Introduction

Goals, communication, and genre. These are a few abstract ideas that all artists should be able to comprehend and incorporate into their work. When applied to a whole community of artists, these components are elevated to a new level of importance. Communities that aim to achieve a common goal through a particular form of communication are called discourse communities. Because members need some understanding of the vocabulary in use, discourse communities can seem exclusive. However, that same use of vocabulary also helps members give valuable feedback to one another. The community’s shared goals may also be facilitated with the help of the more experienced members. To better understand this concept, discourse community expert Thomas Deans describes them as "a group of people unified by patterns of language use, shared assumptions, common knowledge, and parallel habits of interpretation."

The community of interest in this case goes by the name of Promoting Beats. Simply put, the main goal of the community is to promote the music made by its members. It’s also a place for music artists and producers to network with each other for possible collaborations. Promoting Beats is classified as a discourse community because the language that is used is unique to producers and artists alike. One must understand the concept of loops, placements, “bpm”, and key signatures like C minor. Using these specific words help to facilitate and organize collaboration between members. Experts in the community are given roles that label their profiles as “admin”. In terms of genre, both Youtube and Discord are used to connect with an audience as well as with internal members. Here, Discord will be the main focus because it shows the way that online communication between artists encourages success in the music industry.

If you are a casual listener of music, you may be unaware of the complications between an artist and the label that they have signed to. In order to get the proper exposure of what is considered a “mainstream” artist, they must sign away a portion of their music to a label through a contract. However, the labels are currently being pushed out of the equation. Through online platforms, artists can now distribute their own music and keep a hundred percent of their royalties. But becoming “independent” is not an easy task to accomplish alone. With communities like Promoting Beats, it becomes much easier for producers to get the support, feedback, and exposure that they wouldn’t necessarily get on their own. This is why I pose the question: “as an online community, how does Promoting Beats allow upcoming artists and producers to shape their own career in music?”