Dead Music, Live
As I’m sure we’re all aware, playing electronic music live is often fraught with difficulties and conundrums: how do I recreate studio tracks, yet remain spontaneous? Should I even bother recreating studio tracks? How can I balance the familiar with the improvised? How can I be more interesting, visually? And that’s just the choices that will be reflected on stage. Never mind the logistical nightmares of hauling half your studio, fragile laptops, hardware synths, keyboards, and equipment stands around a foreign city without injuring yourself or your gear, getting lost, or getting stuff stolen.
Up until this point I’ve been playing live with a laptop, a copy of Ableton Live, and three small Faderfox controllers. They do their job nicely enough; Live allows me to recreate and remix tracks to a fair competency, without (so far) glitching and crashing all over the place (even on my aging IBM R40). The controllers afford a decent degree of flexibility with effects, recording and loop-launching. Yet it’s not the greatest visual spectacle ever bestowed upon the stage—that holy pulpit of ritual communication and adoring/abhorring feedback. Plus, it’s increasingly dull for me—never mind those unfortunate to have to stand there gazing at the back of my laptop, while their arm aches with the weight of a slowly-warming plastic pint. But as a one-man act it’s all I’ve got, all I can currently muster, and certainly all I can carry.
But it’s not good enough, so I’m putting live gigs on hold for the time being. The kind of music I write these days doesn’t especially lend itself to live performance anyway; refreshingly hype-free it may be, but ‘downtempo electronica’ is never going set hipsters’ diaries alight for the weekend. What’s becoming clear is I need some sort of ensemble to help me perform, and something that I can actually be a part of, rather than uncomfortably knob-twiddle, hunched behind a laptop or similar techo-fetishised contraption (I’m thinking bass guitar, perhaps). And as a side note, since when did ‘all-hardware’ set-ups become some sort of audience draw anyway? Pressing play on your Machine Drum can’t be that much more exciting than eliciting a MIDI start command from your controller, can it? Or am I missing the all-important blinking LED factor?
I was pleased to go and see Stars of the Lid play, quite a while back now, when they toured a limited number of venues in the UK—all of them churches, I think. This careful decision to tailor their environment to suit the music was probably the most crucial part of the gig. Not to suggest that the music wasn’t great—it was brilliant—but actually being able to sit down and listen to music in an environment not built for the sole-purpose of drinking and wildly flailing limbs (itself a problematic combination at the best of times), was what made the event essential, rather than merely worthwhile. Clearly aware of the incompatibility of performing ambient music in a bar or club, their decision to use the natural reverb in a church, unfettered by beats, was a masterstroke.
So to continue this public musing a little more, what should I do? I can either attempt to put together a small ensemble of people who are willing to do this with little-to-zero financial incentive (it was just about worthwhile on my own), in a venue that actually suits the music, or I could take the route others have taken, and realise it’s just not worth playing this live.
15 Responses to “Dead Music, Live”:
I guess the main interest remains in the better sound I could get from a live gig, compared to the shitty speakers I have at home.
I’ve struggled with the same questions for quite some time. Went through a number of iterations in my quest. First I played simplified multitrack versions of my songs (four tracks) with effect and limited loop controls through Ableton Live, but this felt “fake” to me, and didn’t leave much room for spontaneity. Next I went with a more Live-esque approach, creating a clip matrix for each song and triggering things with my monome. This was a little better, but I failed to map clips consistently between songs, which made for some stressful times trying to remember what each clip actually represented musically.
My most recent approach, and the one I’ve been happiest with, came when I completely ditched the concept of recreating my songs in a live context, and instead decided to give myself the opportunity to just be spontaneous and in the moment during a performance. To achieve this, I use the MLR max patch, controlled by the monome and routed through Live for mixing and effects. I build preset “pages” of seven loops each (often from different songs), and just let myself explore and improvise with the hands-on sample cutting, looping, pitching, reversing, etc. that MLR allows. I knew I was on to something when my performances stopped being stress-filled exercises in memorization and instead just started being fun. =)
Simplifying things, enforcing consistency (e.g. the same monome rows are always mapped to beats, bass, melodies, etc) and freeing myself to reimagine my work in real time have been the most important principles for me. I’d love to be able to perform with other musicians, but for the one-man-band thing, this is pretty good.
Sounds like you’ve found a great little set-up that works well for you—I’m envious! Can’t really say I’ve entertained the idea of a Monome, especially given how scarce they tend to be, but there’s no denying they can be quite flexible if you’re willing to do a little Max homework beforehand, I bet.
I do wonder about the performance aspect of it though—still having to concentrate hunched over a little box of buttons. Being able to simply ‘flow’ almost unconsciously while playing an instrument is hugely attractive for me, and something I’ve never achieved with technical gizmos, hence the bass guitar idea.
I think finding others to perform with is a great idea. You could arrange some of your pieces to be performed by a group of musicians; classical string instruments, electric bass, and piano would all work well, but more important than the instruments are the musicians themselves. They should understand your music and ‘creative vision’ (for lack of a better expression) and be enthusiastic to realise it with you. You studied at a traditional music school, didn’t you? Surely you know some people who might be interested in gathering once a week to workshop this project.
Yeah, it’s actually remarkably difficult to find enthusiastic and motivated students to perform with. I tried this a while back, and while granted, we were quite pressed for time before a performance, all but one of the musicians acted as though they plainly didn’t want to be there. I just remember wondering why they bothered agreeing in the first place if they were so clearly apathetic about it. Many students tend to have quite a lot on their plate as it is with uni—and to be honest most of my peers from uni weren’t classical instrumentalists, just other studio musicians or free-improv performers.
