Collaberation via the World Wide Web

I recently had a conversation with a songwriter/guitarist named Greg from Pittsburg Pa. who told me he was collaberating on a CD with a bass player and keyboardist from Cherry Hill, NJ.
Isn't that a rather long and time consuming commute for you guys, I asked. He laughed and said, isn't technology great, we are using video conferencing .

Altho I recently mention this type of modern tech in a previous post, I was amazed at how quickly it was becoming popular among all types of people. Musicians have already found video conferencing to be an extremely valuable tool for writing and connecting with other musicians.

I asked Greg how they had originally met and decided to do this over the internet, and he said that he had met these guys at a club in Philadelphia while helping some home town friends who were going there to do a gig, and that these 2 other fellows were out looking around the club scene that night, searching for a guitar player for a new project.

The three guys apparantly got to talking and found they had a ton of musical influences and skills in common, as well as the extra benefit of Greg being a songwriter also. The problem was that altho Greg said he would definately consider moving to Philly, that was not an option for quite a while. So the keyboardist said no problem, I already have the answer, video conferencing.

The keyboardist was also an IT tech major, and already had this great new gadgetry on his pc. So needless to say,Greg is now happily video conferencing away with the others, and says it is the wildest and best pc "toy" he has tried in years, and that he wished video conferencing had been around a long time ago.

Well Greg, we can't change the past, but we can sure embrace the future. I understand they will be recording thier first demo of all this new material in a Cherry Hill recording studio, so hopefully he will keep me posted on thier progress. Who knows, this might be the first album written while the players were miles away from one another. Good luck Guys!