Creating a virtual choir with 17,572 singers

The coronavirus has not been kind to choirs. Think about it: You are packed, breathing deeply, with your mouth open. It is a recipe for super diffusion.

Choirs also cannot sing together in video chat; The Internet introduces a half-second delay, making synchronization impossible.

But in 2009, long before the pandemic, Grammy-winning songwriter Eric Whitacre discovered how to build a choir without having the singers in one place: “I came up with this idea, which was quite simple: I would upload a video of myself directing the piece. ” . And then people sat alone in their rooms and followed my director’s lead, and sang it. If I uploaded all those videos and started them at the same time, this chorus would have to emerge, a virtual chorus. “

One hundred eighty-five singers participated in that first virtual choir:

“Lux Aurumque” performed by Eric Whitacre’s virtual choir (2010)

“I received the final video and immediately realized, ‘Oh, this is much bigger than I had imagined,'” Whitacre said.

That video went viral. In the years since, Whitacre and his team have created more virtual choirs, each one larger than the last: 2,000 singers in “Sleep” (2011); 3,700 singers for “Water Night” (2012); 8,000 singers for “Deep Field” (2018).

But they were only barbershop quartets compared to Whitacre’s newest piece, “Sing Gently,” with 17,572 singers from 129 countries. It is the largest virtual choir ever assembled.

“It was only when the COVID crisis began that we thought, ‘Actually, if there ever was a time for one of these virtual choirs, it would be now,'” Whitacre said.

In March, with all his shows and performances canceled, he started writing music. “I was inspired by what I was seeing around me: isolated people. And I wrote the music and the words for this very delicate and simple piece called ‘Sing Gently’.”

He recorded an accompanying video to guide the singers and set a deadline for the singers to turn in their recordings.

“Sunday Morning” contributor David Pogue was one of them.

Singing alone on camera, with no other voices to smooth the rough edges, you feel like an idiot, he said, “I hope Eric doesn’t listen to mine alone!”

“We all feel that!” said Ashley Ballou-Bonnema, a virtual choir participant.

When Pogue met some of the other singers, she realized how inclusive a virtual choir can be. You can live anywhere in the world. Maybe you are five or 87 years old. Maybe you are blind. Maybe you are deaf.

Alexandria Bailes signed the lyrics instead of singing. “I did this as a personal reflection of how I felt at the time with everything that was happening in the world,” Bailes said through an interpreter. “To feel that sense of isolation. I wanted to express that in my language, which is American Sign Language.”

You may not expect Ballou-Bonnema to be in backing vocals. She has cystic fibrosis; catching a cold could be devastating to your health. “However, it can be quite lonely, in that sense of extreme isolation, and I think that’s where the virtual choir really comes into play,” she told Pogue. “‘Sing Gently” was the means by which we could still feel that we are contributing to something and creating something in the midst of all this destruction and uncertainty. ”

Pogue asked Whitacre, “With every virtual choir you’ve done, the number of participants keeps going up and up. Are you secretly excited inside? ‘This time 17,000, next time, the world’?”

“It is exactly the opposite,” Whitacre replied. “The irony is that for every virtual choir, we pray that the numbers are low. Because basically, it is so busy. You need to listen to each video. ”

Yes look each Video presentation. That way, they can eliminate technical problems, such as intruder cats and ringing cell phones.

Each usable recording ends in the finished piece. With just six weeks to go, the engineers work on the audio first, mixing the recordings of two hundred singers at once.

Meanwhile, a graphics specialist creates the computer animation that incorporates all of those videos.

The finished song premieres today on YouTube at 1:30 pm ET. It lasts approximately three minutes, plus seven minutes of credits.

Pogue asked, “Is there a downside to doing choirs this way?”

“The downsides to virtual choirs are legion,” said Whitacre. “A virtual choir is this beautiful, delicate and ephemeral work of art. And the beauty of it is that it will exist forever. But singing together in a room, taking that first breath together, and then singing together, I mean, nothing better. that, and nothing will. “

WATCH A FILE RECORD OF LIVE CHAT FROM FACEBOOK (with David Pogue and composer Eric Whitacre):

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Story produced by David Rothman.