The Unofficial Second Life® Fashion and Shopping Blog

Some of the most enjoyable ways to spend time in Second Life for me involves attending live music venues. There is a great variety of performing musicians and DJ spinners on the virtual scene and it seems that every concert always has a new group of listeners mixed in with the regulars. As with any other type of scene, the crowds are generally diverse, and all of us know that one of the most compelling aspects of Second Life is freedom of expression. However, when live performers are involved, there are certain gestures of politeness and etiquette that will enhance your enjoyment and keep those around you from wanting to kill you.

My goal for this entry is to provide a little primer to help you enable your music settings and behave appropriately at venues without looking like a noob.

I. Enable Your Settings

A. Enable Preferences - First, you need to make sure that your Second Life Preferences are set up to allow you to listen to live music streams. To open your preferences, press Control + P or use the drop down from the Edit menu. Once your preferences are open, select the Audio/Video tab. Look beside “Streaming” and make sure there is a check mark beside “Play Streaming Music When Available.”

B. Enable Music Controls - Once your settings are enabled, you’ll see the music controls appear on parcels where streaming music is available. These controls appear as a small box above the chat field with a slider (for volume control) and two buttons (stop and play). They default to the off setting and look like this:

In order to hear the music, you need to press the round button with the right-arrow. It can take a few minutes for the stream to buffer depending on the speed of your Internet connection (high speed connections only take a few seconds).

Once the music controls are on, they’ll stay on until you turn them off by clicking on the round button with the tiny box on it. I like to keep mine turned off because there are a depressing number of parcels in SL that are set to stream Top 40 and I can only hear so much of that before I get physically ill.

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II. Gestures & Sounds

A. Negating Typing Sounds - When live music is playing, the last thing you or anyone wants is to listen to that little tap-tap soundtrack which signifies SL conversations. There is an easy fix for this, however. To negate the typing sound (as well as the motion of typing) you simply type a slash “/” in front of your conversation.

B. Gestures - The second most frequent faux-pas at SL concerts are people who use gestures and sounds to annoying effect. When people are performing, there is a thin line between expressing enthusiasm and being a dweeb. Recently at a concert some nitwit launched a blood-splurting, screamfest vampire attack gesture and I assure you, had there been a button on our keyboards to eject that person from the earth, they’d be in orbit now. In order to be considerate toward your fellow listeners and the performer, it’s best to stick to modest cheer and clap gestures at the end of songs. A simple clapping gesture is included in your SL Library. Simply navigate to it by opening the Gestures folder and then the Common Gestures folder.

When you find “/clap” just right-click it and choose “Activate.” To clap, you need only type /clap in the chat field. With many gestures, activating them will also put them in your quick-gesture box. This appears in the bottom-right of your SL screen and just says “Gesture” with a down arrow.

To clap, just left-click the word “Gesture.” You’ll see the /clap gesture listed and if you simply click on it, your av will clap.

Obviously, once you know how to use gestures better, you can shop around and choose the gesture that best expresses your own feelings. However, keep in mind that your gesture sounds override the live music stream and will be heard over the musician. The best rule of thumb is to keep gestures brief and to use them sparingly at the appropriate times (generally, at the end of a song). I prefer to alternate between chat and gestures. Clapping might be nice, but typing feedback is generally also appreciated.

C. Talking Objects & Other Chat Spam - If you have objects that talk, leave them at your virtual home unless you are going to a club where you observe them in common use. People at concerts are generally there to listen to music and enjoy the room interaction; no one wants to hear your virtual parts blathering. Likewise, this is not the place for long, involved personal conversations. Extensive typing and chat spam is rude. The performer will be trying to observe the conversation in the room between songs and they shouldn’t have to scroll through some nonsense about how bad a day you had at work to see who was talking about the music or the performance. Keep private conversations to IM and keep room chatter to commenting on music, venue, or group conversation. The etiquette for this really does vary from venue to venue; let the room and the behavior of the regulars lead you.

