Should organists have a Youtube channel?

A couple of years ago I created YouTube channel to my colleague organist here in Vilnius.

I said, "You will be the third organist in Lithuania who will have YouTube channel."

She asked, "Who are the first two?"

"It's me and Ausra."

I helped her upload two of her videos to her channel and share them on social media.

Isn't it strange? Out of all those organists here in my country majority of them still don't have online professional video presence.

Here's the thing: Today I checked her channel and these two videos were still the only ones uploaded.

So do organists really need YouTube channel?

No, if you just leave it there all alone. No, if you never do anything with it. No, if you never share the videos on your organ blog.

You see, your YouTube channel is like a tree that you planted. You have to take care of it and water it. Otherwise it will wither and die.

What can your channel do for you?

First of all, it's a credibility platform. And your subscribers and comments are instant social proof that you can play in public well.

When you write your proposal to a festival asking for an opportunity to play, how else can you proof you can play in public? Of course, with your organ videos.

Perhaps you even have your sample recital program uploaded there so that organizers can watch and listen for themselves if you are worth the risk.

But it will not do anything for you, if you only upload once a year. You have to upload regularly. It's like a blog, only with video. In fact, video blogs are called vlogs.

I like to record my practices, my recitals, my organ playing advice and upload to YouTube.

Please don't tell me you don't have the necessary equipment. Just about every organist today has a phone and normal phones today have HD cameras and good microphones.

So you probably have a full-blown video recording suite carrying with you in your pocket at all times. The question is what you do with it?

​I hope you upload your next video soon and start empowering yourself.