Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Marcelo Maccagnan. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Marcelo, thanks for joining us today. I’m sure there have been days where the challenges of being an artist or creative force you to think about what it would be like to just have a regular job. When’s the last time you felt that way? Did you have any insights from the experience?

I feel that being an artist is exactly where I am meant to be. I see many people and friends that either have a full time job or have been artists at one point and then given up to work as an accountant or something very stable, and I believe that is absolutely nothing wrong with that. However, for me, I want to do one thing in this short life, and that is to do what I love. I am extremely blessed and privileged to be able to make money and survive by just working with music. Of course if I had a full time job I could be making much more money than what I am now, but I can’t never let go of the fact that this life is the only one I have, and I don’t want to get to the end of it not doing what I love. I will take advantage of every single opportunity I get in order to “survive” with music, but its important to point out that what many call surviving, for me is life. I can go to “work” anytime of the day, because I am my own boss. I can create things from my mind and put then into the world and have people listening to me. I can reach people and connect to people through a live show or even on social media, and sometimes make a small difference in someone’s day.

That’s why for me, I will stay here, “surviving” as long as I can. Because the joy I get out of it, is incomparable to any other thing I can ever consider doing. The love, the people, the creativity and for me, the most important aspect or arts, the Freedom, is what I strive for. It is what I wake up everyday and thank the world for. Is what for Me, gives life meaning.

Marcelo, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am a musician, More specifically, I am a Bassist and a Composer. I am originally from Brazil and moved to USA when I was 20 years old. My musical journey started when I was in high school and fell in love with Rock and the electric bass. After graduating, I was sure that I wanted to pursue a career within music. So I was able to apply to Berklee College of Music in Boston, and I got accepted. After graduating, I moved to NYC where I am now located and have been working as a full time musician and educator for the past 7 years.

I would say one of my main “jobs” is as a live performer. That means I play in many different musical projects from a variety of artists. I have worked with jazz artists all the way to Indian classical musicians. I love the stage and live music. I would say it is my favorite aspect of music. But, I also do many other things. As many other musicians, we have to wear many hats in order to develop our career and also get work. Another thing I do often is recording either on studios or at my own home studio.

I also have my own projects in which I work very hard to put new music out. I have a decent follow on social media which is something I find a lot of joy. It is nice to connect with people! My handle is my name: marcelomaccagnan

A particular project I am currently doing, is co-hosting a weekly Jam Session in Brooklyn called “The Spontaneous Jam Session”, where musicians from all backgrounds and levels can come and create music on the spot. We have been doing it for almost 2 years and I really love to meet new musicians and to constantly be creating new music every week.

Lastly, I have been working on a new up and coming project called “Escape us from Reality” which involves reactive visuals combined with music. It is something very fresh, but I am very passionate about the new medias we are able to unlock as technology get further developed. I will be putting a lot of effort into this project the next coming years.

Overall, I can say I have a very active and busy schedule. I am also very thankful for the support of my endorser NS Design and being able to play their amazing Bass that really changed my musical journey to the better. And I hope to keep staying busy and playing in more interesting projects.

How did you build your audience on social media?

I have been working on my social media presence since 2019. However it only really caught up these last 6 months when I went from 6k followers to 50k on instagram (plus other platforms also went quite up). My point is. It took me 5 years of working on it pretty much every week non stop in order to get here. It was all the hours I spent posting, editing, watching tutorials and most of all Figuring Out Stuff, that allowed me to finally find my audience and connect. Now….I want to point that I am not an influencer or trying to be on. I see myself as a “Creator that uses content to reach people”. I see social media more as a Key, that can unlock certain doors the more followers you have. I was able to get gigs and jobs because of my followers. And I think that’s the key for musicians. Do not get lost in the universe of creators and influencers, but use that as a way to connect to people and show them your art. My biggest tip for growing on social media (besides figure out how to get a good sound and video quality) is make the first 3 seconds of every video memorable. I think once I truly learned that, I was able to get my videos much more popular than before.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

Coming from Brazil, I can say that compared to majority of developing and undeveloped countries, US is doing a decent job at supporting the arts. The idea of having a high school or even a middle school where kids can study art make me want to cry of joy, since it is something non existing in most places of the world. So that is the first thing I wanted to mention, the idea that Everything, is relative. Now, I think we can divide this question into 2 parts: what can people do to support and help artists; and what can entities/bigger groups can do to help artist.

For people, I think it is very complex, because we are currently going through a period or over stimulation, where in 1 hour, we can find 1000x more content than we could do in 1 year back in the 80s or 90s. The issue here, is that WHO do you support? There are too many artists. Not only that, there are Too Many Great artists! I (a full time musician) can barely keep up with my favorite creators, because every other day I find a new one that I also love. So it is a very interesting time to be alive. I don’t think I really have an answer for this, BUT, I will say that no matter what you do. If you like someone, follow them on socials, drop a like, comment, save the video. I think nowadays, that is the easiest and the more free way to help any artist. But if you really really wanna support, go watch them live. That, means the world, and means more than any likes.

Now for the entities, I believe (as a New Yorker) many venues and booking agents could do with a little more respect towards artists. There are many issues related to venues and booking agents not taking bands and artists seriously and it creates a toxic environment. This topic can probably be a whole dissertation in someones article, but for me, its mostly about respect and making sure it is understood, that artists, bring the people, artists, for lack of better word, are indeed the Stars of the Show, and they deserve to be treated better. At least that is my opinion,

Contact Info:

• Website: https://marcelomaccagnan.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marcelomaccagnan/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marcelomaccagnanmusic
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/MarceloMaccagnan
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5ZIV3mkmI3qi20X8Zk8Ms6

Image Credits

Mikhail Lipyanskiy