If you step into the Music Maker office on any given day, it’s usually abuzz with a million different things: phone calls for Aaron from artists or agents looking to book artists, meetings with donors being arranged, partners and donors visiting, artists being recorded or photographed, tweets being twitted (as Tim would say) and the newest release being played over the speakers on repeat. We have our hands in a lot of pots, working tirelessly to figure out the best and most interesting way to deliver results to our donors while fulfilling our core mission of keeping roots music alive. I’ve been working on figuring out new ways to communicate – among which are this blog (and everything on it) as well as photo blurbs, videos and partnerships with area institutions.

One of the challenges we’ve always faced is a limited amount of manpower to complete the ambitious projects we dream up. With a dearth of video editing interns in the office (as Tom is busy working on his documentary about Ironing Board Sam), the turn around for professionally recorded and edited videos for our YouTube channel has morphed into something nigh unmanageable. But while we work away at those projects (like a video for Major Handy that is in the works, which would be a way to help sell him to booking agents in addition to introducing him to you), I’ve been wanting to take advantage of the growing ubiquity of mobile recording media and the relative ease of getting something on YouTube to bring you shorter, dirtier updates with a minimal turnaround time: thus, the Music Maker Quick Hits.

The idea is to catch video portraits of Music Maker staff and artists to promote transparency and to include you in our every day workings – whether it’s a slow moment where Dom Flemons of the Carolina Chocolate Drops pulls out his bones to play a bit or recording Tim saying thank you for our donors’ support. Check some of them out below:

I would love to hear your feedback on these videos – are they useful to you, or do they just add to the noise? Is there something in particular you would like to see?

-Whitney