threespires
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 7 Aug 2019
- Messages
- 6,382
- Team supported
- City
The reason I previously said I agreed up to a point was I think it very much depends on the artist and context. The first time I think I really had cause to think about this was watching Gillian from New Order in their earlier days, I remember thinking afterwards it's great, but is it (performance) art? (well not quite that question because I'm not that much of a pretentious twat, but something along those lines) and I've never really been able to answer this other than on a case by case basis.
If we take live recording and performing separately.
I agree the construction/recording of the music is a different process in some instances. One approach still requires a set of motor skills that the other sometimes does not. That said, someone recording say a guitar part might painstakingly construct the technical set-up, do very many takes breaking in down into component elements and use quite a lot of software to get the finished sound and might potentially struggle to replicate it live. But I agree that in at least some cases it is qualitatively different and I was over generalising.
I think when it comes to live performance it gets interesting, how much of the performance is the physical motor skills to manipulate the instrument, how much of it is paying attention and responding to what the other musicians are doing, how much of it is reading the audience and creating a dialogue with them, how much of it is about deploying melody, rhythm etc in whatever fashion to create a connection? It's a mixture and I think only a part of it is the motor skills. Also on the subject of motor skills I am no expert on edm acts but I have seen some of them come off stage absolutely wiped out through a combination of needing to exercise significant motor skills and cognitive skills to manage theire equipment and sound they are creating. To me that is different from someone who occasionally hits a launch pad then waves their hands in the air a lot. I think a performance has to have an element of uniqueness to it and a sense of jeopardy and as long as it has that, then some specific virtuosity is a bonus rather than a pre-requisite for me personally (unless it's the virtuosity that has drawn me to the artist in the first place).
Also some electronic music creators have little traditional music skills but others are a bit like Picasso or Lowry in that they are very accomplished in the traditional art but have decided to plough new paths. For me personally, the best of these are the ones that innovate but who still find ways to create that sense of jeopardy or connection in performance. I remember JMJ creating(? - probably not but early adopter) the laser harp specifically for that purpose.
This pick also raises the question of sampling which is a huge subject in and of itself and probably a slightly different discussion.
Anyway as we are on this general subject so not quite apropos of nothing, I cannot being doing with the way Martin Doherty of Chvrches does his exaggerated hand movements when he taps his controllers. It makes him look like some sort of later day Liberace and it's really bloody annoying. Glad I got that off my chest.