Bonjour tout le monde! I hope you are having a wonderful musical time wherever you might be.

Today’s post is going to be on virtual reality. What is virtual reality (VR) and what does it have to do with music? Good questions, my friend!

Typically, virtual reality refers to using a pair of video screens strapped to your face and plugged into a computer (or something along those lines (I’m not an expert)). This gives you, the wearer, the illusion you are somewhere else. A virtual reality. Which is both spooky and pretty neat.

People use VR headsets for many things but they were popularly developed for their video gaming applications.

Recently, I had the opportunity to play the Meta Quest 3 (3s or something like that. The cheaper unit, I think.) It was an interesting experience and pretty fun all around. Please note, I did not purchase the Meta Quest, nor am I advocating for you to buy it. This is more so, to detail fun potential of VR technology in relation to music.

The experience did take a slight getting used to although I found it more or less straightforward to get the hang of it. I was playing with the Virtuoso VR game (tool?) which allowed me to play virtual instruments in the real space of the room. As an example I could set up a drum and place it in the room, where it would exist only to me. I could interact with it and make sounds! I could set up as many as I wanted and customise the sounds in any configuration I wanted. The result was my own Frankenstein’s drum set. It was a bit off in terms of rhythmic accuracy when trying to trigger the sounds, although the program could set all sounds to a tempo and specific note division which was helpful. Ultimately, this was a bit of a damper and limits what I think it has the potential to be. I enjoy the experience nonetheless!