Cell Phone Session

So, I have moved 2 1/2 hours away from my beloved, am going to school. I am having session withdrawal and was considering a cell phone session (playing music, duh), using the speaker phone feature. Has anybody done that before???

Would the delay be a problem or is it too small to notice?

Can you plug your phone into an external amp? A friend of mine regularly plays music down the phone to me, both live and recorded, and the sound quality though the built-in speaker is excrucitatingly bad. Also, you would have to play your instrument very quietly so as not to drown out your phone - even on speakerphone.

How about Skype?

I use Skype for online lessons, and while it works great for lessons where we will each play at different times, I don’t think it would work with us both playing at the same time. Maybe I’ll try it on my next lesson.

Unless you’ve got an incredible service, you’re always going to be a beat or two off. If you want to test this, call someone when they’re with you and see if there’s a lag between them talking and you hearing it. There’s usually a second or two difference.

We’ll just have to try it, and let y’all know. He’ll be here next weekend, so we can get some playing in then.

I have 2 friends I play music long-distance with. One lives 6 hours’ drive away - the other 4 hours’ drive. We bought each other headsets for Christmas last year. The headset plugs into a cordless handset phone. Then you have your hands free and can even walk around the house playing (depending on your instrument!) Cheaper than cellphone calls too! We do 3-way calling so we can all hear each other.

We have no problem with time delay, but you would get this internationally!

The trouble with speaker phones is interference (with some) - eg. I could hear my friend as long as I wasn’t talking or playing, but as soon as I made a sound the speaker cut out.

But the headsets work brilliantly.

Another musical use for phones is - if we want to swap tunes, one will ring up and leave the tune as a recording on the answerphone. You can play it back as many times as you need to learn the tune.

Well, the timing was fine, we just couldn’t hear each other very well. Will need to try and get headphones. The cell charge is free since we are the same cell company.

The time delay would only matter if a person could be in two places
at one time; then it wouldn’t match up. Consider that fact that you can
play along with a dead person on a recording …

Yes, but the dead person is not trying to play along with you.

If the dead person was trying to play along with you, would that be some really "spirited" playing?

Ha ha! They can "ghost" the notes too …

"The time delay would only matter if a person could be in two places at one time"

Not so sure about that. A starts a tune down the phone. B hears it 1 second later. B plays along to what they hear. B’s playing arrives at A’s phone another second later. So A hears a 2 second time delay. (Of course, a 1 second delay is a gross exaggeration).

"Well, the timing was fine,"

The time delay was obviously not sufficient to be a problem.

Hup - if what you suggest were true, then A would have to hear B’s playing before B had played it.

I was a total loss in physics and chemistry. Maybe that’s why
I’ve got no money? Hmm, let’s see.

-A starts playing in Shanghai.
-2 seconds after tune starts (ATS): B hears the tune start in Sao Paolo and joins in.
-4 ATS: A hears B join in, but B is out of synch from A’s perspective.
But from B’s perspective it sounds fine.

So I guess if you have one group at each of two locations, it will
sound alright to one group, but the other group is better off not
listening to the speaker phone. If you have more than two widely
separated locations it won’t work at all.

Yes - If A isn’t put off by B being a bar or two out of step, then it could work, from B’s perspective, at least. But then A would have to be not listening to B, so it wouldn’t really be a session. Then again….

Another issue is the frequency. Whenever my friend plays me a tune on his whistle, the high notes get squelched and all I hear is a blip.