Navigating the Pandemic as a Musician

The Covid-19 pandemic put everything to a halt back in March. With school going virtual, Clark University was forced to cancel all of its in-person extracurricular activities, including sports, music, and other arts performances. This was particularly devastating for me as it disrupted one of my favorite hobbies.

Photo: Rotary District 5340


I love to play my saxophone! Ever since I first picked up the instrument twelve years ago, I haven't put it down for long. Throughout my childhood, I played in several different bands and groups. About eleven years ago, I was first introduced to jazz music through playing in my middle school’s jazz band. That sparked my interest in the genre which spans to this day as I even served as the President of Clark’s large jazz ensemble throughout my junior and senior years of college. 



Photo: Depositphotos



The cancelation of in-person extracurriculars at Clark directly affected me and my fellow friends and peers who were actively preparing for several different performances at the end of the semester. Between recitals and the end of the year concerts, the senior band members all lost their chance at having final Spring performances at Clark. However, if the pandemic has shown the world anything, it’s that technology enables us to continue to do the group activities we love without being in the same room as each other.

 

Photo: iStock


With this in mind, I chose to make the best out of the situation. I started seeing videos online of bands who have all of their members playing their parts in sync despite not being physically together. This showed me that it is possible for videos and recordings to be combined to resemble an authentic band performance. Video editing platforms such as Adobe Premiere allow this combination to occur. My friends and I decided on a song to play and chose to spend our summer creating a fun recording of all of us playing our parts. While this wasn’t the same as playing together in front of an audience, it allowed us to combine our talents to create a performance that can be viewed by anyone at any time. The video below is a snippet of what we created. Hope you enjoy it!






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