2020 has been a year of shifts toward digital programming for many industries. Due to a decline in large, in-person gatherings, one of those industries is live music.
But musicians are notorious for embracing new technology and reinventing their routine when complications arise. Steve Schnaffner is one of them.
“Up until march I had a calendar full of SEMO Symphony and Paducah Symphony concerts, winery gigs, and weddings,” says the local fiddler and frontman of acoustic trio, Jumper Cables. “For years and years, I’ve basically had at least a gig on the books just about every weekend. This hit and live gigs have vanished; this is basically what’s happening to the entire industry.”
This inspired Schaffner to take to YouTube with a short video series he calls “Fiddlin’ Around Cape Girardeau,” where he plays a solo fiddle piece with a historical Cape location as his backdrop. Some notable locations include First Presbyterian Church, Fort D Historic Site, and Kage School.
“I’m a huge history buff - Frank Nickell’s biggest fan - and there’s a lot of that around southeast Missouri and southern Illinois,” says Schaffner. “One of the great things we have [in Cape] is an abundance of historical stuff to look at, and it just seemed like a perfect combo to put some music with it and talk about some of the great stuff in our little city.”
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