The Glam Violinist with Celeste Vee

My Software Playbook

• Celeste Vee • Season 1 • Episode 8

Share episode

Ever wonder what tech secrets successful gigging musicians use behind the scenes? In this episode, Celeste reveals her essential tools and platforms for communication, booking, and more, saving you years of trial and error and empowering you to streamline your career.


Use this link for 30% off your first year of HoneyBook:

https://share.honeybook.com/celeste4958276


And here's a list of the tools mentioned in this Episode:

Design and Creativity

  • Audio
    • Audacity
    • GarageBand
    • Logic Pro
  • Video 
    • Final Cut Pro
    • iMovie
    • CapCut
    • Canva
  • Graphic Design
    • Canva
  • Stock Images
    • Envato
  • Outsourcing
    • Upwork
    • Fiverr
    • DesignCrowd
  • Printing
    • GotPrint
    • Staples/Office Depot


File and Media Sharing

  • Google Drive
  • Dropbox
  • YouTube
  • Vimeo
  • Website
  • Social Media
    • Instagram
    • TikTok
    • Etc.
  • WeTransfer


Communications

  • Texting & Calls & DM’s
    • iMessage or SMS
    • Google Voice
    • TextNow
    • WhatsApp
    • Social Media DM’s
  • Website
    • Lead Generator
    • Contact Form
  • Email
    • Gmail
    • MailChimp



Booking and CRM

  • CRM
    • Monday
    • Salesforce
    • HubSpot
  • Booking
    • HoneyBook
    • HubSpot
    • ClickUp
    • Airtable
    • Asana
    • Wrike
    • Basecamp


Performance Tools

  • Sheet Music Purchase
    • MuseScore
    • Musicnotes
    • SheetMusicPlus
  • Sheet Music Performance Software
    • ForScore
    • MuseScore
    • Musicnotes
  • Backing Track Purchase
    • Karaoke Version
    • Apple Music
    • iTubeGo
    • Moises
  • Playback Software
    • Rekordbox
    • DJ Pro
    • ForScore
    • Moises
    • Apple Music
    • Windows Media Player


Office Tools

  • Google Workspace
  • QuickBooks
  • TurboTax
  • SignNow 
  • Zapier

Instagram.com/TheCelesteVee

This week I was in the middle of a training session with some of our new team members, and one of them stopped me in the middle of our training session and commented on how much I know about software and technology. I just laughed because that is SO not my forte. My husband is the IT guy in our house. He’s got all the degrees and certifications and decades of experience, and he just “gets it”. I do the bare minimum to get by, and I learn only as much as I have to learn to do what I need to do. Still, that adds up after 25 years! I’ve tried a lot of different platforms over those years because I believe in working smarter, not just harder. For every piece of software I use, I’ve probably tried 2, 3 or a dozen other options before deciding what works best for what I need. So this episode is designed to save you the trouble of all that trial and error. By no means am I claiming that I have all the answers. I’m just sharing my own personal way of doing things. So here’s a little insider peek at my software playbook!

  • [Music intro]
  • Are you a classically trained violinist dreaming of stepping out of the orchestra and into the spotlight? But maybe the world of solo gigs feels…intimidating? You're not alone! Welcome to The Glam Violinist, the podcast that empowers classically trained musicians to build thriving careers as sought-after entertainers. I'm your host, Celeste Vee, and each week we'll break down the secrets to getting the gigs you’ve been dreaming of. Get ready to unleash your inner rockstar and turn your passion into a paycheck! Let's get glamorous!
  • Today’s episode is about the types of software that a glam violinist needs.


What are the tasks that we have to accomplish over and over, and what are the tools and platforms that can help?


The hardest thing about writing this episode was organizing this list of software into categories because so many of them crossover into multiple purposes. So first I’m going to share what they are and what they do. Then I’m going to give you a few use cases where you can see how I use these in a typical gig flow. By the way, for most of these brands I don’t have any affiliation so I’m not getting paid to promote their products. I’m just sharing them because I care about you and I want you to have the tools you need to succeed! However, I do have a share link for HoneyBook. More on that in a moment.



Design and Creativity

  • Audio
    • Audacity
    • GarageBand
    • Logic Pro
  • Video 
    • Final Cut Pro
    • iMovie
    • CapCut
    • Canva
  • Graphic Design
    • Canva
  • Stock Images
    • Envato
  • Outsourcing
    • Upwork
    • Fiverr
    • DesignCrowd
  • Printing
    • GotPrint
    • Staples/Office Depot


First, let’s talk about the stuff behind the scenes - especially audio, video and graphic design - because this is the first step to building your business. It may or may not happen before you start talking to potential clients, but it should. Remember how we talked last week about wearing all the hats? This is a perfect example, as a working musician you’re likely going to need to also be at least a mediocre audio engineer, video editor and graphic designer. 


