International Internet collaboration by Sly Witt on The Pipeline at IndieMusicPeople

International Internet collaboration
I just finished my first international web collaboration that involved more than one person. The singers are from the UK, Maine, Ohio, and Minnesota. I'm in the American mid-West, the bass player is from Maine, the drum programmer is in Canada and the guitar player is in England.

It's amazing what opportunities the nets make possible.

Day By Day featuring the Refugettes

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Sly Witt

7/6/2009 4:55:17 PM ---- Updated 7/6/2009 5:35:50 PM

Since no one else is popping in, I'll elaborate and ask a few questions.

The thing that I found most interesting is that even though I've never met any of these folks in person I feel that they're as 'real' band-mates to me as any of the folks I've worked with locally. The back-and-forth, the democratic decision making, the bringing together of folks from different parts of the world and even different places on the web was an education.

There were some minor conflicts (the coda used to be part of the main song until a majority revolt) but everyone treated each other with respect and courtesy.

I discovered that google mail is a perfect tool for working on a project with multiple participants.

I'm working on a couple of new tunes with a couple of the participants.

I'm sure that there's many of you who have done this via internet. Coloured Vinyl is an obvious example (from what I understand).

Have any of you done this on a large scale like this? What was your experience with it (large or small)? Were you happy with the results? How did you deal with conflicts? Would you do it again? What did you learn about the process? What would you do different?

I'd really be interested to hear what your experiences with this have been.

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7/6/2009 9:19:26 PM

That was a good song, I liked it a lot.

I have done many many internet collabs, in fact I had an DMD made up of 16 collabs I did, once had a thing where a bunch of people volunteered to produce FT songs. Most of the experiences were great, and each had a different level of involvement, sometimes they just took my tracks and ran with them, other times I would chime in every step of the way. I had one really bad experience (at least during), it wasn't so bad after. This guy Rally I collaborated with on Blameless started posting all kinds of lies about the process and discussions we had. He is an idiot. Still it's one of the favorite things I ever did, a tribute to the Sex Pistols called Blameless. The work with Jilly is more than a collaboration, we are in my mind a band and there's a lot more music to come.

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niteshift

7/7/2009 5:57:01 PM

Hey Sly, nice sound you got there !

Yeah, gotta agree. As an "older" dude, I don't gig out anymore, and just like writing songs, so have met some great people. Work with folks all over the world, and it's a real buzz. If the techo aspect is set up right, it works really well.

I was out for dinner about a year ago now, with a bunch of industry folks, one of whom is a known mainstream media DJ. We were talking, and she said "what do you do ? " I hesitated at fisrt, and said "Oh, um, internet musician " . The response , surprisingly, was very positive, and we talked about the artists that you meet online, and the general good vibe that it creates.

I'm up to composition No4 with his particular team, and all being songwriters, I don't think we're going to run out of ideas any time soon.

Please drop by and say gidday, at www.iacmusic.com/niteshift ( first 3 songs are internet collabs ) and www.iacmusic.com/KAWcreation . Same team, just re-branded. It's a lot of fun, write on !

cheers, niteshift

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Ben Elliot

7/7/2009 8:35:08 PM

Love the song, Love collaborations, but barely find the time to do it myself at the moment.

I've never managed to find someone on the same wavelength as me to collaborate with, so maybe I should branch out and not confine myself to those directly around me.

The song is an Anthem!

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