Exciting Technology News!
JackTrip
WomenSing has been hard at work throughout the pandemic. That means plenty of Zoom rehearsals! While we always enjoy “seeing” each other, this process has been challenging. Zoom participation is engineered for taking turns in a conversation. But, all music performance requires the ability to properly hear each other and participate at exact moments together. In a Zoom rehearsal, however, singers must be muted while the accompanist plays the piano. Perhaps most surreal, a conductor must conduct without hearing the singers!
Happily, better times are ahead! We are thrilled to announce that, starting this spring, we will rehearse with new technology from JackTrip! It synchronizes voices over the internet and eliminates distortion, thereby allowing musicians to properly hear each other as they sing and play together! JackTrip is the next best thing to being together again.
JackTrip is the product of a collaboration between Stanford University’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics and Silicon Valley software entrepreneurs and is designed to cushion the impact of the pandemic on ensembles and musical arts organizations by allowing musicians to more easily collaborate over the internet. The Ragazzi Boys Chorus was the first choir to utilize JackTrip. Motivated by his son’s longing to sing with his Ragazzi friends, software entrepreneur Mike Dickey applied his talents and experience to the problem of music performance. He and Stanford Professor Chris Chafe, the Director of Stanford’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics, co-founded JackTrip. Together they solved the problem of sound lag-times to the point that any number of singers can harmonize in real-time over a common internet connection. The JackTrip technology works for instrumentalists as well, and can support hundreds of musicians performing together. If you are curious, visit the JackTrip website at: http://www.jacktrip.org .
Needless to say, WomenSingers are most eager to utilize JackTrip and once again experience the joy of singing together. Conductors everywhere are also breathing a sigh of relief!
