Digital Innovation & Other Solutions - the Future of Chamber Music

In anticipation of ChamberStudio’s Online Discussion Event on 27 July, Henri Hill writes about her experiences of covid-19 as a chamber musician, and her plans for the future.

Digital Platforms - the beginning of a new age, or just the acceleration of the inevitable? One thing is for sure, this new 'normality' has certainly changed the way we plan events.

With the bread and butter of live performance to audiences under siege, we've all seen the sudden flood of online content during lockdown. The good, the bad and the ugly. I am a technophobe. This new social distant era has certainly tested my online skills. First came the rush to move teaching onto Zoom. Then came how to make your audio interface sound better - connecting external microphones to laptops and phones. Soon we were making home videos. Watching tutorials on how to use video-editing software. How best to light your video? Many of us have been pushed to learn a whole host of new online skills quickly. The new digital age became the adapt to online, or take a break from performing to people ultimatum.

Lockdown in the UK and across most of the world. The Berlin Philharmonic announce 30 days of their Digital Concert Hall free to everyone. Fantastic I thought, I even wrote to my friends about it. It was something we truly needed, and reminded audiences to keep in touch with the Arts at a time when they most needed comforting. And then the rest of the Classical music world scrambled to follow suit. First it was just about having an outlet and keeping personal connections with followers. Home videos became the norm and still are for the majority. Then the orchestras without the Berlin Phil's amazing digital setup joined the bandwagon. Free archive performances and new social media content spliced from the musician's homes. Split-screen videos, talks and more. Even huge names were recording from home. Yo-Yo Ma's 'songs of comfort' regularly went viral. But the Berlin Phil have been ahead of the game. Their Digital Concert Hall has been around for years, and their '30 days for free' however well meaning, is a classic marketing strategy which works to hook new audiences and then keep the keen new fans who are likely to use it when the paywall goes back up. (Have you ever been offered a small useful 'freebie' in exchange for signing up to a mailing list? Exactly the same strategy). The difference is most other orchestras (and other individuals and organisations) did not and even now do not have the same wonderful set up as the Berlin Phil's Digital Concert Hall. They don't have the organisation and aura of there's more wonderful content you can pay for, set up behind a paywall already. So now we keep seeing free content being churned out with no fishing net to collect paying online audiences in order to keep artists, organisations and venues afloat.

But now there's an even bigger question all musicians have been asking about, whether they have a chamber group, are an orchestral member or a freelancer. What to do in the longer term about the online content surge?

The move to use online technology has been softly snaking into our profession for a long time before our world became 'lockdown'. Livestreams of concerts were becoming more and more common, especially for freelance events. A frown that we weren't told beforehand, and of course it wasn't on the contract, generally shrugged off to get on with the concert. But now it has become one of the only means of holding 'live' events - should we not be demanding more from it? In recent weeks, the Classical music industry has been compared to the saga of the digitalisation of the Newspapers. Sign up for free online news! It will supplement your print newspaper reading experience! - Print sales plummeted and journalists and papers were nearly brought to their knees. Readers were reluctant to pay for something they'd soon gotten used to being free and had to be coaxed to accept the paywalls put up online. Are we musicians now falling into the same trap? Are we undervaluing ourselves as many suggest?

I've seen hope and plenty of experimentation with online platforms throughout lockdown. Online concerts behind paywalls; ticketed events; online donations; crowdfunding pages. The newest to emerge are online 'Concert Download Platforms'. Exclusive concerts uploaded to a Concert Seller site, individual downloads available for the price of a concert ticket. What is certain is that there is no consistency across the sector. How many of these experiments have brought enough revenue to the artist? Which are the most successful? The potential to bring more people to your face-to-face concerts through your online work, makes the digital world one that could bring future benefits to musicians. It is however a world that is off the edge of the map for most. From what I can tell, there is no consistency across the board about video rights, PRS, tickets or donations - can you use music in copyright? How do you negotiate live-streamed concert contracts with promoters? I'm finding it a minefield I have little knowledge over. This experimentation is necessary and very welcome as we can learn from each other about this new world. I feel we need to have a discussion, and soon about where we stand with this new 'live online' medium - or we risk setting up a brand new Spotify, doomed to be the new time-consuming online outlet with little financial return for musicians and composers.

Secondly, is the question, especially for chamber groups - should we be investing in recording equipment and learning to use it ourselves? Some of us have been offering live-streamed concerts in empty venues to try and support small concert societies who are thinking of closing their doors, if not indefinitely then at least until Spring 2021. But now we also have to deliver a high quality video recording as well as a face-to-face concert. How do we negotiate how this will work? Will they accept pre-recorded concerts and we lend them the video for a set date? Do we record from their venue truly live-streamed at the actual concert time, with a very small audience? How do we negotiate a fee for this? Is it in addition to the face-to-face concert, or is it expected to be part of the new package deal? Do we supply the recording equipment or does the venue? Or should we invite a sound engineer along? How long will the concert remain online for? Who owns the recording or has rights to it after the event? Do you charge for editing time if it's been pre-recorded? Should groups be doing all of this ourselves (at least in the short-term) or should we be expanding our team to include sound engineers and film makers? Is there a funding model that would allow for us to explore this in the longer term?

The new digital age, whilst is not a replacement for our face-to-face experiences, in the short term will allow musicians to keep their art going, accessible and even expand their audience-base. In the longer term, we can use it to reach more people and new audiences both local and globally. With Climate Change asking the question of whether long distance touring models will have to change, perhaps digital communications is the means of keeping international audience relationships going as well as attracting new audiences more locally. There is no doubt that harnessed in the right way, digital platforms and 'live-streaming' can become something powerfully good. We hope beyond hope it never replaces our face-to-face performances, but used effectively, we could use it to make sure they come back all the stronger, to eager audiences both current and brand new.

Written ahead of ChamberStudio’s online discussion event on Monday 27th July.

https://chamberstudio.org/events-list/2020/7/27/special-discussion-event-the-future-of-chamber-music-digital-innovations-and-other-solution