Quarantween Songs and Stories

Here’s a format for online, music/performance oriented gathering that friends and I have now done 21 times since March 2020. Check out this YouTube video to see how we did it.

I will forever remember what it felt like to be alive in March of 2020. A scary set of health, economic and interpersonal insecurities, that led to fear and retreat. Not great!

My birthday fell at the end of that month and my wife, Jenn, kindly offered to assemble friends on a Zoom call to check in and celebrate, as was becoming a sort of communication norm.

The idea did not appeal to me — I’m sort of shy, I don’t really like being the center of attention, and calls like that feel a bit rudderless to me. But I thought of an idea that did seem appealing, and that idea has now grown into a social, online ritual that has carried through the pandemic, and has brought a great deal of joy and togetherness to me and some friends over the past few years. We’ve been referring it to “Quarantween”.

Quarantween- the initial gathering.

I am a fan of the band Ween, and an occasional reader of the Reddit channel “r/ween”. In March 2020, people on that channel had begun posting videos using the tag, “quarantween” and posting a Ween cover that they performed. I was particularly taken by this one (I don’t know this person… although I’ve been in touch with her briefly to say thanks — just a great performance).

So, when my Jenn asked me about the Zoom birthday call, I had an idea. What if each of my friends (mainly musical, some Ween fans) each learned a Ween song for an online gathering? She made the arrangements, and that night we had six different performances of Ween songs from friends in Massachusetts, Brooklyn, Florida and San Francisco.

We laughed so much. We all appreciated the effort that folks had put into crafting their performance. We caught up about the larger world and I received some birthday wishes, but the center stage was really about how fun and novel the performing experience was. Thankfully it was recorded over Zoom.

Someone said, “We have to do this again!” And it was decided we’d meet in two weeks.

The second one.

We chose Neil Young for that next session, and it was equally great.

We drew up a system where each friend who performed was entered into a drawing at the end of the session — and a person was chosen to select the artist to perform for the subsequent session. Our friend Marc chose Bob Dylan, for example.

We’ve now met and done this twenty-one times! The participants have changed a bit. Everyone’s audio quality has improved considerably. I think we’ve all improved a bit musically.We’ve shared so many laughs, and it has made these online sessions the opposite of “rudderless” — they are purposeful and magical.

I’m writing to share three things… 
a.) Some great things about this experience 
b.) Some tips for those who might be interested in doing something like this
c.) Some examples of our sessions. A short highlight reel.

Some great things about this experience

The social benefit

Seeing friends every two weeks (ultimately we switched to make it monthly) has been energizing. This was especially true during such a strange and tumultuous year, but it remains the case at this stage as well.

Also, watching different friends laugh and engage over music and other things is heartwarming. It made me realize how much shared love of music has been a common denominator across friendships for me.

Something to practice

Having a song to practice — knowing that you’d be playing in front of your friends in a few weeks has been a wonderful thing to have. It was more than just a distraction from reality — it was an occasion to keep improving at something.

We made it a point that you learn a new song each month — so if you already know a song by the month’s artist… choose to learn a new one.

The performance itself

The ritual of everyone else muting themselves on Zoom and singing and playing a song you’ve been rehearsing was something I hadn’t experienced since fourth grade piano recitals. We each battled times when our group performance was worse than desired, and were aware of times when we knew we did great. The fact that every single performance (something like 200 performances overall) has been met by enthusiastic applause as Zoom microphones became unmuted after performances, strengthened the community. 

Creativity. New rituals.

The group continuously improved on sound quality and adjusted to one another’s ideas. Chris, Deb, and I became the “Executive Committee” and have enjoyed the playful responsibility of considering rule and process changes. We added some degree of chance and game play by having a random drawing at the end of each session where one of two people would be chosen to chose the artist for the subsequent session. It has been rewarding to create and keep up a micro-society where we had some control over rules in a world where we don’t always have control.

Those are some reasons why it has worked so well for me. Next I want to share some tips for trying it out if you want to try this yourself.

Here are some considerations and clarifications if you want to try something like this

So you all play a song at the same time? All together?

No. That wouldn’t work well over Zoom. There may be some ways to do that, but that isn’t what we do. We take turns and each play a song on our own.

So you all play the same song — each person taking turns?

No, we all play a different song that was written by a given artist (say Nina Simone or Ween one week) or have a unifying theme (say “write your own song”, or “songs performed by a band that has played at the Solid Sound Festival”).

Can two people do the same song?

No, not in our group. Each person “claims” a song in the period of time between performances over email. Once a song is called, nobody else can claim it. This helps in a couple of ways… 
a.) it gives us all a chance to communicate between sessions, and keep some continuity for the group. It is fun to see what people are choosing. 
b.) While it might be fun for multiple people to do the same song — that could be weird and sort of competitive as well. We just haven’t gone that way.

Do you record the sessions?

Yes, someone pays for a Zoom account that allows sessions to go indefinitely and they start the taping in Zoom once we are ready to get started.

The session is downloaded from Zoom into iMovie and a modest amount of editing is done and then from iMovie the session is exported to YouTube.

We’ve been choosing the “unlisted” option in YouTube, which just works best for us.

Then once uploaded, one of us provides links with the timecode to each performance in the YouTube comments, which is super convenient.

The person who does the editing and posting sends an email to the group saying the video is up, typically a few days after the session. We know that many participants then send the link to others to share portions of the performances they might appreciate.

We’ve recorded the sessions since the very first one, and are all very grateful for having done so.

Any tips on getting good audio quality?

Yes! Two main things, Zoom settings, and audio equipment.

Zoom settings
Versions of Zoom and devices will make it hard to do an in-depth treatment here— but you are looking for something like “high quality music mode” in audio settings. 

Also, the question continually comes up whether the Zoom toggle “original sound” should be “on” or “off”. The answer is that original sound should be “on” if you are using a USB microphone (recommended… below)

Audio equipment
Everyone should invest in a USB microphone. Without it, you get a weird flanged sound from the guitar and voice — it really makes a world of difference. Here is Wirecutter’s review of USB microphones — anything like one of these would do great.

Those who want to upgrade their audio beyond the USB microphone, could consider an audio interface (such as the Moto M4) that allow pro audio microphones with XLR to be connected to Zoom performances. Folks could even use a dynamic microphone for vocals, and a condenser mic for acoustic guitar, that both go through such an audio interface.

Some great moments since March 2020…

I put together a bit of a highlight reel from the sessions. At the very end, you can see that Dean Ween joined via a Cameo recording once for the first anniversary of our doing this.

Conclusion

This format and ritual for shared performance time over Zoom has brought a great deal of joy to us all, and we are excited to share it with others. I would be happy to entertain questions about the format, and hear ideas for improvement or other similar efforts out there.