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Son Kite on playing live in trance
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minus
IsraTrance Full Member
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Posted : Jul 13, 2006 13:57
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i feel its perfectly fine to play on cds/mds/12"/dats whatever ..but..but.. what i feel is when : after a certain maturing period an artist Can play live : and What will come out of him when he is playing live is not some trak that he wrote in the studio : but something from above flowing down through his/her body out through the sound into the ppl and that cannot be achieved through some Dj set : playin Live is the peak level i think : an artist will strive to play live and only when he can play live infront of a crowd or alone is when he can be called an Artist for real.i guess each knob twisted will be perfect , eack key will be struck by the divine himself : so it will be perfect : bascally playin live iz it :its just my understanding
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KakoOlalaJwal
IsraTrance Full Member
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Posted : Jul 13, 2006 14:48
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I remember what I wrote about this festival when it was announced..
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About the festival.. It's a bit too much for me.. (line-up) I wouldn't be able to see/hear the half of it anyways so..
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And to me what Seb & Marcus wrote was simply unavoidable.. Too bad they had to bear the cost of the promoters megalomania, especially as it's precisely the kind of live-act that deserve maximum attention as THEY do respect their public, unlike many many so called live-acts I've seen..
Another AWESOME live I've seen not long ago was The Advent but hey.. It's not boom baba Trance, for SURE !
Baah..
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"Get your dose of BoOgie !"
http://www.bunkum-records.com
http://www.myspace.com/zekakoo |
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Seb
Son Kite
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207
Posted : Jul 13, 2006 14:56
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A summer statement in the name of Music!
“I’m in love and I can do anything for this love”. This feeling is called passion! You can have different passions in life, some people have an intense passion for music, art or books others have an extreme passion to create music, art or lyrics. If you have this passion for creating art you’re an artist. To be an artist is very beautiful and I thank life every day for this gift BUT it’s of course not an always easy gift. When you’re an artist your creativity will never sleep and this creativity will push you forward, upwards, downwards, sideways … always to new places, new discoveries and new experiences … AND not only when “you” want but when it wants you to!
Music has many different stages, levels, moments and means. Different music have different aims, different music have different possibilities and ways to express feelings. This discussion is focused on dance music which is a good example on a music style with a very precise aim … to dance!
When you’re making music you always have to fight between the thought vs the feeling. Both are indispensable when you’re making music but you have to separate them. A good example for you who love to dance; imagine yourself on the dancefloor … getting into trance … feeling something higher … getting lost together with the music. This is hardly possible if you’re at the same time are thinking about something concrete (like buying a beer or think about what you will do tomorrow). Exactly the same goes for making music or playing music. Here we reach the biggest problem with most electronic music, especially electronic dance music. Most dance music made today is strictly made around a computer/software interface, some are using external devices but most artists are still bound around the linear, click and cut – method provided in programs like Logic or Cubase. This way of working is a perfect example of an act by thought, not by feeling. If we compare that with playing an instrument we face a tremendously big difference. When you’re play an instrument you know how to play and you don’t need to think about how to play and then you either learn how to play a piece of music (so you don’t need to think about the notes) or you improvise over given rules/patterns/chords … while you’re doing this you leave the thought behind and reach your feeling/your heart … this is music!!!
With this I don’t mean that you must get limited while creating electronic music/electronic dance music … rather the opposite! The development of electronic music equipment and computer based music equipment is the biggest revolutions in music making/playing/composing/producing of our time and even though the traps and pit holes are many you also have possibilities to use the new technology in a wise and musically healthy way. Wisely used it also enables you to leave the thought behind and let you play with your feelings even thou you can’t play an instrument or have a musical training. (This is by the way one of the biggest steps in the democracy of the art). There are many artists doing amazing and innovative compositions with only a computer!!! Of course there will always be a big need of the thought when your composing or producing but to create something innovative and soulful you should work in a way that enables you to reach your inner feeling as many times as possible during the creative process.
Back to the subject; if the composing and producing part has an urgent need of using the thought, playing live is your best opportunity to perform a sessions using your feelings and leave your thought behind (as much as possible). To be able to do this you need a live platform that enables you to change the music on the fly … this can be done in endless of ways, thru different software platforms, hardware platforms or combinations between the two. So step one is to create this platform but before you do that you should think about WHAT you want to do with your live set, what parameters you want to control and what your purpose with the live set? Step two is to practise with your platform so you don’t need to think about what you’re doing (to be able to go with the feelings/heart). Step three is to enter stage and try all the things you’ve practice, handle your nervousness and solve all technical problems (you never stop to get surprised how many things that can go wrong). Who said that this would be easy and who thought that you would do a perfect job the first time? You have to practice, learn and get inspired. But this is the point … if you have to create and work for something there are ALWAYS a possibility to continue the development you’ve started and if you can continue to develop you never know what the end will be … which bring us back to the meaning of art! Nor music or the way of performing music should be a fixed or static thing … the key to creative happiness is to keep all possible doors open, and this is mostly an opposite thing to being lazy!
