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Hi Travis,
I perform "improvised music" and use a lot of live-looping techniques.
Doing that is both a musical and a philosophical statement and you have
to make sure that you're act is accurately presented when attending
gigs.
You also have to think about how people hear your music as a "first
impression". Does it rely on some tradition? Does it sound like other
music of a certain style? Do you use certain instruments and what
expectations might that implement? What's the color of your shirt
today? Such things, that might not at all interest you, may have an
unwanted impact on the audience bringing them to presume that you are
"trying to do a certain thing" (which you might, or might not).
The beauty in trying to improvise to 100% is that the resulting music
gives you, the performer, a "first impression" very close to what the
audience experiences. This gives that you have a fairly good chance to
come up with something they like, as long as you keep doing music that
you think is cool with yourself. But as soon as you start using audio
material that you have heard before ("pre-recorded") this unique
situation is gone.
Example:
Sometimes I have launched recorded voice readings during a gig and
almost every time I have gotten the feedback from some listeners that
"I did not hear every word of that voice". I had been using the voices
because I like the atmosphere in hearing distant small talks and not
being able to follow the words. Like being drunk and falling asleep in
someone's bedroom at a party or being five years old and trying to stay
awake in bed while your parents keep talking in the living room.
Anyway, I found out that when playing back voice recordings from stage
I was the only one that kept hearing them as "emotionally interesting
background sounds". Most people thought the voices was put into the
music because they should "front the song", like pop vocals do. You
tend to hear what you expect, not the actual sound.
All the best
Per Boysen
---
http://www.boysen.se
http://www.looproom.com
On 2004-08-08, at 01.31, Travis Hartnett wrote:
> I'm curious as to how many people are using some form of pre-recorded
> material when they play out, and what the audience response has been.
> I know that some people assume that I'm playing over backing tracks
> from a CD or something similar when I play (I don't), but I've never
> heard anything negative from them about that idea (maybe the ones who
> disapprove just don't talk to me). They're always a bit surprised
> when I explain how it's all Live Looping, and sometimes I'll do a tune
> that's a combination performance and talked-through demonstration on
> how it works. A friend of mine has been doing open mics recently,
> playing live guitar over a CD-R of backing tracks that he'd recorded
> (he's got a Johnson amp simulator, a Tascam CD player and a little
> mixer all mounted on a music stand when he plays, so it's just one
> cable out to the sound guy), and the musician's union has yet to bust
> him (joke), and it aroused my curiousity as to how widespread this
> sort of thing is outside karaoke bars.
>
> TravisH
>
>