Playing It By Ear: Improvised Music Livestreaming During COVID-19

Abstract

The beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 was marked by widespread improvisatory practice, be those teachers and students improvising to accommodate online learning or individuals improvising safety tactics to avoid catching the virus. Within mere weeks of the pandemic rendering in-person concerts untenable, music communities adopted livestreaming on Twitch as an alternate mode of throwing events. This thesis studies a time of mass improvisation by examining how communities built around improvised music — which themselves are often supported by improvisatory DIY event organizing practices — adapted from in-person livestreamed events. Focusing on a period ranging roughly from the beginning of the COVID-19 lockdowns to the advent of the racial justice uprisings following George Floyd’s murder by the hands of police, this study shows how musicians, organizers, and audiences congregating in jazz, experimental music, and DJ scenes created a widespread, dispersed livestreaming infrastructure that became, at once, an artistic outlet, a community gathering place, and a formidable fundraising mechanism. Such infrastructure was synthesized from three unique components: extent technology and livestreaming practices, social formations that spring from improvised music and improvisatory DIY organizing, and community bonds that were unique to these music scenes.