They Sang Together Across 8,000 Miles.

Nearly 8,000 miles (12,800 km) separated these four singers. Two in Los Angeles, one in Canberra, one in Melbourne. One recording of Amazing Grace, sung together.

Here is the part that sounds impossible: not one of them ever heard another singer in the present tense. Every voice in their headphones had already happened.

That is not a limitation we are apologizing for. It is the design. Sound takes time to cross the Pacific, and no amount of engineering repeals that. So we stopped trying. Instead of syncing singers to each other, we sync every singer to a shared reference. Distance stops being a variable.

How a remote choir rehearsal actually works

This recording was made in two takes. In the first, the four sang to a piano track. They heard the piano and nothing else.

Then we fed that first take back to them as the reference for the second.

So on take two, they were singing with each other, just one take removed. Their reaction was the interesting part, and it is worth reading in their own words — below, and in the video after the song.

What you are hearing is the final mix, each singer captured on a separate track, the same thing a live audience would have heard a few seconds after they sang it.

And we turned the piano off. The scaffolding comes down. The building stands.

What the singers said afterward

The four kept talking once the second take finished. These are their words.

Listening back to the second take:

It’s incredible how much more together we are. That is incredible. I think it’s because it’s, yeah, because we know who to listen to. Just having the reference. To line up with in that second take. Wow. I did not think it was going to be that much of a difference.

Alex Siegers, director and alto

I think it’s sounding great considering — even just taking a step back and considering that we’re all over the world.

Will Darbyshire, bass

I thought it sounded really good.

Gabbi Coenen, soprano

…it sounded really lovely. It was, like, a nice sound and… Yeah, felt together. So yeah.

Gabbi Coenen, soprano

Alex, on what changed between the two takes:

…emulated an actual choir experience where you listen to certain voices doing certain things and you match them. So, for us, the alignment with all our consonants came together in that second take because I think everyone heard, I’m guessing probably like what I was doing, because I said, this is what I want. And then everyone was able to align with that, except for the ones where I made mistakes, and they could hear that I made a mistake. So, they didn’t do that. Because I didn’t do what I said I wanted.

Alex Siegers, director and alto

On what it would be good for, Alex first and Cody picking up the thought:

Then the second time on the iteration you had a chance to sing it just with you, and then you get a chance to sing it with the other parts happening, and I feel like as like as a practicing tool that could be helpful. That’s kind of where my head was at.

Alex Siegers, director and alto

…for like difficult ensemble music like where it’s, you know, one per part, eight voices or something, it’s quite intricate. And you rehearse it alone and whatever, you listen to recordings and then when you get in the room, it’s something like, “Oh God, I have to sing right into this clash. I have to sing a tritone up and…” Yeah, exactly. I think this would be super useful.

Cody Christopher, tenor

And on who else might want it:

I think, for example, if you say a composer wanted to, …they’d moved abroad and they wanted to work with their favorite singers, they could do rehearsals using this. I think that would be a cool way to do it. I mean there’s so many vocal ensembles where they’ve got members based in the US and the UK and kind of all over the place. So, I think this is a good platform to have to just like practice, practice working on a piece rather than just doing it by yourself all the time.

Gabbi Coenen, soprano

The singers

• Alex Siegers, Venice, California (director and alto) — alexsiegers.com
• Cody Christopher, Dickson, ACT, Australia (tenor)
• Gabbi Coenen, Sherman Oaks, California (soprano) — gabbicoenen.com
• William Darbyshire, Clifton Hill, VIC, Australia (bass)

In our second video from this session, the same four singers do something different. No reference track at all. Alex conducts live, and the other three watch her hands. Read that one here.

Will, our bass, is a music therapist. When Alex asked what this could be used for, he talked about disability choirs, whose biggest problem is often getting singers into the room. That conversation became its own post.