The art of practising in a pandemic

During these extraordinary times we’ve been looking for ways to continue practising together whilst sticking to the rules to ensure safety for band members. The other band I sing with, Eagle Alley, is using specialist software called Jamulus to enable us to practice together over the Internet without it being disrupted by latency (the delay which disrupts normal attempts to co-ordinate sound across the net). However this carries quite high hardware requirements as well as some technical expertise to make it work and so in Fiery Dragon Company we are taking a different approach using Zoom in conjunction with the notation software Sibelius.

We use Zoom’s screen sharing facility so that each of us can hear all the parts being played. We all mute so we can’t hear each other but can each hear how we fit in with the other instruments as we play along with Sibelius.  It’s not perfect, of course, but it keeps us familiar with the music and it maintains continuity in the band so that when the day comes when we can all play together again and perform in public we aren’t starting all over again from scratch.

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