[microsound] Re: on working methods for live performance

[tasty radish <tastyradish@xxxxxxxxx>]

I think as more and more people become versed in
computer programs, there is more and more respect for
the effort that goes into digital manipulation, per
se. But, there is a kind of anger at people just
dropping in files that is, I would suggest rooted in
bigger issues of the role of computers in our modern
lives, per se. (liberating, or alienating? , etc.
both?)    

But, when the music/sound art goes somewhere else then
the everyday OR the institutional (including cliches)
-- when it has imagination, developed artistic
process/ideas and/or real style, etc. then a different
thing arises.  

I don't mean to resurrect romanticizing the artist as
the western hero (though... perhaps a little bit of
this, like in concepts of 'autonomy' that we have
postmodernized ourselves to perhaps overly criticize),
but to re-turn to something basic -> how his/her
freedom, how he/she approaches the work/the sound/the
music? -> (to, ultimately, go where inhibited 9-5
everyday person can't....Is this really a cliche?).
So, whether or not the work is heavy on radical shifts
in sound and noise or dense tones or combinations, or
whether just a button is pushed or you see a performer
going krazy up there, imagination still trumps it all.
 It's like this -> no one argues with the
extraordinary.

In this age of 'just on time' delivery & personal
power vis-a-vis low cost and powerful computers, we
have somehow mine-swept past a sense of what
experimentation and artistic activity is on a certain,
social level.  And I think modern audiences get this. 

That being said, I do think there is a difficulty in
how western society comes to expect the performer up
on stage to DO things, that in a way ambient
music/sound is always off-center from (even if it is
made of guitar and bass).  This type of material is,
after-all or first and foremost, very often, aiming in
a different direction then alot of music/sound out
there (the protagonist at the center of the song is
not really there... most of the time). Perhaps this
difference, per se, needs to be addressed to set the
stage or warm the crowd (as they used to say).  And
that brings me back to engagement, with listening,
with the situation, with doing something other then
the everyday.  Is it poetry? Does it rock? Beautiful?
Compelling? Painful? a drag? What am I listening to?

Sound is after all more about hearing then seeing.  

two cents, andrew


	
		
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