Prelude: About Soundshop, and its Music Blog
What’s a soundshop!?
Glad you asked! While this blog is meant for a global audience of music lovers, I should start with the physical event that gives the blog its name. I started a music salon and community in 2017 to create an outlet for music performance and the exchange of ideas, as well as to serve as a fun way to interact with musicians and music lovers alike. I was inspired by the desire to help my brother ēno develop his music career, which blended well with my own personal obsessions with music and connecting people. After our second event, my brother said “it’s like a sound workshop” and I knew I had my name — Soundshop.
The Mission:
Soundshop exists to break down the silos that exist in the music industry, to facilitate meaningful connections between creatives, music industry professionals, and music lovers.
What’s the event like?
Soundshop’s salon performance-conversations pertain to an evening’s theme, and include presenters from a wide array of genres and musical interests. They have included: A history of music in the porn industry, an overview of the use of consonant sounds in spoken poetry, a ten-minute experimental triangle piece, a tribute to the life and music of Nina Simone, how air guitar helped a cancer survivor get through her treatment, and countless other performance-conversations from vocalists, rappers, guitarists, songwriters, producers, dancers, music nerds, etc.
It’s like a TED Talk, but focused on music —and then some! It’s hard to fully capture the Salon, but the below graphic tries, and people love Venn Diagrams, right?
If you live in / near NYC and would like to keep posted on our latest events, you may sign up for emails here and follow us on Instagram here.
Who’s this blog for?
I hope that this blog will interest anybody who loves talking about and thinking about music, but are weary of music journalism. Don’t get me wrong, Pitchfork and Rolling Stone serve their purpose! But when you finish an article on this blog, I hope that your mind will race with new thoughts and ideas, and empowered with new ways of thinking about music, rather than the sensation you were just told how you ought to think and feel about the new Taylor Swift album.
My challenge as a writer and editorial strategist
How do I begin to take on the collective knowledge in the Soundshop community, which inspires awe both in its breadth and depth? How do I capture some of the excitement that has come from the conversations I’ve had with musicians and music lovers both inside and outside the Salon? How can I introduce you, the reader, to perspectives on music that would never have occurred to you otherwise? I welcome any recommendations on how I can achieve that.
Are you looking for contributions?
Yeah! Soundshop is all about helping each other with their creative endeavors! If you’re interested in writing about music from any perspective, in particular, from perspectives that are poorly represented online, I want to hear from you! And by perspective, I mean pretty much any classification: music experience, genre of interest/training, instruments played, ethnicity, gender and sexual identity, religion, and cultural background! I also encourage people from outside of music to share their perspectives!
And as a good community-minded person ought do, here’s what I have on offer to the world. If you seek someone to give an engaging talk about music or talk about music on your blog or podcast; are looking for someone to curate a concert, an art show, or just a playlist; would like help spreading the word about your music; or, you’re looking to connect you to people in NYC in the music industry who might be relevant to your work and aspirations, I’m happy to chat! Also, I work in data by day (former Head of Data at Bandcamp), so if you want to talk about that too, I’m also open.
Email me at founders@the-soundshop.com to connect.
Stay tuned for random engaging music thoughts.
with love and music,
Akpanoluo
