My focus for the last several months has been continuing to work on live show material. There have been many ups and downs, and the concept of a show continues to evolve.
I've switched from Reaper to Ableton Live for running things on stage. So far, the experience has been much smoother. The MIDI interface of Live is especially convenient for routing multiple devices and synthesizers with external effects, etc... All these things can be done with Reaper, but it's been much faster and more obvious to find solutions in Ableton. It feels more deliberately designed for you to use MIDI in the way I am currently exploring.
I've also started learning TouchDesigner to work on new types of motion/light to visualize synth controls. MIDI CC data can be mapped to various parameters inside TouchDesigner to modulate a visual output. The application seems very robust... and I've barely scratched the surface, but my experimenting has gone well! I hope to bring something from TouchDesigner with me to my next show.
As much as I love the idea of making physical devices that work with CV signals, working with MIDI + light/ projectors via my computer seems like a much less expensive and perhaps equally natural, obvious way to visualize the modulation of sound sources. Ultimately, I hope to use this as a way to learn/ experiment with different types of movement that I might someday translate into a physical device.
I've spent a lot of time on all of this over the last few months. Sometimes, I find myself drifting away from the point a bit. As much fun as it can be to dive into wonky technical problems, I need to remember that such problems can be as endless as they are superfluous. The goal of any live show should be to create an experience that supports and presents the music- not distracts. As much as I aspire to create something interesting and new to show, the artistic, aesthetic, and emotional experience that the totality of the work creates for the audience is what matters. The tools I create are useless (even if they technically work) if they don't mean something in the context they are used.
It's been a year!
I've been through a lot in 2024. Some of it great, some of it not-so-great, but I've grown and learned a lot from it.
I have mixed and produced fewer tracks this year, but I've been writing almost as much as ever. And, I've been working on performing and presenting my music a lot more. I knew that the album would open doors for me, and it has- I couldn't have dreamed of getting into any kind of show before I had something publicly released to show. I've met so many amazing people through this experience, and I'm truly grateful for everyone that this project has brought into my life. I'm nowhere close the musician I hope to be someday, but you must start somewhere and grow from there.
A large portion of my efforts in music this year have gone toward figuring out how to put together a live show. I've worked through a few types of live-show with varying success and varying levels of live-ness... Through it all, I've had some moments that felt rough, and a few moments that felt pretty good. I still have much to learn, and I expect to spend more time and energy moving in that direction in 2025. I think I'm learning a lot from each experience, and someday, I know, I'll look back at these early (sometimes objectively awful) shows and have stories to tell about them.
I spent a lot of time working on little gadgets and interesting modular synth tools this past year (with the intent to someday bring these things to a live show). Progress has been slow and updates have been sparse, but when you're in the creative thick of it- you often don't know when something is complete enough to show. I aim to try to be better about updates in 2025, especially with those sorts of things.
I recently acquired several pieces of new gear that I've incorporated into my workflow at home. It's nice to have a place where everything is always set up and hooked up so I don't have to re-learn and re-connect everything each time I want to use my drum machine.
The tarot deck is also coming along quite well, too! I have more than 2/3rds of the cards finished on for an initial draft, and I think some of them are among the most thoughtful and successful compositions I've ever made. That project continues to challenge me as an artist in a very good way.
This have been happening! I know I've been neglecting social media posts and blog updates for the last few months, but rest assured progress has been made in the mean time. <3
Sorry for the hiatus! I've been hard at work on some ambitious mechanical and technical projects that are still not quite ready to show (but will be soon <3)
My first foray into preforming my own music, live, was a learning experience to say the least. I don't feel amazing about what I was able to showcase, but I know that people really responded to certain aspects of my setup, and there's a lot of room to grow.
