The Pemberton Academy
After going hard on TikTok recently, I noticed that people have been resonating with my posts about being a Pitchfork reviewer in the early 2000s. They have so many questions about how I got into music journalism as a teenager. But there are also others out there wondering about how I got my start as a musician or became poet laureate. There’s a lot of curiosity about what it takes to actually do this professionally, how the sausage gets made.
I had the experience of being a guest mentor at the Banff Centre for their Singer Songwriter residency back in 2020. I got to draw on my decades of experience in the music industry to give artists advice about various aspects of being a professional musician. I’ve enjoyed other moments where I’ve gotten to play a mentorship role over the years as well.
These experiences made me think about the idea of building a content library with as much useful information as possible in it to put it up here on my Substack as a permanent resource. Enter the Pemberton Academy. Whether you’re an aspiring musician or a curious music fan, the Pemberton Academy content library will provide useful insights into the professional artist’s process from a Polaris Prize winning musician.
I will add new entries to the library as paid posts over the coming months. Upcoming courses include:
How to prepare for a DJ set
How to build a team as a musician
How to compose lyrics
How to write a book
World Building 101
You can get full access to the Pemberton Academy library by becoming a paid subscriber:
