Re: Practice, rehearse, perform

[Mark <sine@zerocrossing.net>]

Greg House wrote:

> Stewart said many people think he's playing to backing tracks. That's 
>obviously a
> statement that says his looping technique is very seamless and 
>effortless.

After a particularly good performance, I had someone come up to me and 
say, "Wow,
that sounded great.  Like you were playing a CD."  I think that most 
people's
experience, these days, with music is recorded, not live.  That's a tough 
act to
follow.  Any of us that record know the time an effort that goes into make 
a good
sounding recording.  It's no small task to recreate that on stage, 
especially with
improvised music.

I'm thinking of abandoning my 100% (except for drums sequences) improv 
method of live
music because I'm realizing that it's just too hard to be "there" all the 
time.  To
be honest, I'm jealous of the attention that people get who show up with 
polished
"pieces" when I'm flying by the seat of my pants.  I think I'll confine 
that "flying"
mainly to my home.  I just can't complete with a DJ that's playing 
something that
took a month to produce in a recording studio.  Not live anyway.  Right 
now I'm
composing basic chord structures and a riff or two that I can then 
improvise off of.
I'm hoping this will increase the "wow, that sounded like a CD" response, 
meaning
people feel it's a polished well thought out piece of music.  I think the 
total
improv thing is just contributing to the basic stress level of a gig 
anyway.

Mark Sottilaro