Almost every week, I find an open stage event and play a few songs. Every Sunday night, the love of my life asks me “What is your plan for music this week?”
She was on Twitter on one of the first days that COVID-19 drove all of us inside, and saw that someone who had a house concert planned had broadcast it over social media instead of having everyone in their home – so she suggested that I should do that since all my usual musical haunts had been cancelled. It took me about 24 hours to agree that, yes, this is what I should do.
This meant that I had to decide where to broadcast, and then learn how. I did a pile of YouTube videos when my kids were younger, but have never done anything live. I read some blogs and tried some stuff.
Since I’m of a certain age, Facebook is still my main social medium – although I have been known to make some smartass comments on Twitter (that’s what it’s for, right?) – so Facebook Live it is. I decided that none of the built-in cameras on any of my devices were good enough, and I already had a kickass USB mic, so I ordered a half-decent webcam online.
A couple days before the event was scheduled, I tried it out with a “private event”. The camera worked well, but the mic kept doing this nasty buzz. No matter what I did, Buzz would not leave the room. Since I was still wanting to get in some practice, I decided to stop screwing around and just plan to do it on my iPad with all of it’s built-in hardware. The final quality turned out okay. Maybe next time I’ll be able to get the fancier hardware involved.
Anyhow, here’s the video, in case you’re interested. It’s about 26 minutes long.
… and yes, the last thing you hear from me is “Okay, how in the hell do I stop this thing?”