ZOOM ZOOM

This week, a guest spot!

My mother, a pianist, usually plays a circuit of assisted living facilities, bringing a little culture and excitement to the old dears. Of course, at the moment, that is out of the question.

Well, if the mountain won’t come to Muhammad…

And so, Mom has been dragged, with less fuss than I imagined, into the current century. She has learned to Zoom. We had a mini-meeting a couple of days prior to her Internet debut--me, Mom, and a couple of her pals--to check the setup and sound and so forth. It went well. She was all set.

This, friends, is her account of how her Very First Ever Zoom Performance panned out. All names, including that of the assisted living facility, have been changed for privacy purposes.

Enjoy!

ZOOM ZOOM
Or, I shaved my legs for this?

Yes, Tuesday was the BIG SHOW. Or not the show. Or the show that didn’t show.

It was left up to me to schedule the meeting, and so I waited until the last minute to press “start” and wait for my invitees to queue up. It took about a minute, and then “Jeffrey” showed up on the screen.

I hadn’t invited Jeffrey, I’d invited the activity director, Jane. . . at Bayview. Am I being hacked?

A moment passed before I decided to go ahead and let Jeffrey into the party, and fortunately, he turned out to be Jane after all. I had hoped that the invitation might have gone out to various other residents at Bayview who might have computers in their apartments, know how to Zoom, and maybe enjoy seeing a familiar, if distant face playing on a nice piano. Maybe someone would engage in a dialogue. Jane would have had to send those invitations, but I was to set up the meeting, and therefore, the invitations. I guess Jane has better things to do, or the residents are even still in the technical dark like I was a week ago.

But now I Zoom.

I found myself barely hearing voices at the other end of the connection, and seeing only masked faces. One was Jane’s. The other belonged to the Big Cheese, Harvey. I was glad to know he was involved. The voices were coming from miles away, both literally because Bayview is in a town a full ten miles distant, and because Harvey and Jane were not close to the receiver. Jane moved in, and told me I could start anytime. She would “round up” some residents. Harvey went back to his office.

So the first piece was a throw-away, because if I followed directions, I’d be playing for no one until the end. I did announce the music (Joplin’s Bethena) and played. All I could see on my screen was the ceiling lights.

I was aware that there was some kind of activity going on at the other end of the connection. Though my ears were very much involved in what I was doing with my hands, some sounds snuck through. My screen/camera faced me, and I faced away.

After all, we’d set this up on Sunday afternoon, the four of us, when we had our Zoom-meeting for this express purpose.

We had observed the visibility of the full range of the piano keyboard, as much of me (as the player) as possible, and as little background glare as we could get. We had considered my distance from the microphone, since the talking between pieces needed to be audible. We talked about costuming.

What we had NOT considered was the possibility that my program would be broadcast through Jeffrey’s phone, laid flat on a table of some kind, and that the residents were on strict orders to observe social distancing.

Early in the program, I offered my COVID-19 medley, “I’ll Walk Alone,” “I’ll Be Seeing You,” and “It’s Been a Long, Long Time” (Kiss me once and Kiss me twice . . .) I almost heard the laughter. I guess they must have understood me. I spoke over-loudly and as slowly as I could manage through the whole program.

So, I boldly carried on, an hour of music with clever banter and insightful historical commentary to enrich the lonely, culture-starved residents. No one moved the phone. Only the tops of the occasional head appeared on my screen. All of them were white-haired. If anyone shared a comment, I couldn’t hear it because they were just too far from the broadcast device.

I figured out that they couldn’t see me at all. And I was gorgeous. A long-sleeved, dark green blouse, accessorized in excellent taste. Good hair. Lipstick, for crying out loud. I was just sound coming from a tiny speaker on some table in the middle of a common area at the residence. Never mind that I was playing an instrument that was in tune, had 3 working pedals (and I used them all) and was more capable of tonal shading than the PSO (“piano-shaped object”) at their place.

Now I sort of know what it’s like to be on the radio. Only mayhem would have reached my ears. Anything they chose to do at a moderated volume never came through. As long as they did it quietly enough, and given their distance, that wouldn’t be too difficult, they could be doing anything. Eating, reading, geriatric sex, strangling one another.

They also might not even be there.

Zoom never cut me off at 40 minutes, nor sent a message offering me more time that I was able to see, looking away as I was. At the end of the hour I managed to see enough of one gray-haired individual to identify her. “There’s Diana,” I said.

But her response was barely audible. She said something about my coming back in person soon. Diana is an ardent fan.

“With my mask, and gloves, and disinfectant, after they take my temperature at the door,” I responded.

I’m told the program was well-received and that the residents were “engaged” whenever Jane checked in on them. I’ve been scheduled for May 2 at 130. I doubt that I’ll be going there, the way things look now, so once more, it will be time to Zoom. I will be asking about standing the phone up so I can see the audience next time, but whether things will change much from Tuesday afternoon remains to be seen. They are paying me for the service, so who am I to argue?

On the other hand, this kind of programming does present the opportunity to share the music from an instrument worthy of being heard, but through the little speaker on a phone?? It was certainly interesting to engage in the mechanics of this program. I worked carefully from my end, but the receiving party doesn’t consider the same elements when setting up the performance. So no matter how much preparation happened on my end of things, the result at the other end may have left much to be desired musically.

My attitude is always “If you want something done your way, do it yourself.” I built a whole career on this idea. But in these circumstances, that is simply not possible. I am glad to be on the “Good little girl” list, and know that in spite of the drawbacks, the program was good. After all, I’ve been asked to do another one.

And I can’t wait for this to be over, so I can go directly to my clients.