Previously I've had it in my head that in order to play live, I need to make sure EVERY sound that comes from the stage has a presence on that stage. That means either playing simple songs with limited instrumentation, or getting a whole band together who can play everything... But neither of these sound particularly practical or appealing to me as an artist right now. So for a while, I worked on putting together some kind of improvised live show based on my looper, synth and drum machines... but that quickly moved towards a genera that I don't really see myself in. I care a lot about songwriting, unique composition, and experimentation, and I feel like I only got to showcase one of those things if I did everything live/ improvised. I think a good live show (for me) would satisfy three criteria: - Something raw, natural, made live from scratch that shows off musicianship and creativity. - Something flashy that sounds great, shows off interesting compositional and musical ideas. - Something quite, tender, and intimate, that shows artistic intentionality and makes a meaningful connection with people.
Which brings me back to the reluctant answer that's been there all along... MIDI.
You may know midi as the groundbreaking 80s technology that allows a $50 Casio to weigh 3lbs, and come pre-loaded with 127 un-usable voices- but it can do much more than that! Midi can send note on/off and expression messages to and from different devices in real time.
I feel like this could answer several questions for me... but there's a catch. To run midi on stage, I will need a laptop up there with me... which looks kinda terrible. As soon as there's a laptop on stage with you, the sky is the limit. Sceptical artists like myself will see that and say "*pfft*. A laptop? are they even playing live?"... and this is a problem.
But then I remembered something. One of the best live shows I've seen so far was Jungle. One of the things that stuck with me most, was the way they composed the stage- which showed a ton of deliberate attention to detail, expression, and intentionality. (these are the things we need to see to believe that a show is going to be good and worth our attention.) Then the two lead artists stood behind opaque white boxes... And I will never know what was actually behind those boxes... but I suspect it was a synth and a laptop or a drum machine of some kind... I have thought a lot about this, because it geuninely felt like a magic trick. They undoubtably created an experience for the audience, and clearly played something but I can't tell you exactly what or how much they did. Is hiding your laptop behind a box enough to create space for permission to do whatever you want?
I think I can make this work. I think my stage setup with the plants and motors has the potential to capture attention and show thoughtful design like theirs did... so maybe I can get away with a certain amount of opacity too? Up until now, I've been primarily focused on making everything as visible and sympathetic as possible, but what if I do a bit of both? Maybe there's a way that I can hide certain things from you, and show other things off so you don't mind not knowing everything?
I've been exploring a new live show in three parts:
Something done live on the looper and synths with no daw or pre-planned elements.
I do think it's important to make music that comes from you when you're on a stage. that's what makes it special. It's part of the sacred contract of musical performance, and it's why we don't just all walk up there an hit play all the time.
Something recorded into the looper ahead of time.
I also think it's important to sound good. And realistically, what I do as a musician involves A LOT of work in quite spaces where nobody hears what I'm doing.
A track separated into parts that are either fully mixed in the daw, or recorded into the looper from a previous live preformance.
This way, I can just hit "Play" and sing / improvise over top of without worrying about it falling apart or being impossible to execute everything at once.
I do still have some rules for this though. I think it would be inappropriate for the pre-recorded parts to be super-obviously pre-recorded (ie: featuring voices that aren't present on the stage.) So anything with an acoustic guitar is still a no-no (sorry queen of time)
Something that runs midi from my laptop live on stage to a variety of instruments.
This way I still have full analog control over the modulation, without also playing the actual notes.
I can use music I've made before and experiment with it in new ways in the moment.
Unfortunately, this might necessitate a somewhat sterile performance from the machines themselves... the actual notes will fall exactly on the beat, which is not ideal for every song, though there are ways to midigate it.
I also won't be able to play live on top of this because every instrument is already playing something through its sound engine...
After thinking about a show like this, I've started putting things together and realized that I do already have a lot of what I need to make it a reality... so I guess I might as well try it and see how it goes? I expect to find more speed bumps along the way, (notably that it involves A LOT more gear and complicated routing...) but I think there's a lot of potential in this, and I'm excited to see if it works well and feels more satisfying to perform!