As the year wraps up, we’re wishing you a holiday season and new year filled with music and new connections.
Vocalist Paul Marinaro couldn’t be home for Christmas with his mom this year, so he and pianist Ben Lewis recorded this tender performance of Kent, Gannon, and Ram’s “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” for her. Though both musicians live in Chicago, they couldn’t find a time and place to meet in person, but with FarPlay, they were able to make their recording online in about ten minutes on Christmas morning.
Want to make music with Ben and other musicians on FarPlay? Ben’s weekly jazz jams and Eden Casteel’s weekly open mics continue in the new year on FarPlay Meet, our platform that lets you connect with the wider FarPlay community, free to all subscribers. To be among the first to experience Meet, sign up now for early access to the beta. Then, to browse sessions (or create your own), look under Open Sessions. Thanks to everyone who helped test FarPlay Meet this year!
How far apart can you play together?
Musicians are often surprised to learn that the answer is a lot farther than they expect. When network connections and computer and audio-device performance are optimized, latency is imperceptible at short distances. At medium distances, latency is noticeable, but musicians can still play a wide variety of styles together. For long distances, latency is too high for playing together in rhythm, but playing non-rhythmic music together can still be fun! Check out the recordings of different styles and distances in our new blog post on this topic.
Monthly support sessions
Sign-ups are available for the first monthly support sessions of 2026, which will be Saturday, January 17th and Saturday, February 21st, 2:00pm-3:30pm New York time (8:00pm-9:30pm Central European time) on both dates. Sign up for support sessions here.
Monthly tech-support sessions are available free to paid subscribers and students of FarPlay For Teachers subscribers. These sessions are a great way to get live tech support for FarPlay and FarPlay Meet.
Get in touch
We love featuring our amazing users. If you’d like to be included — whether you use FarPlay for lessons, rehearsals, jam sessions, or conversations — we’d love to talk to you. You can let us know by emailing us at contact@farplay.io.
Need help right away? Check out our FAQ & Troubleshooting Guide, which you can open from the Help menu in the latest version of FarPlay. If you haven’t already, upgrade free to the latest version.
If you’d like to ask tech-support questions, our forum is the fastest way to reach us. If you need to reach us privately, email us at support@farplay.io — we’re happy to help!
—David Liao & the FarPlay team