Things I’ve loved about the lockdown: compulsory time with family; rediscovering my Rubik’s Snake; the Q2 cycle route through Hackney.
I’m writing this article in April, but it will be published in late May, so I write not knowing whether we’ll have been allowed back into our church buildings by then (now!). It’s safe to say, however, that this season of change has challenged church musicians in very new ways. Expectations have changed almost overnight, so that now we need to be technologically savvy enough to create mixes of sounds remotely – sounds that have been recorded by varying qualities of phone microphones in kitchens, living rooms and bedrooms. We also have to be visually engaging on a screen, thinking about backgrounds, lighting and different instruments to create variety – preferably splitting many screens on one screen. And now our musical efforts are on much more public display. I have been thrown very far out of my comfort zone.
For this reason I’d like to give a huge heartfelt thank you to all the tech crews who have worked into the small hours fiddling around with recordings and videos sent in so many different formats. In general, church musicians tend to under-appreciate the PA team as they’re the ones ‘just pushing buttons’, while we ‘create the beauty’. That is simply not true! If anything, I have always felt more reliant on a PA. operator than most, because I’m dubious about the beauty of what I’m producing!
