Re: Using pre-recorded material in performance

[Per Boysen <per@boysen.se>]

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
>
>