I would like describe a scenario, which I always thought was the truth, but got heavily reformed after years of touring. (Naivety is one of the beauties of the youth).
Imagine all trance artists flying around the world every weekend, playing at different parties/festivals, meeting other artists, djs, music lovers and people. Imagine that all these artists did something unique, something different, something new, striving to always do something more and better … imagine how much inspiration and motivation this would create, both between the artists but also to all the “yet to be artists” dancing to their music, looking at them on stage. There are million ways to perform electronic music … it’s hard to find a better ground for letting artists to be creative, not only in playing live but also HOW to play live. Just thinking about how you can play live will create new ideas how to create music … new ways of creating music will lead to new ideas how to perform the music … the circle becomes a spiral … everything is possible. Imagine how much importance this could be for the parties but also for the music itself. I will not hide my sadness for the lack of innovation within the trance scene, but I still believe that things can change and I believe that this change is necessary to preserve trance music as something innovative, experimental and interesting and not let it become a fast food industry, which is the obvious tendency today. I believe the change will come from the young people, still blind by the love for the music and not infected by the ‘easy money’ one can earn.
Music and music activities, with a deeper goal, should always stay dynamic, unexpected and innovative … it doesn’t matter if the music activity is listening, producing, playing an instrument, dancing or playing live.
Don’t restrict yourself by accepting a lazy behaviour just because it’s a common thing to do, prize life and your own beauty by doing the best you can … it’s always more than you could ever believe.
Time for a long nice vacation, under a tree … somewhere in Sweden!
Kind regards/
Seb
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Seb
Son Kite
Started Topics :
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207
Posted : Jul 13, 2006 14:58
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btw ... I'm very happy to see this becoming an important and interesting discussing and please feel free to start this discussion in all possible forums around the world ... you're always welcom to qoute me!
Seb
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KakoOlalaJwal
IsraTrance Full Member
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Posted : Jul 13, 2006 15:09
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On 2006-07-13 14:56, Seb wrote:
I still believe that things can change |
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The keyword used to be (from the very beginning of Techno), and must remain : Sincerity 
And about making music, I'll remember Derrick May's words "You Don't Make a Record for Fun, Man."
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"Get your dose of BoOgie !"
http://www.bunkum-records.com
http://www.myspace.com/zekakoo |
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shahar
IsraTrance Team
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Posted : Jul 13, 2006 15:28
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Thank you Seb for your vision, energy and respect for us listeners and dancers!
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"Be the change you want to see in the world!"
M.K. Gandhi
"There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self."
Aldous Huxley
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fregle
IsraTrance Junior Member
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982
Posted : Jul 13, 2006 20:11
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On 2006-07-13 05:37, Colin OOOD wrote:
Seems to me that many (most? don't know) people making trance music these days are just technicians. It's so easy these days to make something that sounds acceptable - you don't need any musical skill. The good stuff happens though when you inject some proper musical talent into the mix - and I'm not countint a talent in choosing samples or programming an especially interesting sound here, I'm talking about playing a musical instrument. Think about the artists and acts who are universally respected or who are major names in the scene - you'll find that as well as being able to choose/program just the right sound for their tracks, most of them can actually play and use their musical skills on stage. Compare that with (what seems to be) the great mass of the scene which, by the sounds of it, is made up of artists who know how to program their synths but not to play them - but can make a wild gated lead sound in step-time.
And of course where you have an artist who uses instrumental training to make their music, they'll use it on stage, too.
And Clown, just for you I'm going to play my next live set by pressing play on a CD player whilst me and the guys in the band sit round a chillum getting stoned - because other than the fact that they dance behind their laptops and pretend to do stuff rather than sit round a chillum getting stoned , that's what it seems that the majority of live acts do. Do you pay to see someone earn $1000 for danceing for an hour, or do you pay to see someone earn $1000 for PLAYING from their fucking HEART (to quote Bill Hicks)?
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i agree with son kite and colin... But i want to add something on behalf of all the 'fake' live-acts...
It is a fact that, when u release ur first songs on the internet or via a label, and u have a certain amount of succes, the organisers start knocking on ur door to get u to play a live-act at they're party... Most of those budding artists can't play live for shit, but because everybody pressurises them to play live, and because they get much more money to play live they accept to play live, and then when they are preparing they notice that they're in waaaaaay over they're heads... because it's like colin says, these days it's very easy to make music in the studio, but playing live still requires lots of experience.
Then u have the problem of complexity... U can only play a certain amount live with ur own 2 hands, and if u want to play everything live u need help... Groups like son kite, or people like colin here have the luxury that they have enough people around them who can help them with they're live (u'll notice that every real live-act has multiple people on stage), but a budding artist doesn't have enough social connections to collect a group of people to help him playing live... And u just can't play psytrance completely live if u are alone, u have to play with backing tracks in that case, there is no choice...
So what i want to say is: to the organisers: if an artist says that he doesn't feel confident enough to play live, don't pressurise him to try to do it anyway... And to the artists: be honest, if u know u can't play live, then refuse to play live untill u know ur up to it...
I feel, just like colin and son kite, that there is no excuse for 'fake' live-acts... |
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shahar
IsraTrance Team
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Posted : Jul 13, 2006 21:03
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Nice words, Fregle.
I think that if artists stop to think for a second how hard rock musicans work to play live- and usually for much less money- they could make a little bit more effort.
I must say that personally, I prefer long DJ sets for my party- but maybe it is because very few acts can really hold a live act that will keep the journey interesting to me. Maybe that has to do with how live is the live.
How many artists make a real new journey when they make their live? What a creative opportunity- I would love to do that if I was a trance artist!
---------------------------------------------
"Be the change you want to see in the world!"
M.K. Gandhi
"There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self."
Aldous Huxley
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fregle
IsraTrance Junior Member
Started Topics :
11
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982
Posted : Jul 13, 2006 21:17
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On 2006-07-13 14:56, Seb wrote:
To be able to do this you need a live platform that enables you to change the music on the fly … this can be done in endless of ways, thru different software platforms, hardware platforms or combinations between the two. So step one is to create this platform but before you do that you should think about WHAT you want to do with your live set, what parameters you want to control and what your purpose with the live set? Step two is to practise with your platform so you don’t need to think about what you’re doing (to be able to go with the feelings/heart). Step three is to enter stage and try all the things you’ve practice, handle your nervousness and solve all technical problems (you never stop to get surprised how many things that can go wrong). Who said that this would be easy and who thought that you would do a perfect job the first time? You have to practice, learn and get inspired.
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this explains my point much better... here u can see how a real live act comes to be, they first take a lot of time to find the right platform, then they play the platform ad nausea at home, after a while u get good at it, and u feel confident enough to go and play live for a public... Even if u do it like that u will make a LOT of mistakes the first times, and there are always technical problems that u wouldn't have at home...
Most artists in psytrance don't do this... they don't have a well thought out platform, they hardly trained they're skills, and they still decide to play live... This is not good...
It's even worse... Most of those new budding artist - as i already said before - have a very very small technical background... they want to make psytrance fast, and instead of properly learning how synthesizing and micing etc works they just learn the things they need to make the psytrance they want to make... U can recognise those guys fast they can make psy, but if u ask them to make a hiphop beat they don't know the first thing of how to do it And how can u expect someone who can only make one genre in a studio environment to learn how to play live in 2 weeks? That person simply does not have the necessary technical background to do it... They might have the talent, i'm not denying that, but talent alone doesn't make for a good live-act.. |
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minus
IsraTrance Full Member
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Posted : Jul 13, 2006 22:32
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What exactly is a live performance?: (specifically for psychedelik trance) : it cannot be the same traks you have made in your studio : it has to be something absolutely new : in the sense , it may have the basic structure of the traks you have written : but the musik that should or would come out when you are playing Live has to be Intutive : it will be totally unique, as in the artist himself does not know where it is comming from,but its comming from inside him:ok..ppl will say that an artist will prepare himself for the live act and will have a general idea where he wants to lead the ppl or how he wants to tell the story or what levels or dimensions he wants to take them ...whatever : but after a small period of time ..the artist wont be playing the musik , the musik will be playing through the artist:
i may be insane in a sense but i say what i feel, do i stand corrected:?
anyway : ppl here have made intersting points :big baba booom to all the ppl who share there know how of their knowledge
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Kitnam
Mantik
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110
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Posted : Jul 13, 2006 22:35
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techno will always be techno. partys and chaos.
do we love it or do we not? never forget your roots son kite, this experience had a meaning. please dont be frustrated you make so great wonderfull music. |
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Dovla
IsraTrance Junior Member
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Posted : Jul 13, 2006 23:21
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I just want to say that there is no other artists on this entire scene that I respect more than you two guys...thank you Seb and Marcus!
I also want to add that I got into the trance scene from the techno one...spending a few years in clubs listening to mostly DJ sets...but I was always fascinated by live acts as they seemed like a much better way for an artist to improvize, to make something in that particular time and place that will be unique and that I cannot just hear again when I come home and place his CD in the player...when I first discovered the trance scene I thought..wow, so many live acts, they all must be special to listen to...it must be a completly different experience...now after 4 years of it I can only say that I would rather listen to a DJ set than a live act...it has prooved to be the biggest dissapointment...and I wonder how come is it that we have so many of these so called live acts that open up a laptop and press play...I know for a fact that if I came to a club today at a techno party and some guy did that very same thing and tried to fake a live act he wouldn't probably get many bookings in the next month or so...one thing I also notice is that although trance is probably the easiest electronic music to beatmix we still have the most amateur DJs...when was the last time you heard someone mix one trance track onto another and then mixed the first track back again...or did a beatmix in the middle of two tracks...it's mostly 10 seconds of outto + 10 seconds of intro and even there people have problems...
but ok I can accept the fact that trance music is generally more complex in the production phase while techno is more tailored to be played around with while mixing...but that's exactly the reason why our live acts should sound out of this world...because of this complexity I think we really do have such a huge potential for experimentation and improvisation on the stage...
I don't even want to go to the point of talking about festival and party organizations...we're miles away from the techno scene in terms of professionalism...these days it doesn't matter if you sign a contract, transfer money or get 10 emails with confirmation from either side...because even then artists can just say they don't have money for travels, organizers can say they will pay the artists when they get to the spot and then turn of their mobile phones...somehow I just don't feel it's like this in other areas of electronic music...maybe it's all the pot people smoke...I dunno...but I wish it was different...
DJ Dovla | Interchill Records, Flow Records
www.dovla.info |
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clown
IsraTrance Full Member
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1777
Posted : Jul 13, 2006 23:27
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On 2006-07-13 05:37, Colin OOOD wrote:
And Clown, just for you I'm going to play my next live set by pressing play on a CD player whilst me and the guys in the band sit round a chillum getting stoned - because other than the fact that they dance behind their laptops and pretend to do stuff rather than sit round a chillum getting stoned , that's what it seems that the majority of live acts do. Do you pay to see someone earn $1000 for danceing for an hour, or do you pay to see someone earn $1000 for PLAYING from their fucking HEART (to quote Bill Hicks)?
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DO IT Colin. go for it bro.. what im trying to say is that don't brag when you choose to do a live live. It seems that everyone is looking for justification to either get paid more (by saying they do real lives) or is looking to be different than the other artist (and not even in there musical styles) but by saying they are LIVE LIVE LIVE with a flute. BUT it seems that the INTENT is not just because they have the talent to play live, but to try and be "Cooler" than the other or more professional or whatever the motiff.
If artists feel they need to bring a guitar for a live, great, by all mean's i'll be smiling and dancing and GREAT if its plugged in too. In the end, its all about lying to yourself or being true to yourself. Its the artist himself that has to live with his own sub-consience.
just stop saying it has to be THIS way, and its gay if its THAT way..
I'll just say if the artist makes good music in the studio, think of his music on a HUGE sound system for 60 minutes none-stop.. and even if its a pre-record to a certain extent, it still takes time to put together, make the proper transitions and the story is still there. Just stop looking for more attention because you are live LIVE !!
let your music speak for itself ! "VA - REWIRED" OUT NOW !! (techtrance invasion) ---> http://forum.isratrance.com/viewtopic.php/topic/86303/forum/9
http://psy.techno.fm <------- Jester Records's Internet Radio channel
www.jesterrecords.ca |
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shahar
IsraTrance Team
Started Topics :
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Posted : Jul 14, 2006 00:12
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That's all nice and cool clown- but it's just not live. Why call it something it isn't?
And if you read what Dovla wrote you can understand the potential and what you can do with live in trance musically- isn't it a shame ppl don't even try to do it for us? Isn't it all about the musical journey created in the interaction between artist and crowd? How rare can that happen with a pre-aranged set?
This is a limited form of communication and therefore this is a limited experience.
So, I say, artists- make some more effort for us, please try- I believe the crowd will appreciate and then the organizers will comply in the end. Might take time, but worth the effort, I feel.
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"Be the change you want to see in the world!"
M.K. Gandhi
"There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self."
Aldous Huxley
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Dovla
IsraTrance Junior Member
Started Topics :
43
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748
Posted : Jul 14, 2006 00:32
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On 2006-07-14 00:12, shahar wrote:
And if you read what Dovla wrote you can understand the potential and what you can do with live in trance musically- isn't it a shame ppl don't even try to do it for us? Isn't it all about the musical journey created in the interaction between artist and crowd? How rare can that happen with a pre-aranged set? |
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exactly...I mean just imagine for example taking a microphone into the crowd and letting a random person say something and pass it through tons of filters, vocoders or something similar...it's not like I'm asking all the artists to make sure that every element of a track goes from a different instrument or sampler or whatever...the effort is all that matters...everything else will come with time and experience...just as long as you want to make it special for the crowd it will be special
DJ Dovla | Interchill Records, Flow Records
www.dovla.info |
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