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Re: nerds with toys



It's funny that I have experienced the opposite issue! ;-))  At many
gigs people that come there to watch expect those on the stage to do a
lot more hands-on with the laptop. For this reason I try to kick off
certain looper comands from laptop keys instead of instantly doing it
"on the side" by a floor pedal while playing a physical instrument up
front. Just to add a little laptop mangling to the show.

There's also another problem for us public performers in live looping
and that is that your second instrument - the looper - in the
perception of the audience has a musical latency that may vary from
two seconds to several minutes. I like to make sure the audience
understands that I play two instruments, the one they an see (guitar,
sax, flute, gongs etc) and the looper. If they see me kicking pedals
like a maniac while playing flute and the flute just sounds normal,
they are in fact watching me playing the looper and the stuff I do
then will not be heard in the music until the loop returns back again.
At some concerts I have, mistakenly, thought that "people here are not
that stupid, they certainly know I'm looping live all improvised..."
but then someone who liked the show comes up afterward with funny
questions like "impressing how you can remember to follow those
complex backtracks and hit the key changes like that" ;-))  So as far
as it doesn't turn you into a lame school teacher clown you may
educate the audience a little.

The public picture of looping as "cheating the band effect" has been
mentioned in this thread. My way to fight back this prejudice is to
rarely use more than one instrument in one piece. I rather play around
with the looper to extend the sound of the physical instrument I play
in that song. Then I may change physical instrument for the next song.

If looping in duo or trio I may change instrument during a piece
though, because then it is a way for me to adapt to the collective
music evolution process.

--> Related:
Generally, improvising musician have always had the same problem with
the audience not understanding what they are doing on stage. There are
so many times, after a gig with totally improvised music, that people
refuse to believe that the music they just heard was improvised. They
kind of go "but hey - that can't be improvised 'cause I heard many
melodies in there and I tell you heard the piano player change chord
where the melody turned and the bass player too...."  It's just
impossible to argue with them so many times it's just simpler to keep
improvising but pretend you are playing compositions - because no one
would believer the truth anyway ;-))

Greetings from Sweden

Per Boysen
www.boysen.se
www.perboysen.com



On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 1:23 AM, Bob Amstadt <bob@amstadt.com> wrote:
> Personally, if I'm going to a live performance, I do like the performers 
>to
> interact with the audience.  I don't mind the knob twiddling as long as 
>the
> performer does acknowledge the existence of the audience.  People 
>generally
> do expect more at a live performance than just a replay of the recording.
> Honestly, that is one of the reasons that I don't go to many stadium 
>shows.
> Interaction between the artists and the audience makes the evening much 
>more
> fun.
>
> I have noted that my favorite looping performers have altered their 
>styles
> over time to include a greater interaction with the audience.  They 
>still do
> the same amount of knob twiddling, but use simple techniques of eye 
>contact
> and stories between pieces to draw the audience in to what they are 
>doing.