Guidance

Online platforms are websites or software that allow musicians to meet up in a virtual music room to play together using their internet connection. SonoBus uses specialist techniques to minimise 'latency' which is the delay heard on online video conference platforms (Zoom, Microsoft Teams etc).

Download SonoBus

Versions for Mac, Windows and Linux can be found on the official website: www.sonobus.net alongside information about the Apple and Android apps which are currently available as test platforms.

An introduction to online platforms for virtual music rehearsals, including SonoBus, JamKazam and Jamulus

What is a rehearsal platform?

These are websites or software that allow musicians to meet up in a virtual music room to play together using their internet connection. All of the platforms listed in this resource use specialist techniques to minimise 'latency' which is the delay heard on online video conference platforms (Zoom, Microsoft Teams etc), making it impossible to keep in time when playing music.

Many leisure-time music groups are now using Zoom for their rehearsals, performances and other activities, and are finding that some of their members are having issues with the audio – either they can’t hear, or they can’t be heard, or both!

These issues are down to a mixture of reasons. Zoom works by picking up sounds at certain frequencies, and cuts out when the frequencies go outside of these limits. As we all continue to work and socialise even more online, our internet connections and devices struggle with the demands being placed on them. 

In this recording of our guest speaker webinar (original event 19 February 2021), Vick Bain (Interim Director of Strategy at Attitude is Everything) and Rebecca Di Rollo (Drake Music Scotland) discuss creating and running accessible and inclusive music events.  

Alison Martin, chair of Crieff Choral Group, outlines how choir members got to grips with a new conductor during the first Covid lockdown. 

Background

Last year, all choir members attended our penultimate pre-lockdown rehearsal for our spring concert scheduled for 29 March 2020. It was going to be our last performance with our retiring conductor of 18 years, Peter Rutterford, and retiring chairman, John Drummond, who had served on the committee for 20 years. 

In this recording of our guest speaker webinar (original event 22 January 2021) Professor Jackie Cassell, a public health specialist from the Brighton and Sussex Medical School, dicusses what the medical evidence around Covid-19 means for music groups.  

Jackie, also an amateur violinist and choir singer, has a particular interest in and understanding of what the Covid-19 pandemic means for leisure-time music activity and talks about 'the science' in an accessible way.

Usually in advance of the concert date you will receive a hyperlink to a webpage you'll visit to view the performance. Do check that you have this and click the link to confirm that it works ahead of the concert. You'll most likely be guided to a page indicating that you're in the correct place and to return on the date / time that the performance is scheduled for.

Take it away work with music retailers to provide interest-free finance for the purchase of musical instruments and equipment, helping to ensure that more people can access instruments and learn to play.

For most of our groups the immediate impact of Brexit and the new trade agreement with the EU will be minimal. 

However, it will impact some activities for some groups over the course of 2021. We do now have some clarity in certain areas, but murkiness remains in others. This resource covers areas of potential impact that groups should be aware of – and tries to give information where we have it.