Let’s start with audio. For creating song mashups I use Audacity primarily, which is funny because I’m a Mac girl all the way. The thing is, I started using Audacity for audio editing in 2008 before I got my first Mac. By the time I switched to Apple products in 2012 I was too far into Audacity to start over and learn GarageBand which is native to the Mac operating system. Old dog and new tricks and all that. Nowadays, I use Audacity for mashups and quick editing tasks such as shortening songs, but when I’m working on actual recording projects I usually use Logic Pro. I’m not great at it; honestly it scares the fire out of me, but I can make sounds go into it and come out of it at the end of the day. Whatever you choose, you can expect that there will be a learning curve, but it’s really worth it to have your own mashups and versions of songs sometimes. I could give you hundreds of examples, but here’s one… A bride wants to walk down the aisle to “A Thousand Years” by Christina Perri. You don’t want to start at the very beginning of the track because you only have 30 seconds to play the best part of the song, and you don’t want to guess at fast forwarding to the correct spot when you only have two seconds to change songs after the bridesmaids enter. Just create your own version with the cuts you want ahead of time. Less stress and pressure in the moment. Audacity or GarageBand are both perfect for this and so many other audio editing tasks.


For video editing, I use several different platforms depending on the project. For full length music videos with multiple takes and lots of in depth editing I use Final Cut Pro. Again, I’m not great at it, but when Covid hit and all my gigs got canceled in 2020 I was desperate for something to do that would continue to grow my business so I learned how to produce my own music videos from start to finish. I highly recommend learning the basics of video editing, but if you don’t enjoy it then you should definitely hire that out for bigger projects. For simpler videos I use iMovie and for other media such as Reels I use Canva or CapCut. I also have a subscription to a platform called Envato that offers royalty free music and stock video footage and photos. You can also find a selection of these in Canva, but it’s a bit more limited. 


Okay, I’ve already mentioned Canva twice - once when I was talking about web design and again for video editing, but you probably know that Canva is primarily a graphic design platform. I have created literally THOUSANDS of designs in Canva over the years, and that’s not counting those that my team have designed. I use it pretty much every single day for editing photos, creating YouTube Thumbnails, designing business cards, creating Instagram Highlight covers and sooooo much more. If you’re not already familiar with Canva, I highly recommend getting in there and seeing how it can help you in your business. There’s a free version and a Pro version so do what works for you.


For any of these creative tasks that you don’t want to learn or do on your own there’s always Upwork and Fiverr as I’ve mentioned before. On either of these platforms you can find virtual assistants, audio engineers, graphic designers, video editors and thousands of other categories of professionals around the world. I have hired on both of these sites more times than I can count. Some were just for a single project and others have become invaluable members of my team who I work with every single day. For one time logo or graphic design projects I’ve also used DesignCrowd which is very fun because it works like a design competition. You put your project out there and tons of designers will pitch their initial design concepts. You don’t have to choose someone until you’ve seen a draft of their idea. So many options!


You may not need professional printing services often, but it is necessary from time to time. I know many pros are moving away from business cards, but I still have clients at every event who ask for them so you’d better believe I’m going to have them handy. Some people just are not adept at QR codes and saving websites and other forms of saving your info, and I don’t want to lose out on a potential client because I didn’t have a physical business card. Back when I worked for a large graphic design company we used GotPrint for a lot of our printing needs, and I really like working with them. They’re my go to, but there are plenty of others out there. I use them for business cards, collapsible banners for bridal shows, and other bits and pieces that need high quality printing. For quicker turnaround I often take advantage of the printing services at Staples or Office Depot. Just upload your designs to their user-friendly printing portal and you’ll be notified when they’re ready for pickup. For many items you can get them in 24 hours or even less. I should mention that Canva also offers their own printing services. I haven’t used them personally, but it’s another option.



File and Media Sharing

  • Google Drive
  • YouTube
  • Website
  • Social Media
    • Instagram
    • TikTok
    • Etc.
  • WeTransfer


Now that the creative work is done, one of the most important capabilities you need as a glam violinist is a way to show your work. Honestly, without that you likely will never book a gig. This crosses over into social media a little, but let’s start at the beginning. Let’s say you’ve just created a beautiful demo video and you’re ready to share it with the world. I’d recommend storing or uploading that to multiple locations. First, you want to have all of your media organized in one place so you can find it and share it easily. If a client asks if you can play a specific song or they’re wondering if you’re familiar with a certain venue, nothing will seal the deal better than immediately sending them a link to you playing that song or performing in that venue. Keep your media well organized and well labeled, and store them in a place that allows you to share them easily. I use Google Drive for this, but you can also use Dropbox or any similar platform. 


