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1

I received my latest edition of Electronic Musician. Sigh [browse, click, browse… YAWN] I love it… I read it… but…

I couldn’t take it any longer. So I fired a nasty, sarcastic email to them. I post it here for your review. I apologize in advance, but I was pissed:

Guys, I’ve been reading your publication for quite some time now. But honestly, I’m really finding very boring. It’s as if all ‘electronic musicians’ are doing NOTHING ELSE but sitting in front of a computer in their home recording studio. Well, go get out of your jammies, have a cup of coffee and venture outside for a breath of fresh air. Oooooo what do we see out in the real world?? Working musicians! Who would have thunk? Actual ‘electronic musicians’ not trying to become overnight itune rock stars, but WORKING stage musicians. Synth users, Clonewheel users palm glissing away… drummers mixing their stage rigs with acoustic AND electronic drum sets… OH MY!! Stage pianos, keyboard users venturing into MIDI HELL trying to fly their rigs efficiently… I can’t believe it’s a WHOLE NEW WORLD! Sarcasm? Moi? I’d NEVER be sarcastic… but I’m sure you get the point. Come on guys, get out of the basement and get a tan from some good, clean stage lights.

Okay, Moogers… if you’re out there reading this and it makes you turn red a tad, GET OUT THERE!!! Take your Moog and GO FORTH!!! Put a band together, do some of your favorite covers and some originals if you have 'em and GET OUT THERE!!

For one thing if you want to improve your playing, covering someone else’s technique is a great way to build your chops and get all sorts of ideas on programming your Moog.

Keyboard players tend to be NERDS (myself included) more than any other musicians, and hence the tendency to hide in the basement.

I say, START A REVOLUTION!!! TAKE YOUR MOOGS AND LET THE WORLD HEAR YOU!!! Recording and tweaking and showing your buddies how cool it is can be great… but - YOU HAVEN’T ACHIEVED TRUE GREATNESS UNTIL YOU’VE BLASTED IT TO THE MASSES!!

Performe, my friends, perform.

2

Thats one thing that Bob Moog said in the Moog Movie. In the end, he invented these instruments to be PERFORMANCE INSTRUMENTS. He wanted to encourage people (like myself) to get their butts out of the studio and onto the stage!. Music is supposed to be about sharing your gifts with the world and not strictly for recording purposes.

As Much as I love Bob Moog, He would be thoroughly dissapointed in me because I haven’t made that transgression from the studio to the stage. Ive been so happy thusfar recording full length CD’s for my family to enjoy and letting that be right there.
But Now Ive gotten to the point where Ive had enough and Im ready to put a set together and book some jobs.

Good post, and mad props for giving mad props.
Eric

3

Amen brother!

Me and my mate have just finished about 6 or 7 songs ready to record for an EP, and we’re currently rehearsing to play live in the near future! We’re also trying to incorporate live drums into the mix as well, so we’ll see how it goes!

4

See, working during the same time all the gigs are is my problem. That and the fact my skills aren’t good are hinderances to me being a performer. I’d love to get a band together. Voltor’s Amp the W[h]att band. Kinda has a ring to it, no? :laughing:

5

Just to strike a discordant note…

At 36 I’ve never performed on a stage in my life, and have no plans to. Honestly, if I haven’t done it by the point, I’m not going to do it any time in the future. For some of us, it’s about (metaphorically speaking) pottering around in the garden shed.

And let’s not even get started on the woefully, horribly bad state of my chops. They were better when I ws 9 years old.

6

weird that i woke up feeling this same way. Just like many of you (I’m guessing) I spend way too much time behind the computer screen (i do vector illustration to pay bills), and 70% of that time is spent… not doing my job leaving me with the internet at my disposal. Going through plenty websites (from other countries) and each and everytime I look at the local stuff… … … nothing about electronic music. The most we get is the latest BIG thing here in Cape Town, the electro/glitch whatever they call it DJ. I had this conversation with a friend this weekend about this.

All these magazines, tv, music shops and venues, its all about the latest fashion and the biggest “musician” getting attention and PAY around is the DJ_ *&@%^@%$!&

Not that there’s anything wrong with that but it seems the listed above electronic musicians don’t even exist. partly their fault I agree. There should be an “OPERATION GET YOUR MOOGER FOOGIN’ A$$ ON STAGE” starting right now.

7

It’s just that we see that ANYONE that knows a few chords and has a guitar will go to the local pub with their gear and jump up on stage and play Freebird.

Ok, I know it’s not as simple as that for us, but hell… show up at that same gig with your Voyager and get the fool to play LUCKY MAN. Then, when your time comes, bring up two square waves and RIP THAT PLACE APART!!!

That’s one reason I’ve always loved and respected that song. It’s like for ONCE, the KEYBOARD player had the last word. And ONE HELL OF A LAST WORD IT IS!!

