Re: What public is attracted by a Y2K Sampler Video? (antipaganda)

[Matthias Grob <matilists@gmail.com>]

Its interesting that I did not read any doubt, not the slightest  
thought, that a non pleasant recording can harm a brand or festival or  
musicians name.
I know they say that bad propaganda is better than none, but I imagine  
that someone can simply turn away and not look at a subject any more  
just because the first experience was not enjoyed/understood.
This happens easily when picking sentences out of o speech or sound  
sample out of a trance experience.

Let me start with an example of my own experience:

I have mainly been playing with non musicians in a group of up to 25  
improvising happy noise making people.
It worked amazingly well! For those who did it regularly, it was like  
a spiritual shower, leaving us fresh and optimistic, with a different  
body feeling and so on, while others came the first time and in the  
end had a huge smile on the face, saying: "I did not know I was able  
to play music!"
but:
I never recorded that music. Many asked me to, but in the middle of  
the trance I sometimes put my daily ears back on, just to realize that  
we were mostly making noise, out of tune, boring... so I did not want  
to disappoint anyone about it and left the great impression we had  
when the REAL energy was flowing and bringing us together, which is  
the essence, much more important than the recording.

I then learned from it, that with solo looping I went through a  
similar process. I liked my first recordings and the trance went on  
all day while designing the looping tools, I did not care/notice that  
my friends did not like the recordings so much.
Doing it live, I sometimes managed to spread the trance over some  
public and they became fascinated. After years even over a bigger  
public. Then, finally, a few people went off with my recordings - also  
because I carefully edited them all, taking out wrong notes, boring  
parts, and more and more the "experimental" parts, too, observing that  
the fans did not like them (a big advantage of selling cassette tapes:  
you can visit a client and look where he stopped your music :-)
But after all those years of free music of mine on the net and a CD on  
CD baby and what not, the word of mouth is still not spreading my  
music - because its not good enough!

So:
there is a very long way from serious trance producing art to  
something that people actually buy.
we have been talking a lot about commercial music and how bad it is  
and how successful musicians have to bend...
I see it different now:
don't bend your personality, play your real trance thing, but so well  
that people can understand and follow it, even if they are not in a  
room with you!
or accept that it only works live
or only with a few friends
or only by yourself
BUT: enjoy that it DOES work, its an amazing gift to be able to  
produce your own trance !!

(I am using "trance" in a more open way, following http://trance.org)


back to the y2k video:
it probably brings back the trance to those who were in it there at  
the venue.
it may give some little sparks to people who understand about music
but I suspect that the other 99% of the listeners have no chance to  
get into the trance and for them it sounds bad and crazy and looks  
like there was no public and the musicians did not shine...
...and to some, the video may confirm that they are not interested in  
LiveLooping.
And thats why I think its worth the effort to be self critical and se  
whether I am totally exaggerating here. :-)

[ careful: politeness does not allow anyone to say he does not like  
your music. even good friends and very honest people usually lie in  
this situation, so create your own criteria to judge whether what you  
do really helps the others. ]