Re: video during shows -- (was: Re: stumbling around in the dark.....)

["Charles Winters" <chasw44@comcast.net>]

Good idea Warren.  I say go for it.  There is a long history of people 
projecting images on screens during music concerts, usually with some sort 
of synchronization of the image with the music.  You idea of showing the 
software GUI is a novel one and not without its risks.  My son John often 
performs his acoustic guitar music along with a laptop running Ableton 
Live, 
but he makes a point of orienting the laptop so the audience cannot see 
the 
screen.  The audience's perception of him playing the guitar and 
occasionally working the midi keyboard, the foot controller and the mouse 
while the music unfolds creates feelings of wonder and mystery.  Seeing 
the 
computer screen would detract from that effect and break the spell, he 
maintains.

Instead, his (or maybe my) ambition is to augment his regular performance 
with an ordinary LCD projector, hooked up to his laptop, projecting the 
images his music makes through the standard iTunes player.  iTunes has the 
best visualizer app I've yet seen, vastly superior to the one bundled with 
WMPlayer.   I imagine the end result will be a modern version of what Bill 
Graham used to provide for rock bands at the old Avalon Ballroom in SF. 
Downright hypnotic. - CW
www.johnwinters.biz


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Warren Sirota" <wsirota@wsdesigns.com>
To: <Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com>
Sent: Friday, March 24, 2006 5:09 AM
Subject: RE: video during shows -- (was: Re: stumbling around in the 
dark.....)


>I have a question I've been asking myself about this. I'm performing at 
>the
> Monkey next month, and it has a projection video screen. I've been 
> wondering
> whether to duplicate my laptop display to the screen, showing the looping
> software interface. I think it would be kind of cool - in a way, it's 
>like 
> a
> "form-follows-function", Bauhaus kind of thing to do. OTOH, maybe that's
> just a distraction from the music, and I shouldn't overplay the 
> intellectual
> aspects of what's going on onstage. After all, I'm not showing a display
> designed to be a piece of art, it's more like watching the inner 
>workings 
> of
> watch. It will, though, have an obvious synchronization with sonic and
> physical (footcontroller presses, etc) events. Opinions?
>
> Best wishes,
> Warren Sirota
>