2020 has been brutal for the theater community and professional accompanists are not immune. We've all been forced into a whole new way of thinking. Many of us were reluctant to embrace technology; after all, we often get our sheet music physically handed to us by an artist who is auditioning for a role and the casting experts expect us to play the parts flawlessly. I'm always glad when I know the song, but I'm easily annoyed when someone asks me to play it in a different key or speed-up the tempo...yikes!
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| April Alsup uses technology in the new COVID age |
At least with teleconferencing the participants don't expect us to synchronize our parts with everyone in real-time and we usually get some time to deliver the instrumental accompaniments. I guess someday it'll all be done online, but for now the latency between the connections prohibits that and there seems to be a lot more planning involved in the musical development stages of new online theater productions. Perhaps it should have been that way all along, my guess is we'll be using teleconferencing a lot more even after the pandemic, it really is very convenient and allows us to deliver a better product for everyone involved.
