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Looper's Delight
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Per Boysen wrote: /*"For this reason I try to kick off certain looper comands from laptop keys instead of instantly doing it "on the side" by a floor pedal while playing a physical instrument up front. Just to add a little laptop mangling to the show."*/ I have really thought a lot about how to make the live looping experience more compelling for an audience as I have seen some laptop loopers give fairly boring presentations of otherwise beautiful music. One experience really shaped me in this, several years ago. When I first got into sampling (and would also, by the way, put velcro on all the notes of my midi keyboard controller so that I could velcro down a note which would loop as long as I wanted it to) but before there were dedicated digital live looping gear, I'd go home and put hours into customizing my samples that I would play in concert. 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. So when the late great Dr. Richard Zvonar made the point at the Y2K3 Round Table discussion that the future of looping lay in the creation of interesting new controllers, I agreed 100%. Modern audiences have been so inured to the fact that fairly canned shows can be made with laptop computers, foot controllers, keyboards and turntables that the next place to go is creative theater presentation with more kinaesthetically interesting controllers. Of course an instrument is a kinaesthetically interesting controller, as it were and it is obvious that some people make that a visually stimulating experience while others can make it be a yawn producing experience. ****** Now, after saying all of that, I think it's completely okay, as well, for people to just make music that is interesting to listen to, irregardless of the use of 'theatrics' I myself, like to be entertaining, if possible but it's perfectly okay if others are not so drawn to that approach. ****** and just saying that reminded me, too, that I went and saw one of my favorite abstract electronica acts, Autechre, for the very first time. They had the sound of god and it was in 5.1 stereo all around the huge room. They then turned off all the lights in the place (except emergency exits and the lights of the bar at the rear of the room) so there was nothing to look at. They even figure out how to cloak their laptops so that you could not see even the glow of the screens on their faces (how they did this, escapese me, but hell, I could see anything as was their intent. Sonically it was one of the most interesting things I've heard. The sound was awe inspiring. I got bored 2/3 of the way through and left early. My poor ADD brain just needed something to look at. Honestly, unless they change their tack, I won't pay money to go back to see them.