Devin Wojtanek: The Future of Music is in Technology

Berklee Blogs introduces Devin Wojtanek, a Music Business major and spring intern, as he begins his internship with Indie Ambassador, the team behind presskit.to, a portfolio web app designed to enhance communication within the professional music & entertainment industries. In today’s blog, Devin tells us how he found his internship at I.A. and a bit about it’s unique “independent music company vibe”.

I feel like I’m really starting to get the hang of the vibe at Indie Ambassador. I can really tell that the guys I work with are Berklee alums because of how much they remind me of myself. I’ve begun to relate to all my co-workers on a more musical level. Subtly, my favorite part about working at I.A. is that there is music always playing which prompts discussion between everyone working there.

I’ve found that pretty much everyone at I.A. has had musical roots in the whole “warped tour” scene. This means a lot to me because it was of course the scene of music I grew up listening to. It also says a lot about the DIY ethic. Punk and alternative/indie music has always been my entire world, and it’s absolutely amazing to finally see in first person, the fundamentals of the movement implemented in the real world. The ideas that shape music and art can also shape the business world. I have known this on a fundamental level for quite some time, but my experience at I.A. has shown me its true application. If one understands the ideas and motivations behind the somewhat-recent shift of “punk” into the mainstream, one gets an idea of what I would call “genuine” business. It’s all about a tightly held together group of people working for something they truly believe in. Those are the fundamental signs of a successful business, and I see that in I.A.

I am continuing to work on Presskit.to. It has been a lot of proofreading. Every section of every page on their site must be perfect, and I have been going through, page by page, reading everything and clicking on every link to make sure it directs to the correct page ect… It’s a little tedious, but that fact that I have found mistakes and edits that needed changing shows me that I’m really apart of the process. Another project I began working on is a marketing initiative. The in-house studio next door to our offices has hosted sessions with various bands, and the videos are all available online. In order to better advertise and showcase these videos to the proper potential viewers, I’ve created a very extensive “recommended if you like…” list. This RIYL list will be input into a computer program that will suggest I.A.’s videos to the fans of the RIYL’s Youtube pages. I had no idea such computer programs existed, but my co-workers are much more techy than I.

My final thought for this is how quickly music and art is becoming more and more quantifiable. It kind of blows my mind that my artistic opinion (i.e. Band A sounds like Band B), though somewhat objective, can be put into a computer and subsequently measured. The more music that is created and made accessible, the more there is to filter through, and it is through this that I truly understand the future of music is in technology.

 

Read Devin’s Other Posts:

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Starting Out…

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Bio

Devin Wojtanek is a Music Business student in his final semester at Berklee (hometown: Chicago). He has played guitar in numerous punk bands during his stay in Boston, and currently finds himself as half of the guitar duo known as Safety. After graduating Berklee he plans on moving to NYC with his buddies to continue pursuing both the artistic and business aspects of music. He is currently a marketing intern at Indie Ambassador, a company which has recently launched the portfolio web-app Presskit.to.

 

Check Devin out on Facebook:

Devin Wojtanek

Safety (band)

Foul Weather Fans