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Looper's Delight
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If I may add my own few worms to the can... 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. The work I've done with looping extends from my work in free improvisation, where it has never been as important to align the audience with familiar patterns or sounds (nor is it considered a goal). The migration into a more tangible listening experience for a wider audience proves to be difficult because they are expecting very specific parts of the sound with which they can relate. I've found it very challenging to move into a dance-music aligned mode of improvisation, and I depend a great deal on looping as an element of the sound. So much so that it characterizes the sound and feel - and indeed, the overall pacing - of what I do, which has come to be quite downtempo and minimal in feel (regardless of tempo) and very developmental due to these constraints. The issue I've been struggling with at times is when the line between live performer and DJ becomes blurry and treacherous. Indeed, there have been more than just a handful of times when folks really enjoying my live sets haven't been within eye-shot of me and thought it was a really good downtempo/IDM-ish DJ set (and in some cases, believe it's me DJ'ing - which I do - and not performing live). So, that brings to a point exactly what people have been discussing here: even though I'm doing the sorts of things that are seldom experienced in a dance music setting (#1, live electronica, #2 *improvised* electronica), it may not be that people realize it's even live music, much less anything non-canned or even just non-sequenced. The difference seems mostly to do with the venue and the setting. When folks come to a gallery opening or a live show that will feature Craque doing live music, they know to expect something that may or may not be a continuous mix of music, but that will definitely be live, electro-acoustic, improvisational and experimental. But when I do a live set at a club or a party, people are just expecting to hear good dance music, regardless of how it's created - though hopefully they will see that it's live and appreciate it all that much more. The challenge in both these cases is to provide something that is both interesting to the ear and challenging to the musical mind, but that still grooves. I find the same challenges DJ'ing, and I definitely believe that we underestimate the audience's ability to be exposed to new sounds. matt (aka Craque) http://craque.net