While playing music together online is the most prominent use of JamKazam, there are also many musicians who use JamKazam to co-write music. It's interesting because these days people co-write mostly by trading files back and forth in an asynchronous creative process. This works obviously, but the older way of co-writing where musicians sit in a room and noodle and play off each other in real-time in a more interactive manner has been lost to a large degree.
With JamKazam, musicians can have the best of both worlds. They can play together and create together and write together in a totally interactive way, as if sitting in a room together -- and at the same time they can record what they're doing so they automatically get session mixes plus fully isolated stems of what they are doing, which they can then throw into a DAW and work with, while screen sharing the DAW and hearing the output in real-time together. It's pretty amazing as a creative workflow.
If you're interested in co-writing/co-creating music with others on JamKazam, you can use our Find Friends search feature to help you connect for this purpose. To get started, click the Find Friends link in the left navigation bar of the website, or go to https://www.jamkazam.com/friends. Click the Update Search button at the top right of the page. A search feature is displayed (pictured below).
If your focus is entirely playing together in sync, it's best to leave Latency set to Good or Fair, but for co-writing, we'd suggest that even Poor latency can be checked on, as JamKazam's poor is still massively better than Zoom/etc and typically still very good for co-writing, which doesn't have quite as stringent latency requirements.
When looking for someone else to co-write with, we'd suggest focusing on:
- Interests - There is a specific interest selection "Co-write songs with others". If you check this interest, you'll filter down to other musicians who want to do this.
- Genres - Genres is a good way to find co-writing partners who are interested in the general area you want to write - i.e. if you want to co-write metal songs, probably best not to collaborate with someone who is primarily into country music.
You can also search by Artist if you feel like a common interest in a particular artist may hint at at fruitful collaboration and common ground, and/or by Instrument if, for example, you think getting someone who plays keys or another specific instrument will help get the creative process into your preferred zone.
Once you've set your search criteria, you can run the search and you'll see a search results page (pictured below).
You can click the musician's name (a blue text link) or click the Profile button in the actions column to see the musician's detailed profile information, which can give you a better feel for whether this person may be a good collaborator for you.
Making Contact with Potential Co-Writers
While you can simply click the blue "+" button in the Actions column to quickly fire off a friend connection request to another community member with whom you may want to co-write, we'd suggest you first use the messaging button to send them a message explaining who you are and why you think it would be cool to connect, what kind of music you might want to compose together, etc. If you vibe while messaging, you can then send a connection request later. Or you may send them a message and then send them a connection request right after sending your first message, so they at least have some context for the connection request.
If the user is currently offline (which is normal), they'll get an in-app notification next time they are on the app, and they will often also receive an email notification of your message and connection request.
Being Found in Search by Potential Co-Writers
Keep in mind that you're not going to be the only one out there searching. Others will be searching for you, too. So be sure to fill out your own JamKazam profile with your interests, including checking the co-writing interest. Instructions on how to do this are available in this profile help article.