord Promotions, which became an LLC in 2018, set out to do just that. “The idea was to start a company that was affordable for musicians and entrepreneurs to be able to grow and develop until they have that income to generate their own growth,” says Pine.

RCP’s business model is a step-by-step process that begins with the basics of booking, and then moves onto promotions, recording, production and more. Along the way, RCP hopes to educate artists on the business aspect of their industry as they grow and move onto bigger industry relationships. This includes liaising with one or more of RCP’s network, which currently includes graphic artist Lauren Starr and musical engineer Taki Brano of InHouse Studios. 

“Just like they’re translating their emotions into their music, I’m translating the data so they can generate revenue and following,” explains Pine. It can be confusing to use social media in hopes of acquiring and expanding traffic and engagement, which is a branch of the overall sales funnel. “Knowing your content. Knowing your following. What’s going to appeal? What’s not going to appeal?”  

Pine pointed out two key factors entertainers need to remember through their career: being consistent and being genuine. The current online avenues that should be used are Facebook for delivering information and creating community commentary, Instagram for stand-alone visuals and YouTube for videos to follow and share. Interestingly, he also pointed out one of the newest platforms that has gone under the radar for connecting to new audiences: TiKTok. “[It] links with trending hashtags and it’s a younger audience where you want your music to reach out to. When you are getting the younger audience, you’re sustaining a longer and quickly growing fan base, and that’s appealing.”

For more information, go to rightchordpromotions.com