YouTube started off as a place for everyone to share their voices with the online community. Now, it has turned many people’s passions into their careers. They have millions of fans who have banded together to help them go from playing music or singing in front their laptop webcam to creating high quality videos with crystal clear sound that’s ready to be purchased on iTunes. Throughout the years, however, it has become harder for upcoming artists to be discovered. There is so much content on the platform that users who are promoting themselves can often get lost in a sea of commenters.
This is why YouTube has created so many opportunities for them. One of those being ‘YouTube Music Foundry’.
According to Billboard, the initiative is a program that teaches YouTube musicians how to gain more exposure on YouTube and develop the quality of their content by ensuring they have a variety of different skills, for example by using different platforms such as Periscope, Meerkat and Snapchat, they can teach users about live streaming video production.
In the past, there have been so many artists have found their way to success on their own. Troye Sivan is one of the main examples, who began posting on YouTube at 13 years old and has continued to post videos and network with other content creators for years. He has now released his first full length album and is currently touring the world. Tori Kelly is another example, who went on to become a Grammy nominee this year against the likes of Courtney Barnett, Meghan Trainer and James Bay.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYAghEq5Lfw
While they have now stepped away from creating music for YouTube, there are so many artists with millions of subscribers who still use the platform regularly. Kurt Hugo Schneider is a producer, famous for his innovative ways of creating music and ability to post high quality videos on a regular basis. Thanks to the support of his 6.8 million subscribers, his popularity has grown to the point of being noticed by Sony Music and being given the opportunity to create a series for his channel. The Hollywood Reporter writes that the series will feature Schneider performing and interviewing a number of artists from their label.
Both parties have expressed their excitement about the project with Schneider saying he is “thrilled” to be working with the label. “As a producer on YouTube, my goal is to create great content that showcases performers. I’m excited to be working with Sony’s awesome performers.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nN89WESIv10
However, It hasn’t been clear skies for all of them. There’s still a stigma with being a musician in the online community. Lindsey Stirling is a skilled violist with almost eight million subscribers. While taking part in a YouTube series called YouTubers React, she revealed the dismissive attitudes some people have towards online content creators.
“There’s kind of a negative connotation that comes along with being a “YouTuber”. Sometimes they won’t even let me play at festivals where I know I’ve sold more tickets than the artists that are playing it,” she said. “It’s just something they don’t see as valuable and I think we shall all prove them wrong.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAD0BtEv6-Q
Hopefully, that’s the goal of this program. Last year, two workshops were held in Los Angeles and London. There will be another one on April 25th in New York and will feature BJ the Chicago Kid, Gemaine, The Range, Built by Titan and Miracles of Modern Science as coaches for the upcoming talents. YouTube will also make videos of the sessions available on the platform for viewers to experience.
According to Bloomberg, the website’s executives have also been in touch with a few people within the music industry to brainstorm different ways for YouTubers to collaborate with the industry and promote their mineral. These plans are still being discussed.
While music is only a small section of the website, it is still highly competitive. The skills and guidance the artists involved in the initiative will receive are bound to help the growing number of people using the platform to spark their careers.
There is, however, still an important thing they need to remember; work hard. An undying determination and an eager mind can go a long way for those who have what it takes to make it to the top.
Image: The Guardian
To some, musical instruments may seem like a dying enterprise – with the advent of electronic music, even guitars and drum kits are often replaced by synths and pads. But this couldn’t be farther from the truth – not only are there countless new electronic instruments being developed all the time, but wind, string and all sorts of strange, unique concoctions are being created every day, forming new and exciting ways to both perform and create music. While we’re all familiar with drums, bass, the saxophone (which celebrities it’s 201st birthday today), and even the human voice, let’s now take a look beyond the standard.
We have so many options to create unique and beautiful tones and inspire highly-influential creative pieces. Let’s take a look at some of the less obvious instruments making their way into today’s music.
Viola Organista
Björk’s newly released Vulnicura Strings contains an alternate version of Black Lake, where a Viola Organista takes the lead. The viola organista was described by Björk as “little, but like a grand piano that is bowed not plucked”. While the instrument was originally imagined by Leonardo Di Vinci, it was actually built many years later by Sławomir Zubrzycki. Zubrzycki even played the instrument on the track himself. Buy the album to hear this amazing track.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5slE11AHOM
The James Boag Meteorphonium may look like an extremely complex machine that may be used as a torturing device in an underground lair, but it’s actually a super cool musical instrument with a very sweet sound. Nick Ryan is the mastermind behind the machine, who was asked by James Boag to create something using Tasmania’s landscape and turning it into music. Ryan said he was “fascinated by the idea that technology can translate the behavioural patterns found in natural phenomena into the language of music”, which is why he decided to take the opportunity.
To explain – “The instrument itself is comprised of nine hand-made bronze singing bowls, a pentatonic ‘tongue drum’, two custom built crescent-shaped analog synthesizers (the only two in existence in the world), four quadraphonic speakers placed North, East, South and West. Orbiting the main instrument structure are eight independent satellites, ‘meteorphones’, which are housed in a glass jar, and react to luminosity.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vUju43BI30&feature=youtu.be
Yaybahar
The Yaybahar looks as though it should be an art piece in a museum. Making the instrument out of two metal drums and a piece of coiled string, Görkem Şen created the sound of a stringed instrument by bowing the string and allowing the springs on the drums to vibrate.
“Natural source coded materials which are membrane, coiled spring and string working together. Maybe we can say that this is a new bridge system between string and resonant body,” Olgu Demir, the director of the video below told The Creators Project.
The result is beautifully raw. Listen.
A Coke Bottle
Okay, you’re probably wondering how this is considered a ‘strange instrument’. It may not be wacky or complex like the others seem to be, but the results of one man’s imagination may surprise you. Kurt Hugo Schneider is one of the most reputable musicians on YouTube. To celebrate the return of ‘Share A Coke’, he decided to compose a song, using nothing but the glass coke bottles, a table and the voices of some of his friends. The clingy sounds work wonders and the video has been viewed almost four million times. It shows how the simple things can be used to create something incredible. Check it out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzuRvzsNpTU
The Escopetarra
We all know guns are symbols of violence and tragedy. In 2015, we hear about devastating shootings occurring on a regular basis. But Bogota musician Cesar Lopez, has taken this weapon and re-imagined it as a guitar.
He told the BBC: “I designed this device that is a weapon transformed into a guitar with all the technical specifications of a guitar but using as a base the gun, the gun on the pins, microphones, circuits overlap, and becomes as an object of reflection.”
It now stands as a sign of peace, in the hope that one day the world can be free from violence and the pain of loss.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ehrEj1mvXw
Musical instruments are everywhere you look. You may not realise it, but they are waiting to be discovered.