Together Again

Call it compulsive, call it insane...

“When you're all singing together, it brings things together.” - Terry Pratchett

One of the things that absolutely delights me about live performances in Second Life is how two (or more) musicians who are not even in the same country, let alone the same room, can come together to do a live performance as avatars that is not only adequate but at times transformative. Let me explain with this example.

Today, two performers came to the Music Road Trip venue. The first, Max Kleene, started the show by playing solo for thirty minutes. After that, Raspbury Rearwin joined him and they played together for 45 minutes. But here’s the catch. Max played without being able to hear Rasp. It was Rasp’s job to follow Max’s lead (keeping time, playing the drums, and harmonizing) while combining and sending the two audio streams to the Second Life audience. Yikes, right?!

For the audience, that hears only the combined streams, the experience (as you will hear) is seamless but it takes two really good musicians who are familiar with one another’s musical styles to play well together. I’ll let you be the judge of whether or not they were successful.

Let’s start with Max, who performed for the first 27 minutes alone. Below is his solo performance without Rasp.

Part I

Now let’s hear Max and Rasp combining their streams. Remember Max cannot hear Rasp! Max is playing guitar and singing lead, and Rasp is playing drums and harmonizing with Max. Amazing right?

Part II

Ask either Max or Rasp why they like to dual-stream and their immediate response is, it’s FUN! It helps that they have met and played together in their first lives. Here is what Rasp said, “It's fun to play with other musicians.  It's not quite as much fun as being in the same room, but since I tend to play drums when I dual with others, I hear them (they don't hear me until later). It's nice to get out of my comfort zone as well.  Quite often the people I drum to play songs I normally wouldn't play, so it's nice to expand my horizons.”

Max says simply, “I just love making music with other performers. Plus, you never know what you’re gonna get.”

The last 25 minutes of the second track you will hear Rasp finishing off the set on his own. Let them know what you think about both their individual and collaborative performances in the comments. They’ll be reading along too.

P.S. Max and Rasp will be playing again together on February 19th. at the Music Road Trip venue. If you’d like to come to the live show, drop me a line and I’ll show you how!