I was aware musicians were streaming performances on FaceBook, YouTube, and similar, but I didn’t have the confidence (or the Wifi capability) to join in. Wifi was the biggest challenge; we live on a peninsula across railroad tracks on the south end of town with 30 other households. We’re literally on the wrong side of the tracks as our provider (the only one around…monopoly anyone?) refuses to upgrade our system. Thus, our download speed crawls up to 16 Mbps (!?!). If we’re lucky and the squirrels have eaten well, our upload reaches 1.14 Mbps—no, the decimal point is not a typo. I tried sending a file to a friend in CA last March and he called today (November 1) to say he’d just got it! (OK, that’s a slight exaggeration.)
It looked as if I’d not be able to join in the virtual reindeer games. Then banjoist Bill Reinhart invited me to contribute to one of his collaborations on Acapella. He babied me through the steps and I DID it! It came out great (check out his videos on YouTube; he’s presenting a bunch of terrific musicians in several ensembles). So, I’m coming round to the view that technology isn’t all bad: it saved Anne’s and my bacon when things were really sparse and continues to enable like-minded musicians to play together no matter from where they hail.
I felt I’d reached a détente with all things techie until Reinhart emailed an inquiry to his t