… There’s revolution in the air… they’re coming - they’re on the march… I can hear the modulation… Oh my God… yes, it is! It’s ABADDON’S BOLERO!!

8

… You forgot combo-organists… harumph.

Just as Dylan Thomas noted that “a poem on a page is only half a poem,” unheard music is only half-music, if that. On the other hand, there are so many opportunities today for studio-only musicians to be heard. We shouldn’t be so hard on the studio rat who never gets a chance to play out. There’s a long and honourable tradition of that, going at least back to MIke Oldfield.

9

I was thinking about that. And I’d NEVER tell ANY musician that he’s wasting his time working on something creative in his basement recording studio. I do it myself. AND it can be tremendously gratifying with all the outlets out there, be it YouTube, MySpace, etc. Ok, here comes my big ‘but’…

But… taking your music to the stage does many good things for you. It forces you to work together with other musicians which refines your craft. You can’t “Roll it Back”, so you have to think on your feet if you find yourself somewhere unexpected. And you know something? You’d be AMAZED what you’ll come up with.

Playing live pulls EVERYTHING together in one moment and becomes SYNERGY. SYNERGY simply means, 2 + 2 = 5. Two (or more) things coming together resulting MORE than the sum of their parts. NOTHING can be said about performing live music that’s truer than that.

Think Yoda. Think about Yoda describing The Force. That’s music.

Even after your song has been rehearsed over and over, EVERY PERFORMANCE is still different. It always breathes new life each time. And what a rush. There’s nothing like the feeling after you kicked a song in the ass and the audience responds with enthusiasm. It’s rewarding in such a way that makes all that time, effort and money really worth it.

Just have a look at your Voyager, or MoogerFooger right after you performed a song with it at a live performance. You’ll see it smiling. Really. Did you ever see your equipment smiling? Well try it and I promise you you’ll see what I see every time I play out.

Start off nice and slow and comfortable. Rehearse a few songs with your friends and then throw a party. Have a whole bunch of people over and play your stuff for them. They already love you, so you’ll do no wrong. You don’t even have to take it any further if you don’t want to, you can just keep doing that. It’s fun! But sometimes, after that… opportunity knocks…

10

Winkels,
Well I have only performed on stage just a small number of times. First I played percussion in the roughest bar in town just prior to turning 21, then I played percussion in another bar In Little Rock. Ive also read poetry on stage at a poetry slam. We played in the Highschool talent show (biggest crowd, possible over 800 people) And I played in the high school Jazz band at a Mardi Gras party at a church. THen I play once a month or so with my parents for their contemporary service. Oh we also played saloon Jazz in an empty club and did the worse performance ever on a terribly rainy night. As the Rhythmicons, we have turned down gigs and have made no effort to take our music to the masses in any live venue. This is a great shame.
Playing on stage is one of the greatest feelings you can possibly get. You should do it in some form at least once before you die. Just to say that you did. 40 is the new 25 so don’t gimme this Im an old man ready to retire BS.

Johnny,
I know what you are saying. At first I couldn’t stand synths, synth bass, efects techno or anything. People on stage with computers was a travesty to me in 1996.If I went back in time and told myself that Id be all up into some synths and electronica, Id probably have cut my hands off back then lol. But thats one aspect that I never ever will appreciate and that is the millions and trillions of sub genres inside a genre of a particular style of music. In this case, House, electro, jungle, trance, glitch, grime,techno, drum and bass, and all of them that essentially are the same types of things. I mean some people (and im not dissing them…more power to them) try really hard to perfect this warble bass sound or this other sound that is the key to this unique new sub genre and I simply strive just to make some music that sounds good, has emotional complexities and that lets me express myself. I think that its a bit bland when you get a recipe and don’t add any twists or turns. Like when you have a certian thing about a genre that has proven to make money and you follow the instructions on the label and you don’t exactly puch any envelopes when you do that. Im listening to these types of music and I love the synths but Im wondering, WHERES THE MELODIES? I realize that its all about making music that people dance their asses off and get messed up on verious invigorating substances, but surely theres more to it than just a basic rhythm. Im starting to sound like my father now lol. Oh Jeez.

On the Moog, sometimes Im programming a patch and Im thinking “Does this sound good for this song” I often think back in history when the first synths were coming out and those guys like Emerson and Carlos and Siday and Kingsley didn’t have any reference point. I might ask, “Does this sound classic” but they didn’t have a reference, they just picked something simple like a pure saw or something and went with it and that was all that needed to be done.


Christopher,
And the bad part about it is, is that people Request Freebird. Especially here in Arkansas or down in some place like Pensacola, if you don’t have any Skynnard or Buffet in your arsenal then you aren’t getting too far. People don’t want some esoteric genre like some of the stuff that we all here appreciate. Im in the part of Arkansas thats South Central of the South Central of the USA. Im about 8 hours from ANYWHERE. Im about 45 minutes away from where JOhnny Cash was born, an hour and a half away from where they wouldn’t let black kids get into the schools, about 2 and a half hours away from where MLK was shot. This is essentially the delta blues circuit, the large vast wasteland in between menphis and dallas, in between St Louis and New Orleans. People around these parts who are into the things we are into are buried do far underground that its a bit hot down there. Theres not a market for our music. And my father is even worse, he is a classically treained Jazz pianist that is reduced to being a music minister because his Niagara Falls ways aren’t taken too lightly here in the back country.

