OFF: Sequencers, What they are (in a nutshell)

[Craig Shipley]

>
> On Tue, 25 Jun 1996, Craig Shipley wrote:
>
> > I keep waiting for the day when a composer walks out on stage, with his
> > computer center stage, surrounded by synth modules and announces his latest
> > piece of music. He clicks on "PLAY", leaves the stage and lets the hardware
> > perform the show. At the end of the concert, he returns, to accept the
> > applause and shut the system down. Would you feel cheated?
>
> I'm sure this has actually been done quite a few times.  (Didn't Future
> Sounds of London (literally) phone in a gig once, recorded for posterity
> on _ISDN_?)
>
Yes, but this was done as a way of performing "live" in many different
locals at once. The idea was to use the ISDN technology to create a global
real-time radio performance. I have the CD _ISDN_, but it just dosen't
trip my trigger...

> Anyway, the story I like is (naturally) the one in which a small ensemble
> comissioned a piece of music from Frank Zappa.  Unfortunately, the piece
> he wrote was too hard for them to play live.  Not to worry, he says, I'll
> just program up the synclavier and it'll do everything for you.  All you
> need to do is sit there and pretend to play yer hearts out.  Nobody will
> notice the difference.  Well, that's what they did, and to tumultuous
> applause, too.  (Nobody seemed to notice their instrument mics weren't
> plugged in.)
>

"While You Were Art" from the JAZZ FROM HELL release.

> The question stands: would you feel cheated? :-)
>
I don't know. If I went to such a performance, knowing full well that the
stage presence of the band or performer could be measured in single-digit
minutes, I'd be OK with it. But if I went to see a _show_, I'd feel ripped
off. Actually, most of the keyboardists are pretty sedentary behind the
stacks. Kinda hard to boogie with a Hammond B-3 slung around your neck! :-)
(Yes, I've seen Keith Emerson and Rick Wakeman back in the glory days and
I am aware of the portable synths, so there are exceptions...) And since
TD was mentioned, most of the early performances of the band were done
with them in darkness, as there really wasn't much in the way of visual
excitement other than them diddling their knobs, uhhh, I meant, stroking
their sliders, oops, sorry, piddling with their patchcords, I better stop...

>B->

Now, what if you went to the concert described above, and at the end, the
performer handed out a computer disk with the performance on it in MIDI
format. That would kill the bootlegging real good, eh what? And tweakable
to your liking, too! (Don't like that guitar solo, hell, replace it with a
kazoo!)
> Cheers,
>
> Paul.
>
> obCheese: "Studio Artists", "Silver Machine", _Hawkwind Covers All_
>         (Is this FoFP's famed "Top of the Pops" version of SM?)
>
> e-mail: paul at csgrad.cs.vt.edu                    A stranger in a strange land.
>


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