A day in the virtual orchestra
by National Symphony Orchestra first violinist Jane Bowyer Stewart
Tangled in extension cords and headphone wires, I huff a sigh and jab at the “record” button on my phone. Again. More than a dozen takes and I still haven’t gotten it perfect. Our deadline is tomorrow, but tomorrow the construction vehicles across the street start beep-beep-beeping at 7 a.m. Why is their first act of every morning backing up? I’m very glad those guys still have work. But nobody wants trucksong in their Beethoven symphony.
The National Symphony has been in diaspora for months. Back in January, when the coronavirus emerged in Wuhan, we had an inkling that the China part of our spring Asian tour might evaporate. By March we knew that we weren’t going anywhere at all, not even to our concert hall. Weeks later, I ache for the incomparable surround-sound of playing in a live orchestra. How I wish two thousand people could gather to breathe in art freshly created. But for now we are to assemble a virtual orchestra, and for a technological innocent like me, it’s not going well.
Like plenty of other classical musicians, I am proud to be a Luddite. I read books only on paper and look up words in a doorstop of a dictionary. Old-style stationery fills two drawers of my antique desk, along with sheets of actual U.S. postage stamps and — a teasing gift from my husband — a quill pen. My essential work equipment? A violin created in Venice in 1691.
But today, thanks to an invisible, mute-but-insidious virus, my 17th-century wooden tool finds itself harnessed to 21st-century electronics. By tomorrow I am to “upload” (what on earth?) a video of myself playing the first violin part to the last few minutes of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. Perhaps we can offer to this shaken world a dose of exhilaration.
The first step in generating my video is to download (hmm) the “guide track” — a video clip of the NSO’s live performance under a guest conductor a few years back. Every musician, recording our individual parts from home, must mirror this version, which features a surprising amount of tempo variation. Before even trying to play along, I need to listen quite a few times in hopes of internalizing the push and pull. This rest had a whole extra beat in it! That place the conductor sure stepped on the gas! I need a few days of careful practice to perfectly replicate the tempo, intonation, dynamics, and articulation of a once spontaneous creation.
I soon realize I won’t even be able to watch the video while I play along with my own orchestra. The audio and video are just slightly out of sync. Alas, seeing the conductor’s gestures and my fellow violinists’ bow strokes — usually essential guides to togetherness — could only throw me off here.
Once ready to embark on the actual recording, I round up some extension cords: this project will require a lot of juice. My laptop will play the guide track; we are to record with our phones. Setting up the shot is tricky. My recessed lights give off too much glare; I decide to light the shot from the hallway, through the glass doors of my music room. I prop up my phone, but whenever I plug it in it falls over. I finally figure out how to keep all cords out of the shot. Donning my headphones, I plug that thing — the jack? — into my laptop.
As soon as I start playing along with the guide track, I realize I hear the orchestra loud and clear but can barely hear my own playing because of the headphones. I could be too loud, too soft, too scratchy, or otherwise . . . bad. I experiment with positioning the right ear cup firmly on my ear and the left — nearer my violin — just behind the ear. (This fix has unfortunate consequences for my hair.) It’s the best compromise, but there’s a reason we have two ears. Fine-tuning your own sound in mono is like throwing a dart with one eye shut.
Onward! Lights, “camera,” . . . I tune my violin one more time, engage my headphones, push the “record” button on my phone, press the “play” button on my laptop, move quickly into a marked spot on the rug, and start to . . . make music? Onstage, antennae aquiver, I can dive into the flow of musical energy and funnel my part into a unified stream of sound. Now, with no bow arms moving in parallel all around me, no floor vibrating beneath me, and no eager listeners drinking in the passion, I feel detached. I try to approximate the adrenaline, the magic of live performance.
A day later, I’ve recorded some thirty tries, listening carefully after every few and getting pickier and pickier. I learn a few things along the way:
- Don’t let the microphone pick up your page turn. (This is harder than you’d think.)
- Don’t let your husband come downstairs and, in a fit of energy-saving zeal, turn off the hall light.
- Don’t let motorcyclists roar up your street while you’re recording the soft parts.
- Do NOT play your very best version only to discover you forgot to push “record.”
- Silence your alerts. Things were going along swimmingly when in came a text — “DING!” — from a colleague. She was remarking, ironically enough, that this project sure is hard!
- When “your storage is full,” maybe it’s time to send in your best take?
I love that in normal times we do what orchestras have done for centuries. With all ears, all eyes, all hearts engaged. Plugging in and trying to twin a canned product can feel dispiriting. But when I see and hear us “together” again on one screen, every musician giving their all, I rejoice.
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