YouTube

If you’ve thought about posting videos on YouTube, a pandemic is a better time than ever to get you started. Not only do videos help you build a portfolio and promote your playing, but they also allow you to monetize your efforts.

You can gain an edge by focusing on production quality. There is a sea of low-grade and unprofessional footage on YouTube. By applying some production techniques, you will stand out.

Sound Quality: It’s a given that you want to have great sound quality, at best avoiding the use of the built-in microphone on a camera. Instead, you should craft more professional mixes with a multi-track recording suite such as Pro Tools.

Video: You don’t need very expensive high-end gear, but you can do a few things to help your video stand out. If you have the muster for a green screen, by all means you should go that route, however this will require the use of video production software and sophisticated lighting. Luckily, Amazon sells a large collection of “video backdrops” that will replicate a green screen just fine.

Composition

If you want to display ads on your videos, it’s imperative that you have original music to play. The days are slowly ending where artists can earn lucrative income from playing cover music. As we have seen with YouTube, publishers that posted cover music had to surrender their income to the real composers of the material after new regulations came into affect. At the end of the day, this adjustment does make sense. If you compare the time spent composing a piece of music, the time spent actually learning it in comparison is small.

The fact that the artist is merely as good as a compositional piece rings true. You are likely to see more posts inclined towards composing in order to help motivate readers into action.

Health

Both mental and physical health is a vulnerability as a result of the pandemic. There are statistics that show musicians have experienced a significant increase in mental related health issues. In fact, our industry is impacted more than most others.

There is an abundance of tips from mental health experts to be found online if you need them, but a lot of it does tie together with physical health. This is a vulnerability, because people are “socially distanced” and less inclined to maintain a balanced diet. It’s important to continue to eat well and maintain an exercise routine.

Alternative Income

Online streaming is different to posting a high quality video production on YouTube, because it’s generally an amateur level production and is streamed live over the duration of approximately one hour. Instead of earning revenue from ads, such performances usually need to rely on donations from their live viewers.

There was a significant increase in the amount of online streaming taking place when the pandemic first hit. This number quickly died out, however, as musicians soon realized that it was extremely difficult to replace the level of income they were earning from regular gigs, especially by asking for donations. This is not impossible to do, but it does require different expertise like lighting and camera equipment, as well as using a sophisticated streaming platform.

There is no reason at this point to suggest that things won’t “eventually” return to “normal”, that is the ability to play gigs in front of a large audience. But until then, it would be wiser to focus on composing as a prioritized alternative income source. For example, television and film crews are constantly on the lookout for music they can purchase for their productions. You don’t need to be famous, or have number one selling records.