I think I’d have better luck putting an ad in the paper, finding musicians who are aching to do this rather than students who are already in six bands. We shall see anyway—it’s a project I’d like to get sorted towards the end of this year.
This could have been posted by me.
I feel the exact same way. I would never attempt a live gig without an exstensive, in sync, back drop. The only reason for playing live for me is that it enables me to play my music really loud to people who then have no choice but to listen (or leave). I have laboured over my songs for a very long time, and see no point in performing them live in a – inevitably – diminished form.
People need to be able to connect what they hear with what they see. I recently saw Squarepusher perform, and even if he was joined by a drummer for a big part of the show, the parts where he was on his own it sufficed to watch him play the bass. Everybody, even non-musicians, can relate to somebody banging away on a string instrument or a percussion instrument – perhaps not so much a keyboard (which is why the guys in NIN have made it so that their keyboards stands can be tilted in order to emulate the effect of really “letting go”)
I saw Chris Clark perform and although it was very enjoyable, I found myslef not really watching him but rather listening. One could argue that it might as well could have been playback. As far as I was concerned, it wouldn’t have mattered.
RE: hardware vs. software. . It might simply be that hardware is usually bigger than a trio of faderfox controllers. . Therefore more visible from the floor.
If you’re finding it dull. . then definitely, something needs to change! It could be the gear, the venues, or the method of performance/’how live’ you are… Depending on which direction you want to take. .
I do like the idea of a group performing, I think it’d fit your music well.. But then one reason I love electronic music is I can be selfish and do things on my own, my way.
I recently purchased and installed iTM Matrix (http://www.itouchmidi.com/) on my iPhone and after a bit of configuring, I was able to trigger clips + turn things off in Ableton from my phone!
TOTAL shift in my thinking about my next performances. I could walk all around my studio/flat triggering loops, dropping things out, putting things back in…
There are a couple different versions of the itouchmidid software (a programmable grid, X/Y surface and an 8-lane mixer (buttons, sliders) but it only runs on iPhone/iTouch:(
It DOES free you up to walk out in to the audience, have them touch the buttons-what ever you might do if you weren’t up there ‘checking email’…:)
Still looks little funny playing though – like holding a small Nintendo controller:)
by the way, not sure if you remember me Chris/Ochre, but I found you online in 2005 and messaged you to tell you how *awesome* i thought your music was. You responded right away, and I’ve been a fan since. Haven’t followed you *in depth* since then, but I got Lemodie and LOVE IT. I turn my ‘non-electronic’ music friends on to it all the time. I also turned John Brian (nonagon) on to you, cuz both of you make such sweet music…
I love the ensemble idea! I think your music would lend itself very well to that kind of live format! I would guess that i would personally become bored with just performing by myself with a bunch of machines, but who knows for sure really. I could definitely see how it could be a little strange doing that kind of a live format in a bar or a club. Id prefer a theater, hall or even an outdoors venue.
Good luck with finding the right people to take with you if you choose to have other musicians with you. You definitely want people who just really enjoy the music you’ve created and would be honored to share in the live experience with you.
I can image that it may take awhile before you find something that feels right for you. I wouldnt give up the live performance idea just yet. Keep exploring ideas and opportunities!
I’m just sayin’, you know, if you ever want to have a back up singer—perhaps a classically-trained back up singer—or someone who plays the drums really badly, you know where to find me. And my rates are very reasonable.
I have been using a pair of kaoss pads in live settings and i have found that people LOVE the tactile nature of them. I end up doing all my glitch effects with the kaoss pads and that keeps me in motion and keeps people watching.
On the other note… this doesn’t change the fact that i still only play a small handful of my own tracks in a live set because my stuff tends to be more “listener-music” than anything else… in which case the kaoss pad effects i use will be more like filters and reverbs instead of beat-repeats of glitchies… and that’s not quite as fun either.
The question is always “should i play my own music or should i have more fun by playing someone else’s?”
and yeah, recently i’ve also had the urge to just hide in my cave/studio for good. =\
The keytar is your friend! LOL
But seriously I must just quickly say how much I adore the music you make and having now found this site I’m going to pester you to tell me lots more about what inspires you. I’ve got some tracks I want to send you to master too so I feel an email coming on….
Back to the current discussion. I for one really hope you play live again and soon, because I want to come and see you. I think you hit the nail on the head when you talked about venue. A certain venue with the right promotion with attract the kind of audience who will be content to just luxuriate in the aural pleasure you can provide.
I played my first gig in 19 years back in October for Thomas Dolby’s 50th birthday bash and it was terrifying. I hid myself behind as many synths as I could and literally did not look up from my Mac (running Logic). Despite the nerves I absolutely loved playing live again. It was the first time since school and it gave the hours I had spent in the studio preparing tracks a purpose. It gave me a connection and feedback and ultimately as a musician all I want is for people to enjoy what I enjoy making.
Thomas has been using a VJ for his live shows over the last few years and he has this nifty head mounted camera which can feed images of what he is doing to the VJ screens projecting the images behind him. Maybe introducing that visual element and a connection with the audience, letting them in to your side of the experience, could help?
There are also some amazing instruments and controllers out there now which I think can really help reinforce that visual connection. Something like a Jazz Mutant Lemur to replace your faderfox controller with a cam mounted above it to project its futurist control surface could be fun and on a smaller scale something like touchOSC on the iphone or ipod touch looks good and is something I’m playing with at the moment. I had a Tenori-On last year and that would be great used live either as an instrument or as a controller. I got rid of mine in the end because I bored waiting for improved midi implementation.
OK, I’ve droned on long enough, but please please please play live and let me either come and see you, or join you on stage. I could just hold the cam in front of your controllers!
Very best wishes,
Andrew