III. Dancing

Odds are if there is live music happening, there are also lots of dancing avatars about. The type of dancing depends on the objects provided in the venue and/or brought with listeners themselves.

A. Dance Balls - Dance balls are provided at many music venues and generally work only for couples. The balls are typically in sets of two - one blue (masculine dance steps) and one pink (feminine dance steps). In nearly all cases, the dance animation will not trigger if only one person climbs on, so it’s best not to try them if you’re not wiling to scare up a partner. If you have a partner, you merely right-click them and choose “dance” or “sit.” Depending on the length of the animation, there might be a slight lag in the start of the dance. Give it a second or two. Also, dance animations can get out of sync. To re-sync, one of you needs only to step off and back on while the other remains in place and the animation will restart.

B. Dance Animators - Many venues provide Dance Animators for their customers. These can be tricky because they are often hidden. In the case of Mason’s (a delightful little venue I love) and other places, the dance animator is in the guise of a disco ball. These objects can generally be identified by mousing over them. A single left-click will generate a dialog box which asks if the object has permission to animate your av. If you want to dance, click “yes” and in a few seconds the cartoon you will begin its jam.

To stop dancing, just left-click again and your av will stop moving.

If you can’t find a dance animator, you can try IMing a regular or the venue owner to ask if one is on premises. DO NOT IM THE PERFORMER. Odds are they wouldn’t know anyway. They’re too busy managing their stream, performing and keeping track of the room to have any clue where things like dance animators can be located.

C. Personal Dance Animations - If you really like live music and find that you prefer bopping on the dance floor instead of taking a seat, you can purchase dance animations, HUDs, and machines from a variety of places on SL. The OWENIMATIONS Chimera is very popular, but there are many choices out there.

IV. Tipping

A. Tipping Performers - It’s always a kind gesture to tip lindens to a performer if you’re enjoying the show. The SL economy being what it is, most performers play for the fun and enjoyment of it because club and venue owners simply can’t fork out big bucks, so L$ tips do help. Some performers will rez a tip jar beside their av while they play. You can pay the tip jar or right-click on the performer themselves and select “pay.” The amount is completely up to you. Many people on free accounts or tight SL budgets tip L$25 - L$75 0here and there for a few songs during the set. Others prefer to make a single large tip at some point during the performance. I like to tip L$250 a couple times during the set when I *really* like the song. L$250 is approximately $1US and that’s the least I can toss out for a great song. Still, I’m hardly the rule of thumb. Just give what feels right for you.
B. Tithing the House - It can also be a nice gesture to tithe the house after a performance you really liked. SL venues have various ways of earning their money. They might sell objects on premises or use the live performances to bulk up their traffic for a store that shares the same parcel. If you don’t notice an obvious way to make money, then odds are the venue exists in whole or part on customer donations. Look around for a donation box or IM the owner to ask if you can pay them directly.

V. Finding Live Music

Finding live music is MUCH easier now than it used to be. It has its own Category listing in Find > Events. Simply click your Find button (Control + F) and choose the “Events” tab. Select “Live Music” from the Category drop-down and click “Search.” That day’s events will appear in the left-side column with the Name of the event and its scheduled start time SLT. Clicking on a performance listing will open details of it to the right.

This is great because you have a handy teleport link right there in the detail of the listing. If you’re having a lot of trouble finding a performance that you’re sure exists make sure the “Show Mature” box is checked. This is a good rule of thumb when searching anything on SL.

VI. A Note About Lag

One final note about streaming music and lag. Just like the delay of satellite television, live music streams often experience a 10 to 120 second lag. It’s possible you’re applauding a song that the performer has moved on from (another reason typing words of praise is better than sound gestures). Don’t be surprised or discouraged if the performer takes a few minutes between playing to address comments made in the room, or if there’s a delay in the ability of the performer to respond to actions taking place at the venue.

Above all, just enjoy the music, have a good time, demonstrate kindness to those around you as well as respect for the performer and you can’t go wrong.