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If you are a musician used to playing with a band, your options during a pandemic are few. Fortunately, technology can bring both a band’s members and their audience together, albeit in a different way.<\/p>\n
The Muskoka Concert Band (MCB) was forced to stop playing together in March, just days before a planned St. Patrick’s Day concert. They soon realized that their summer season, which involves one or two community performances per week from June through August, would have to be cancelled as well.<\/p>\n
But when you love music, you find a way.<\/p>\n
The band usually plays “O Canada” for the annual July 1 celebration at Muskoka Heritage Place. Instead, they each recorded their individual parts and MCB music director, Fran Harvey, stitched them together into one video. They created another video for Remembrance Day and two for Christmas: “All I Want For Christmas Is You” and “Sleigh Ride”.<\/p>\n
“I\u2019ve learned a lot about software,” she says with a laugh. “You have to take every single individual part and put it in and try to get it all to line up\u2026 the learning curve was straight up. It takes quite a long time to put it together. ‘Sleigh Ride’ took me five days.”<\/p>\n
It likely takes each musician just as long to record their part, notes Harvey, one that they feel is good enough to submit. “We don\u2019t play perfectly every time, but they want one that is perfect to send you. These are community musicians and they are doing such an amazing job of putting it together.”<\/p>\n
Harvey would normally conduct each performance and while the videos are similar to conducting, “because you have the opportunity to put things together”, she has also had the chance to play. On “Sleigh Ride”, she played a trumpet part, and on “All I Want For Christmas Is You”, she played a trombone part.<\/p>\n