There’s no sugarcoating it, the next few months are going to be a pretty awful time for musos. With all of your gigs being cancelled you’re left with no cash and no stage to perform on.
Below we’ve put together a list of, mostly free, things you can do in this downtime to fight the blues and maybe generate some funds to help you through.
We know it’s not a solution to the massive issues you’re currently facing, but we hope it helps.
Get Modular
Cherry Audio has been overwhelmed by musos affected by the COVID-19 outbreak. They too all staying at home and want to do their part to help.
To help fight the no gig blues they have made their Voltage Modular Nucleus FREE for everybody to download. It’s a complete modular synthesis package, with 22 modules and over 130 presets, for OSX and Windows. So if you’ve never had the chance or time to dive into the world of modular synthesis, now if the perfect opportunity.
Write a song and win $50,000
The 2020 Vanda & Young Global Songwriting Competition is now open for submissions and there’s a $50,000 first prize up for grabs. What better time to start writing your next song!
The $50,000 first prize is the largest first-place prize for any songwriting competition in the world, so there’s plenty of reasons to get writing.
Moog your iPad
Moog is currently giving away the impressive model d synthesizer app and you’re gonna have a bunch of fun with it.
It’s a replication of an iconic instrument and it comes with 160 free presets for you to start playing with. There’s also real-time looping with overdub and you can share your creations directly from the app.
Get your website happening
Many music-loving people know that local artists are staring down the barrel of a pretty rough time over the next few months and a lot want to help. If you’ve never had the time to set up a website to sell your music, crowdfund your next release or start building an online community around your art, now is a great time to get started.
There are a bunch of great free services that offer free options including Wix and Weebly, but we’re really fond of a service called musicglue.com that only charge you a commission on anything you sell.
Find out more about musicglue.com
Live stream
We’re not going to lie, streaming live to Facebook or Youtube isn’t going to pay the bills. It is, however, a great way to mobilise your fans to head to your website (see above) to purchase some merch of an album or ask them to crowdfund a project you’re working on.
You can start off streaming just using your mobile phone or webcam but if you want to get a little more technical we’d suggest using Open Broadcaster Software. It’s a free piece of software that allows you to switch between different cameras, overlaying graphics and many other cool things.
