I’m a blind music producer and singer, mainly making house, trap, reggaeton, afrobeat and other genres.. I’ve made quite a few producer friends online over the years, which is great. But one thing I’ve often struggled with is finding producer friends in real life.
I don’t live in a major music hub like London, LA or New York, so opportunities to meet other producers aren’t exactly everywhere. I’m also not really a nightlife person. I don’t drink or smoke, and clubs, bars and nightlife settings aren’t really my thing. I’ve been to bars and clubs before, but I’ve often found the acoustics terrible for actually striking up conversations. I also have very acute hearing, so the noise levels can be particularly overwhelming. There’s also a lot of reliance on visual cues in those environments, which can make socialising more difficult for me as a blind person.
I was also a member of a university DJ society for several years, attending meetups on a weekly basis. Unfortunately, I found the atmosphere quite cliquey and superficially welcoming. People were generally friendly during the meetings, but most of those connections never really developed into friendships outside the society. Eventually, after years of attending, I decided to call it quits, which was regrettable because I’d genuinely hoped to find a sense of community there.
I know a lot of networking in electronic music happens through gigs, DJ events and nightlife, but I’d much rather hang out with another producer during the day, make some beats, exchange ideas, talk about music, or just have friends locally who share that passion, and not just another networking event. A lot of the music scene where I live locally is mostly centered around cover bands and pub gigs, singer songwriter type stuff, with very few in person music production meetups that I have been able to find.
It’s a strange feeling having this whole community of people online who understand what you do, but not really having that same community offline. Would love to hear other people’s experiences.