Amber Lee ‘24
Being remote is hard for everyone. Especially, for St. Mark’s musicians, students who participated in the school orchestra struggled to create music while they were in separate locations. To overcome the space problem, orchestra members each recorded their parts of the piece via SoundTrap and sending it to Mr. Wallace to combine them together. Thus, I interviewed a student, Roy Baeck ‘24, about his special experience at orchestra this year.
“The SoundTrap recording was awkward to do at the beginning. It was my first time using the program, and probably everyone else’s first time, too. I struggled with setting up the recording and figuring out how to do it right. I even had to ask around to be able to properly set it up and record,” said Roy.
According to Roy, the idea is that everyone needs to record their own parts of the orchestra piece as listening to a pre-recorded version. They have to have earphones on one ear to hear the music and be able to match the beats, while listening to their own playings. If they make a mistake, they will have to go over and record their parts again.
It seems like everyone at Orchestra is getting better at using the SoundTrap and more comfortable with their online performance. Roy also told me that, “although I struggled in the process, in the end, I’m grateful that I was able to participate in orchestra. I didn’t have to just sit in my room and practice violin on my own but practicing a piece that was meant for a group of people.
It’s nice to connect to other St. Mark’s musicians through this new way of approaching music. There was also some “tricks” from Mr. Wallace to make the orchestra better, who patiently taught and organized the whole group: he usually had each member of the class recording the piece three times, just to make it sound like a huge orchestra. Also, according to Roy, he told the group that he was able to edit out their mistakes so that everyone will be more willing to practice instead of fearing if they could do well. Although I haven’t heard the compiled music yet, but let’s look forward to it—”it will be better than the normal recording we would have done,” said Roy.
Music is not a community activity that can be easily dealt with remote learning. Especially music that has to be made together, such as orchestra, listening to others’ parts and harmonizing along are crucial. Although St. Mark’s students would have to practice individually, the SoundTrap recording allowed them to feel like they were together. Thanks for Mr. Wallace coming up with the idea and the students cooperating, the St. Mark’s orchestra could then continue to thrive during these hard times.