Claudio Delgift on virtual collaborations

Virtual collaborations began in 2005 when American musicians recorded a song written by one of the members of The Clipbandits, the first Internet band ever, each from their own home or at least separately. None of them had seen each other for real until they met at the Tyra Banks Show and played that song without even rehearsing once.

Valerie Spinner, aka: bassplayergirl, was the bass player of The Clipbandits. The Tyra Banks Show episode featuring the online group (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZaTIdAxUDI) is part of her You Tube channel: http://www.youtube.com/vineyardedge. Here’s an extract of her channel's description:

“I was invited to play in what became the world's first Internet band. My fifteen minutes of fame came with this band, The Clipbandits. We were on Tyra Banks Show, ABC World News and Good Morning America. I have done a bunch of other videos with the online bands Steve Cash,Virtually Rush and John Beagley.”

I don't know when it was that international collaborations began. The procedure, though, is the same as if playing with people all in the same country: no matter where you are, as long as you have a camera, recording software and instrument, you can take part in a collaboration video.

There's always a director, someone with the initiative and, of course, the musicians. For instance, I recorded the guitar parts for “The Trees”, a song by Rush, and directed that project. I invited all of the musicians who ended up participating except Amy McCann, the Classical guitarist during “Broon's Bane” -first musical piece on the cover- and the actual “Trees” intro, as she was the creative catalyst, the one who had come to me with the idea of covering that particular song. Dave Williams, an American drummer and professional audio mixer, got in charge of the audio mix; the video-editing was done by me.

“The Trees” ended up being quite an international collaboration:

Amy McCann (Classical guitar, Canada)
Vera Dora Dehon (synthesizer, Canada)
Theo Heidfeld (drums, Germany)
William Winsborough (bass, Scotland)
Tim Wardle (vocals, USA)
Claudio Delgift (acoustic/electric guitars, Argentina)

But as I've said above, it really isn't about the geographical place but the connection with like-minded people when it comes to making music. Say, one wants to play live, one then will look for musicians in their own area and play in a local circuit. What the Internet allows is a wider range of possibilities. My own experience tells that the Internet is not only beneficial to a musician who's intending to make virtual collaborations but also to someone who's trying to get out there and play live. That's how I got to take Delgift to the stage between 2012 and 2014. As you can see, one thing neither does nor should exclude the other.

Besides the importance of music in virtual collaborations, communication is essential. So many things are learned, and they don't need to be strictly related to music in every aspect. When communication is established, and starts well because of having things in common with whom one is working with, that's the passport to personal and collective growth.

Whether it's original music or covers, making virtual collaborations is a nice activity for anyone who's open-minded. Open-mindedness is what allows a collaboration video to ever be in the first place. Then it grows from that point on by the will of each participant until its culmination, and that's when the final video is published on social networks and shared with the world.