We Are All Musicians Now

How to Learn to Play, Collab, and Get An Audience

Getting serious about music had long been a pipe dream for many aspiring artists and songwriters. For one reason or another, they struggled to access the fancy equipment or classes to learn, didn’t know how to begin, or had little to no support from their friends or family. The barriers between music lovers and music making and learning have finally started to shrink, and now almost anyone who wants to learn has the power. Thanks to new technology and some innovative minds, all the tools you need live inside your computer or on your phone.

Learning

To actually make music, you need to know how to play something. Luckily, Melodics knows this and has completely transformed the traditional learning path. Instead of sitting through lessons every other week, or sending yourself down an unhelpful YouTube spiral, Melodics has mastered the gamified approach to learning that increases habitual practice and makes it exciting for people of all ages. Thanks to their recently launched catalog of lessons, Songs, you can now play along to popular music while learning how to master your skills on a MIDI keyboard, finger or electronic drums, and more to come!

Want to start making music from a device that seems familiar, takes minimal onboarding to achieve a cool result, and set yourself apart from the pack? Consider checking out Artiphon’s Orba 2. The Orba 2 is a handheld MIDI controller that allows you to sample the world around you to create your own sounds, loop and layer songs directly on the device, play with gestures and motions, and so much more. It’s even small enough you can take it anywhere. Picnic jam session anyone?

Even as great alternatives arise, in-person live events will always be a mainstay in the music community. Yet touring is exhausting. Software makers Eventric are hard at work developing technology to benefit the touring community. Their software platform Master Tour, for example, is the industry standard for major tours, and is designed to act as a hub for any information every person on a big touring team may need to know. Eventric is building out new features that promise to link venue information more firmly with tour teams, connecting the two key sides of touring.

Collabing

JackTrip Labs overcomes unwelcomed distance when collaborating with other musicians. JackTrip offers the ability to find other musicians, rehearse and record your music, and even teach lessons all on their platform. You can collaborate in real time within a 500-mile radius, transmitting pristine sound at the speed of light with ultra-low latency. Musicians can keep the beat and stay in harmony throughout the entire session, completely changing the future of music collaboration and education.

Soundation is a one-stop shop for any at-home musician. Not only can you make songs directly in your browser (no downloads or other gear required!), you can also team up and produce music with friends in multiplayer mode — 100% synced in real-time across one audio workstation. Everything saves automatically so nothing gets lost, and you can see each collaborator's cursor at all times. Thanks to the shared workspace, sending audio files is a headache of the past. Best said by the Soundation team, it’s the Google Docs of music production--except way more dynamic.

If you would like to keep your preferred DAW and still collaborate remotely, BeatConnect may be your best friend. BeatConnect allows you to collaborate with up to four people at one time, with features including a shared sequencer, cloud storage, video chat and more. Spend more time making music and less time juggling multiple apps and services. The company is also doing their part to revolutionize remote musical learning in virtual classrooms by applying their interactive approach. Real-time instruction means no student will be left behind and no school will scramble to budget for traditional, expensive DAW platforms.

Discovery

Arguably the hardest part of releasing music is getting people to appreciate it. You want your music to reach the right ears and make them want to hear more. HotDrop, a music discovery app, makes that possible. HotDrop allows artists to upload 30-second snippets of their tracks to the platform, then listeners will decide if they love it or hate it based on swiping yes or no. Each song snippet the listener sees comes with the option to add it instantly to their music library, share with friends, or connect with the artist. The best part? Artists keep 100% ownership of their music.

BandLab offers a variety of opportunities for musicians of any scale. Features like collaborative music making across all platforms, having their own collaborative DAW Mix Editor, a personalized social feed with sharing, and more to make musician's tools as accessible as possible. BandLab values artists' hard work and makes sure they receive 100% of their earnings, with no hidden fees or costs. In addition to releasing music, you can also access royalty-free loops of sounds, do your own mastering, submit your music for media opportunities, and even use an AI idea generator to get the creative juices flowing for your next track. Oh, did we mention this is all free?

The hardest parts of music creation have all become easier and more accessible than ever before thanks to some of the game changing technology mentioned above. What once felt like a completely ridiculous learning curve is now achievable for the average individual. You can now learn an instrument, set up a studio session, release a good-sounding single, and rack up potential fans all on your own terms and time. With the right amount of motivation, ambition, and a little smidge of help from technology, becoming the musician you’ve always dreamed of is right within reach.

The Rock Paper Scissors team is always watching music innovation trends. Trend pieces draw together our clients’ work with what's happening now in the industry in a way that’s super accessible to journalists and their readers.

About Rock Paper Scissors

Founded in 1999, Rock Paper Scissors, Inc. is a music tech PR firm composed of a diverse team of communicators, creatives, and business minds. We have represented thousands of projects from six continents. Our roster includes clients in music technology, music gear, B2B music agencies, music consumer products and apps, artist-facing and label services, music sync platforms, music AI, fintech for music, and much more.

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