This should not be a difficult question to answer. I spend more time listening to my music than anyone else on the planet. I should be able to write the elevator pitch, right? 

Well, I have to, since I’m not only the artist, but also the marketer. But it’s challenging to let go of the artist’s perspective long enough to develop an effective elevator pitch. The artist wants the words to convey everything about the music. The marketer knows that’s not possible and, more importantly, not necessary. All the words must do is motivate a prospective listener to press “play”. Then the music takes over. 

I recently came to this realization in my initial attempts to recruit musicians to my band. The response rate to my outbound communications was low, which made me think that something about the pitch and supporting material might be lacking. The insight hit me as I was scrolling through candidates on Bandmix. I thought, “if I’m using genre as a search criterion, then maybe they’re using genre (among other things) to decide whether or not to listen to the music and respond. If that’s true, then I’m not making it easy for them.” 

In other words, I wasn’t describing my sound in simple terms (like genre) that everyone understands. I knew it was time to wrestle with my elevator pitch. 

I started with research on the terms that come most naturally to me. “Singer-songwriter” seemed like an apt term, since it’s factually correct (Wikipedia defines a singer-songwriter as a musician who writes, composes, and performs their own musical material, including lyrics and melodies). Is there some connotation that makes it more or less useful to describe my sound? I discovered (thanks again to Wikipedia) that the term originated with acoustic folk music (think Woody Guthrie), but is not now confined to that genre. The term describes who I am, but not how I sound. 

So the next step had to be an exploration of genre, as a means to describe what sort of singer-songwriter I am. 

While multiple genres influence my music, “rock” is probably the first one that occurs to the listener, since guitars are prominent throughout. But which rock? There are many sub-genres. The two that seemed most apt were “alternative” or “alt” rock and “indie” rock. My research indicated high overlap, in terms of sound and artists identified with each sub-genre. A minor difference seemed to be “harder” (e.g., more distorted and aggressive) guitars and/or beats in alt rock. I feel like I share that proclivity, so alt rock it is! 

How to indicate other influences, though? Maybe I can describe the sound as “alt rock guitars” with “rhythms drawn from hip hop, reggae and electronic dance music”. Not as easy to say and understand as “alt rock” by itself, but the additional terms do describe the sound more accurately. Worth a try. 

Last but not least, is there a way to use other artists as part of the description? To help a prospective listener make a quick decision based on a few well known names and sounds? I quickly concluded that the long list of my influences is too much information to drive a quick decision. I needed to boil it down to a few artists who approximate my sound, when you put them together. For example, imagine Neil Young mashed up with Talking Heads, Run-D.M.C., 311 and the Chainsmokers. That could actually sound like me! Not everyone knows all of those groups, but even one familiar name gives the prospective listener a sense that Tom Springer might be worth a quick listen. 

We’ll see! I’m sure this is not the last time I’ll wrestle with my elevator pitch. 

Check out my updated biography in the “About” section of this website, if you’re interested in the output from my ruminations above. And feel free to contribute your own thoughts in the comments below. 

Thanks, as always, for your support! 

Tom