If you’ve ever seen a sticker or a shirt asking you to “support local music,” you might recognize the sense of pride found in small musical circles. You might nod or offer a smile and go about your way, or you might just roll your eyes and switch to the next song on your iPod.

But it’s hard not to at least notice the strong presence of local music in Ann Arbor. It's impossible to walk to class and not see a poster taped to the side of a building, rounder or coffee shop bulletin board advertising a local concert. Though the occasional marquee act may stop by Hill Auditorium or the Michigan Theater, Ann Arbor natives dominate most performances around town.

Everyone starts somewhere, and many of Ann Arbor’s local musicians got their start at the University of Michigan. High school friendships, music school projects and even JDate profiles can lay the foundation for lasting musical collaborations that extend far beyond the Diag. Rescheduled midterms, cut classes and weekends spent in vans are a common occurrence. Practice spaces can range from rooms in the music school to cramped basements of Ann Arbor houses.

Sometimes, the bands don't have any room to practice.

“When you’re playing enough shows strung together, they become your practice,” explained My Dear Disco's Tyler Duncan, one of the band's two keyboardists.

Currently on tour in Colorado and gradually snaking its way back to Ann Arbor with stops in Kansas and Iowa, My Dear Disco is merely one of the many popular local bands for University students. The band, currently made up of seven graduates of the University’s School of Music, has gone through several lineup changes over the years.

“The band was first called Toolbox,” Duncan recalled. “But our first gig as My Dear Disco was at the Blind Pig.”

Ah, the Blind Pig. Planted snugly above the 8 Ball Saloon on the corner of Washington and First Avenue, the Pig is a relatively modest venue, but its importance to the local music of Ann Arbor runs deep. Whether it's housing a familiar crowd of locals and students stopping by to see their favorite Ann Arbor act or just folks stopping by to pick up cheap beer and catch a good, up-close-and-personal concert, the Blind Pig has been an invaluable resource for developing most bands in the area.

Jason Berry, in charge of booking for the venue, is primarily responsible for selecting the bands that come through, and he doesn’t forget a face.

“Once you’re in their world, they have a vested interest in helping you grow,” said Jonathan Visger of local mainstay band Mason Proper — a group of University graduates whose new album Olly Oxen Free recently garnered a favorable review from the respected indie webzine Pitchfork. But as much as Jason and the folks at the Blind Pig do their best to help out, there’s still a seemingly endless amount of drudgework to be done. “It’s a matter of constantly reminding people that you exist,” Jonathan continued. “Bands that ruthlessly self-promote tend to do a lot better much quicker.”

“You really have to promote yourself,” said Ryan Sloan of Farewell Republic, an inventive post-rock outfit that happens to be playing a show tonight at the Blind Pig with Detroit’s Satin Peaches. “In Ann Arbor, you learn how to build your chops as a promotion machine.”

In actuality, promoting shows extends far beyond the thousands of posters adorning Ann Arbor's façades: Tools like Facebook and MySpace prove essential to reaching larger crowds, and local press is more than happy to put in a blurb about an upcoming show every now and then.

While most bands that call Ann Arbor home would be considered “indie,” the term has become as broad as, say, “alternative” was by the end of the ’90s. The broad spectrum of “indie rock” serves as an umbrella term for the eclectic sounds present across the Ann Arbor music scene. Bands like Lightning Love are notably peppier, with more dance and pop-oriented sounds.