Hi John,
Everyone knows and understands your views on how music should be.
Music is all encompassing, it is different in everyone's mind and
ears. Therefore you should be open to other people's methods and
procedures for making music.
It's takes you months to create your music pieces. You use a multi-
tracker to make your compositions. Every time you record a track, you
are performing it to the multi-tracker, then the next track and so on
and so on. The multi-tracker becomes much like a sequencer.
Now if you were to perform one of compositions live, you would need a
group of musicians or synthesists to play all of the different voices
in your compositions. I'm sure this would be a huge endeavour, you
would have to score each part then rehearse it to a point where it's
presentable to an audience.
In the case of R.R. ,I am pretty sure, he composes his pieces part by
part, and throws in a little improvisation and chance elements in to
the mix. Now he probably doesn't have the budget or the time to bring
every part or voice of his compositions as a separate musician with
him on tour. So the next best thing for him is to bring the sequencer
out with him live and have the the voices there for him to manipulate
or improvise with. In a certain sense, he becomes both the conductor
and performer.
So he controls the sequencer and the voices as he pleases, much like
a conductors controls the different voices in an orchestra, i.e. the
tempo, the level of the instruments etc.
The knob twiddling is just part of the performance on top of the live
instrument performing.
I have done a couple of shows were a friend and I brought a mixture
of step sequencers ( MAQ 16/3's) and linear sequencers ( MMT8 and
MPC ) with a variety of analogue gear and drum machines. All of the
sequencers were blank , we had them in sync with each other. So it
was basically, press start and build it up note by note and voice by
voice and play on top of the sequences.
We each had a mixer, so we could hear what we composing on the fly
and then bring into it the main mix as we chose. It was a two way
improvised set of music. Would this be knob twiddling or performing?
Sure there was mistakes, but there were plenty of happy accidents and
interactions upon listening to the show afterwards, that would not
have happened in a studio context.
Your taste for structured compositons makes it hard to accept all the
elements of live EM music. I would recommend you go see Robert Rich
or The Orb in a live setting and get a glow happening and absorb the
vibe. Keep an open mind, you may like it or totally hate it.
Not making trouble, just trying to present a different view.
Best,
RM
mikes wrote:
>I think it's pretty interesting to watch someone modify a large
complicated modular synth in realtime to generate new and interesting
sounds.<
But that's not performing; that's twiddling.
I honestly don't mean any disrespect to RR--I just don't get it. Can
you imagine somebody actually ∗writing∗ and performing 80 minutes of
music? It would be a monumental task--like Bach's B Minor Mass or
something. Why would people travel long distances to hear a sequencer
go chugga-chugga-thump-thump with a twiddle here and there?
I love the recording quality of "Bestiary" (it is so clean you can
eat off of it) but where's the structure? I just hear a lot of
amorphous sound effects and droning--and that quickly grows tiresome.
Did Subotnick et al. raise the bar too high too early on? I'm
begining to wonder.
johnm (not making trouble--genuinely confused)