weimerhead

Disorganised is the way I would describe last weeks’ improvisation session. This thread was perhaps seeded in the late email I received (on the Thursday morning) that established this forum slot would indeed be used to play with your group. As a result I did not have my laptop with me, and could not perform the way I normally do. However, the email is not all that can be blamed; their are certain members of my group who are still deciding which method they want to use to create sound for the effort- even a week after the performance?!?! This disorganisation led to an atrocious sound and on my part a headache.

With the loss of my beat-box laptop, I decided to instead play the electronic drum kit, using the little drum skills that I have salvaged from drum lessons I took late last millennium. For some time at least I tried to keep my playing simple, just so that everyone might stay in some sort of time. However the amplification of the kit was not placed near me, and I my playing was dwarfed over the G5 which basically surfed different samples of drums and who knows what else, while everyone attempted to play. When I say surfed, I do not denote any sort of Ableton Live-esk real time seamless integration of samples, I mean someone opening sound files when they like while people attempt to create music. Here I make an example of the sound-source responsible for giving me a head-ache, but might I add this was not the only contributor apparently ‘in their own little world.’ Sometimes I feel like the few in the group who do in fact try to collaberate with others, and ‘do their homework’ so to speak, have pretty much given up. And who would blame them? Who would want to play in a three-piece band with a few soloing anomalies, when everyone could just solo?

If this week will be the same session of playing with your group (with no email as yet to confirm nor deny), I hope that things could be improved via the following:
- less sound
- stable, repetitive rhythm section
- synthesizer’s (if played during that particular week / jam) placed on a quieter and more ambient (less tonal) setting
- levels checked, then maintained
- no mish-mash of people jamming and others working out which synth / electro kit patch, drum sample etc. to use
- everyone commence the ’jam’ at the around the same time
- decided scale / mode
- one main melodic cetre / voice at a time