Playing And Performing With Others Online Behind The COVID Veil

The SF Bay Jamulus Session Central site is based upon the technical and social organization pioneered by the Jamulus WorldJam organizers: Simon Tomlinson of the UK, Kent chief among them. That in turn is built upon the foundation of Volker Fischer's FOSS software creation Jamulus, which allows low-latency musical collaboration with a relatively minimal outlay of time and equipment across all the major PC platforms: Microsoft, iOS, and Linux.

Jamulus World Jam: The Founders

A small group of folks in the UK and N. Europe began playing together using Jamulus early in 2020. They formed a Facebook Group and initiated a regular Saturday evening come-ye-all session open to anyone who had managed to get a Jamulus client up and running over a decent broadband connection. They also published detailed how-to pages in the Groups Files section sharing their growing expertise as they acquired more experience with the various combinations of hardware and software that could be used to make music together.

The group—recently dubbing themselves "The Jamily"—has grown at a geometric pace thanks to their open-hearted welcome of all performers and their eager, knowledgeable willingness to share both their talent and their expertise. They have spawned similar groups in other regions around the world, and while latency is still too great to allow performers from, say, the Pacific NorthWest World Jam to play directly with folks in Northern Europe, they feature groups of regional performers in slots in the weekly World Jam stream from the UK.

	The original Facebook group. The Files section is particularly rich in technical information for both novice and highly sophisticated users, with detailed installation and setup handholding and examples of performance setups used to meld the the video and audio streams of the weekly World Jam participants into a single live Youtube performance. This group is a great example of what Jamulus can provide. Players and ensembles scattered from the UK, Ireland, Netherlands, Belgum, France, Sweden and even the Balkans play and stream together on their London servers. They also save several slots in the weekly show for "Jamily" ensembles from the U.S. who stream a local Jamulus session to the London servers. Incredibly talented, helpful, giving people united in a mission to bring musicians together online not only during the pandemic, but afterwards.
	The Jamily's Seattle FB outpost. An active and welcoming bunch very much in the spirit of the original group. They have regular open jams on Sunday and Tuesday evenings. Out of those come ensembles bringing covers and original material to the weekly World Jam performance roster in London. I join these folks frequently from Oakland (a distance of ~800 miles!), and have played in the World Jam with them.
	Other extensions and spin-offs of the WorldJam are cropping up every day. On Facebook Groups alone: The Jamulus WorldJam - East Coast The Jamulus World Jam - Midwest The SoCal Jamulus Big Band Jamulus Storband (Swedish Big Band) [YouTube] The Jamulus Choral Community [YouTube]