The pandemic has robbed musicians of their ability to engage in live performances, ultimately blocking this stream of revenue and creating a barrier between them and their audiences. Now more than ever, it is crucial to support local artists in every way that we can – this steadfast belief is where the Create and Connect Grant was born.  

An overview of the most common live stream softwares: OBS and Stream Labs OBS.

Facebook is a standard when it comes to social media. And with different groups of people gravitating toward platforms, adding your live streams to Facebook may get you a more diverse audience. 

Rod the Fader Monkey here, I’m going to write a bit about JamKazam, a software/website combination that lets you and your bandmates jam over the internet. This is not really a tutorial on how to run JamKazam, as the tutorials and instructions on their website are quite good and there are lots of Youtube videos on how to. It’s more about the experience and what’s important to do, and what problems you might encounter and how to fix them. My classic rock band, Section 8, has been using JamKazam for a few weeks with a fair amount of success. We have had to complete some equipment upgrades to solve some problems, and so far it is working OK.   

Although Twitch’s main audience are gamers, it is still a great live streaming service to stream your own content. People such as The8BitDrummer and laura8863 are great examples of musicians that use Twitch to stream their talents. Twitch even has categories called “Just Chatting”, “Music and Performing Arts”, “Art”, and even “Food and Drink” for people looking to watch some non-gaming streams. Even if you’ve never streamed before, you can start streaming on Twitch within 15 minutes. All you need is an account, and one of the broadcasting softwares listed below.

Instagram is a platform that’s quickly gaining in popularity as a place for everyone to live stream.  This platform is limited to mobile, but still has useful features for reaching your followers. Here’s what we’ve learned from our own experience with Instagram Live.