Open letter to the drum industry
To everyone who is involved in creating the drum industry. I appeal to you as a person who cares about the future of drums. As a representative of an average country with a developed market.
There is no need to talk about how the artistic community looks like right now, because current situation concerns literally everyone! Everything fell apart like a house of cards. Concerts and jam sessions do not exist. Drum schools try to save themselves by online lessons and this is not always a good option, because many artists want to also teach this way. Large, international stores are still operating thanks to shipping services. Like large companies, they have resources that allow them to last longer. But we don't know how long it will take, we have conflicting information from various sources. Anyway, we are all interested in the return of concerts.
What are you doing in this situation? You, companies that in recent years have recognized yourselves as having the best channels for promoting your products and promoting the whole drum community. Did you take that responsibility?
Meanwhile, you sit and wait. You want to hibernate and, with just a few exceptions, you don't take any proper action, adapted to the situation. We notice only a few shy actions, a few slogans.
Encouragement to play? You think you encourage people to play more by posting another video. The only thing you get from this is a "thumb up" and then people go to view another video about drumming or… funny cats. It has always been like this! This is nothing new, because direct contact with the instrument is always the greatest inspiration. A fat, Polish guy with a sausage in his hand in front of the monitor is not a potential user of your instruments. For now, only one company has posted an interesting initiative, it was quick and short.
Sale? Of course, now everyone must consider the decrease, but even in this situation, you can try to act on the right scale. As a company, you do not have an offer tailored to this situation, you do not promote products which in your catalogs work best for playing at home or will be closest to such action as #stayathome - in terms of price and purpose. This way you don't help your dealers. We need more direct cooperation!
Artists? Many of you offer now free lessons. You try to give a signal to people – „play”, great, but you do not think about all those, who now want to survive by offering their lessons online. Giving something for free is the worst thing to do and it will cost you a lot in the future! Believe me, this is being said by a man from a former communist country. You do not help your artists and you certainly don't invest in the next generation. These are short-term activities! We need direct contact, also through regional representatives. What should we tell our local drummers?
Everyone wants to minimize losses – which is obvious, however, we can see that it is „an action" through waiting and doing nothing. We do not see any attempt of taking action appropriate to this situation. Many weeks have already passed. In many places, you will have to wait a long time for any gatherings and live performances.Time is running out and with each moment playing drums falls to the background. Believe me, without a proper response right now, going back to normal will be hard.
We are all responsible for our music world. We are not biologists or doctors or even economists – our task is to ensure that our music world stays in the best shape during this difficult time.
Please, take this appeal into consideration and let’s save the music world and drum industry the best way we can!
