Merlin's Antiviral House Concert series
May 27, 2020
When the lockdown for the novel coronavirus began here, there, and everywhere, I had a few gigs lined up that were canceled. All gatherings were canceled, you know. People working from home, learning from home, doing whatever, just staying home. How am I going to stay connected to people through music? I could see that friends still needed music and connection. So, despite my long-standing aversion to live virtual performance, and that I had never done it before and had more technical questions than answers, I went ahead and scheduled one for March 21, 2020, a Saturday at 5:00 PM (early for my east coast friends). Debbie sang with me and played percussion, like she does. Kara, our eldest, was here working from home and she helped run the show behind the scenes and as a bonus added her sweet voice for some three part harmonies.
The response was heart-warming. People made lots of requests of songs I hadn't played in a long time. "Stuck in Ojai," "The Tall Trees," "Walking on the Water," "Hello Jesus," and others. I wanted to dust them off
and do this again. Plus, from the party going on in the comments section, I could see that my intuition was correct. We crave connection. And words and music have the magical capacity to make it happen. And doing it online was not only "better than nuthin'" but it made it possible to reach one another across a great divide of thousands of miles. I saw people I hadn't seen in many years because of the distance.
So we did another, and another, and another. Then I committed to doing them weekly through the end of May, with a "we'll see" after that.
This Saturday night is the end of May. I have some other things to tend to, musically and otherwise, so I'm taking a little break. But I still need the connection with all of you that music gives me, so we will be back soon. I have more new songs in progress and, well, to crib from Mr. Rogers' "It's Such a Good Feeling":
". . . I'll be back, when the day is new. And I'll have more ideas for you. And you'll have things you'll want to talk about.
I will too."
Peace, love joy, music ~Merlin
