When it comes to collaborating and networking with other musicians, it is no secret that it unlocks a whole new level of benefits that can advance your skills and career objectives as a whole. Not only does it allow you to gain new perspectives and insight to become more creative, but it can be the very ticket for you to grow your fan base, expand your production knowledge, and make a significant name for yourself. And you know what? The process goes both ways because you can be that person for others to jumpstart their musical journey as well.
However, as you may have already guessed, COVID-19 drastically altered the way on how to find musicians right now. The days of meeting someone on set, during a tour, and finding musicians to meet up with in person are certainly not on the radar. Fortunately, this is a highly digital time period with many applications and communities that allow you to find musicians online.
With that being said, to give you some more guidance on some ways to connect with musicians online, below are some spearheading resources that you can start utilizing today to get back on track with your goals, despite what is going on outside.
1. Kompoz
As their slogan demonstrates, Kompoz is a wonderful online collaborative community for musicians to connect and with people across the world or right down the street. Using this site, you can upload your songs and invite others to come in and evaluate and offer suggestions to make it even better. You can also find musicians from anywhere and build a respected group to bring a new song to life.
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2. Soundtrap
Next up is Soundtrap. Owned by Spotify, Soundtrap is a much more modern DAW that is entirely online. Here you can record your own music, develop new, creative beats, start a podcast if you wanted to, and can send/edit tracks to others who can help position it to its fullest potential.
Fun Fact: According to Soundtrap, 88% of music makers believe that collaboration is what increases creativity.
3. Soundstorming
Are you someone who has a habit of recording a melody from a riff idea you stored in your voice memos on your smartphone? If so, then Soundstorming may be the best solution for you to have more organized foundations and gain support from other musicians simultaneously. This app gives musicians like yourself the ability to collaborate with others and become more discoverable because you can upload your content to the global community of musicians. These musicians can then layer their own ideas, melodies, and lyrics onto your original sounds, thus allowing you to create a new song or a full-blown album with people all over the world.
4. Trackd
Trackd is another favorable resource mainly because it is a free collative social app that works. This application gives musicians simple, quick, and collaborative music-making capabilities. When using it, you can find musicians online on a global scale, chat and network within the app, ping others for ideas, and share your music on various social media sites, all from your phone. Who knows, you may not only find musicians to work with on there, but form new friendships along the way as well.
5. BandLab
As previously highlighted in the blog post called How Music Schools Are Making Online Classes Work, BandLab is a great way to connect with musicians online. This is a cloud-based application that grants access to any musician you want to collaborate with and allows you to gain inspiration from others with the same objectives as yours. It also offers several virtual instruments, effects, and is filled with cutting edge features that make recording a song, even on your phone, a seamless process.
Musician Networking and Collaboration Is Still Possible
As you can see, there are several different options that you can choose from in this age of Covid-19 and well beyond to stay engaged with musicians. Now, the thing to remember is that these applications and networking communities are not the only ways to connect with musicians online. For example, here at the MI College of Contemporary Music, MI students have an entire social networking platform to find other musicians to collaborate with. It even offers them the ability to discover jobs, gigs, and find studio time.
Overall, online resources for musicians is not something new per se, but it is more critical now than ever before. So, regardless of the pandemic or not, take advantage of the ever-evolving technology you have access to. Conclusively, using these tools is the sure-fire way to build strong relationships with other musicians and have the support necessary to continue making statement-making music now and in the future, regardless of being physically apart.