As I walked down 6th street in Austin Texas recently, I was met with an array of live musical performances, with the exception of the 104 degree weather it was not unlike teleporting around the musical venues in a Virtual World.  On multiple grids professional musicians, hobbyists, students, career changers and potentials all perform for an appreciative  live audience.  Setup in a virtual venue includes plugging equipment into a computer to provide a live stream and logging into a virtual environment.  Virtual worlds offer easy to access venues so the novice band  playing in a garage or the professional blues singer and guitarist in a practice room are able to logon and perform for a live audience from the comfort of their home or studio.  Musicians even perform with colleagues from another geographic location, appearing together inworld.

The Arts are experiencing cuts in education spending and students hoping to pursue a career in music, drama, or art related areas may need to access alternative arenas for exploring, practicing, and performing their talent and related skills.  Accomplished musicians perform in virtual venues, across virtual grids all times of the day, every day. Perhaps “virtual performances” will become a mainstream outlet for entertainment, at the very least it is a potential learning ground for aspiring performers.

In addition to performing, song-writing and employing technical tasks, aspiring musicians can practice skills necessary in the music business such as working with an agent and dealing with bookings,  public relations, promotion,  marketing, and even managing finances.  As the mode that we access music is changing, so is the way we provide and access entertainment.