Last night 36 socially distanced musicians and singers met online for the best international multi-house jam I’ve ever been to. Local organizer Steve Gibson (Cross Current band) had invited some of his professional musician friends to join our intrepid group of mostly amateurs and wannabes, and we sang our hearts out for three hours together-apart.

People from Canada, New Zealand, Virginia and Wisconsin all joined in with us. While a lead would sing, the rest of the group would be muted and playing and singing along in our own living rooms. I found myself singing out louder, and to more songs — no one could hear any mistakes.

In between songs, we were unmuted and chatted about the song, which gave us the feeling of actually being there with each other. There is a learning curve with the software, but our group is heavily weighted towards the grey hair end of the spectrum, and we did just fine.

So add music jamming to the list of things that can be virtualized while we carry on.

Elena Rae

Eugene