For Easter Sunday at Grace Church Van Vorst in Jersey City, Director of Music Colin Britt put together a virtual choir singing Trey McLaughlin's "Hosanna." He shares a behind-the-scenes look at the steps required:
“About a week ago, I decided to ask our choir to contribute to this project by videoing themselves singing just their part for this piece. I recorded a piano track and layered on the individual voice parts. I also recorded a video of myself conducting and playing, so that they could watch that and follow me if they liked. Then they listened to the track using headphones while recording themselves, so that only their voices were picked up. They emailed me back the videos, and I edited them together using Final Cut.”
Colin adds:
“We're thinking about doing more of these as the quarantine continues, and I imagine other churches are considering doing the same. It does take a good amount of time to prepare and edit the video, and some basic knowledge of an editing software is a must – I've been teaching myself Final Cut for the last two weeks and I'm only just getting the hang of it. But hopefully this is an indication of some of the possibilities we have as church musicians while social distancing.”
