CNN ran a story on the 29th May about Concerts merge live, Internet and virtual world which poses a number of questions for all of us interested in virtual live performances, whatever your role.
“Live events could be the music “product” of the future” they state, with the capstone being “But once that curiosity factor dies, will anybody still care?”
Komuso Tokugawa
Based on my extensive experience performing in SL over the last year and a half [300+ gigs] and building a successful in-world micro-community based around Live performance as the core goal [as opposed to acting primarily as a CD sales pitch] I would say yes, but not for the reasons that the current crop of brand marketers and record company execs might think!
This NYT article also touches on some interesting points related to getting in closer contact with your fan base and the issues in managing it.
Here’s a quick shortlist of some of the current players, apart from SecondLife, that are in this space. I’ll be reviewing these in more detail from different perspectives [performer, audience, advertiser, etc] in future posts.
MTV with Virtual Laguna Beach and Virtual Lower East Side. 3pointD have a short piece on the vLES here.
The virtual Lower East Side is based on the Doppleganger platform apparently, who already have MusicLounge in beta.
Nightlife Interactive also appear to have something in play.
The Videoranch seems to based around professional musicians, and I’ll be checking that out this week.
MusicWorld3D rounds off this quick shortlist.
Update:
vSide from Doppleganger has launched, with a walled garden brand marketing focus on the teen market. They have just signed their first reup with Interscope records, who seem to have been involved with the music lounge mentioned above, which itself has now morphed into vSide.
Stay tuned for more in depth looks at the above!]]>
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It’s tough when you are a self taught musician. At some point you reach a musical brickwall…you keep playing the same riffs over and over, no way to move on.
Usually this is due to two things:
Limited musical theory knowledge
Limited technique
I recently came across two great resources:
Online voice training - Explore your voice
How music really works ebook [hmmm, I wish I’d seen this before I did my Masters Degree!
Highly recommended!
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Following on from Musician vs. Venue
where I posted on Joshua Bell’s Busking experiment.
It’s a good read, but it does deserve some critical analysis as well.
Sawlady is a perceptive one from an experienced street musician, with whom I agree that busking itself is an art form.
I’ve spent time in the past as a street musician in various european cities, including 7+ months on Las Ramblas in Barcelona way back in 91 [I think]
As I’ve said before [ slmusic blog ], playing in sl/metavers [atm] is to me a cross between street playing and a small bar. You have to connect with the audience, as saw lady points out, but at the same time [as any experienced street musician will tell you. especially one who does not have an experienced hat worker helping them increase the take] you cannot play with the thought of money in your mind.
If you play with the thought of tips in your mind it seems to disturb the ability to connect with your musical core, in my experience. You have to play as if you don’t care how much you get for the gig [and sometimes you will get almost nothing;-)]
In general tho, I’ve found this attitude frees your mind to concentrate on the most important thing - playing the music that will allow you to connect with the listeners. It’s a little bit of street zen, but that’s the nature of a job where you can’t force people to pay you what you think you are worth.
I was talking about this with Ricardo Sprocket recently and he mentioned a HBO special on street musicians where an old blues guy on a corner put it best when he said:
“when i first started i’d get upset cause i’d have days when nobody put money in the case. but soon i learned that if you make it about the money the music suffers, so i just come out here and play the best i can every day and appreciate what i get.”
Of course there are tricks of the trade to stimulate or embarress people into giving, but these are not really genuine and if you resort to them they will not help you build a base of loyal music followers, though they may increase your income in the short term.
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