Thursday, May 7, 2020

Concerts From Your Own Living Room

"It's the new normal". I'm sure by now you've heard this phrase on many occasions, as it obviously refers to the new lifestyles we've all had to adopt (isolating ourselves, social distancing, working from home, etc.). For me, this includes playing my piano concerts from the studio at my house, with my Android mounted on a tripod. It definitely has its benefits and drawbacks, as one can imagine. To be truthful, though, there are quite a few advantages to doing this.

At some point (I think it was during the first virtual concert I put on) I made a joke about the perk that there was no heavy lifting. This is true, actually, and the lack of legwork was really nice, so there's always a silver lining. What's even more encouraging is that I was able to reach a lot more people. In fact, at one point there were more people watching the concert virtually than there were numbers of people that usually show up to my actual concerts!


Another positive result is that these types of  concerts will still continue, even after restrictions are lifted. I see no reason to discontinue the livestream shows, even if I do this in addition to the physical concerts. The easy part? It requires no phone calls or booking agent -- the venue is in my house, so all I have to do is pick a date and announce it :D I've done three of these already, and the next one will be June 13, 2020, (the Summer Concert).

I don't suppose there's anything else new that I've learned from having done the last three, except that I might have been putting a tad too much pressure on myself by allowing only two weeks between shows. Sometimes this is not enough time for rehearsing the songs, since the songs in each concert are all different, which is why I decided to give myself a month before I perform the next one. 

I am my own worst critic, though--or so I've been told--and the last concert seemed to go fairly well. I played eight different piano covers, which I do only on occasion, and people definitely seemed to like it. The Summer Show will feature all originals again (and the luxury of not having to worry about copyright laws). 

After all is said and done, I'm not sure which is more unnerving - looking into a crowd of 200 people, or looking at a phone that I know has 200 people "inside" of it, watching. 

I guess I'll have to get used to doing both. :)

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