Opinion

When the Covid lockdown made traditional music concerts a no-go, artists and venues turned to live streaming over the Internet. But first, says Barry Fox, they had to master the technology...

Covid sea-changed how we listen to recorded music and watch live events. Obviously, the physical difficulty of buying discs helped make music streaming a new norm. Likewise, streaming amplifiers. And patchy DAB reception and the impracticality of receiving Freeview or Freesat digital radio on the move finally made the government see sense and stop talking about shutting down VHF FM.

March Banned

A less obvious legacy of the UK's lockdown is the treasure trove of live, streamed music recordings made with socially distanced musicians playing in empty venues. One of the first, if not the first, was from Ronnie Scott's jazz club in London in March 2020 when pianist/composer Ashley Henry was scheduled to play three sold-out gigs at the club. The club shut down but Henry played while Ronnie's streamed it live to YouTube and encouraged anyone to 'tune in, kick back, pour yourself a whiskey and enjoy'. The idea caught on and Ronnies regularly streamed empty club sessions, for free, with appeals for donations. There are still literally dozens of these available for viewing on YouTube. Just search for 'Ronnie Scott's Lockdown Sessions'.

The same month, March 2020, pianist, singer, songwriter and all-round spirit-lifting entertainer Joe Stilgoe (son of Sir Richard) hit on the idea of streaming lockdown sessions, daily, from his garden shed. He went on to notch up 100 episodes, raising money for NHS good causes by performing live and even dressing formally for Saturday night. It's wonderful up-beat stuff, still available online under 'Stilgoe In The Shed'.

All these streams were live from a single source, which side-stepped a potential technical issue. Mixing live streams from different sources creates latency - that is, mis-matched lag between sound and vision caused by different digital processing paths.

Chat is not much affected by a bit of AV delay, but mixed-mode music is a whole different ball game. Live musicians and performers have had to learn to adjust mentally to the slight picture delay introduced by digital monitors showing a live conductor. Coping with the multiple delays introduced when live-mixing separate sound and vision streams that are incoming from different locations along different digital paths is trickier. The fix is to store all the streams and then stitch them together.

Mix And Match

Professional recording studios routinely do this to create phoney duets. Musicians had to learn this skill during lockdown to create ensemble performances. Most of this was for in-house consumption only, but there are still some privately produced streams available.

These mostly show how solo players self-overdubbed, in much the same way that Les Paul and Mary Ford created a massed band of guitars and voices in the 1950s. However, Covid prompted ukulele virtuoso, Tricity Vogue, to plan a massed ukulele recording of 'You Will Still Be My Sunshine', which was stitched together from many submitted solos.

British trumpet player Enrico Tomasso recently explained how he kept himself busy during Covid: 'I looked for a project. I thought about DIY but my wife said "you are a trumpet player, do something with that". So I Googled "how to stream" and learned it all from scratch. Buying mics and connectors and making it all work. Then I got musician friends to record accompaniment tracks. I then played over them live. It was a huge technical challenge for me.' Again, the highly entertaining results of his work are still available to enjoy on YouTube.

What did I do during lockdown? I spent time I would never otherwise have had spare on rummaging through an attic full of old press photos of electronics milestones and posting them online as a picture archive. That's free-to-view too. You can find it at www.tekkiepix.com.