New Growth

How austin musicians Have been staying afloat during tHe pandemic

By Tavi tragus

Ryan Fechter with his LEGO™ collection. Photo courtesy of Ryan Fechter.

The pandemic has been dreadful for everybody, with the performance industries being some of the hardest hit. For a long time, the music industry in Austin was dormant. Even now, it is just starting to wake up and be exposed to music lovers worldwide. There have been very few concerts, and many musicians are out of a job. However, Austin musicians were persistent, trying to find ways to continue doing what they love while staying safe. Ryan Fechter is a local pianist. He has years of experience playing improv piano and teaching private lessons. He also streams ambient music on Twitch.

“During those first lockdowns, being able to take my whole student roster online was an exceptional, lucky gift during all of that, because all of my performance work [was] gone,” Fechter said. Several musicians tried to take on

students at the beginning of the pandemic. Online lessons were one thing that they thought they could do consistently. Unfortunately, when you don’t have a foothold, starting to teach online lessons is very difficult, especially during a pandemic.

“I don’t know too many artists in general, let alone performing artists and musicians who were able to [switch to teaching private lessons] months into the pandemic,” Fechter said. “‘Okay, now let me pivot and make a move and try streaming, try online lessons,’ I didn’t hear much success.”

He thinks that despite all of the negative things that have happened,

the pandemic has had a few silver linings. Most notably, the pandemic has led to developments in music lessons.

“I’ve had students from New York City, I currently have a student in Florida who is a retiree, and I’ve had a couple of students in California as well,” Fechter said. “Just opening up that full country and being able to take students from all over has been a really cool aspect of that.” The pandemic allowed people to learn music from the best of the best. Your teacher was no longer restricted by your zip code. Robert Greenfield, a piano teacher and accompanist, agrees.

“I think [the pandemic] probably opens up a lot of opportunities for teachers to teach people all around the world,” Greenfield said. “And I think it’s good because it can help people find a teacher that has the particular qualifications that they’re looking for.”

Fechter said that having virtual lessons made scheduling a lot easier. He no longer had to worry about Austin traffic and could have multiple lessons back to back to back. Unfortunately, no matter how many cameras you have, judging the physical technique and posture of someone through Zoom can be very hard. This was a prominent downside of virtual lessons that Fetcher noticed.

Before the pandemic, Fechter was streaming on Twitch as a hobby. After it started, he and his wife decided to start their main Twitch channel, RJandJ, where they would build lego models with improvised ambient piano music.

“I’m actually full-time on that Twitch channel,” Fechter said. “That is my performance focus. That’s where I’m spending all my performance, energy, and creativity. We stream four days a week and do about three to four hours per stream. So, it’s become my fulltime performance gig. That’s certainly close to the hours I was doing as a performer in Austin, just sheer kind of time.” its own kind of venue. There is way more audience interaction because the streamer can see what everyone is saying, and viewers are encouraged to chat with the streamer. Fechter values all of the connections that you can get from Twitch streaming.

“I would play shows and be in the pit at Zach Theater fairly often,” Greenfield said. “Teaching, playing for schools, a lot of playing for choir concerts and accompanying choirs and kids when they would go and do their UIL contests, singers and instrumentalists. And of course, once COVID came around, a lot of that went away.”

A lot of people who were mainly gig workers were out of a job because they couldn’t perform in large theaters due to the global pandemic. Greenfield

“Just opening up that full Country and being able to take students from all over has been a really cool aspect of that as well.”

Rob Greefield in black and white. Photo from Rob Greenfield of the Accompaniment Company.

“[The pandemic] showed how fragile [the Austin music industry] was. I think it showed people how precious it was."

was lucky because he was able to continue accompanying the ballet classes at Ballet Austin, even if they were different.

“And then [the ballet classes] went virtual,” Greenfield said. “But we were able to keep doing it through Zoom. So I would actually sit here in my house and have my electric keyboard [hooked] up to my computer and have the sound going through Zoom. Then all the kids and all the dancers in the company would be in their homes, taking the class.”

Before the pandemic, Greenfield started the Accompaniment Company, where he makes and sells recordings of the accompaniments to common pieces in choir shows. He noticed that there were a few pieces that would be requested very often, so he started recording them. During the pandemic, he has been working on increasing the selection for the Accompaniment Company, and networking.

“There’s a member of the Ballet Austin professional company, who’s also a choreographer,” Greenfield said. “He and I are brainstorming a little dance troupe, or company, whatever you want to call it. We’re currently working on a piece, so that’s something that’s coming together.”

Unfortunately, the pandemic has not been so positive for everybody. Elizabeth Mcqueen, a DJ at KUTX and podcaster about musicians and venues during COVID, said “there is a real affordability crisis happening in the city.”

Housing prices have gone up by an average of $100,000 in the past year, and while this doesn’t just affect Austin musicians, it makes it a lot harder to live here.

“[The pandemic] showed how fragile [the Austin music industry] was,” Mcqueen said. “I think it showed people how precious it was. I think if something’s always accessible, then you don’t really treasure it. When [the music industry] came back, people were really grateful to have it back.” People in Austin took Austin music more seriously during the pandemic because they realized it wasn’t going to last forever. They realized that Austin music is not a guarantee, and so people have been helping to revive the music scene we all came to love. With the connections of musicians, venue workers, and other industry professionals, the Austin music community is bringing the scene back to the surface.

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This graph shows the average house prices in austin from January 2010 to March 2022. The data was taken from the Texas A&M Real Estate Research Center and the graph was created by Tavi Tragus.

Photo of Elizaeth McQueen courtesy of Michael Minasi from KUTX.w