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Looper's Delight
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Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), improv music is an art-form that contrary to other media such as painting, the people observing have no idea what they will get until the first buzz sounds and the last drone ends. Oh sure, they know they're getting improv but they've already plunked down money(hopefully) and while they may know approximately what they're getting it's not like walking into an exhibition of Modern Art and saying, "Ohh I like that, I'll buy it," or "yuck, who would pay for that?" Hence, true improv looping without any non-improv stuff, does indeed lend itself more to the crowd that wants to enjoy the process not the result. Though if the result fits their likings, so much the better! Either way the music is the baby and one can't just wing it without trying to "do it right", at least to ourselves. But without the proper audience, it becomes a somewhat selfish exercise of "They paid me, here I go!" In such an environment, detachment from the end result would probably serve the looper better and is perhaps easier than for those who perform non-improv tunes where a result is expected. Reminds me of one of my gigs a couple years ago where I reintroduced looping into my tunes after many years without. Turns out the sound guy had no idea what he was doing and as I started my first tune he started messing with the EQ right in the midst of the beginning looping part. The result? A 20 second loop that played for the entire song that had interesting layers of bass feedback. (the looper I had did not have UNDO) For me the song lost all resemblance to what I intended but salvaged it. In the end it became more improv than I intended and I had to throw out my intention of doing some reverse loops because it would have REALLY muddied the waters. The best thing about it was that folks came up afterwards saying how they loved my incorporating the "Hendrix sound" into that first song. The good news was that they didn't feel cheated by my performance. Of all things, while I do my best on stage and prepare, in the end, the folks that plunk down money to see me deserve to get their money's worth. Sometimes I don't know what they want -and to some extent that's MY fault for not researching the gig and the demographic properly. Don't get me wrong, I do plenty of "letting it unfold" type of stuff and I DO need to be true to myself. But in a paid gig, I do have an obligation of sorts to give them their moneys worth. enough thoughts for now... Plish (whose intestines are improvising and causing me to loop to and from the washroom repeatedly) ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark Sottilaro" <sine@zerocrossing.net> To: <Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com> Sent: Thursday, June 21, 2007 12:39 PM Subject: Ich bin eine Nervensäge (Was: The Artist's Right To Be Boring) I've been lurking in this thread... and as a performer who's profoundly dull... I think I've come to the conclusion that, for me, the world of music puts too much of an emphasis on performance. I've got to say that at 95% of music shows I've ever been too... I'm usually ready to leave after about a half hour no matter how much I like the music. I'm usually too far away... it's too loud, Fripp is shrouded in darkness (literally and metaphorically) Dancing is not an option because it's too crowded (screw you hippy ass hole jumping around like an idiot running into people at the last Belew show... I'M TALKING TO YOU!) Yeah. On the other hand, I love playing with other musicians... just not on stage. Last time I jammed on stage with other musicians (Rick and Bill Walker) I couldn't hear our monitors at all and as it turned out I was screamingly loud compared to them (as reported by my friends). So, while being fun to me it probably wasn't much fun for the audience. Hopefully they were distracted by the pretty video of sea life we were projecting behind us, or our collective devilishly good looks. Oh yeah, and during my solo performance my KAOSS pad (true to it's name) decided it was OK to start sending MIDI program change messages done the line (after I asked it nicely not to) and a turn of the program change knob scrolled through my guitar patches at hyperspeed while I was sustaining a chord... Hmm. So... I'm boring and un-fun to watch. I put up videos and video games projected behind me to cover the fact that I'm creating ambient drones and mostly making eye contact with LCD displays. I'm losing my head hair and rapidly gaining ear hair. I'm nervous, unskilled at many instruments and a bit of a blowhard because I want you to like me and think I'm cool so I over compensate. Anyway, if anyone would like to perform with me, at my home, with my dog and cat as our audience, let me know. I've just set up shop in Emeryville CA and I'm itching to bore. Mark