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Tips for Performing by Webcam

Webcam ManPerforming online in front of a webcam is something probably new to most musicians.  It’s certainly new for us, too.  We noticed some things that will help your performance be visually more appealing.

  1. Sit or Step Back away from your webcam. This is probably the best advice.  Most performers are sitting too close to their webcam and basically it’s just their head filling up the screen.  Being at least 6 to 10 feet away from the cam frames a nice image of the artist, especially when playing an instrument.  Which leads to tip #2.
  2. Show us that you are playing an instrument.  Don’t worry about your fancy finger work, when we can visually see you playing the guitar or whatever – it adds to the experience.  So if you are in tight quarters and can not sit too far back, point your cam down at your instrument.
  3. Don’t over power your computer’s microphone.  If you are performing through your pc’s or laptop’s built in mic, chances are your voice and music will over power the mic at some point causing distortion.  Again, sitting further back will help even out the sound.  Just remember to speak loudly in between songs so the mic can pick up your normal voice.  For a better sound, you can make huge improvements with a just a simple sound-leveling, noise-cancelling pc mic.  These are basically called USB “conference call” mics you find in computer stores (not music stores).  For around $60-$75, these mics make a big difference.
  4. Last, don’t forget the room around you.  You don’t need to be performing on a stage, but make sure the background is not distracting to the performance, i.e. messy, cluttered, dirty laundry, etc.  Remember, you are performing for tips, make every bit count.

Do you have any more ideas?  We’d love to hear them.

Busking Online has Arrived

First Performer Street Jelly

teo_doro from Guam is our first live performer on StreetJelly.com

Busking, playing music in a public forum for gratuities, has now officially arrived on the internet. Last night, August 17th, 2012, all the way from Guam, we had our first musician perform live from his webcam. Teo_doro was awesome!

StreetJelly.com had only been live for about a day. Somehow, word-of-mouth from Nashville and Knoxville TN had reached Teo.  The Nashville transplant found the site, signed up, and just started playing.  That is as spontaneous as it gets.

Things went well, all systems checked out.  Actually, we were amazed that the sound and video quality was quite well from Teo’s stock Gateway laptop with built-in webcam and built-in mic.

We can’t say enough how pleased we were of the outcome.  Our vision of bringing real LIVE entertainment for everyone – and helping musicians earn money for their craft – is still alive and well!

Why the Name Street Jelly?

Frank Making Jelly Guitars

Frank Making Jelly Guitars

A lot of folks have been telling us they really like our name, Street Jelly.  That is always followed by, “what does it mean?”  Simple enough, “street” is for that live, spontaneous street music.  The kind of music you can hear literally anywhere at anytime.  Of course, it doesn’t have to be only from street music – it’s any kind of improvisational music.  Jamming!

Yep, I said jam.  Naturally, jamming is a the heart of live music. And jam is, well, also “jelly.”  And preserves.  And marmalade.  How do you make a name out of all that?  The first step is to start checking available dot-com domain names.  No matter how great a name you come up with for your band, show, website, company, etc – if the domain .com (or .whatever) is taken, you are pretty much screwed.

I searched and searched and searched.  Eventually I found StreetJelly.com was available.  I nearly fell out of my seat when I found it.  I coudn’t believe I found two English words together in a dot-com name that was not parked and held for ransom by some URL broker scoundrel.

Jelly Guitar Photo Shoot

Jelly Guitar Photo Shoot

As instantly as street and jelly came together – the image, the voice rather, of a musician popped into my head.  I seemed like yesterday (it was more than 20 years ago).  I was living in Germany and knew a Scottish musician who played the local bars and played in the street on sunny days by the Nürnberg Castle.  I think by day he was a construction worker.  He had a real thick Scottish accent and he told me one evening, right before he was about to perform, he says, “Frank, I feel like jelly.”

I was like, “what?” Actually, I should have started off this story like I usually do, “I was a little drunk at the time…”  Any way, he proceeded to tell me no matter how many times he performed, he was always nervous before going on stage.

