Being a Musician During Coronavirus
Shiiiiite’s gettin’ real. As a musician and frontwoman of a band, we’ve been hitting all sorts of roadblocks during the coronavirus pandemic, and I know we’re not alone. But I find myself in conflict: it is the job of the artist to be the essence of hope… right? There are lots of big questions and no clear answers. Questions like:
How Do We Make Music? Specifically, How Do We Stay a Band?
My band the Gentleman Brawlers is a 6+ piece horn band. Conveniently, I’m married to one of the members, but the rest of the band is scattered in their own homes.
Even with technology, rehearsing and performing together is impossible. Video conferencing inevitably has delays and latency issues (as everyone has become familiar with).
So do we just press pause? For us, it may impact the style of music we write and record. We may play with synth compositions to fill out our sound until the band can be together again.
When Is It Appropriate to Put Out the New Music We’ve Been Working on “Pre-Corona”?
And not just put out music because that’s what we should always be doing.
No one likes to admit it, but bands utilize release strategies and sometimes publicists, and this makes a world of difference for the lifecycle of a song. What good is it, after all the work of writing, composing, recording, mixing, and mastering, if a song only reaches a few people?
It is especially difficult to justify new releases when our communal focus is pointed elsewhere — navigating the “new normal.” The usual rules, budgets, and timelines simply don’t apply.
How Do We Re-Establish Revenue Streams With No Live Shows in Place?
In recent years, music has been increasingly consumed via streaming services, yielding little return for the artist. As a result, live shows and touring have represented the most lucrative ways to make money. Free streamed shows have the potential to reach new audiences and build goodwill. But thus far, these shows have proven financially unsustainable for the artist.
What If I Don’t Want to Perform in My Bedroom?
It ruins the mystique of being a rock star! I don’t know about you, but bedroom shows just don’t cut it for me. As much as I love how artists are striving to connect the best way we can, a huge source of inspiration for me relies heavily on engaging with an audience (not just reading comments on screens). There’s so much to eye contact, body language, live musical improvisation, etc. This is a new reality that I’m just not sure I want to embrace.
The alternative though — not performing at all — is deeply offensive to my inner Prince.
What About Gigs?
We had to cancel or postpone shows, and it was the right thing to do. But every musician knows how hard and time-consuming it is to book. It feels like a huge step backward.
At what point is it appropriate to re-pitch gigs that got canceled? How many months out is safe? Do we just pray that our remaining scheduled gigs are far enough away in the future? When can we reschedule what was supposed to be our spring tour?
The reality is just as tough for venues. In one email exchange, an owner confessed to us that they weren’t even sure they would still be around in the fall. Scary. Our hope is that the whole industry can find new paths in the interim so that independent music can endure and pick up near where we left off.
Will Anyone Even Notice If We Add to the Noise?
With the internet now as our main medium for all connection, attention spans are exhausted. As a viewer, I struggle to consume live-streamed music. It’s such an endless void of options, but then every so often I find a moment that’s really touching. For example, my friend Lily Desmond was playing guitar quietly, having an intimate moment and sharing it. I really connected with the emotion of her practice and crave more of those moments.
Will Audience Draw Remain a Booking Metric?
There is the age-old question of “How many people can you bring to our venue?” Will this metric still stand with an ongoing pandemic lasting longer than we hope?
This could actually be an opportunity. Venues always want to know how many people a band can draw within a certain geography. I’m sure we’ve all heard the back-in-the-day stories when venues were responsible for bringing audiences through their doors. We haven’t been blessed with that for quite some time.
But we might now live in an era where limiting audience sizes for live shows becomes the norm. The takeaway? More intimate shows could mean a more connected fanbase.
How Do We Monetize?
Currently, everyone we know is, at best, in a financially uncertain position.
Are we creating future difficulties for the livelihood of musicians by offering so much for free in an effort to stay engaged with our audiences?
Is it going to be hard to change the expectation once we all leave our homes again?
It’s easy to open Pandora’s box, harder to close it. It is truly incredible that, in this period of self-isolation, people are doing their part to help connect and bring a little joy. Going forward, though, how do we keep audiences engaged with limited resources? And when this pandemic diminishes, where will we be?
Aaaaand back to the beginning again. Take it moment by moment. Trust in our collective future and recognize that this is just another bump in the road (okay, maybe a big honking NYC-sized pothole).
My personal mantra these days: It is the job of the artist NOT to succumb to despair, but to CREATE NEW PATHS. We have the WHAT, we just need the HOW.
Okay, deep breath. Okay, maybe now scream?
— Becca Fox
Becca Fox is the frontwoman of the Gentleman Brawlers, an AfroFunk and Disco-inspired band based out of Brooklyn. They’re about to release their latest single, “My Thing,” when the time is right. You can find more thoughts like this on Instagram, @gentlemanbrawlers, and see a recording of their New Year’s Eve 2020 performance at the McKittrick Hotel on Youtube.
Originally published at https://medium.com on March 26, 2020.
