Re: [microsound] re: on working methods for live performance

[Aaron Ximm <ghede@xxxxxxxx>]

> instruments, however, when i go to a show, the
> band/act/performer, what ever, better be working damn
> fucking hard at what they do, or they should get off
[...]
> check email, word process or use photoshop.  and by
> hard i don't mean playing pre-recorded tracks off a
> laptop (DJing is an art, playing your own tracks for
> people who paid to see you is an ego trip), or by

What if the work is done *before* the performance?

Some of the best sound "performance" I've ever been to was Francisco Lopez
basically playing subtley EQed field recordings.  If he only tweaks a few
EQs and cross fades a few tracks, but the experience is mesmerizing and
the sound intense, does it matter that the work was making the recordings
and composing a piece from them?

Much of the sound discussed on this list is by its nature composition and
tool or patch construction intensive. The hard lifting is done long before
taking the stage.

All my own work is based on field recordings. The work for me is making
them and sifting through them. I can do things in the studio to compose
that could never be done "live." I have to do different things in front of
an audience, or present prepared work.

I reject the idea that work like this should not then be presented to an
audience who paid for a ticket. As I said before: music is live when an
community gathers to listen to it, not when someone breaks a sweat
twisting knobs or strumming strings.

I *know* I'm a curmudgeon.

 best,
  aaron

  ghede@xxxxxxxx
  http://www.quietamerican.org

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