Music Surviving the Pandemic

Peter Bird | Apr 07, 2021

With a voice that has been compared as often to Stan Rogers as it has to Steven Page, Chris Murphy tells stories through the songs he sings. Although Chris was born and raised in the Kingston area, and plays locally, he has felt a musical and spiritual connection to Atlantic Canada. Since 2000, Chris has been travelling to the East Coast, playing stages in Cape Breton and all across Newfoundland. Chris is also a singer with Turpin’s Trail, a local band. The pandemic has taken its toll on his trips and shows, but there have been some benefits.

This is my interview with Chris.

Q. Chris, how has the pandemic affected your musical life?

A. In a very pragmatic way it has shut down in-person shows, depending on what stage we were at. I’ve had times when I’ve not played anywhere for months. Any gigs I have had have been exclusively solo or the occasional duet. I’ve only played with Turpin’s Trail once to a live audience since last March, and we’ve done a couple of shows that were either live-streamed or pre-recorded.

Q. How does it feel to play to an empty theater?

A. It’s definitely a different feeling, however there’s still the excitement of playing. I would compare it to being in a recording studio. There’s still the pressure of getting it right and being on your game. Although you don’t see people, you know they’re out there. It is a challenge to keep up the energy as if you were playing to a live audience, because you don’t have the immediate feedback.

Q. What about your weekly shows on Facebook?

A. I would prefer to be playing in front of people, and because I’m doing my own weekly show, I don’t want to do the same 20 to 30 songs each week. It does afford me, however, the ability to sing songs that I wouldn’t otherwise bring out, like a really nice long ballad. You’re asking a lot from an audience to sit through the whole song. But when I’m at home it gives me more liberties to play some songs that I know and enjoy, but don’t break out in live situations.

Q. During your fundraising events why do you work between request and theme nights?

A. I’ve been doing fundraisers for Inverary and Battersea United Churches since November 2016. Theme nights such as “An Irish Night, or an East Coast Night” are easily marketed. It also gives me ways to organise and package the large volume of songs that I have flowing around in my head.

Q. Can you comment on viewer feedback during your Tuesday shows and fundraisers?

A. It’s not an immediate response, but a suitable substitute. Although I can’t see people’s faces, I can see the support coming through the messages during the broadcast. I also receive much support through emails and letters, expressing just how much the shows have meant to people. That’s really gratifying. It’s something we don’t always get when playing live. This has shown me how important live music is when people are going through challenging times. It has inspired me to keep at it.

Q. Did this hiatus give you time to learn some new music, or a new instrument?

A. Yes, I’ve learned a few new songs. I also need to improve my five string banjo skills when playing bluegrass. I felt like I had reached a plateau and there was so much more I could be doing. That’s an ongoing project. And then there’s audio visual production. Learning different techniques for video shooting, editing, sound, and camera location has been my main project.

I’ve also changed studio locations in the house a few times, but I find the garage has been the most sound-proofed, so I can make noise without disturbing the rest of the house and vice versa.

Q. What inspired you go into multi-screen?

A. During the first month of the pandemic, I started playing around with the movie program that came with my iPad, and did a version of David Francy’s. “Torn Screen Door”, because I’ve always been a massive fan of harmony singing, something I cannot do without some help from technology. Then I started going down the rabbit hole of YouTube and found that some people had been doing multi-screen production for years. I discovered it can be done reasonably well without a whole lot of work. I found a connection to a group called Pomplamousse. They are the gold standard for these types of videos. The amount of work that goes into their videos is just staggering, especially multi-screen, with lots of cuts. I’m not able to do that by a long stretch. I found that by splitting the screen into segments, I could create something reasonable to watch, and produce easily, using multi-tracking and harmonies.

Q. Do you miss your trips to the East Coast?

A. I’ve been travelling to the East Coast since 2009, but last year was the first time that didn’t happen. This has been hard for a few reasons. A friend of mine from Fogo Island and St John’s, passed away a few months ago at the age of 22 from an undiagnosed heart condition. I knew the whole family so I would have hopped on a plane and gone to the funeral. It makes you realise how we have been affected by the pandemic.

In 2019, my wife Heather was on sabbatical and my whole family went with me for 3 months. We lived in St. John’s for 2 months and Fogo Island for the month of August. I was an Artist-in-Residence there, sponsored by the Fogo Island Arts and the Shorefast Foundation, so my whole job, my whole being, was music. With my family there, we felt like we were a part of the community. It was an amazing experience. They had offered me the job for last August as well but unfortunately all their summer programs were cancelled. That was a huge disappointment.

Q. I see you are presently looking to enhance your YouTube presence.

A. It's not just a popularity contest, or a vanity project, there is a threshold of 1000 subscribers I have to attain for YouTube to take me seriously as a content creator. Once I attain that threshold, they allow greater access to the platform, I’m able to stream directly from a mobile device, which means the quality is far better. At that point I can monetize my channel and earn advertising revenue. It's free for someone to subscribe to my (or any other) YouTube channel; you just need a Google account.

On behalf those who support him, and as a fan of Chris and his music myself, we can truly say, “We can’t wait to see Chris Murphy back, live on stage.”

For upcoming shows see: https://chrismurphy.ca

For videos on YouTube see: www.YouTube.com/chrismurphy1977