Resources for Musicians
​affected by COVID-19 Outbreak
Step One: Vince's powerpoint presentation
​EVERYTHING IS AWFUL and I'M NOT OKAY!

Start here for helpful information to get you on your feet and to help you begin thinking about ways to counterbalance the effects of cancelations of gigs and regular jobs due to the virus breakout. Come back to this presentation as a baseline to help you become grounded and centered so that you can focus on what you need to do in order to move forward securely.

The same information (with a few additions) is available in this document, which is printable and can be shared under the Creative Commons License 4.0 International License.

Step Two: Financial Relief Assistance
There are many resources to help with financial aid to tie you over until you're able to properly press the "reset" button and figure out your income streams. Here are some of them, though this is not an exhaustive list:
  • Consider reaching out to all the presenters with whom you currently have contracts and asking them to honor at least 50% of the amount owed on the contract. The word on the street right now is that most presenters are doing at least that.
  • Application for Unemployment Benefits for those in New York State - Note: NYS is currently waiving the 7-Day waiting period for Unemployment Insurance benefits for people who are out of work due to Coronavirus (COVID-19) closures or quarantines.
  • Equal Sound Corona Relief Fund - Started by composer, Nick Norton in L.A., this fund aims to provide financial relief grants to those who have lost income due to a cancelled gig as a result of the Coronavirus / Covid-19 outbreak.
  • Local 802 Musician's Union Member Relief Fund - this is a relief fund exclusively for those who are currently members of the union.
  • Sweet Relief Musicians Fund - A donor-directed fund which aims to provide funds exclusively for vital living expenses for musicians affected by Covid-19.
  • New Music Solidarity Fund - A donor-based fund from NewMusicUSA offering Covid-19 support for musicians who have lost work performing in New Music projects. Applications for funding will be available starting on March 31st at 12pm.
  • ​Further resources available via I Care If You Listen.

Step Three: Build Your Plan
  • Think about where you want to be just one month from today. What will have changed at that point? Where will you be located?
  • What are the skills you possess aside from live performance skills?
  • Who are the people that need those skills?
  • Where can they be found in your area? Are you unnecessarily restricting yourself to your own locale? If you plan to interact with clients over the phone, email, or video chat, can they be geographically further away from you?
  • Use a monthly calendar grid like this one to work your way back from your goal date one month from now and write at least one small task for each calendar day on the grid which will represent one step toward your goal. Remember to break larger tasks down into smaller steps.
  • Plan your work and work your plan!
  • Feel free to chat with us by clicking the icon at the lower left corder of your screen with questions or if you'd like to schedule a video session to go over your plan!
A comprehensive list of resources for Artists and Creatives is also available on the website of Deesha Dyer, an award-winning event strategist, community organizer, and speaker who served as social secretary in the Obama White House. This list is extremely helpful and contains many resources I have not found listed elsewhere.

The Coronavirus Resource Kit is a nearly 30 page open Google Doc full of resources specific to industries and connected to hundreds of further resources and outlets across the United States. It's full of connections and resources I have not seen anywhere else.
More Suggestions for Online Music Teaching
  • I highly recommend using My Music Staff to manage your private teaching practice, in general. It takes a lot of the stress of managing student relationships and billing away. It's full-featured and their responsiveness and helpfulness are exemplary. 
  • This is a wonderful article from My Music Staff about how to set up your online teaching business and directly integrating your preferred video conference software. 
  • Switch your payment model so that people are paying for "packs" of lessons at a discount up front rather than billing in arrears for previously taught lessons. This is a similar model to buying multi-class cards for yoga or pilates. This way, the onus is on the client to use their lessons with you before they expire rather than you having to track and then wait for payment.
  • Create an online library of all the resources (books, tutorials, worksheets, supplemental materials, etc.) used for your lessons and direct students to locate what they need from this.
  • Always make the official end time of a lesson (30-60 minutes) five minutes shorter than the calendared stop time. 
  • Find ways to create more value for your students for what they are paying in order to offset the change to front-pay for the lesson packs each month. Take advantage of this time to build up your private (unlisted) online presence for your students and consider building a membership model for your studio. Click the chat icon in the lower left corner of your screen to reach out to us with more questions or to set up a consultation.

Here is the aforementioned public Google Doc by Christopher Bill, which gives a comprehensive overview of remote teaching strategies and tools to build an online teaching practice. You can support him by visiting his Patreon page and subscribing to his content.
Distance Recording for Ensemble Projects
A lot of people are asking about ways to make ensemble music remotely. I have looked at all the possible ways and can recommend SoundTrap as the strongest, most feature-rich platform for remote ensemble collaboration via recording. They have models for both personal use and group collaboration for 50 or even up to 100 (or more) people adding their individual tracks to a common project.

Personal Pricing Page
Educational (Group Pricing) Page