People who have the luxury of deciding how and where to pursue their dreams in music are lucky to find a place as accommodating as Belmont University. Besides hosting some of the most renowned EI conventions in the country, the school inspires some of the most entertaining (and riotous) house shows that Nashville has to offer.
Both of these events are opportunities for students to showcase why they came to Nashville—whether they do so on the stage or behind the soundboard. At these conventions and seminars, students can communicate with music industry execs that Belmont fishes out of the surrounding community, many of whom stick around afterwards to shake hands and answer questions.
Above all this, however, any student partygoer knows that one of the most expedient ways to break in to the local music scene is the house show. Whether in the backyard of a skeevy hippie house, or on the hearth of a condo on Music Row, these concerts attract hundreds of students…as long as it's a stacked lineup!
And there’s much more to a house show than the lineup…
Like any normal college party, a lot of the attendance depends on who’s hosting the get-together. What do they have to offer? Is it going to be a good time? Where do they stand in the social sphere? It’s a gamble sometimes, especially for the host who has to manage a hundred drinking students in their home, but also for the artist who recognizes this experience as a new platform for exposure and a new way to market their music.
An eighteen-year-old bass player can move to Nashville and, within a year of booking Belmont house shows intelligently, engage the attention of a great deal of the student body.
But what does it mean to book “intelligently”?
Again, some house shows are great, and some are not so great!
As a young musician who has nothing to lose and everything to prove, it’s best to aim low and shoot high. You can’t work your way into the top tier house shows without working your way up the house show bracket…and there is a bracket. From the shimmering set lights of Inglewood’s Little Lights show, to the backyard of your roommate’s cousin’s trailer, house shows are organized like a microcosm of the greater Nashville music scene.
It’s all about who you know, and what you’ve done.
“Why should I book you?” a host might ask.
And well, they should! The artist might have enough Facebook likes to draw a crowd and make their party more fun!
But then of course, they may get booked in other ways:
“My friend’s roommate said he heard you guys play live and it rocked. I’ll keep you guys in mind next time I throw down.”
This is not to say the Belmont house show scene is a strict imitation of the greater Nashville music scene, however if a student artist makes the same humble approach to a host that they would to a booking agent, they’re likely to make it to the top faster than their peers.
It’s these practice efforts to impress and breakthrough the student body and its limitations that have sometimes presented artists with much larger opportunities…ones that broaden their exposure and strengthen their ambitions. And that’s the window! Who knows who’s jumping up and down on the wood floor at that house show last weekend? It could have been a rep from Big Machine or Epic Records. This is a fantastic city with burgeoning artistry up and down the veneers of every threadbare venue and glamorous nightclub—if a musician wants exposure, Belmont University is not a bad place to start.