But it’s that phrase, in that wicked harsh accent, “I feel like jelly” that has always stuck; burned in my brain.  When Street Jelly came up in our searches, I knew that was it.  We were done, we found it!

 

The Hype

Guest post by Austin Church, writer extraordinaire.

See No Evil... aww hell, you now the rest.

Can you actually make a living doing what you love?
Yes. All you need is a webcam and microphone—and some sounds!—to start making money. We’re glad that Justin Bieber was able to get his start on YouTube, but now that he’s a household name, everybody and his sister’s cat is throwing up videos, hoping for the NEXT one-in-a-million chance to get a record deal.

It’s hard to stand out on YouTube!

Street Jelly offers an alternative to that lottery ticket approach. We want you to get discovered, but we’re not going to B.S. you. If you want to be the next rags-to-riches, you’re going to need some help. We’ve designed Street Jelly with that goal in mind. You can get visibility, build a fan base, and let the quality of your art and performance determine what you make and where your music takes you.

Play to the crowd, get to know your listeners, and maybe even play “Freebird” every once in awhile just to prevent a riot. You’ll be busking your face off in no time and making Mick Jagger jokes to tease a few more tips out of your adoring fans.

Signing up is easy. We’ll walk you through it step-by-step, and for those of you who are still new to live streaming, we’ve got some simple tutorials for picking out inexpensive equipment and getting everything to run smoothly. Virtual stardom awaits, and Beyonce thinks you’re ready for this Jelly.

The Birth of Street Jelly

I miss street musicians!  I miss the surprise turning the corner of a city street to find a completely new sound.  There’s something special when discovering a musician plugging away at their art, in their most raw and vulnerable moment:  performing live for everyone and anyone that will listen.

Artist Streaming Music LiveBut it’s my own fault I don’t see and hear street musicians that often, I don’t live in the city anymore.  I’ve spent the past two decades in the ‘burbs, commuting to and from the office complexes of the tech world.  Sure, that pays the bills, but the culture of life can be easily sucked out of you.  Yes, I could frequent the downtown bars and nightclubs for the occasion live local bands, but that’s just not my scene.

FM radio these days blows.  Morning radio is even worse.  Who wants to hear two knuckleheads try to be funny on the radio while you’re stuck in traffic?  I want music!  My iPod is loaded with a 1000+ songs.  But every time I flip through my playlist, I see nothing I want to listen to at that moment.  Inevitably I flip through my Pink Floyd section and start thinking of the line, “I got 13 channels of shit on the TV to choose from …choose from …choose from.”  The spontaneity of mp3 players is missing; same thing with those online music streaming websites.  Satellite radio is good, all music and no talking!  But I think I’ve heard every playset on Classic Vinyl, Classic Rewind, The Bridge, etc.  Thank goodness I love the Grateful Dead channel on Sirius!

Live music, the Dead-Head inside me thought, I need more live music.  That got me thinking about the days when I lived downtown in the vibrant city of Nürnberg, Germany.  The streets, subways, tram stations, any little alcove could be hiding a street musician.  The music was as diverse as one can imagine: classical violin, jazz on trumpets, and my favorite horrible rendition of John Denver’s “Country Roads” that every hipster German tried to sing in a thick Bavarian accent.  Oh, good times.

That trip down memory lane subsided, but not without a quick googling of the web for places to find street musicians.  I’m not very patient surfing the web endlessly, so the few Google responses turned me off that I would find live music online or where street musicians regularly meet.  Then the entrepreneur inside me kicked in.  “Shit Frank, just build a dang street musician site yourself!”

Yes, I happen to be a software engineer.  I know, how convenient!  A dear friend of mine once said I am creative and methodical. So I flipped on the creative and methodical switches (and the insanity switch, too) inside my crooked little brain for full speed ahead.  The work began back in March 2012.  I’ll skip over the details of actually building the site and starting a business.  We’ll save that for another blog post.

A few months later…  Street Jelly was born!  Live streaming music, worldwide, 24 hours a day!