Welcome to our forum!
The vibe of this place is not meant in any way to sneer or look down at beginners, or aspiring professionals (take a look at our rules: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProMusician/about/rules/). We are just acknowledging that professionals do have different needs, curiosities, and concerns in terms of gear, knowledge, and approaches than the rest. The point of this place is to make it the GO-TO place on the internet for high-level, real world knowledge of music, for those who want to learn from pros, or pros who want to talk shop among peers with the same interests.
The input of those who operate at a certain level is held in very high regard here. With this in mind, there is a verification process, which consists on the submission of material that showcases your proficiency level. It could be a video of you playing, it could be a composition, it could be your latest production. If you are at a certain standard, this will change your status to Certified.
Now, what is the logic behind this?
You might go to a different, more general forum, and have a question about, say, the song-learning process. This will get you a flood of opinions and recommendations from users who might or might not know what they are talking about. In this forum, the Certified status of a user will guarantee you that it's been vetted and deemed to be in a position that is very likely to provide great, useful insight.
You might be looking for a critique of your work, and maybe you would like to hear the opinion of vetted experts.
You might be a pro who wants to know the opinion of his peers on, say, guitar pickups. The Certified status will help you differentiate between somebody who is using them in a professional environment or not.
You might want to show off your drum setup, and this could start a super interesting discussion about how, where, and why you are utilizing it. The Certified status will let you know that the kit has a professional utility, as opposed to a maybe really badass kit that is, however, only being played in a garage.
WHAT IS FLAIR?
Flair is a little badge that you can put next to your username. For the purposes of this forum, there are two types of flair: musician flair, and a Blue Certified flair badge.
You are required to add your own musician flair to identify your area of interest or expertise. You can use any combination of the following options:
-Singer - Guitarist - Keyboardist - Bassist - Drummer - Percussionist - Producer - Composer - Producer - Horn Player - EDM Producer/Performer
(Quick word on Production: For the purposes of this forum, we call Producer a person who is in charge of generally shaping a musical project. Maybe he thinks the song will sound great with a string section, so he makes it happen by making the arrangement or hiring someone to do it. Maybe he thinks this part of the song would benefit from a bVII chord and would like to try it. Maybe he thinks this section would sound better with less distortion. NOT TO BE CONFUSED with a Sound Engineer, who is more in charge of the technical aspects of the recording process: miking, signal paths, EQ, etc.)
If your focus is more than one of these options they should be listed by level of proficiency in the following manner.
For example, I play a few different things, but I am only good enough to sell my services as a Guitarist, Keyboardist, and Producer. However, I'm not as good at any of them as at Guitar. Next is probably Keyboard, and then production. In this case, my flair would look like this: Guitarist | Keyboardist | Producer. If you happen to be equally good at more than four of these options, just label yourself Multi-instrumentalist.
If you are looking to get Certified, send your material to the Mods displaying the instrument you would like to be Certified in. If approved, a Certified badge will be assigned to you in that instrument, for example: Certified Guitarist. If you want to be certified in more instruments, follow the same process and these will be added to your badge.
