KOCHI: A few weeks ago, I wrote about how the next big hit could be 15 or 30 seconds long, because that’s the length of Instagram’s reels, and a lot of people wrote in asking whether or not we thought that’s a good thing. The truth is, whether it is or isn’t a good thing, it is most certainly an interesting thing. Social media is a great way to get your music out to a wider audience and connect with people you don’t know. Look at it this way – when Twitter started, its character limit forced people to be concise and get to the point quickly.
Think of reels as a musical tweet in some sense and try to create something insightful and powerful in a very short amount of time. Instagram has two other interesting features which are great for musicians: one is the layout, and the other is remixing reels. With Instagram’s layout, you can layer up to three videos in the same frame This is cool if you want to sing vocal harmonies, or if you’re playing different instruments and want to put it all together to make a song that you can then share. You record one after the other (make sure you’re on time and in the right key) and voila, you’ve created an ensemble out of yourself.
Another great thing to try is remixing reels, where you can take a reel that has been recorded and posted, and add your video (and audio on it). If you hear a song that you like, you can record a duet with them. Or if you hear a great piano melody that you want to play the violin on, go for it.
This lockdown summer we’ve seen a lot of our students do some amazing things with Instagram’s features, and then graduate to video and audio editing software to create more complex layers and collaborations. Have you played around with any of these features? Let us know how they’ve worked for you!