21st Century Musican Episode 3: Virtual Shows
I am so thankful that you're here. Thank you so much for coming!
One of my favorite things to do in the beginning of every episode is to highlight an artist to the day. So without further ado, let's get to it. This is all about my good friend, Adam Levy, who toured with Norah Jones, playing that song probably every night for eight years or so; so while Adam didn't write that riff, he played it a whole lot. Adam and I have been friends for many years now, and I've always been a fan of Adam's work. Probably the first record that really grabbed me of Adams was a 2013 release called Portuguese Subtitles. I think I listened to that record about a thousand times now, it's so, so good, and if you like tasty, it's hard playing, really cool songwriting with a stellar band. In addition to singer/songwriter records, he's done a lot of instrumental records to stuff with like Tony Mason and Rich Hinman, just to name a few. He's based in LA and he's very active playing there all the time, so whenever this pandemic’s over, be sure to check him out. If you're also a young guitar player or even an advanced one, he offers a variety of online lessons and there's not many people better to study with, I think, in the country today. So check out Adam Levy!
It's time to get to the topic at hand.
So let's go. Today, I am very excited to talk about virtual online concerts, so unless you just live underneath a brick, you've probably seen a thousand of these things now happening in people's living rooms since the pandemic started, and while some of them probably sounded really good and a lot of them sounded pretty bad, everyone is just doing the best they can so that they can make a buck and get by in this really, really hard time. Initially, it didn't matter necessarily what your production value was, you could just throw up any sort of concert online on Facebook or YouTube, not really worry much about the audio quality and not really worry much about the lighting - and boom, you are off to the races and making a fair amount of money. Now that we're pushing six months or so into this pandemic, it's starting to look a little different. People are getting a little bit tired of the model and they're not really tuning in as much. Even though everybody's a little fatigued on the whole live stream in your bedroom kind of concert idea right now, this concept is not going away, and even if you've waited this long to get involved in it, now is the time to start.
I'm gonna give you a few things that will help you out in your process of luring in a consistent audience.
Sounds like fun, right? Rule number one is something that I think prohibits most people from even starting. It is simply just start making content. Do yourself a favor, don't get paralyzed about the whole issue of putting on a live stream and everything being perfect from the start, the fact is no one is an expert at this right now, and I think it's important that you just get out there and you start doing it. Yes, would it be nice if you knew every single in and out of a live stream and how to avoid all of its problems from the start, of course, but most people just get stuck there and bogged down and never actually get to the live stream because they need a certain type of camera, or they need a certain type of lighting rig, or they need to know something else that I'm not thinking of in this moment; the truth is, is each time you're gonna get better, so just start. It can be really simple, really short, it doesn't have to be an hour or anything, it can be just a little bit of time, so you get a taste of what it's like and how to improve the overall quality, which gets me to rule number two.
Before you ask, just give.
When you start out, don't ask for demanding a ticket price or anything. Personally, I think you're missing a really great opportunity to build trust between you and an audience, unless you're like a midsized level band or higher. It's really important for you to build a community that will follow you with everything that you do, even beyond this pandemic. By drawing people in with something for free, it gives them a chance to connect with you, and it also kinda lowers the standards of what is expected for this particular live stream - you don't have to have all the sound figured out, you don't have to have all the lighting figured out, you don't even have to have your set figured out all the way, (although I would probably recommend that). The fact is, it just gives you a chance to connect with people in real time in a relaxed setting. Remember, you're learning here, so it's about not having everything perfect from the start and building that history. This is for everyone, by the way, this is not just for singer/songwriters that can sing and play. If you're an instrumentalist, you should be playing instrumentally, even if you're like a drummer or something, find some loops, put on a click and play along to a track or something that people might know, or just put on a weird percussion track and practice improvising around it and then talk about what you do. You will be surprised how many people really want to hear what you do and also experience what you do in this time. Remember, you're learning a valuable skill, you're learning how to bring people in and connect with them and also get feedback from them while you're there, which... Oh, by the way, I think is number three.
Number three, ask people about what they want to hear.
By just simply including them in the process, they're gonna get to know you better, and they're also going to say, ‘hey, can you play this really cool drum part, say if you're a drummer to this particular song because I've never seen anybody play it before and it just totally baffles me’ and boom, you've got an idea for the next episode of what you can play already. Sometimes simply just polling the audience is the best way to figure out what to do next. And I think that if you just put yourself out there and you do it, you'd be surprised what might come up and what also might inspire you for new directions for your future streams by just simply including them in the process. You're building that connection, but there is something you can do during this whole process to continually get better.
Number four consult people that you know that it's already doing this.
And ask them for tips. I'm pretty sure everybody at this point has friends has been doing this, so just reach out to them, don't be shy. I'm sure they would love to talk about their process and help you in the beginning of your process to hopefully avoid some of the pitfalls. Pitfalls could be everything from lighting to tech things or just topical things that didn't really go anywhere for them, it'll save you some time and some frustration too. This also opens up the door for something really cool that will also grow your viewership faster, and that's collaboration - someone may be willing to do a live stream with you (socially distant of course), and that might actually give you the chance to see their process and learn first hand.
Finally, rule number five, if you really wanna speed up the viewership of your channel, learn how to use Facebook advertising or whatever platform you're using.
Learn how to use advertising on that. It's really not that difficult and it will save you a lot of money in advertising for a long, long, long time, because right now, it's a great time to buy Facebook ads, and not that little pesky boost button that is super lazy and super broad and doesn't focus in on the people that you need to see your stuff. Learn a little bit about Facebook ads and see your viewership just be transformed.