Re: nerds with toys

[Bill Fox <billyfox@soundscapes.us>]

Rick Walker wrote:
> At the time I was playing gigs with a musician who played a wind synth 
> controller.    This musician was a fantastic player but
> was not concerned with creating custom patches or samples on his 
> gear.  I, myself, was fascinated by the sonic morphing capacity of my 
> Akai S950 sampler. I could repitch sounds,  change their envelopes, 
> etc.)  But after all that work on creating unique sounds (this was the 
> genesis of my love affair with found objects as musical instruments) 
> at the end of the gig,   people would swarm my wind synth playing 
> friend with a barrage of questions about his 'magical' instrument.
>
> At that point I realized that seeing me play the keyboard to trigger 
> those samples left the audience with no visceral perception of me 
> playing these unique sounds.     Even though he never customized his 
> sounds (and even played pretty old fashioned 80's new age synth 
> sounds)  the fact that he had this unusual looking and very physical 
> looking (he could sway and move his body as his played, unlike a 
> keyboardist) was vastly more 'entertaining'  to the audience.
Some years, Different Skies will interrupt rehearsals on a Thursday 
afternoon to put on a dog and pony show for a local arts high school.  
Afterwards, the kids are encouraged to come on stage to ask questions.  
Invariably, they would crowd around the Handsonic e-drums... and the 
wind controller.  The keys and guitar players are left looking around at 
their shoes.

BTW, keyboard players, too, can sway to the music.  Ever see Keith 
Emerson plerform?  During one number, he'll run down from his main rig 
(which is up on a platform) to shoot fire at the audience out of a Moog 
ribbon controller and then play "Hammond"... and rock it back and forth, 
and roll it on top of himself to play a Bach fugue from the wrong side 
of the keyboard, his arms crossed over each other.  Theater.  Ryo 
Okumoto of Spock's Beard will put his feet on the stack of keys behind 
him with his hands playing the stack of keys in front of him, his body 
arched like a bridge between the two stacks.  Theater.  Both are 
excellent musicians and put on a whale of a show!

Cheers,

Bill