It's another Micro Action Monday on Studio Class.
Hi divas. We are here. We're doing another Micro Action Monday. And I'm going to take today's episode to kick off kind of a three-week series, a three episode series. I think it'll be about three episodes. And we're going to use this advice column from anti-gravity here, a alt weekly paper here in New Orleans. And Danielle Nelson is the responder to this request for advice.
The advice column itself is called Our Lady of Good Counsel. Danielle is a practicing therapist and licensed clinical social worker. And I'm going to read the question first and then dive into the answer in three parts and then make connections to our musical lives as part of that. So here is the request for advice.
I've had two different close friend groups implode in the last 6 months. I'm struggling to adjust to the sudden loss of community and I can't shake the sense that people are chaotic and untrustworthy. For context, I've historically been the type of person who has one to two strong friendships. So I've gotten really good at thriving solo over the years, but I've always wanted a bigger community. And one of the reasons I love New Orleans is because that feels possible here. Both of these friend group implosions have come seemingly out of nowhere, and it feels daunting to try to rebuild my community yet again. Am I doing something wrong? Is chaos and drama just a part of being in community with other humans? How do I find the motivation to keep putting myself out there when all I want to do is be a hermit in my house?
And who can't relate to that sometimes, right? So let me start with the beginning of Danielle's wonderful response here.
The heartache of an unraveling friendship deserves way more cultural attention. There are no casseroles for the group chat going silent. There are no sympathy flowers when everyone begins watching each other's Instagram stories like detectives working surveillance. But this is grief. Real grief. You lost familiarity, ritual, and the hopeful possibility of belonging. Your desire to abandon human connection and focus instead on becoming a kept house cat makes total sense. You're in pain. You didn't just lose people. You lost possibility. You lost the fantasy that maybe you'd finally cracked the code on that elusive thing we all want to feel. Belonging.
In New Orleans, it's easy to believe community happens organically. People don't hang out. They fold into each other's lives. Neighbors become co-conspirators. Bartenders become family. Someone you met outside smoking is the person who helps you move a mattress 3 months later. The city can make belonging feel atmospheric. As if proximity alone creates intimacy. It's a lovely notion, but at the end of the day, community isn't ambient. Community is infrastructure. And as New Orleanians know all too well, infrastructure is fragile.
So that's the first part of Danielle's response and I just wanted to take that as a jumping off point as a prompt for us for our Micro Action Monday to think about community as infrastructure. A couple of episodes ago I was talking about making your own community. And you heard my go-to definition for community, which is shared values plus shared activities plus consistency equals community.
And so that really leads me to talking about mapping one's musical community or musical infrastructure around them. And that is your Micro Action Monday exercise for today, which is take a sheet of paper or even a map. I don't care. But we're really taking this literally to say like where is this infrastructure? Where are these places? Where do people hang out? Where do people congregate? Where do people find that sense of belonging? So that you can understand the underpinnings of your musical community and then be either more engaged in it, find ways to help strengthen it, find ways to create pathways where there are none. Think about this kind of like an urban planner or urban development person where you're thinking about what exists, what is already working, and where are the pitfalls, where are the broken pathways that need help, and where I could be part of the connective tissue that makes it possible.
Some ideas about what to think about when you're mapping your musical community are venues, of course. So things like concert halls where you perform or where you've gone to hear music, clubs, bars with live music, DIY spaces. Be really creative when you're thinking about DIY spaces, things where people are already doing artistic or creative work, but that maybe it doesn't include music yet. Branching off of that, we can be thinking about house concert hosts or religious institutions, outdoor spaces. This includes like amphitheaters and parks and all sorts of things like that.
Then expand on that and start thinking about organizations. Who are the presenting and performing organizations around you? Are you familiar with the arts councils? This could be city arts councils, local or regional arts councils. Think about the symphony organizations. And this could also be like the friends of, right? Friends of XYZ symphony, friends of the opera company, and those societies that are built up to support the presenting and performing organizations nearby. You can also think about chamber music societies, perhaps your local AFM chapters like your unions that are close by, and various music nonprofits. How many of these organizations can you plot on your map? And then ask yourself, how connected am I to these places? Do I know someone who works there? Am I on their email list? Do I find out about opportunities through them? Can I show up and support their work in person more frequently? Can I donate if I have a little lagniappe, a little bit to give to make sure that this is something that I'm supporting?
