Less Is More...More Or Less

Less Is More…More Or Less

As I continue to edge closer to a live performance/recording rig that meets all my needs, it has become more and more apparent to me that despite the significant amount of technology required to make the rig possible, the more appealing textures are all very acoustic.

For example, I can simulate pretty much any guitar and or amp configuration I might dream up - and fairly convincingly I might add - but a simple acoustic guitar seems to create the most musically satisfying timbre.  Maybe a bit of delay but nothing to involved.  It losses it's musicality very quickly for me if I take it too far.  Similarly I can generate fairly complex percussion and drum elements but the most simple of bass drums seems to generate the most engaging momentum to play along to.

In fact this dichotomy of musical realities has gotten to the point where I feel that one of the final steps is that the guitar I use needs to be an acoustic - or at least appear to be an acoustic - not the current electric I am using.  True that is all only visual as either way the Roland GK-3 pick up (or similar) is needed, but none the less, there is something about the "feel" of a performance if I can be in a full acoustic mode for both myself and the audience.

Of course there are some serious considerations.  Most significantly is that to do what I need it to do, the guitar - whichever guitar - cannot have it's actually "real" strings resonating through the rig.  The performance technique I'm using requires so much polyphonic transposition of individual strings that everything must be generated by the Roland VG-99 (I'm working to similarly hack a GR-55 but no luck so far) that the origin pitches of the strings may well not fit into the actual chords I'm creating.

What this means is that if I use an electric it's not problem as the electric itself it solid body and will not resonate much if at all, and certainly will not carry through the rig unless I specifically tell it to.  On the other hand, an actual acoustic has far more visual appeal, but by nature is highly resonant so must be somehow completely deadened in order to work for me needs.  Basically, I'm gonna have to acoustically destroy the instrument to allow it function as I need it, which I am still trying to formulate the acoustical execution and, to be honest, the musical ethics, to do it.

The other choice is the make the solid body electric appear more acoustic.  This is also a bit of a trick but I am looking at perhaps the careful use of what would be a bogus sound hole cover to give the audience the allusion of an acoustic instrument, at least visually.

Honestly, it's a bit of a coin toss right now as to which I will pursue.  It's very possible that in the long run I will do both but for now I've got to start somewhere.  All I know is that the notion of acoustic is becoming more and more significant as we move forward.  How strangely unexpected, yet wonderfully and musically delightful.  All this technology and yet, in the end, less really is more.

Mom and Music

Since Gray and Tanner have come along my thoughts on Mother's day tend to focus mostly on Michele.  But still, every year, my thoughts come back to my mom as well.  I suppose they linger there most days for at least a bit.  Even after 16 years I still have trouble coming to terms some times with the notion she is gone, but that is another post for another day.

Today, Mother's Day, has me thinking about how, for me, music helped me get through those first days when she passed away. I was not with her when she passed.  I was in fact on the other side of the country, and when the news reached me, the distance I felt was difficult to resolve emotionally.  It happens.  Time is what it is and life moves us as it must, but still, even now, I feel detached in some ways since I was not there.

There was one thing though that helped me to retain a kind of connection.  It may seem strange at first as I describe it, but the potency of the experience has in many ways informed every musical decision I have made since.  Perhaps every decision, musical or not.

A little more than a year before she passed I wrote a large scale orchestra piece called "Last Dance."  It was not a brilliant piece, though it did win some, mostly inconsequential, small competitions; but it was a good piece in concept.  I was very lucky, and humbled, that the University of Arizona allowed me to conduct the piece in performance, twice, as part of a student music festival.  It was a fantastic experience, though I was, to be fair, in a state of mentally and emotionally misplaced arrogance that I certainly did not appreciate its true significance at the time.

In any case, the performances were recorded and I as able to play those for my mother on a visit soon after.  She was already well in the throws of the brain cancer, but I recall how she watched the video quite intently - it required a lot of her limited focus, and she was already unable to speak much, if at all, very well - but she smiled and held my hand and for a time seemed happy.

When she passed, and I returned back home for the funeral, I asked my brother Andy to talk me though her last minutes as he had been there and I was curious to know.  As he began to tell me of those last hours, minutes, and moments, the music from "Last Dance" came flooding into my head like a detailed sound track full of every subtle nuance I could have imagined.

I have no doubt that I was projecting my own need onto the purpose of the music, but even so, it was clear to me that when given the chance music can tap into things that we otherwise would overlook.

The music gave me solace.  It allowed me to come to terms and peace with what was otherwise unbearable.  To this day it still holds me in a kind of spiritual comfort, keeping me close to my mom, God and my own sole.

That musical connection is in many ways just one of the many things my mother gave me.  Even at the end, she still was looking out for me.  Helping me.  Loving me.  It is still a fantastic gift that I treasure daily.

The drums are my problem? Seriously? Nah....

Ok, so this one is likely gonna be more of a rant than most, but so be it.

In tandem with my "write at least one complete new song every week" project (up to #73 this week, started back at the beginning of 2012) I've also been trying to get a fully functional performance rig going.  This rig has been in "development" for several additional years and has gone through so many variations that I will not list them all here.

The idea of the rig has been to push the Singer-Songwriter concept as far as I can.  In fact though the rig is intended for live performance, in truth it really is about the songwriting and finding new ways to inspire myself through the spontaneity of performance.    Easier said than done it would seem.

I posted a video several weeks ago that shows the fundamental concept:


Since then the entire rig has been modified to improve the sound quality of all the elements, but the one aspect that has been alluding me is how to handle drums and percussion.

Hold on.  Let me back up a sec. The main idea of the rig, and the video, for all it's flaws, gives the basics, it that nothing is looped or prerecorded, but that I can play the rhythm guitar, bass, percussion/drums, and even solo, all spontaneously, just as though I was using a full band.  Again, all with no loops or prerecorded bits.  Seriously.  And it works.  Really.

Actually, the main rig, after many years of dabbling in loopers and software like Ableton Live (all of which I honestly love) has turned into something that is, when I step back, honestly kinda simple.  Simple in terms of musical execution.  Well sort of.  It still takes a lot of mental concentration, but that is not a bad thing. It reminds me a good bit of when I was learning how to conduct an orchestra (wow! that feels like a lifetime ago. More on that another time...)  Over time it got far easier to keep track of all the elements so long as I kept my mental focus up generally, so I am confident that as I move throughh this self-imposed process it will get easier and easier.  Or so I naively am going to claim.  Anyway...

As I was saying/ranting, where things break down for me is with the drums and percussion element.  I've been playing with Slicers and beat sync effects (Boss SL-20, Adrenalinn III, etc.) and it just always comes out to "electronic."  That's not a cut on Electronic sounds.  Not at all.  In fact I plan to keep using the AD3 as part of the rig, but conceptually, this needs to feel more organic overall.  More acoustic.  And so the slicing of the guitar (again, check out the concept video above) is not gonna cut it.

It would be easy enough to just use a drum beat from a drum machine of some kind - again the AD3 is a perfect candidate - and while I may wind up there in the end, right now that feels to much like it's still a prerecorded bit.

I should mention that the prerecorded thing is not just 'cuz I want to have rules.  In fact it's the exact opposite.  The prerecorded stuff limits my flexibly ultimately to create the music as  I feel it. This rig cannot have any preconceived bits - beyond basic textures and sounds I suppose - or it will not be musically workable.  Once again, see the video for the concept...

In any case, what I am not trying to do is create a kind of stompbox execution to generate a bass drum.  Easy enough actually.  The other MIDI communication elements that this rig has required are in many cases far more complex - more on that another time, too.  But how to do I get the back beat?

The answer, and I hope I am not jinxing it, is to make use of some creative MIDI sync delays to the MIDI triggering itself.  (My apologies to those of you kind enough to read this who I just lost in the music tech geekery of my thoughts...)  In any case, this is posing yet another puzzle but one that I can see the end of, I believe, soon.

For those of you still with me, what got me going on this rant - yeah, I warned you, didn't I? - is that once upon a time I played drums.  A lot of drums.  I guess it just strikes me funny that all that drumming experience, or perhaps because of it, and yet it's the drums that are holding me up.

Ok.  Gotta get back to it.  End of rant.   For now.