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Looper's Delight
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I feel lucky in that after going through a "maximal rig" setup for a year, I've come down to a very small one that is working for me. I started to feel with the "max" rig that, even though the gigs were well received, I just hated going out of the house -- so much so that I was contemplating stopping performing live. Then I did a superminimal gig -- just a headrush, a vocal mic and my breath synth -- that was really well received. I realized from that that the core of what I do that moves people is singing and breath synth playing -- so I restructured and downsized. The irony is, as a keyboard-playing friend pointed out to me who's seen me go through all my gear changes, I'm back to exactly what I started with -- one EDP, a Kaos Pad (II), a wireless mic, a breath synth and a Korg NX5R with a small evolution controller. And no mixer -- the mic and VL70 (breath synth module) plug into the back of the NX5R, which thankfully has an audio input -- the NX5R goes straight into the Kaos Pad, the Kaos pad goes into the EDP. Simplicity itself, and 5 or 10 minutes to pack up and set up -- and light! What's changed since 2 years ago is I've gotten much clearer about the music I want to play. Another irony -- the ideas that are proving fruitful are the ideas I came to when I first started looping. But I wasn't certain these were the really fruitful ideas, so I went through about a year and a half of experimentation and improvisation (a lot of it in front of audiences) until it became clear that these original ideas were the best and merit my attention. I've discovered there are 2 kinds of looping/performing I do. One is shamanistic/spiritual/therapeutic, and more often than not for myself -- putting on the headphones to create a really private space, and going off, singing, playing, entrancing, often singing or saying out loud stream of consciousness thoughts that I need to integrate. Kind of a waking dreamstate. My therapist pointed out that this is a way I can engage both my left and right brains together and integrate psychic material. The other is more for live performance, and recently I've discovered I prefer actually writing compositions, rhythmic cycles, chants, and songs to play in concert. Many have a head that is performed live with no looping, then I might loop a chorus or section or drone to improvise on. Of course these two modes influence each other and spill over -- but they are different. Back to the rig - I am often tempted to add another piece of gear back -- "Gee, I really miss my second EDP" is the most frequent thought. But I'm discovering I can replace gear with musical technique. For example, instead of using one EDP for rhythmic loops and one for melodic/chordal material and then breaking down to the rhythmic loop by muting the other EDP, I can go to a clean loop, play a rhythmic part on a synth while chanting a rhythm with my breath with a suitable delay on the Kaos pad -- and I have my rhythmic loop. This requires more thought and practice. My inspiration nowadays is an Indian musician I saw playing with Zakir Hussain who had dedicated his life, it seems, to playing a clay pot. Not two clay pots, not three clay pots -- one clay pot. Cheers!