Wormz...

["Rainer Straschill" <rs@moinlabs.de>]

Matthew,

> I've been pondering these sorts of questions for quite some
> time, as I've
> been very interested (and involved) in the role of improvisation and
> spontaneous music making in electronica - specifically
> *danceable* electronica.

could you please tell us (me) a bit more about your activities in
"improvised dance music" ?

(Background: my first "looping" performance ever was when I combined the
possibilities of several newly acquired pieces of equipment - amongst them 
a
Quasimidi Sirius, a DL4, a Headrush and an electric bass guitar. While a
majority of this performance was quite "danceable", this was entirely due 
to
the DnB-style patterns repeated (or looped, if you will) by my Sirius. The
looping, on the other hand, focused on the more "experimental" parts of the
performance, save for one number where I combined an improvised theme
(soprano sax) with the "out chorus" of my trombone solo.
On the other hand, I recently started a group not necessarily involved in
looping but dedicated to "improvised dance music". Because we do not yet
live up to our full looping possibilities (like e.g. feeding drum mikes 
into
my console with the Repeater), and also because we are a fairly large
ensemble (compromising one drummer, guitar player, drum/bass player,
keyboard player and mhs for keys, sax and additional bass), my looping has
been down to a minimum so far. Yet the possibilities of the looping stuff
struck the other members (all without looping experience on their side) as
fascinating - like playing a bass riff "live" to the stuff drums/keys play,
then looping this bass riff and then building the entire "ensemble sound"
around this loop.
When it comes to audience reactions (in our few performances so far, all of
which took place at parties, where the audience didn't even expect a live
act, and had been awaiting an evening of a DJ playing contemporary dance
music), the little pieces of looping I did add went largely unnoticed by 
the
audience. This is partially due to the fact that most of the audience were
there to dance, not to watch the group, partially because we usually play
up, as the say in the trade, "a storm" with our five-piece band, similair 
to
the intensity of the Weather Report live performances (see 8:30). An eye
catcher and "hey, I'm looping" trick I pulled with genuine success is to
create a short "loop" (more of a modulated delay, like the DL4s sweep echo
set to full feedback) at the end of a synth solo, then walk out onto the
dancefloor and groove away while the rest of the group plays around the
sonic mayhem. This does also work for, say, bass or keyboard riffs, but 
only
if no one else is playing keys or bass at the same time, and only if it is
clear for the audience that you did in fact play the riff yourself from the
beginning (rather than trigger a prerecorded sample). This is not always
easy, but on the other hand, as long as the audience enjoys what we are
doing, it doesn't really matter whether they know (or care) if I'm looping
live or playing samples - same goes for the fact that our material is in
fact nearly completely improvised, a feat that goes unnoticed by most of 
the
audience).


        Rainer

Rainer Straschill
Moinlabs GFX and Soundworks - www.moinlabs.de
digital penis expert group - www.dpeg.de
The MoinSound Archives - www.mp3.com/moinlabs