It was kind of an awkward situation. Yeah, it was...
Milly and I are gospel musicians who have been in slow motion since the start of the pandemic. I guess most musicians are in that mode-no dates, no gigs, no tours, no music sales-just slow!
So we decided to do the online thing and put together a one-hour live Facebook® concert once a month, starting back in November 2020. The first two concerts went not too bad until the January event. That was sort of like a borderline meltdown . . .
We set up with the usual PA sound system, tuned up, and at 6 p.m. sharp kicked it off. Two songs into the program, things began to unravel. The duct tape we had holding the iPad in place on the music stand let go, the iPad fell off and shut itself off, dangling by the power card as we quit singing to address the abrupt stop. Yeah, kind of embarrassing, but we got it fixed and started again!
Things weren't going too bad for the next two songs until the duct tape started stretching & sagging, lowering the camera focus to our knees and feet. We didn't catch that and we kept singing (or our knees sang for the online audience!) until a friend who had been listening came running in and straightened it up.
So we kept rolling and finished the one-hour program with the positionally challenged iPad camera (held up by duct tape) cutting me off from the nose and upward.
Lessons learned? After going into embarrassed hibernation for six days, we had a good laugh and resolved not to buy duct tape at the dollar store ever again!
We promised the Facebook® Nation that we were would get a better setup for next time (Panic thought-"Will there be a next time?")! We're sure planning on it, but not without making some changes-first, most notably, a real camera (and Real 3M™ Duct Tape!).
I think the biggest lesson here was that we change the things we can & make sure not to depend on duct tape to get the job done!! Next month will be better!!
