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March 25, 2008
Posted: 02:59 PM ET

Swina Allen

Why a musician starts an SL career? First of all he has to trust in his music and he must think to share something new with his audience. This is the story of Swina Allen, whose gig I attended last week at the Gold Club. In his music you can find some bluesy roots, but actually it is affected also by some rock influences(Carlos Santana and Weather Report above all) and even some innovative jazz (Joe Zawinul,Waine Shorter e Jaco Pastorius):the result is an original sound, a kind of smooth jazz and chillout.

As soon as Swina started his second life he opened a club, the Italian Mood(yudasin22.99,45), suddenly it became a sort of musical workshop hosting many live musicians gigs of different genres. But Swina felt to be mainly a musician and so he decided to get in the game! He started playing all around in SL gathering a nice crowd of fans.

After the gig I asked some question to the artist, and he kindly answered me:first of all I asked him what he feels in performing in SL and he said “ well,it depends on what do you expect:I guess that the main thing is not not the music in itself, but first of all the feelings you get across, keeping the people with you till the gig ends it’s the strongest emotion and sometimes it’s not necessary to be technically perfect: in sl you may get an immediate feedback and it is well shown by the generous tips of the avatars attending your performance!”

When I asked Swina how does he create his songs he told me that usually he starts with a drums pattern and after he adds some new parts(pads,synths)using only some virtual instruments(VLS);sometimes he edits the tracks with a little of quantization but only for the attack putting together some sampled chorus and voices.

Finallly he adds also keyboards and then he refines the whole with the acoustic guitar. I asked him what does he expect from SL:”The great advantage in SL is that it may put you in contact with many other musicians from all over in the world:you may listen easily to their music and maybe it will be possible starting a collaboration sharing experiences.

Technology seems to be such important for this artist and so I asked him what he thinks of:”Technology may help:today a musician may have his own studio without any huge investments; digital music did this revolution: it helps the autonomy both for creation and production. Of course promotion is not so easy even with web 2.0,social network and web radios. And of course SL itsef are able to spread music all around.
Submitted by Simona Dawes

Filed under: art • culture


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Becca   March 27th, 2008 3:33 am ET

You got to check out this web site, it has all kinds of music for free, and movies. this the place to look at!!!!!

totalbuznet.freewebspace.com

Todd Crumn   March 28th, 2008 7:38 pm ET

Why does Second Life get so much coverage on CNN.Com and in the press in general. Is it simply because they have a great PR firm behind them? Is it because its small user base is very vocal? It appears that Second life gets way more coverage than World of Warcraft and other online games/communities while the WOW has a much larger user base and better technology, art, etc.

Mike   April 4th, 2008 2:43 pm ET

Even as a WoW addict of 3 years, and a SL player of about a week, I can tell you Todd, that comparing the two is a rather obsurd jesture. Wow is simply a game, while SL fosters a community and real economy by design…

Harvey   April 4th, 2008 7:10 pm ET

They forgot one, little section of the story… “Swina’s hideous disfigurements prevents him from going out and getting a gig in real life, but thankfully SL’s “create a rocker” mode has enabled him to create a face and body that don’t send the crowd screaming.” I can see why they edited it out, though.

Jeremy   April 11th, 2008 2:20 pm ET

I agree with Todd. I have never actually played WOW or SL but as from what i’ve seen from both games, they should not be compared to. SL maybe should just be a replacement for the game “The Sims”

Ray   April 18th, 2008 2:12 pm ET

lol … as an SLer since Oct’06, and never having played WoW, I can tell you that Mike is right … it’s a community. And, you can do with it as you like, within the guidelines of the TOS, that is.

I went to SL as a singer/songwriter to find a wider audience. But, I got so caught-up in building, that I forgot my original mission: to play music. Now, I’m involved in the music movement there, and there is a whole lot of activity and friends to be found … World-wide.

I’m Ray Weyland inworld. But, there are hundreds more who can talk better on this.

TheRadioLive   April 19th, 2008 12:08 am ET

Theradiolive currently has a presense in Second Life and even though it’s slow going, it’s fun. We also stream 24/7 online at http://www.theradiolive.com

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