Throughout my time here I have noticed that a large majority of those on the Musical Practice & Performance SE are one or another type of computer programmer with some musical knowledge.
While this participation is good, and I'm not suggesting that they're not "real" musicians, I was wondering how SE might attract more musicians with formal training to the site to (hopefully) take it out of Beta and provide a more consistent and thorough knowledge base?
I have a feeling that the "Beta state" of the site itself is holding us back. This is not a big deal for programmers, as it's a known concept to them. But for non-programmers, it's more likely to give a perception of "not serious" and "unfinished". In my view this gives the wrong impression as the StackExchange engine is in no way an unfinished product. It's a well-tuned engine that works perfect in every aspect of what it's intended for.
So my wish for a while has been to give the site a "released" look although still in beta. It is not unheard of, as the UX site did get it's finished theme while still in beta, but with the word "beta" still visible in the logo. I think a better look with a more "musical" GUI theme will attract more new "non-programmer" users.
The site has been around for a long time, and it is still growing, although not enough in all the aspects that would tip us over to full graduation. But enough to prove that the site is here to stay.
My plan was this: I'm going to print up some flyers to distribute at music colleges
It is aiming at those undergoing tuition, rather than professionals, but I hope it will work. I'm going with that fleet detail as final unless you have improvement suggestions.
I've been Promoting this place On Google Plus to various musical communities, whenever the topic of places to learn comes up: https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/105787214854522083467
http://www.reddit.com/r/musictheory and http://www.reddit.com/r/guitar were recommended in a few other places, might be worth spending some time on there and seeing How we compare.
Other than that I think our best source of musicians is out there in the real world.
What about getting in contact with some institutions of music around the country. Personally, if we could get one of the guys from Guitar Techniques, or Pat Pattinson(the songwriting teacher at Berklee) I would be stoked! And getting just one or 2 tribe leaders as their called would skyrocket the user count on the site!
If some people here go to big music events like NAMM this can be a good opportunity to promote this site, but it might need something more organized than just some people distributing flyers. That's why I suggested having Bubbles there (does SE still do that ?) or being present in a booth through a partnership with a company that is already there. Maybe something related to learning instrument, a school, an sheet editor, Arobas Music (Guitar Pro)...