The next part that I'm thinking about are educational institutions. So we might be thinking about higher ed or universities or conservatories, but don't forget to think about K-12. Think about community music schools. Think about private teachers, private studios, youth programs, summer camps, things like that that happen.
Then I'm going to branch out and think about media and visibility. This is an extremely important part of the ecosystem because there's so much good work that's happening, but we have to amplify the information and we also have to reflect back on it. So it's really important that we're thinking about who is doing local music press. And this has changed so dramatically, right? The people that are doing local music coverage, it's changing all the time. So you can't just think about it like one time and then be done. It's really about developing those relationships with radio stations or podcasts or blogs or social media accounts like Instagram or TikTok and really focusing on who talks about local arts. So you might surprise yourself here as well, where there are folks who are running those accounts and maybe they have a local focus and partially what they cover is arts but they also cover other things.
The next I want you to think about funding. Who is funding arts and culture in my immediate area? Where are the city and state and foundation grants coming from that are supporting these local institutions? Who are the individual donors who are making this possible? When you go to performances and you see in those programs, you have an entire list of people who are supporting and want to show their support for local arts and culture, whether that's on the foundation side with grants or the individual donor side. You could even think about corporate sponsors. Who's showing up, who's putting their name and their resources behind the work that's happening in your immediate area? Maybe we can also think about crowdfunding communities, but this could also look like giving circles, philanthropy cohorts, those kinds of things.
Next, we're thinking about professional services. So this is like are there booking agents, managers, publicists that are working in your immediate area? They might be freelance. They might be part of an agency. They might be embedded within an institution. And think about recording studios, rehearsal spaces, instrument repair shops, sound engineers, photographers, and videographers. Think about all of the people that you work with that have adjacent businesses to arts and culture because the work that they do makes it possible to do the work that we do.
Next, we're thinking about community connectors. I like to think of this as like open mics or jams. This is where other activities that coincide with music community. For example, I'm part of a group here called Move Your Brass, which is a community wellness program, but started by a musician. So it is both wellness and music community in a lot of ways. I'm thinking about festivals. And again, house concerts — I'm always going to come back to that given that I ran a house concert series way back when. Also listening rooms. This is kind of an expansion on the venues idea. What's functioning as a venue? What's functioning as a listening room?
Don't forget about digital infrastructure. This is just as important as the in-person physical spaces that we're inhabiting. So digital infrastructure, local event aggregators and calendars. I'm always going to shout out Live Music Project here. So please submit your concerts to the Live Music Project, but this is also things like Facebook groups or Discord servers. What are the email lists that you need to be checking for opportunities for a greater awareness of your music community infrastructure? This is also ticketing platforms. I know we all want to move away from things like Ticketmaster, but who else is doing it and doing it well? We can't get rid of some of — I mean it's totally fine to get rid of these things in your life, it's fine to get rid of Ticketmaster, but what are you going to replace it with? Who is actually doing this in an ethical way that supports your music community? Find those people who are making those tools and then support them by using their platforms when you're going to create events.
And obviously just people networks. Think really quickly, who do you think of as the mayor of your arts and culture scene? And this could be somebody that you know, right? This is somebody that you know of, but these are presenters, curators, fixers. This is the person that everyone calls because they know what's going on.
So that is your Micro Action Monday activity for today, which is to think about mapping your music community infrastructure and then take that one step further and say what's working well and where can I show up and help be the connective tissue that brings it more together? Where can I show up and be a part of this so that we have a greater resilience? And that's it. So catch us next week, we're going to continue talking about this with the next part of Danielle's response to this wonderful question and how it relates to our musical lives. And until then, stay sparkly inside and out.
Thanks for joining me for Micro Action Monday again. I'm Megan Ihnen and you can find me on all the socials at @mezzoihnen. Did you know that Studio Class is part of The Sybaritic Singer? It is. And if you liked this episode you're going to love my 29 Days to Diva series — that's on sybariticsinger.com. And if you liked this episode, will you please consider leaving us a review on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts? Thanks, it means a lot to me.