Greater Hamilton Musician has been here since 2011. Our aim is to accurately represent the music scene in the Greater Hamilton area in all its diversity and depth, people, places, and events.
The online site, hamiltonmusician.com, has a subscriber base of over 550 people from the greater Hamilton area. Most are musicians. Greater Hamilton Musician tries to support emerging and existing Hamilton area musical talent. We like to include Burlington, Oakville, and Brantford in that. Each month, Hamilton Musician reviews, interviews, announces and features a variety of local musical artists and acts. They are full-time and part-time professional musicians, and music hobbyists. We don't discriminate. And we like to include stories about music schools and musical instruction too.
Artists can connect and tell their story.
We think it is important for local musicians to send us content about what they're planning and gigs they've done. But at the same time we encourage musicians to try to send in a story along with their event announcement, because stories are more fun to read! This especially goes for promoters and entertainment companies who may be tempted to just blast out event announcements to us.
Your event announcement may be ignored, because people prefer to read stories with a human angle, not just announcements.
When we publish a story, we will embed links to the artist's website of choice.
Cash payment isn't made for online publication. However, in-kind payment in the form of links to the artist's or venue's website are always given, and photo credit with a link is given to photographers.
Please refer to the Canadian Style guide, which is our reference.
Print Editions
In December 2012 the first Hamilton Musicians Annual was printed. Two-thousand copies were distributed around the region. A year later, the 2nd edition was printed with 2500 copies produced.
If you are interested in querying the editor about a story idea for the print edition, please email editor@gbrpublications.com.
What to write about?
What makes a Greater Hamilton Musician story? We try to engage our audience through intelligent writing, insight, humour, and accurate musical and music industry knowledge.
- We greatly value exclusive interviews with local artists and arts supporters/administrators/event-makers who exemplify quality, passion, and performance talent in our local music scene.
- We look for articles with unique, unexpected angles and for subjects that will remain fresh.
- We seek writing that educates our readers about new performance ideas, new opportunities to earn income, and new ways of using technology.
- We prefer balanced critical reviews over fawning fan reviews.
Write for the 2014 Hamilton Musicians Annual
Greater Hamilton Musician will be commissioning specific stories for exclusive first publication in the 2014 Musicians Annual, to be published and distributed in December 2014. We seek articles that focus on these topics:
- local trends, news, and developments with a focus on music’s role and key people
- musician wellness and lifestyle
- performance skills and philosophy
- sound and recording technology, equipment and repair
- marketing yourself as a musician and getting gigs
- managing money, income, and doing business as a musician
- music history of Hamilton, Burlington, Oakville or Brantford
- high profile local musician stories and interviews
- behind the scenes people: talent buyers, technicians, producers, music administrators
- photo essays/reviews
How do you pitch us?
Outline your story idea and your approach, writing your query in the same tone that you’re proposing for your piece. Why should Hamilton Musician publish your story? Why should you write it? And why now?
Your pitch needs to be specific. Outlining your idea in a one-page e-mail is sufficient. Please paste the content of your pitch into the body of your e-mail to us. No attachments please. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts or writing on spec.
We assume you’re pitching an original story idea and not pitching the same idea to several publications simultaneously. Let us know if this is not the case.
If you are including photographs, please make sure you have permission to use the photos, and give credit to the photographer.
Photographs and Photographers
You are invited to send low-resolution photographs for consideration. Please keep in mind that we are all about musicians from the greater Hamilton area including Burlington, Oakville, Hamilton, and Brantford. Out-of-town shots of our local artists are awesome! Local shots of local performances are great too. Amateur and professional, serious and hobby musicians are all welcome.
Photo essays of performances are welcome, as are individual photographs. Please include the date, venue, name of artist/band, and the occasion. Photos that are selected for publication on hamiltonmusician.com will have your name credited in the caption, and a link to your website. Photos that are selected for the printed Musicians Annual will be paid for, prices negotiable.
Please e-mail photos and editorial queries to editor@gbrpublications.com..
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