Changing practices

You don’t need me to tell you that things have been different recently.

It’s safe to say that regardless of age, none of us has known anything like this in our entire lives. Working practices have changed, in many sectors and in some cases forever. Musicians have been affected the same as anyone else, and many of us have had to adapt to an ever changing landscape, or in many cases find something else to do temporarily as work dries up completely. Those of us who teach as well as play for a living have had to embrace online teaching on platforms like Zoom, Skype or Teams as a means of continuing as well as things like live streams and online gigs. This switch from a physical to a digital world will, I think, outlive the lockdowns and other restrictive measures of the virus, as musicians realise that online opportunities are global, and although online streams are not (and I don’t think ever will be) a substitute for being in a room with a band or performer and a crowd, many musicians will view some of these new opportunities as worth pursuing in the long term.

Quite how things will be when everything can re-open is anyone’s guess, but hopefully we will be able to negotiate this strange new reality together, and get back to being in a room and making noise soon enough.