For the lastalmost 15 years I have done mostly everything by myself. I have been contend with making an album and putting it on the shelf so that my children and grandchildren can have a library to listen to when Im finished. It hasn’t been until the last 2 years that I started publishing it online and wanting to share it with anyone. You HAVE to take into consideration the leveling up that you do with you learn to effectively communicate with another musician. Or how wonderful it sounds when you have a small riff on an instrument and you show your friends and you hear them all come together for the first time when your song comes to life over several instruments. Its almost like a seiance when the spirits finally come to the table, when your creation finally echoes for the first time off of the walls. Its a beautiful feeling.

Jeez what a long post!

Eric

11

Theres a lot of energy in these posts. Its almost time to sing Cumbayah.

Eric

12

I should elaborate my original point. Not only have I never been on a stage, I have no desire to. Going to see live music (generally) doesn’t appeal to me in the say way recorded music does. I think I’ve been to a grand total of two gigs in the last eight years, and one of those was at the behest of my wife who wanted to see a particular band. The other time was Radiohead, because someone had to keep an eye on my kid cousin and I volunteered. I fully realize that I’m in the vanishing small minority (particularly on a website dedicated to musical instruments), but there you go. I ain’t gonna happen, because I have no desire to make it happen. I’ve had the opportunities presented to me a few times, but they don’t appeal.

Having said that, I do agree with the OP that staring at a computer screen isn’t exactly conducive to musicality.

13

So youll be having a gig next week? lolol

Well also, ill only go to ao concert if its someone I REALLY want to see. THe last was Buddy Guy, (lou reed) and Santana. Ill go see the people who really inspire me.

It will never get any better than Pfunk on Sat night and James Brown on sunday.

Eric

14

EricK: I had a composition instructor years ago who said: “whatever idiom you compose in, always remember that a piece of music is a narrative. It has to go somewhere and do something. Think of your melodies as your characters, and your harmonies as what happens to them.” Oddly enough, he was a die-hard serialist in the Roger Sessions tradition.

15

This thread is a beautiful thing. :cry: It brings tears to my eyes. All musicians and experimenters, coming together, talking about the outlets of creativity, be it on stage or in studio. A performance is a performance, no matter if on YouTube or in a club. Or just annoying the family or neighbors. :laughing:

16

:slight_smile: Or sitting in a small venue with Emerson, Wakeman or Joey D 20 feet away :slight_smile:

I’ve sat in with my friends band a few times over the years. More of a “hey Brian come up and play a number” Most the time it’s a funk jam, I’ll call a clavinet or Rhodes up and away we go :slight_smile:.

As I’ve said in other places I play every Sunday at Church not really the same as a club or concert gig :slight_smile:, but it’s live playing in front of people.

Those that want to stay in the studio and only play there, that’s fine :slight_smile:.
.

It will never get any better than Pfunk on Sat night and James Brown on sunday.

Eric[/quote]

17

Personally, I prefer live performance over studio. I use several synths as well as my laptop when I perform. I use my studio for composing and rehearsing for live performance. In a couple of weeks I have a 20 minute noise set. For the first time, the Moog keyboards will stay home. I might bring out a Moogerfooger.

18

:slight_smile: I like both studio and live, not really sure I like one over the other. I’ve played several times out with out a Moog, :slight_smile: You’ll survive :slight_smile: :slight_smile: but yeah, taker a MoogerFooger or two :slight_smile:.

19

i really miss playing live, i had to put my band on hiatis to take on a second job, with things being so slow at my 1st job. it was very hard to do, i felt like i was breaking up with a girlfriend who i still wanted to be friends with. we were just about finished with an EP, and were talking about getting some better shows in the city. but i need to be a provider more than i need to be a rocker. we will get back together eventually though. any time we take a break its like we never left. we have such a musical/psychic link.

and i think it was voltor who daid something about your instruments smiling. and i totally know what you mean. when we would finish a song live, its hard to tell wether or not people are digging us because most people dont really know how to react. its really fricken loud and noisy, but its also very melodic and rhytmic..but you cant dance to it. its just like sit and stare music :open_mouth: and theres that breif moment when the song ends where there is just silence and every one comes out of their trance and cheers or claps or what ever, and in that moment i kinda just hold my breath like " ok somebody do thing" and then ill give my gear a quick thank you and a pat on the back for a job well done.

20

When I get ready to do a live set in the distant future, I’ll need to buy a Sprinter or cube van just to haul my rig! The other guys can use their cars. :laughing: