Laralette Lane played the first set last night at Cat's Art MusikCircus and I'm happy to report she is staying with the electric guitar. She always gives a very sweet set singing in English, German, and Dutch.
The biggest difference in Lara's set over the last couple of her performances has been the change to electric. She doesn't make it do tricks as with echoes or whatever but she may not have any interest in that sort of thing. What it definitely gives her is a richer sound and I haven't spoken with her about what's in her kit so I don't know how she is doing it. Regardless of what magic she uses, there is a great fullness to the sound that is coming from it and I'm glad she pushes forward with it.
On the other hand, there was no sound at all when I came up to play. There were some problems getting the audio stream connected and, on reflection, that's kind of funny as Siggi is a new performer in Second Life and he is learning about connecting streams now. Last night he got a lesson in how not to do it ... but things got sorted before everyone got fed-up and left.
A false start rattles me every time as I'm tuned for the start of the show. The Rainbow Bridge is right there and I'm looking at it. No-one can cross until the music starts but I'm focused and ...
Thud. The stream didn't work.
Time passes. Tick...tick...tick...
I knew what I wanted getting started. It's cliche to have that fat synth chord filling the hall in the darkness before the band plays ... but it's still one of the coolest ways to start a show. I had left the loops pre-recorded in the looper so a big nasty synth chord had its time to start and then ... whammo ... straight into it.
I did what I've mentioned previously with similar chord patterns in different keys for two of the phrases and a two-chord bridge-like thing for the third phrase. This was kind of good and switching back and forth worked well. However, changing keys is not the same as modulation. If you go from F to play in C then you changed keys. Yahoo. A way to take the audience with you is to guide them from F to C with some intermediate bridge chords and that is modulation. ("Summertime Blues" is an example in which they don't modulate a key change. Modulation is only required if the tune needs it.)
The reason for going on with this is that it's not so much about me but rather looping in general. Maybe you'll see something you would like to try or you'll see something I've done and think, damn, that's rubbish. I sure won't do that. Either way, you get something out of it.
The biggest problem with pre-recorded loops is that 'liveness' is gone. You also lose the 'build' time in which you develop the loop to where you want it to be. All this is part of the journey to whatever magical place you are trying to create. If you throw that out with a pre-recorded loop, it may feel like lining up people for the Rainbow Bridge and then firing a starting gun so it's a one-hundred-meter dash to run over it.
Two of the most gifted 'loopists' who perform at Cat's Art MusikCircus are Lefty Unplugged and Voodoo Shilton. Lefty doesn't do it so much but he is exceptionally smooth at it. Voodoo has been building up loops for the last year and now his set features them quite a bit. One of the coolest things about that is he gets the freedom to play more instruments and he is going wild. Lately he has a passion for strings. Voodoo will be playing again tonight and who knows what he will do.
The other problem last night was that it was too loud. That's the one thing that's extremely difficult to reach as I almost never change it during a set so it's not positioned to let me do it. Other knobs also have to be changed when the master volume changes so there is no quick way to recover. There's nothing much else to say about it and this is just a note to say I know and that was one of the first things fixed after the set was over. (I can't keep the cats off the gear and stuff changes sometimes.)
The biggest difference in Lara's set over the last couple of her performances has been the change to electric. She doesn't make it do tricks as with echoes or whatever but she may not have any interest in that sort of thing. What it definitely gives her is a richer sound and I haven't spoken with her about what's in her kit so I don't know how she is doing it. Regardless of what magic she uses, there is a great fullness to the sound that is coming from it and I'm glad she pushes forward with it.
On the other hand, there was no sound at all when I came up to play. There were some problems getting the audio stream connected and, on reflection, that's kind of funny as Siggi is a new performer in Second Life and he is learning about connecting streams now. Last night he got a lesson in how not to do it ... but things got sorted before everyone got fed-up and left.
A false start rattles me every time as I'm tuned for the start of the show. The Rainbow Bridge is right there and I'm looking at it. No-one can cross until the music starts but I'm focused and ...
Thud. The stream didn't work.
Time passes. Tick...tick...tick...
I knew what I wanted getting started. It's cliche to have that fat synth chord filling the hall in the darkness before the band plays ... but it's still one of the coolest ways to start a show. I had left the loops pre-recorded in the looper so a big nasty synth chord had its time to start and then ... whammo ... straight into it.
I did what I've mentioned previously with similar chord patterns in different keys for two of the phrases and a two-chord bridge-like thing for the third phrase. This was kind of good and switching back and forth worked well. However, changing keys is not the same as modulation. If you go from F to play in C then you changed keys. Yahoo. A way to take the audience with you is to guide them from F to C with some intermediate bridge chords and that is modulation. ("Summertime Blues" is an example in which they don't modulate a key change. Modulation is only required if the tune needs it.)
The reason for going on with this is that it's not so much about me but rather looping in general. Maybe you'll see something you would like to try or you'll see something I've done and think, damn, that's rubbish. I sure won't do that. Either way, you get something out of it.
The biggest problem with pre-recorded loops is that 'liveness' is gone. You also lose the 'build' time in which you develop the loop to where you want it to be. All this is part of the journey to whatever magical place you are trying to create. If you throw that out with a pre-recorded loop, it may feel like lining up people for the Rainbow Bridge and then firing a starting gun so it's a one-hundred-meter dash to run over it.
Two of the most gifted 'loopists' who perform at Cat's Art MusikCircus are Lefty Unplugged and Voodoo Shilton. Lefty doesn't do it so much but he is exceptionally smooth at it. Voodoo has been building up loops for the last year and now his set features them quite a bit. One of the coolest things about that is he gets the freedom to play more instruments and he is going wild. Lately he has a passion for strings. Voodoo will be playing again tonight and who knows what he will do.
The other problem last night was that it was too loud. That's the one thing that's extremely difficult to reach as I almost never change it during a set so it's not positioned to let me do it. Other knobs also have to be changed when the master volume changes so there is no quick way to recover. There's nothing much else to say about it and this is just a note to say I know and that was one of the first things fixed after the set was over. (I can't keep the cats off the gear and stuff changes sometimes.)
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