Once you’ve got that video stored and labeled in Google Drive, I’d add it to YouTube or Vimeo. Every performing musician should have their own YouTube channel in my opinion, regardless of how often you use it. You don’t have to add to it constantly, but YouTube is such a great way to store and share your work really quickly and easily. And don’t worry if you see "Copyright Issues” marked on your video. That just means that you can’t monetize the video since you didn’t write the song. But we’re not there to monetize. We’re there to showcase our work and most of that work will involve covers of other people’s songs. Not a biggie. This won’t interfere with your ability to share the video.


Once your video is uploaded to your YouTube Channel take advantage of the Playlists feature! These are perfect for organizing your videos into collections that make sense… You can have Playlists for different genres of music or different types of events, or whatever makes sense for you and your clients. And you can even add the same video to multiple Playlists if it fits in different categories. And it gets better… Every Reel you create for TikTok or Instagram can be added to YouTube as a Short, and those Shorts can also be added to a Playlist, creating an organized portfolio that is easy for potential clients and agencies to navigate and find what they’re looking for. I can’t emphasize enough that YouTube is a wonderful and FREE resource for musicians to showcase their work.


Once you’ve got your video uploaded to YouTube you can also add that embedded link to your website! Having a handful of your best videos and photos in one place on your website is super helpful to potential clients and agencies. There are more possibilities here than I can shake a stick at, but do your own research and choose what works best for you. I built my first website in 2001 with straight up HTML cut and paste, but we’ve come a LONG way since then!! There are millions of templates and drag and drop options out there now. I’ve always personally enjoyed designing my own sites, and I used Wix for many years. They have both free and paid options so you can do what works for you! In 2019, I decided I need more robust SEO (that’s Search Engine Optimization) so I retired my Wix sites and moved on. It’s not that Wix doesn’t have SEO; I was just looking for more. I created the initial designs myself on Canva and had someone build them for me on Wordpress. Those sites are currently hosted on BlueHost since Wordpress doesn’t offer hosting services. Now here we are in 2025 and I’m designing new sites for both Celeste Vee and Violin Event Entertainment! (Keep an eye out for both of those this spring!) I’m doing the designs in Canva then they will be built and hosted in SquareSpace. There are so many options, but a website IS important when it comes to sharing your work. Choose what works for you and make it happen!


I would be remiss if I didn’t mention sharing your work on social media, but that’s not what this episode is about. Suffice it to say, you should take those same videos and share them - or pieces of them - on your favorite social media platforms. What I DON’T want you to do is rely on those platforms as your entire online presence. Someone very wise reminded me years ago that I don’t own what I share on social media. That platform owns it. They can remove it or delete my entire profile on a whim and that content and that audience is lost. Or TikTok could get banned. Or like my friend, Rob Flax, experienced a few years ago, someone can hack into your account and take it over so you no longer have access to it! Social media is great, but it’s owned by someone else. Having your own catalog of your own work stored somewhere safe is incredibly important.


Ok, the last tool I want to mention for content sharing is WeTransfer. I’m still surprised at how many people don’t know about this free tool that’s used by creatives all over the world! Unlike Google Drive or Dropbox, WeTransfer is a temporary cloud folder where you can upload and share large files. You know how sometimes you get that annoying alert that something is too large to share in a text or email? Sometimes the easiest way to send it is to upload it to WeTransfer, grab the link and send it to whoever you’re sharing that file with. You can do this with the free app on your phone or on your desktop, whatever works best in that moment. The free version of WeTransfer allows up to 2GB per transfer, but you can always do multiple transfers if needed. And it sits in their cloud for up to 3 days so the person you’re sending it to just has to download it before then. For larger files or a longer period of time they do have paid plans as well.



