RE: [-empyre-] live performance vs. studio/other

["chris mendoza" <chris@negativespace.org>]

Just to add a few things to this thread:

I tend to think that electronic music's reliance on visuals stems from the
lack of causal relation between the sound and how the sound is produced.
There is intense curiosity and pleasure generated by seeing how a musician
plays an instrument and what kind of sounds are obtained through such
playing. In electronic music this causality element is visually eliminated,
since sound is created in various "black box" type devices: button in, sound
out, process obscured.

Tobias said:
"What of trance DJs who pump out the cheeziest of beats, barely performing
the motions of Djing, who entertain thousands of crazed, jumping kids with
their calm actions of a lazy jukebox?"

My answer to this would be that the causal relationship has transcended the
visual and become a personal experience of participation: sound in, move
this part of my body. Sound that, this other part of my body. Good dancers
in raves will actually predict the changes of the music and execute moves
depending on what they expect the next bar of music will be. If a change
(more intense sound, break, etc.) is expected, good dancers will anticipate
it with an appropriate move. Thus, dance music does not really need a visual
element to provide causality. It is the dancer that creates it.

Non-dance electronic music has, in my mind, suffered in live performance
because of the lack of causality. I generally fail to understand how the
experience would be in any way different, or better, than if the sound was
on a pair of good headphones. Since it is hard for the audience to know if
the laptop jockey is improvising or just pressing "play" and then pretending
to twist knobs on a mixing board, non-dance electronic music is better off
(most of the times) relying on some visuals to offset the lack of causality
on the stage (and again, remember the black box). In my mind, good visuals
provide causality to the sound; bad visuals, they are pretty wallpaper at
best. I remember seeing the band Plaid "playing" (they were completely
faking it), their visuals were really beautiful, but for the most part had
no definite relation to the sound. They were timed right, but there was no
definite cause-effect relationship. I would have loved to go to the movie
theater and seen the videos without the musicians, but being in a club
setting, I was trying to find the bar stool with the best view of the
screen.

Glenn said:
"It is a form of imitation: if the performer is very quiet and still, then
the
audience will mimic the performer?s stillness."
I have to disagree with this as a general statement. I have seen
performances that are of this kind, but then again, some of them are hardly
better than grabbing a good pair of headphones and listening to the same
sounds by yourself. If everyone is just still and quiet, I find that I would
rather have them disappear altogether. Although I have to admit that being
in a room where 50 or more people are quiet and still is an interesting
experience the first few times. In any case, if audiences generally imitated
performers there would be no dancing in raves and everybody would be playing
air violins when they are watching their favorite philharmonica :) And I can
bet you my car that if some ambient musician started dancing like a monkey
on the stage, people would not imitate him ;]

fyi: I am both a musician and a VJ... but I never put those two together for
some reason...

c