What makes for an engaging electronic music performance? As is usual on this page, a universal response is not forthcoming but here’s where I’m at with it:
I remember getting freebie tickets to see the Orb at RAH in 1998. I wasn’t expecting a Damascene conversion to their style of performance but thought it’d worth seeing what all the fuss was about. We lasted barely ten minutes before departing, plenty long enough to learn that watching some blokes start pre-programmed sequences doesn’t do it for me, no matter how good the light show is. I need a kinaesthetic relationship to the making of the sound, the moment of its creation, something beyond filter sweeps and riding fx return faders.
I don’t think it’s merely a matter of the physical relationship to the music making coal face; I’ve yet to see a Monome performance that really hits the mark. With that interface-du-jour, the relationship between physical movement and sound is apparent. All too apparent; the lack of phrase dynamics and expression cannot be compensated for by the performer’s exaggerated gestures, no matter how earnest. And there’s those flashing lights again.
I do grant, however, that a clear parallel between movement and the resultant sounds bestows performative authenticity that is nigh impossible to determine when staring at the back of laptop.
The problem is, as a performer, I want to both create and manipulate the data itself in real time, not just when that data is triggered or a particular facet of its sonification.
There are new (and old) pieces of hardware that aren’t laptops that seem to facilitate such an outcome, but most of them are expensive and not wholly reconfigurable in the way the software I like is.
Still, speed and reliability are paramount in performances involving technology, an advantage that many discreet boxes have over laptops. I may yet have to trade away some power and flexibility to make further gains in these areas.
I shall report back here as changes in my live work flow take shape.
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