Changing up the live show.

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!