Clubhouse for musicians
If you’re a musician (and even if you aren’t) Clubhouse seems to the new social media app to check out. This live audio only app is the newest way to engage with people around the world and build communities around shared interests. For musicians, there are two main ways to connect with audiences, through discussions or performances. It’s also a great place to connect with other musicians and have open mic nights or candid discussions. With audio lag, it seems unlikely that collaborations through Clubhouse will happen anytime soon, but there are many interesting possibilities.
Some have even set up rooms of silence, where people join a room at a specified time, don’t speak, and leave at a predetermined time. The app doesn’t allow recording or replaying, which means that the audio has to be experienced in real time. Once you join the app, you have the option of joining rooms and clubs. Rooms are vir tual spaces where people can join and communicate with each other. There are different types or room - social, open and closed, with different permission settings.
There are also clubs, which align with interests, and can have multiple rooms associated with them. Conversations in Clubhouse can either be spontaneous, or scheduled as events, so artists have the option of surprising their audiences (who will be notified), or scheduling and promoting events in advance. Since Clubhouse is new, and gaining followers every day, it’s a great opportunity for early adopter creators to find new audiences and build following.
Clubhouse is also partnering with Stripe to enable monetization for creators. Many other existing platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Spotify, Slack, and Reddit seem to have or be developing features similar to Clubhouse, which indicates that this may be a growing space. So, if you haven’t yet, check it out!
(The authors run SaPa - the Subramaniam Academy of Performing Arts)