Communications

  • Texting & Calls & DM’s
    • iMessage or SMS
    • Google Voice
    • TextNow
    • WhatsApp
    • Social Media DM’s
  • Website
    • Lead Generator
    • Contact Form
  • Email
    • Gmail
    • MailChimp


Let’s talk about communication platforms… There are so many different ways to converse with clients, agencies and other vendors you’re collaborating with. I regularly receive inquiries through a ton of different platforms. From there we almost always direct them to the contact form on our website, but we still use these other services for communications in various contexts:


For many years I used my personal cell phone for booking gigs, but I switched to giving out a Google Voice number after I went solo. That was mostly so I didn’t have to put my personal cell on my website, business cards, and various booking platforms. Still, there are a ton of planners and past clients out there who still reach out to me on my personal cell phone number, years after I stopped giving it out. You might be totally fine with that, especially if you aren’t looking at making this a full-time career. And that’s totally okay! But if you want a different number to share publicly, you have options. I use Google Voice and TextNow. I love Google Voice because it’s free. You can call and send texts and photos, but you can’t send videos or use it for two factor authentication, which may or may not become an issue for you down the road. I switched to TextNow a while back for that very reason. They do have a free version, but if you want a premium number or you need to receive verification codes from other services it costs $4.99 a week. For no ads it’s two dollars a week more - so $6.99 a week. 


I also use WhatsApp every single day, but since that’s tied to my personal cell phone number I mostly use that with my team and a few select vendors. I do love WhatsApp’s ability to send hi res photos/videos. I’m an iPhone girl so when I’m at a gig and I notice someone captured a great video and they also have an iPhone I’ll ask them to Airdrop it to me. So easy and you get it in full HD resolution. If they don’t have an iPhone, WhatsApp is the next best thing. You just need to make sure whoever is sending the video has high definition turned on before they send it. Go to Settings, then Media Upload Quality and choose HD quality.


Of course, I also receive inquiries in Instagram DM’s, email, and through our website contact form but I’ll get to those in just a moment.


Before I leave off the topic of communications I should also mention email newsletters. I use MailChimp for mine, but you have plenty of options out there such as Constant Contact, ConvertKit, and lots more. You may be wondering how I add people to MailChimp? There are several different ways. They can click on the lead generator on my website and provide their email address in exchange for a free resource that I’m offering. Or they can request information on the contact page of my website. Or I can manually add them if we’ve already been communicating and I know they’d like to hear from me every once in a while.




Booking and CRM

  • HoneyBook
  • Monday


Next, let’s take a look at booking and CRM. If you haven’t heard the term CRM before, that refers to Customer Relationship Management. It’s a tool that helps you to keep track of your interactions with potential clients and their projects. Maybe you’ve heard of SalesForce or HubSpot, but there’s also a lot of crossover with Project Management tools such as Asana, ClickUp, Wrike, Airtable, BaseCamp and sooooo many more. I’ve used all of these, some of them for years and years, and I love each one for what it does best, but my current picks are Honeybook for Project Management and Monday for CRM.


Here’s how that works… When I reach out to a planner or a venue or someone I want to do business with I add them to Monday CRM. There I can track phone calls, emails, texts, and all the communications that happen between us. You can definitely continue to use the same platform after they request a quote and want to move forward, but I prefer HoneyBook for the rest of the process. There are three ways that a potential client gets added to HoneyBook. They can either fill out the contact form on my website or I can bring them over from Monday with an API integration software called Zapier, or I can add them manually. Again, my preference for new clients is that they fill out the contact form on our website. It helps me gather the information I need without it feeling like a game of 20 questions in a text or email or DM’s. It saves both of us all the back and forth, and it saves me the time of having to manually enter all that information myself. If I do have to add a client to HoneyBook myself, I usually don’t add them until they’ve requested information or a quote for a specific event. That means that I’m typically adding both a Client and what’s called a Project at the same time. I’ve designed custom fields on the Details page for each Project so I can collect all the information we need to send them a Proposal and plan the details of their music. 


The client also has access to their side of this Client Portal, and once they login they can schedule a call or view all documents and emails pertaining to that project. In the Proposal they can sign the contract and pay the deposit all in one place. HoneyBook sends them automated reminders about upcoming payments and you can also set up automated email drip campaigns based on the information they’ve requested. The customizations are endless, and the templates and calendars and tools that are built into HoneyBook honestly make it the best in the industry hands down for what we do. There’s no comparison. If you’re interested in trying out HoneyBook be sure to use the link in the show notes down below to get 30% off your first year of HoneyBook.


Performance Tools

  • Sheet Music Purchase
    • MuseScore
    • Musicnotes
    • SheetMusicPlus
  • Sheet Music Performance Software
    • ForScore
    • MuseScore
    • Musicnotes
  • Backing Track Purchase
    • Karaoke Version
    • Apple Music
    • iTubeGo
    • Moises
  • Playback Software
    • Rekordbox
    • DJ Pro
    • ForScore
    • Moises
    • Apple Music
    • Windows Media Player



Once you’ve booked the gig you can move back into your creative zone for the actual performance. I don’t use sheet music for gigs very often, and I think you know I recommend memorizing your setlists whenever possible. But there are times when you’re not given enough time to memorize a special request; or maybe you’re the kind of person who likes to see the sheet music to help with memorizing. I should mention here that I also highly recommend learning new songs by ear if you can take the time to do that. You’ll play it more authentically and it will sound far truer to the original artist than learning it with written music. In any case, when sheet music is required for whatever reason, I typically use MuseScore, Musicnotes or SheetMusicPlus for purchasing most songs. Once I’ve downloaded the PDF I like to edit it myself or combine songs into one medley before I add it to ForScore. That way when you’re first learning and building your set lists you don’t have to add each song individually if they’re always a part of that mashup. MuseScore and Musicnotes also offer sheet music software, but I honestly haven’t played around with those so I can’t speak for how well they work.


