The Mandelbear's Musings

If you've been reading this journal for a while, you probably know that I've been taking singing lessons. (Comparatively few of you have heard me sing recently; those who have say that the improvement has been noticable.)

And even if you've only been reading for the last week, you'll know that I've been "socially distancing" myself -- I'm in a high-risk category due to my age, and not going out of the house for anything but medical appointments and food. Singing lessons aren't "essential", so I've stopped going -- and Nancy, my singing teacher, has a huge problem.

So I'm asking the lazy web for help finding a videoconferencing system that can be used for singing lessons. I want Nancy to be able to play something on a MIDI keyboard and hear me singing along with it. That would require suppressing the normal simultaneous monitoring on the teacher's end -- the MIDI should play only on my end, and get mixed with my voice at that point. But when Nancy is using her microphone, the return channel has to be muted. And if she wants to sing along with something she's playing, she needs to hear the keyboard at her end, without the round-trip delay.

I'm beginning to suspect that the only way to get all of this is to write it myself, but I'd love to be proved wrong. Meanwhile, I'd settle for something with extremely low transmission delay; that would mean point-to-point rather than going through a server.

And if any of you are giving lessons remotely, I'd love to hear what works for you.

Lately, I’ve been experimenting with taking one day each week away from work completely. You might think this would be an easy task as there’s a “weekend” each week that allegedly offers up two full days of rest. And yet, as I work at home, the shiny big screen of the iMac beckons at all hours, and I am often in front of its white glow the first thing every morning and the last thing at night.

So, being that I am Jewish — though not very religious — I decided to shut down the computer each Friday night at sunset until Saturday at sunset, the traditional time of the Jewish Sabbath. I make exceptions when I need to get directions or check for a personal email. I still use my cell phone but try to limit it to personal calls only. While this day of technological rest can be a difficult routine, it has allowed me to stretch my time, spend more hours outside and be with people more in face-to-face settings.

And I’m not alone. The concept of a “Technology Sabbath” is becoming more widespread,..