When you start looking for live music in Charleston… how do you begin?
One word.
Search.
We used to pick up the paper or the local music mag when searching out the best local live music. However, most people these days begin online with their favorite search engine.
Google.
Broad to Narrow
One of the keys to searching out information online is to start broad and narrow your focus as you progress.
When beginning a local music search, type broad keywords into the search field such as “live music” followed by the city and state in which you are searching… in this case it is “charleston sc.” You may also type in a shorter, related phrase “charleston live music.”
Google Instant
Another search tip is to take advantage of the newish Google Instant feature. This allows you to see search results as you type.
Exploring with the Instant feature yields an idea I had yet to think of (“charleston live music calendar”) along with some popular choices in the Places listing below like the Music Farm.
The benefit here is that you can get ideas for additional searches. By deleting “live” from my first search, “charleston music” yields a new music venue (“charleston music hall”) and a popular general search phrase (“charleston music venues”).
So far, we have two focused search phrases: “charleston live music calendar” and “charleston music venues.” When opting for “live music charleston sc,” the search engine results page reveals additional routes for drilling down and focusing your search:
Charleston City Paper = local free paper
Chas. Cocktail & Chas. Insider’s Guide = local music directory
Also, the “Searches related to live music charleston sc” show related searches that closely match the one you just conducted. Clicking on “concerts charleston sc” at the bottom of the page leads us to a Places listing for the Charleston Concert Association. This would be another focused category “charleston music organizations.”
Search Again (With a Focus)
From here you can type in search phrases like “charleston music venues,” “charleston papers,” “charleston music directory,” and “charleston music organizations.”
Among the many great music venues in Charleston are the North Charleston Coliseum & Performing Arts Center, Charleston Music Hall, Pour House, Windjammer, Home Team BBQ, Wild Wing Cafe, Trio Club, and Tin Roof.
Resident Charleston organizations like the Charleston Symphony Orchestra*, Chamber Music Charleston*, Jazz Artists of Charleston, New Music Collective, and the Charleston Library Society can be found by searching “charleston classical music,” “charleston jazz music,” and “charleston music organizations.”
There are several music festivals that call Charleston home and can easily be discovered by typing in “music festivals charleston sc.” This search query yields several results like the ever popular Spoleto Festival USA, Piccolo Spoleto, and MOJA Arts Festival. Similarly, the search phrase “charleston concert series” yields results like the local favorites Reggae Nights Concert Series by the Charleston County Parks & Rec, Monday Night Concerts by College of Charleston, and Rockin’ on the Point.
Site Search
Another search tip is to use the search engines on these websites once you find them.
Sites for local publications like the Charleston City Paper, The Digitel, Charlie, or Charleston Scene are also great resources for live music. Once you are on these sites, you can further drill down your search using their internal site search engines.
The same thing can be said for local colleges and universities. You might not know what the website address is for music area of College of Charleston or Charleston Southern University. However, getting to the homepages of these schools is fairly easy.
Type in “college of charleston” into a Google box, and click on the blue link for the school titled College Home – College of Charleston.
Once you are on the school’s website, type “music” into the search box on the right side of the home page and hit the Enter key.
Here you have the search engine results for the CofC website and the second result is the one desired music.cofc.edu/index.php. Click it and head to the Department of Music page.
Once you are on the Music Dept. page, look on the right hand side and click on “more events” under the E V E N T S section in the sidebar.
Now you can narrow your search by typing in “music” into the Keyword(s) field and click Search. Once you have narrowed your search on the College of Charleston website to just the music events, you can view all of their offerings throughout the school year (most of which are free and open to the public). Repeat this process for other schools in the Charleston and surrounding area.
Local Search Engines
Local search engines like Yelp, CitySearch, Yahoo! Local, and SuperPages are great places where you can do some further live music finding. Here you can get hyper local with a street address, city & state or zip code.
Live Music Resources
Other live music resources that are worthy of bookmarking include JamBase, Pollstar, ReverbNation, eTix, and TicketMaster.
In Review
As you can see there are many facets to searching out local live music online. Search is the most popular starting point and there are various ways to get to the desired information. Starting broad and narrowing the focus is usually the best strategy. Mixing up you use of major, local, and site search engines combined with some comprehensive music databases should help you find the best live music in Charleston SC.
* For ticketed events, always ask about special prices for students and make sure you take your ID with you.
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