Latency is one of the most important aspects of online music performance, and also perhaps the least understood. We are writing a series of blog posts to shed more light on the concept and nuances of latency. In this part 6 of 10 on latency (part 1 starts here), we discuss how to find other musicians with whom you can play in enjoyable, low-latency sessions, which can be a lot more difficult than it sounds.
Traditional Method – Hope For the Best
In the world of online music performance, musicians have traditionally hopped into online sessions and very simply hoped for the best. There has been no way to predict or know what kind of experience you were going to have, or if your latency would be low enough to play together comfortably. This is obviously not a great strategy, and it often results in frustrating experiences.
A Better (and Unique) Way to Find the Right Musical Connections
JamKazam has built a highly unique feature set that lets you search for other musicians using filters including:
– Latency: Filter for good or fair latency connections to you (i.e. minimal lag).
– Instruments: Filter for complementary instruments (e.g. bass, drums, etc)
– Skill Level: Filter for comparable skill levels (e.g. beginner, intermediate, expert)
– Genres: Filter for shared genre interests (e.g. blues, jazz, classical, rock, etc)
– Last Active: Filter to make sure they are still actively playing online (e.g. within last 30 days)
See the search feature below.
Only JamKazam lets you search for other musicians by the latency of the connection between you and any other musician, as well as other critical profile data, like what instruments they play, skill level, and preferred musical genres.
Making New Musical Friends
Once you have a set of filtered musicians that fit what you’re looking for, you can reach out to say hello and establish new connections. Simply click on any musician in your search results, and you’ll see a profile for that musician displayed on the right side of your screen (pictured in the screenshot below). At the bottom of the profile are buttons to send a message or send a friend request. For people you don’t know, we recommend sending a message first to introduce yourself, and then send a connection request after you’ve made contact. To learn more about how to use these features, we recommend you read this help article on using our unique musician search feature set.
The Next Article in the Series
Our next article – part 7 in our series on latency – summarizes the key things you can do to minimize your latency (lag) in online music sessions. We’ll add a link to this article when it’s published.
Curious To See How This Works?
While we understand the natural skepticism many musicians feel about the ability to play together live in sync in online sessions, we’d point out that musicians have now played in more than 3 million online sessions on JamKazam. You can check out a handful of sample performances in this YouTube video, with all the musicians playing on JamKazam from their homes over the Internet. Or see a ton more recorded JamKazam performances on our YouTube channel. If you’re interested in trying it out, you can do so risk-free by going to https://www.jamkazam.com and signing up for a free account. We have a support team that can help you get set up and playing online successfully in private sessions with your band or in open/public sessions with other musicians if you’re not in a band.