We recently connected with Mathew Rakers and have shared our conversation below.
Mathew, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Going back to the beginning – how did you come up with the idea in the first place?
I started The San Diego Music And Art Company in 2014 at the age of 27 to address a number of systemic issues in the music industry. At the time, I had been working for and managing other teaching studios in the area, and found that most studios were operating in such a way that was removed from the individuals that comprised their businesses. It was important to me to allow instructors to use the physical infrastructure of the business to build their own professional and creative careers.
Initially, I started the business as a freelancer cooperative. When AB5 passed in 2019 and freelancing was effectively banned in the industry, I pivoted the business into being a more traditional model while continuing to offer a number of services to our instructors and clients such as free rehearsal space, free monthly recitals, higher quality instruments, discounted training, investment in our instructors, and more. We currently enjoy unanimous 5 star reviews across every platform.
In 2018 I approached a recording studio with the offer of bringing in a number of musicians who had been rehearsing for free with the idea of creating an independent record label, Moonquake Records, that would support progressive music in San Diego. In 2021, the partnership fell apart when the recording studio attempted to raise recording rates by 400%. This increase coincided with SDMAAC having doubled in size as a business over the course of the two year partnership.
In response, I exited the partnership and built a recording studio inside SDMAAC to continue offering discounted recording services to our instructors and affiliated musicians.
In late 2019, SDMAAC was totaled by a city water main breaking. We watched as a piano moving company ripped off the City of San Diego by charging for a number of unnecessary moves. In response, I started Move Your Piano San Diego with our guitar instructor Ryan Bradley to move and service pianos at affordable and predictable rates.
In 2021, as businesses began opening up and Covid 19 began to dissipate, I was approached to partner in a booking company to help establish live music programs. I joined to help in the effort to rebuild gigging opportunities after almost all the gigging musicians had been put out of work for over a year. After two years of labor, in 2023, and growing the business by over 500% since joining, I found that I had never been added to the LLC paperwork and we were being used as a credit card for labor. In response, I exited the booking company, and started the 501c3, The Musicians Empowerment Collective, to address systemic issues in the booking industry while using the profits to establish grants for low income musicians.
In 2022, in response to economic caps for music instructors, I partnered with one of our more successful piano instructors, Kevin Capacia, to create a rapidly growing second music studio, The Escondido Music and Art Company. EMAAC also has unanimous 5 star reviews on every platform we are on.
The nonprofit has allowed non-traditional venues including SDMAAC, to have access to event and alcohol permitting for events, and the profit from those events goes directly towards improving the community, while the events themselves support progressive music in all it’s forms.
Over the last ten years, creating structures to compete with dysfunctional inherited systems has been the general concept in my business practices. I like thinking about how to improve the world and turning those thoughts into tangible action. I derive a lot of meaning from seeing my competing structures succeed and reframe the landscape I participate in.
We currently exist in a late stage capitalism and live in a situation defined by a number of systems that were historically successful but have not adapted to the shifting realities of the modern landscape. In the acknowledgement and reaction to those situations, there is a good amount of meaningful albeit difficult opportunity.
Mathew, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I started training as a pianist at the age of 5 with a Hungarian pianist, Olga Jacoby. I did competitive and adjudicated piano playing till I was 17 when I started playing in indie bands as a guitarist and keyboardist. I started composing when I was 13. I wrote my first (poorly written and unpublished) novel when I was 17. When I was 19, I started working professionally as a teacher and accompanist. I owned my first business when I was 26. I’ve been training with a number of professional classical pianists throughout my life and have spent the most time training with Dr. Diane Snodgrass, a former San Diego Symphony pianist.
Apart from running businesses, I currently work a lot as a free improviser, composer, and classical piano instructor.
On a business level, I am most proud of persevering through a number of difficult situations where giving up would have been a much easier and understandable option. On an artistic level, I am most proud of having improved my musical stream of consciousness to the point that I can effortlessly create an experience for listeners that is true to who I am and how I think in music.
What sets my group of businesses apart from other businesses in the industry is culture. We are a more disciplined group of people with an infrastructure that supports creativity on both the level of our staff and the level of our clients. We value improvement. As a result of our society, the primary value system of most people I’ve encountered is monetary. I like to think that the systems I’ve created and the individuals that comprise my structures have value systems of meaning as opposed to money.
Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?
My life is very informed by literature. I think most literature is about telling the truth in it’s various forms, and the repercussions for doing so or not doing so. I enjoy reading and writing. Here’s a list of ten important works in my landscape, in no particular order that have affected how I function.
Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
Siddartha by Herman Hesse
A Personal Matter by Kenzaburo Oe
Hard Boiled Wonderland and The End of the World by Haruki Murakami
Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Kokoro by Natsume Soseki
The Rebel by Albert Camus
The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
One lesson that I have to regularly unlearn is my general optimism about people. I wish that people were more self aware and empathetic. I wish that their value systems were more reflective of deeper states of being and higher forms of consciousness. More so than anything else, my optimism about people versus the reality of how people operate with one another is what has put me in troubling situations.
After dealing with both successful and unsuccessful partnerships, I’ve recognized that it’s best to operate with caution in regards to others while trying to be humanistic and helpful.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.sdmaac.com www.escondidomaac.com www.mecinfo.org www,moonquakerecords.bandcamp.com
- Instagram: @sandiegomusicandart @musiciansempowermentnpo @matrakers @escondidomusicandart @moonquakerecords
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesdmaac/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mathew-rakers-b00391b7/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCt-QX7AO9bM1UYwGHnzVr6A
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/the-san-diego-music-and-art-san-diego-2
Image Credits
Anastasya Korol