Re: Electronica Solos

[Paolo Valladolid <pvallado@waynesworld.ucsd.edu>]

> >Might I suggest the keyboardists in electronica _do_ solo, but not in 
>the
> >way you'd expect to hear them?
> 
> For now, I'll say that a "solo" is a instrumental statement by one 
>person 
> in a group context, which clearly says "I have the ball!", and this 
>point 
> is not contested by the other musicians.  The focus of attention shifts 
> to the performer in question for the duration of the solo.  A statement 
> is made with a beginning, a middle, and an end.  There is no question as 
> to whether or not a "solo" is occurring.  When in doubt, the soloist is 
> the guy who's playing the loudest.

As I suspected, the improvisations I was talking about don't match your
definition of a solo.  I certainly wasn't talking about soloing using
the scales, arpeggios, and other constructs built upon the 12-tone
equal tempered scale.
 
> If you can point out such occurences in electronica, please provide 
> specific track examples.  Again, I'm not denying that these things 
>exist, 

Unfortunately, I cannot suggest specific track examples; though I
strongly recommend you check out the Live 93 double-CD by The Orb.
The live configuration of The Orb consisted of a bassist, two 
percussionists,
and two keyboardists if I recall correctly.  The keyboardists "improvise"
by changing the settings of mixers, effects parameters applied to 
samplers and synths and so on in real time.  For example, they will
play DATs which contain prerecorded backing tracks but will feed the DAT
outputs into a mixer connected to effects so they can fade effects in
and out and do other things to teh DAT signal so that the playback of the
DAT is always different from concert to concert.  Add to this
the live bassist and percussionists who interact with the keyboard players
so there is actual communication going on between musicians instead of
everyone being slaved to some mechanical clock.  

After you listen to Live 93, let's talk some more. ^_^

Paolo Valladolid
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