[rumori] live performance

wobblyatcompcurr.com [rumori] live performance
Sun, 17 Jan 1999 06:42:29 -0800 (00916584149, 199901171532.HAA14983atmail.currents.net)

Going to try to spark a discussion that might be a little more 'shop'
oriented than the average detritus skree.

I'm guessing there's a number of us on this list involved in or moving
towards various modes of live performance. Every year there are more and
more real-time tools for playback and manipulation of a wide variety of
recorded sounds -- the high end stuff just gets more powerful and the low
end stuff keeps getting more inexpensive, and there's been an explosion of
music being produced in a live environment that very recently could not
have been realized outside of a studio.

Many of the techniques and working methods Varese used to laborously
assemble 'Poeme Electronique' are now available in real time -- same sound
palette, even style and structure, but the studio vocabulary is now
available for an improvisational approach. Audiences are getting used to
seeing mixers 'performed' live on stage, recognizing its presence as a live
instrument.

So I guess what I'm interested in hearing from any of you is any of the
reactions you've had as studio musicians who are making/have made a
transition to live performance -- because this really is a new environment.
I'm taking home live tapes, i.e. documents, and since the on-stage
performance decisions are IDENTICAL to my approach in the studio, my
relationship to/reaction to/recognition of the recording seems to unfixed
itself in a way I haven't quite got the hang of yet. There's an advantage
to blurring the (cultural) distinction between composer and performer, but
there's a lot to be worked out now that the element of 'live performance'
is centered within the editing of pre-recorded audio.

This 'issue' is either more pointlessly obvious navel-gazing or
unanswerably profound -- I'm interested in what any of you for whom
composing is say 50-100% editing are encountering, internally, externally,
results, new musical goals, etc. as a result of incorporating your studio
vocabulary into live performance.

This just occured me as the most likely list that'd have people who've been
staring this thing in the face for a while.

-jl

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