Thom Dowd not only is a musician who has been performing in Second Life for several years but he is also an enthusiast who has helped several other musicians learn how to stream and assisted with connecting them to venues like Music Island to give their first concerts in virtual reality. Thom and his students…
Akito has been performing on Music Island since January 2008 and was given Artist-in-Residence status after several concerts and events. His concerts are always thoughtfully programmed and he takes care to prepare helpful notes for the audience and to introduce each piece with his own thoughts. Our audience came to love the man as much…
Classical performers in Second Life range from emerging and mid-career professional musicians, retired and semi-retired musicians, competent amateurs, music students, music educators, plus occasional cameo appearances by leading artists and ensembles. Some performers find it is a good way to work up new material and play it before a live audience before facing…
Because virtual reality is so new, artists and organizations have managed to create a great deal of buzz with concerts in Second Life. Two years ago, when the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic streamed a video of a concert into virtual reality it created headlines in the New York Times, the Liverpool Telegraph, and many other newspapers…
Second Life is an international community that is small enough to facilitate networking among people of shared interests. Second Life performers and creative artists are finding virtual reality a great place to learn about new projects and make connections that will help them with organizing concerts, shows and tours in other countries.
Faculties of music and individual music teachers are beginning to use virtual reality as one vehicle to train young artists, by providing fun performance opportunities that are no cost or low cost. Thom Dowd who teaches at Swiss Conservatory of Music is one of the Music Educators using Second Life as a performance opportunity…
The other unique element to the SL live concert experience is the accessibility of artists. Performers can view text messages and questions. Artists customarily engage the audience before and after concerts and sometimes at breaks in the program. This accessibility is as rewarding to the performer as to the audience. The use of virtual…
The aspect unique to classical music in Second Life is the quality of the audience experience. A podcast or webcast can deliver the same sound quality and serve promotional purposes, but all of these are solitary experiences. By contrast, concerts in Second Life are joyfully social; audience members are celebratory in their anticipation and appreciation…
The subject of virtual real estate, 3-dimensional building and managing lag issues in Second Life is a very large topic, which I can only touch on here. Artists and arts organizations may wish to know that non-profits can apply to purchase virtual real estate at a reduced price if they use that land…
In order to stream "live" audio into SL, first you need to capture your music through microphone (s) and “broadcast” your sound from your computer. It is recommended that if you are going to broadcast more than one track (several instruments, instrument plus voice, or instrument plus recorded accompaniment) that you use an external mixer…
The performer or ensemble use microphones or instrument pickups to capture a live performance. Where more than one performer or sound source is used, it is advisable to have microphones & pickups attached to an external mixer and to send the combined signal to the computer. That performance is encoded as an MP3 stream…
Organizing and presenting concerts on Music Island is part of my work and play within Second Life. It is a specialized new platform and in this blog I hope to share the basics of what I have learned about presenting concerts in Second Life, as well as some information about the concerts that have happened…
