Using Social Media to Help Find My Path

January 31, 2022, 8:22 PM · Social media has become a focus in my life in 2022, particularly as to how it applies to my music-making and violin-playing. While there are many negatives associated with various platforms, I’m finding there are some strong positives that can be used by young musicians who are just starting out.

As for me, I’m not someone who usually leaves comments on YouTube videos or follows many people on Twitter. While I was in school, I mostly checked out a small handful of online creators I personally enjoyed. Recently, as I've been making YouTube covers of my own, I've grown a small audience and have made some connections with fellow VGM content creators. I'm hopeful to have some interesting collaborations with various artists that I can tell you about in the near future.

While this is all very exciting, and I’m so happy to be making connections, I’m also trying to make sure I don’t fall into the social media trap of equating followers with self-worth. It breaks my heart to hear about young people who focus on social media as if it’s real-life.

I recently watched a video that documented the many worthy composers, musicians, and artists who get overlooked and overshadowed. The producer brought home the point that just because you don't have a lot of followers, that doesn't mean you aren't a talented musician.

For me, YouTube, Twitter, and other social media platforms have some true positives to offer that can be of value to young musicians. Here are the ones I try to focus on:

Build connections and start to inch your way into the professional music world. (That’s particularly important as the pandemic lingers and makes travel difficult.)
Take the opportunity to record and upload music easily from home and share it with the world. (I'm honestly making recordings for fun as much as for anyone else to enjoy.)
Work on improving your skills. (It's fun to play music again on a regular basis and I’m really invested in improving my violin skills after focusing so much on composition in graduate school.)

I’m trying to fill my life with as much music as I can while I figure out my path this year. I plan to use social media to help me move forward, capitalizing on the positives while leaving the negatives behind.

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Joshua Iyer

February 3, 2022 at 06:04 PM · Thank you for the edits Laurie! At the time I was more just writing a quick post for the month of my thoughts, but this is great!

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Using Social Media to Help Find My Path

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