Re: WHAT COULD WE DO BETTER?

["David" <vze2ncsr@verizon.net>]

If the performance is interesting - people will pay attention.  Sometimes
the music may even be interesting.
All performers (except mimes, maybe...) are allowed to talk to their
audience.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "loop.pool" <rickwalker@looppool.info>
To: <Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com>
Sent: Monday, December 08, 2003 6:27 PM
Subject: WHAT COULD WE DO BETTER?


> I think that the largest thing that hurts us so far as a performance art
is
> the 'shoe gazer' factor.
>
> What we are doing is incredibly difficult from a multi-tasking standpoint
> and there is a strong tendency
> to constantly be looking away from the audience to push buttons and tweak
> things.
>
> Frequently, I'll watch loopers bend over and tweak something and, as an
> audience member, I can't even tell
> what changed to the sound.
>
> There is, consequently, a lot of lack of eye contact between a lot of
> performers and the audience.    Eye contact has
> nothing, of course, to do with the way our music sounds, but it does
> radically increase the emotional connection factor
> of any performance.
>
> John Whooley's performance at Y2K3 is  particularly exemplary in this
> respect.   John even had a very long chord
> and loopers attached to his belt so that he could actually go out into 
>the
> audience to engage people.  Of course, not everyone
> will have the capacity to do this, but the point is, he was very engaging
of
> the audience and consequently, very fun to watch.
>
> I have noticed that anyone who does anything visual,    from George
Demarest
> lighting up his hands and his trumpet with leds
> to the several people who used airsynths or aireffects or d-beam
controllers
> to alter their sounds seemed to add to just the purely
> visual interest of the show.  Oddly enough,  I found it more fun to watch
> the people who had complex racks with lots of blinking gear
> if their gear was visible to the audience (as opposed to facing away from
> them).    A few people sat sideways which allowed this
> view instead of facing the audience straight away.   In a static visual
> performance, I found it more interesting to actually see what the knobs
that
> they were twiddling and the lights blinking, commensorately.  I don't 
>know
> if I'm in the minority on this one or not and would love to hear 
>feedback.
>
> There were, of course, people like Gary Regina, who just played different
> instruments seated in a chair which made for a compelling
> performances.     He also made a lot of eye contact with the audience and
> seemed cognizant of them.
>
> Let's see,   oh yeah...................I found some people who used drum
> machines tended to fall into two categories of things that bugged me a
bit.
> Either the sound was so static that it just felt too canned  or people
> overprogrammed their drum machines so that they were distracting.
>
> Simple a solution as it is, I personally tended to like it when people
would
> use filtering to change the sound of their preprogrammed drums.
> Someone and I forget who at Y2K3,  ended their performance by suddenly
> filtering the sound into telephone EQs as they faded it out.
> It really took on a cool dimension and broke the trance of the typical
fade
> out.
>
> I also thought that people would make individual pieces go on way too
long.
> Really getting into a piece that takes time to unfold is a really
> valid approach to music, but I think shows would be far more fascinating
if
> their were more and shorter 'songs' or 'pieces' to beak the performance
up.
>
> I also tended to like it when there were interactions between musicians,
> including some people just playing in real time to the loops that were
> already going.
>
> Lately, I"ve become particularly enamored of duets where one person plays
> and the other person loops and processes that
> performance...............neither person being able to controll what the
> other person does so that it becomes a living growing thing.    I've end
> thought about producing a small festival with that as the common metaphor
> and approach.   Does this interest anyone else?   The Bay Area Voice and
> Electronics Thingee that Matt Davignon produced was a wonderful case in
> point for this style of improv.  I was really fascinated by the improvs
> between acapella vocals and looper/processors that I saw there.   It was
> pretty fun to particpate too.
>
> alright, that's it for now.
>
> rick
>
>
>