Partnering With Musician Roy Zu-Arets To Create A Musical Micro-Blogging Project
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few weeks ago my friend Roy Zu-Arets (disclosure: I created his wikipedia page) who is the most gifted musician and very original composer I have had the luck to meet and I began working on a fun side project that involves music & social media. We call it “The Vibe Of Now”.
The idea behind “The Vibe Of Now” is to create a musical micro-blogging experience – release of original compositions that are created in a spontaneous, immediate, unplanned and instant way and reflect what the composer is feeling at that moment. The entire production process is also very fast. We meet at Roy’s studio in Hollywood three times a week (Mon, Wed and Fri) for 1 hour. It takes us 45 minutes to record a piece, mix the video with stereo audio that we pull out of the recording console and publish the clip to YouTube.
Both of us have worked and released products that reached millions – I have done it in the internet space at Snap, JDate and ICQ and Roy has worked as a composer, pianist and producer with many artists, performed in prestigious halls in front of thousands and produced platinum and gold albums. But this small side project has its own magic and is very exciting for both of us. Users from all over the world send us their feedback on the music videos and how they touch them. Our YouTube channel metrics are growing week after week – the number of daily views, subscribers (now is a good time to become one), friends, comments and ratings.
A few days ago we reached a new major milestone with the release of Roy’s first solo piano solo album (after a 20 year career of playing, producing and composing with and for others) called “Confessions of a Composer”. The album features selected tracks from the first series Roy released to YouTube during the summer of 2009 plus a few bonus tracks recorded with guest musicians. You can buy the album on iTunes , Amazon or order as physical CD.
We are also about to put the “The Vibe Of Now” concert. It will be a very original and different show from a typical piano recitals, and it will feature the album pieces, variations on a theme of known songs but with some twist, and original compositions that will be composed during the concert together with the viewers similar to the process that happens at the studio. If you are interested in bringing Roy to your venue, university, tech-conference, town hall or your next corporate event, please contact us.
Next for us are a few additional mini projects:
* A special album for the holidays which is being finalized these days (Update: It is now live)
* Collaborations with some of LA’s finest musicians
* A 100% live session that we will stream to the web using UStream and twitter
* And probably a few more fun projects since the tools we have in our hands allow us to do almost anything and take it to the masses.
Last thing – this project would not exist without users’ feedback. So if you have one for us, a request, suggestion, media inquiry, touring/booking request or a testimony/album review, please contact us using this form or on twitter – royzuarets or jaym.
