Technology

The pandemic has thrown all kinds of challenges in the way of group music making. However, our member groups have found ways to rehearse or safely put on performances whether entirely online, in person, or a combination of both - all while managing to mitigate the risks of Covid infection. Read about how they have done this in their own words.

Jennifer Bonsell from Aberdeen Chamber Music Concerts explains how her group collaborated with other local concert societies to share the work of putting on a virtual concert for their members.

Laura Mackay and Frank Althaus of Petros Singers tell us how they livestreamed their Covid-secure in-person rehearsals to members who were unable to attend in person.

In this recording of our guest speaker webinar (original event 19 March 2021), we explored how to make sure you're getting the most out of technology during online rehearsals.

We welcomed David Lake (member of a Making Music group, researcher at the University of Surrey, an Engineering Technologist in the CTO group at Dell Technologies and a contributor to the Internet Engineering Task Force, the standards body of the internet), Robin Simpson (member of the Northampton Symphony Orchestra) and Leon Gower (digital producer for Making Music).

Online platforms are websites or software that allow musicians to meet up in a virtual music room to play together using their internet connection. Jamulus uses specialist techniques to minimise 'latency' which is the delay heard on online video conference platforms (Zoom, Microsoft Teams etc).

Download the platform

Versions for Mac, Windows and Linux can be found on the official website: www.jamulus.io
Prepare your device:
For best results, before launching the software:

Online platforms are websites or software that allow musicians to meet up in a virtual music room to play together using their internet connection. Jamkazam uses specialist techniques to minimise 'latency' which is the delay heard on online video conference platforms (Zoom, Microsoft Teams etc).

Online platforms are websites or software that allow musicians to meet up in a virtual music room to play together using their internet connection. SonoBus uses specialist techniques to minimise 'latency' which is the delay heard on online video conference platforms (Zoom, Microsoft Teams etc).

Download SonoBus

Versions for Mac, Windows and Linux can be found on the official website: www.sonobus.net alongside information about the Apple and Android apps which are currently available as test platforms.

An introduction to online platforms for virtual music rehearsals, including SonoBus, JamKazam and Jamulus

What is a rehearsal platform?

These are websites or software that allow musicians to meet up in a virtual music room to play together using their internet connection. All of the platforms listed in this resource use specialist techniques to minimise 'latency' which is the delay heard on online video conference platforms (Zoom, Microsoft Teams etc), making it impossible to keep in time when playing music.

Many leisure-time music groups are now using Zoom for their rehearsals, performances and other activities, and are finding that some of their members are having issues with the audio – either they can’t hear, or they can’t be heard, or both!

These issues are down to a mixture of reasons. Zoom works by picking up sounds at certain frequencies, and cuts out when the frequencies go outside of these limits. As we all continue to work and socialise even more online, our internet connections and devices struggle with the demands being placed on them. 

Musical director of St Helens Ladies’ Choir, Patricia Lewis, describes her journey from having very little technological knowledge to running her choral group on Zoom during the pandemic.

Background

After early retirement from running a busy school music department and working with operatic societies, in 2011 I started a daytime weekly ladies’ choir in St Helens where I live. Many of our members do not read music and were technically inexperienced. From within the big choir we have a smaller choral group which also performs separately.