I already talked about purchasing backing tracks on a previous episode. If you want to learn more about my approach, go check out Episode 2 - “Choosing Songs and Backing Tracks”. For a quick recap on the tools I use, my go to is Karaoke Version. If they don’t have it I try purchasing the mp3 from Apple Music. As a last resort, I use a program called iTubeGo that allows me to download songs from YouTube. You can also try out Moises or something similar - an app that allows you to remove the vocals AND build a setlist all in one.


At the actual performance, you have a few options for playing your backing tracks. I recommend simple DJ software first because that’s what it’s designed for - live performance. It has more options for changing the key, changing the tempo, merging songs and avoiding dead air. There’s a little learning curve, but if you’re only using basic features it’s not hard. Try out DJ Pro if you have a Mac. There’s a free version or a paid version with more features. On both Mac or PC I’ve used Rekordbox with my whole team. They also have both free and paid versions. Keep in mind, these are software programs or apps you have to download. They’re not in your browser. 


Another fun option is ForScore - yes the same ForScore where you store and organize your sheet music. You can attach an mp3 to each PDF there in the app and when you create your playlist you can just press play and go. As I mentioned, Moises is also a cool option where you can remove vocals and create a playlist all in one place.


If you want to keep it super simple and free, you can just use the native mp3 player on your laptop - Apple Music or Windows Media Player. I have to say that the Apple Music option can get messy if you accidentally add a song you don’t have downloaded. It’s not my recommendation, and neither is Spotify or YouTube. I just don’t trust them for live performance, and it’s really hard to get rid of the dead air between songs. But there are others who will disagree with me on this. You do you!



Office Tools

Google Workspace

QuickBooks

TurboTax

SignNow 

Zapier


There are a few other tools that I use regularly that don’t fall into any of these categories neatly. I’ll just call them office tools. They are not specific to musicians but they are very necessary. I love Google Workspace and live on that all day. Especially Google Drive, Sheets and Docs. You don’t need me to explain what these do. I’m just saying that they are super important for everything from sharing song lists to writing Bios and a zillion other tasks. 


For bookkeeping I highly recommend QuickBooks Solopreneur as I mentioned before. It allows you to sync your bank accounts and credit cards to automatically import all your transactions. Then you can easily separate your personal transactions from your business expenses and export everything into TurboTax with one click. It also tracks your mileage for you so you can deduct every last gig mile. It’s a game changer. Go check it out.


Before I switched to HoneyBook I used SignNow (similar to DocuSign) to collect signatures on contracts, and I found that I use it enough for other tasks that I kept it. It’s a great tool to have in your arsenal. It’s not free, but it’s also not expensive. There just aren’t many free options for this particular task. 


Lastly, I mentioned Zapier earlier. That’s an integration app that helps different software programs communicate with each other. When one thing happens on one platform (like HoneyBook) Zapier communicates that to another platform (like Google Drive) and initiates an action of your choice automatically. It’s a great way to save yourself time doing repetitive tasks and reduces the chance of human error. This may or may not be useful to you, but it’s a fantastic tool I use in many different ways.


And that’s it for today! I know I just threw a lot at you, but the great thing is, it’s your business so you can keep it as simple as you want! But if you love the idea of automations and exploring new tools then I hope you found this helpful in navigating the possibilities! 

Feel free to reach out with any questions! I would also love to hear about your tips and favorite tools! There’s so much I am still learning every single day, and maybe I’ll even share your recommendations on a future episode of The Glam Violinist!

Be sure to Subscribe to this Podcast to learn more each week about running a solo musician business, and you can also follow me on Instagram @TheCelesteVee

If you found this episode helpful, please send a link to your musician friends! I’d love to hear from them also!

  • [Closing music]

Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of The Glam Violinist! I’m so excited you’re here and I can’t wait to watch you grow, no matter where you are on this journey! We are in this together and I believe in you! 


Until next time, this is Celeste Vee reminding you to stay glamorous!